E VALUATION Q UESTION 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? ‘C A P T U R E D’ K IPP B OUCHER

M AINSTREAM VS I NDEPENDENT F ILMS /C OMPANIES Mainstream and Independent are terms used to describe the scale, budget and quality of film production. Mainstream films generally have a high budget, lots of crew, stay in large cinema chains for long runs, and gross millions of pounds. Independent films are quite often the opposite; with low budgets, minimal crew, appear in Independent ‘Art House’ Cinemas and film festivals for shorter runs, and although they may be considered just as good, they most often don’t make as much money as mainstream productions. An example of a Mainstream Production Company would be New Line Cinema, who have distributed thriller films such as ‘Se7en’, ‘The Butterfly Effect’ and ‘Snakes on a Plane’. An example of an Independent Production Company would be Optimum Releasing, who have distributed thriller films such as ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘I Saw The Devil’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’.

O UR F ILM I think that our film could fall into either of these categories, but would be slightly more suited as a Mainstream Production. One of the main reasons is that it’s not restricted to a British setting. This is important as often films like ‘Attack the Block’ and ‘Kidulthood’, which are based firmly within British culture, aren’t very well received in America due to misunderstanding the lingo, etc. All of the events in our film could just as easily take place in America, which opens it up to wider production. I think that the film company most suited to our film would be Fox Searchlight Pictures. I think this because of their history of movies which are similar to ours, for example ‘One Hour Photo’ is a very psychologically themed film, and, like ours, has a very strong link to photography. This shows that our idea isn’t out of their ‘comfort zone’.

D ISTRIBUTION O F O UR F ILM Our film would most probably be distributed to large cinema chains, rather than independent ones. Film festivals may act as a trial run for it but it would more likely just go straight to big cinemas. The choice of big actors would be vital, as they could attract nominations for awards, further advertising and promoting the film. I think our box office figure would most likely be around the area of $40,000,000, after looking at figures from ‘One Hour Photo’, ‘Sexy Beast’ and ‘127 Hours’ which were all distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. (I got that information from