Question 3

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

It is the task of distributors to identify and deliver the largest possible audience for every film. The UK has 6 major distributors and many independent distributors. According to the Film Distributor’s Association, most cinemagoers know in advance which film they want to see – and that is principally a result of competing distributor’s efforts to promote interests in the title(s) they are handling. Media institutions such as Universal would be appropriate to distribute our film because Universal is associated with chick flicks such as Wild Child. We researched other smaller institutions, which might help us create our media product because our film is low budget and not well known. We found suitable institutions such as Bedlam Productions or See Saw Films. Bedlam Productions, might be interested in helping us create our film. They collaborated to make the multiple Oscar winning, “The King’s Speech”; this film is also a comparatively low budget movie like ours. Although their main key areas have been feature films and documentaries, focusing on “real-life” stories, we feel our UK girls independent school setting also raises lots of historical and social issues in teenage lives, which would attract similar audiences. 

Most importantly, See Saw Films has a first-look deal with Momentum Pictures in the UK and a film finance deal with the American Paramount Pictures. Since American institutions have much more capital at their disposal than British companies, this link with the US could be the secret to the success of distributing our film. Moreover, as distributer of “Mean Girls”, Paramount may well be interested in our film as it is aimed at a similar audience, addressing similar high school issues and stereotypes. 

Momentum and Paramount would be great distributors for our product because they can distribute our film through larger companies and to the USA. These institutions would also be interested in distributing our media product because British audiences tend to warm to good quality, British films, and could work well on the back of the success of “The King’s Speech”. This might also attract funding from the UK Film Council.

The cinema is a place where film makers would love to have their products showcased. Films have the opportunity to come across as their best in cinemas as audiences enjoy an uninterrupted cinema experience. Therefore, we would like to show our feature film theatrically – in cinemas, as it is the best and most effective way to show a film and it creates a demand to see it. Showcasing our film on television channels rather than the cinema would be less effective because it would gain less audience attention. 
According to the Film Distributor’s Association, the most frequent cinema goers tend to be teenagers, students and young adults, and they are the most voracious media consumers. This benefits us because our media product is aimed at a young target audience. More than half of 15-25 year olds in the UK visit the cinema at least once a month. Due to this, hopefully a good distributor such as Momentum or Paramount will distribute our product because it is aimed a large, young audience. 

We invented a collaboration of production companies to produce our film. We created Starship Pictures and COSMO Productions, inspired by a space-like theme which has connotations of innovation and groundbreaking material. Our Starship Pictures logo of the globe surrounded by stars, was inspired by the logo of Univeral Pictures. COSMO also connotes a “girly essence” reminiscent of the fashion magazine named “Cosmo”.