Evaluation - Question 3 – Seb Hallett 103B

Mainstream vs. Independent Mainstream and independent movies are very different ranging from there difference in budget, actors and special effects. Mainstream movies will tend to be in the big brand cinemas such as ODEON and Cineworld. Where as, an independent movie will be shown in a less well known cinema such as Duke of York cinema, This is because of the level of interest which surrounds mainstream movies. Mainstream: Large Budget tend to be in the region of $60 – $100 Million. Well known actors and stars, for example Lionardo Di Caprio, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller etc. Film relates to more people (Wide Mainstream). Tends to have special effects because they can afford to. High value in production. Expensive and high amount of advertisement, e.g. billboards, adverts, trailers. Independent: A far lower budget in the region of $500,000 for example the film Brick had a budget of $475,000. New emerging talent e.g. in Brick Joseph- Gorgon Levitt stars as the main character and he has gone on to be in Batman, Inception, Looper etc. The Genre tends to attracts the a niche audience. They tend to have no special effects The production values reflect low budget. Marketing and advertisement is very low.

Why our film is independent.. In our opinion we believe that our film is an independent film. An independent film is a film with a low budget, targets a niche market segment and is not filled with special effects etc, all these aspects and more suggest that our movie is branded as an “Indie” film. The narrative is a main indication – The narrative and content of our movie involves a young adult who is obsessed with detective work and anything detective related, in the future he aspires to become a detective and even though he isn't he considers himself to be one. His obsession spirals out of control and he begins to kill people. He is completely blind to this as he has a split personality which is extremely powerful and at times throughout the movie controls his life. I feel that this has a very independent feel about it because the storyline is very dark and violent and will appeal to a niche audience. This film has a low budget and will not spend money on well known actors and special effects, this again suggests its an "Indie" film, However mainstream films do spend the money and because they are targeting a wider audience they need to spend a lot on top quality actors, special effects and other luxuries. The actors we have in our film are not well known, and are up and coming actors who can use this film as a platform to go on to bigger things. Our film “Prima Facie” doesn't require special effects because we are targeting niche audience. The narrative and content of our film is the main driving force in engaging the audience. Our film doesn't need to rely on fancy special effects, because our target group wont appeal to this. All these reasons suggest that our film is an "Indie" film. Again our budget is not very high which means our production value is again very low, which unfortunately does reflect the low budget which we have. When we begin to market and increase crowd awareness we will spend money on advertisement and will host this advertisement at venues, such as small festivals, the internet, niche media texts. We will not have a advert on the TV. This is a mainstream option in advertisement because of the budget and expectation surrounding a massive movie which again supports the argument that our film is independent. To conclude, All of these arguments suggest that our Movie “Prima facie” is an independent film.

Which film company might be interested in your film and why?.. Our group felt that IDC (independent distribution collective) was the most suitable distribution company for our film Prima Facie, We thought this because our film is an independent film and IDC specialise in indie movies, bands and artists. The reason we went with them is because they like to build relationships with their clients and concentrate in what's best for both parties for years to come (“Our goal is not to build the largest catalog in the world, but rather to foster and nurture relationships with our clients in order to provide the maximum amount of revenue in hand with quality and efficient service. In addition, we want our clients to learn and understand as many aspects about the digital distribution process as possible for both music and video”. ) By looking at their website and current and former clients we could tell that this distribution company was the most suitable for our film Prima Facie.

Evaluation of our film.. Distribution: We believe that our film will hopefully be exhibited at many local and European film festivals a desired target is the Cannes film festival in France, By doing this we will raise awareness of our film and attract more people (although the target group is very niche). We would also hope that our film “Prima Facie” could win awards and nominations for perhaps best up and coming actor, or screenplay etc. We would hope to earn $2-3 million in box office figures, I say this because the film Brick received $2,060,589 in box office figures and our film shares similarities and the target group of that film is a similar group which we are targeting. We will distribute our awareness of our film on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, this is because many millions of people use these sites and these people will see the information regarding our new film “Prima Facie” and may further there interest.