Evaluation Question 3 | Final Task

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A distributor is a company who is responsible for marketing and distributing films. They will choose which platform to release your film on and give a date for release. For example, one of the world leading distributors, Universal Pictures, are responsible for marketing and selling the release of films. For example, a production company like Original Film will go to Universal Pictures (because of their establishment) and synergise to release the film 'The Fast and Furious'. Depending on the films popularity, Universal Pictures will release the film on multiple platforms. In this case, 'The Fast and Furious' was released on Box Office, DVD and a variety of revenue streams. However it must be said that this film was produced in 2001, and since then platforms for films have developed into on-demand and other means of viewings. Which means that the release of 'Fast & Furious 6' would have been released on home media.

Who is going to distribute Anonymous?

Anonymous has been made to fit into the mainstream film sector. Due to this being the case, we are wanting to go down the traditional route of distributing a mainstream film. Unlike films such as 'A Field in England', where they distributed the film on all platforms simultaneously, we wanted to target a wide audience on a large scale. Don't get me wrong, simultaneous release is effective if you're an independent company and targeting a niche audience but in our case we were in a different scenario. Moreover it must said that the main difference between distribution of independent companies and major companies is that independent companies don't do vertical integration, which will therefore limit how they can market their film on a large scale. 

20th Century Fox would be an ideal distributor for Anonymous. The reason for this is because they have the knowledge and a good reputation for distributing thriller films. For example, Taken (2009) made a domestic gross of $145,000,989. This clearly shows that Fox know exactly how to market these types of films. Moreover they already have an existing audience for Thriller films, and by using Fox, we as a production company can utilise their audience following. 

How we are going to distribute Anonymous?

1) The Box Office

The Box Office is the most traditional but one of the most effective techniques of distributing a film. Cinemas charge up to £15 for a viewing and are open all day. This means that distributors will receive a large proportion of these profits. By looking at this graph, we can see that the average ticket price in the U.S is rising every year. This therefore means that we can target regular cinema audiences so that we and Universal will receive as much revenue as possible.

2) DVD Release

However people who don't go to the cinema regularly because of the increase in price, etc will be able to find Anonymous on DVD. Customers who aren't willing to spend a lot of money at the cinema have the option to buy the film on DVD release instead. Nowadays, DVD are around the same price as one cinema viewing, which could therefore be a popular choice to many viewers. Nevertheless we still want to capitalise profit from cinema release, so we will release home cinema, etc 3 months after paths The Box Office opens.

3) On Demand & Streaming

This method of distribution is the newest and becoming one of the most popular forms of viewing films. This is the cheapest way of watching a film. For example, membership for Netflix is £5.99 for a month, with over 1000 films to watch from. 

However the drawbacks are that films are released onto these on-demand sites at least 5 years after the release date of the film. This is a potential market for Anonymous as we can put our film onto these websites when our sales in DVD's fall. The chart shows below the increase in memberships over the years, which therefore shows the potential scaleability of the market in the near future. 

Research from Pearl & Dean:

Below shows the figures for the film San Andreas. From looking at these stats we can see that the audience population of this film is male dominated. This is generally due to the film being a thriller, action and crime based, which males are more attracted to this. 

So why did we aim at this group specifically?

Firstly, I've always liked the fact that this genre naturally leaves questions and mystery to the audience, and because of this we wanted to create something that would embed the same characteristics. Another reason why be targeted this group specifically (Male & between the age of 17-24) was because this age group are more inclined to go to the cinema - especially on a opening weekend. Below shows this. These stats show that 15% of male aged 15-24 visit the cinema the most. This could be due to younger people preferring to go out instead of watching a film at home, and more willing to purchase the ever increasingly price for a cinema ticket.