Question 3

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

Our production company is GPH Productions – it is a production company based in the UK that specialises in making low-budget, indie films that tackle real problems with today’s society.

Our distribution company is Heartbeat Films – this is also a UK based company that work alongside GPH Productions to distribute their films. This is a mutually beneficial relationship as the companies work in synergy – building their relationships and the reputation in the industry together, whilst also making each other money.

PROBLEM WITH ALIGNMENT HERE

Two companies that worked similarly in synergy in real life for the film Paranormal Activity (2009, Peli) are Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks. 

As Paranormal Activity was made on a low budget, like our film, the production company didn’t have the money to distribute on a large scale. They couldn’t afford to put the film in cinemas so it travelled around on the film festival circuit before eventually being seen and liked by people high up in the film industry – the film then got picked up by Paramount and was advertised, screened and distributed on a worldwide scale.

This is the same path I think our film would follow. As both our production company and our distributor are small companies who deal with low budget indie films, they would not be able to afford an elaborate marketing scheme. Instead, the film would be screened in small, independent cinemas such as The Phoenix in North London. Although this would not be ideal to attract our primary target audience – The Phoenix doesn’t tend to attract a young, female audience – our secondary audience of older women who enjoy psychological thrillers would be able to see it there. Our aim would be to eventually build up enough hype around the film, via word of mouth, that the audience demand for the film would go up - like with paranormal activity - and a larger distribution company would step in and pay for large scale advertising.

Hopefully they would be able to advertise and screen the film in places where our target audience would see it – on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, on TV channels such as MTV and E4 and show the films in large multiplex chains such as the Odeon and Vue.