Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media products and why? Sonam Nguyen

Differences between mainstream and independent film To begin with, films that are classified as ‘independent’ tend to be produced by smaller film companies, this being said, others are produced by an individual without the company. Independent films are usually have lower budgets than mainstream films due to less fundraising. Movies in the independent sector usually target a niche audience who watch the films due to their interests in the subjects/genre (ie. Monsters). Examples:  Lionsgate  Summit entertainment  Film 4 productions Mainstream films on the other hand have a much larger budget from high amounts of advertisements, and the fact they have high profile marketing campaigns. These movies tend to direct their attention to bigger audiences from their inclusion of big name/well known stars.  Warner Brothers  Walt Disney  Paramount Pictures

Our Institution (Universal Pictures)  Universal Studios (also known as Universal Pictures), is an American motion picture studio, owned by NBCUnivesal and is one of the six major movie studios. The distribution company offices are in New York.(Wikipedia).  The institution released thriller films such as Phsyco, Jaws and Fast and Furious the franchise. As a group the idea of having Universal studio as our institutions can only make our film a success. We were inspired by Bourne Identity because of the film success and how the institution managed to bring the film to a success.

Exhibition and Distributors  Exhibition is when you show the finished piece or the product. Mainstream films usually shown in premiers and the stars and the crew have to appear for the exhibition. The audiences are attracted to the stars and the glamour of the mainstream film. The exhibition always try to release the films where people can be in a touch to see the film for example during summer holidays most children films are released this means parents can also take their young children to see the film. The timing of the exhibition is vital because they want as many people to see the films.  The distribution company's are in charge of releasing the films for home viewing such as on a DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download or Television. This could also be a theatrical release and this would usually happen when the distributor works with the theatrical exhibitor to make it happen. The mainstream distributors could include: Warner Bros, Pixel, Lions Gate.

Evaluate The film, ‘Fourteen Years’ falls into the category of a mainstream film. Fourteen Years is targeted towards a large male and female audience because of both the genre (crime thriller which would attract the male viewers) and the unique selling point (female lead role, attracting more females to watch the film). Secondly, we would need to use a big name star taking the role of Sarah Mills to attract even more viewers, for example, someone like Kate Blanchett. I feel that Universal Pictures would be the best production company for our film as they produced the film ‘Bourne Identity’ which will be quite similar in terms of narrative to Fourteen Years. Our film is unique because a lot of thriller films have male main characters, however ours will be a female lead role which will attract a whole new audience.

Evaluate 2 The film Fourteen Years will be distributed to a large chain of cinemas both in the United Kingdom and Internationally, this is due to having a large budget and a few big name stars. Our film would cost around £20,000,000 to produce, which means we are looking to get a gross profit of about £8,000,000, making approximately £920,500 in our opening weekend. We would use social network (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), rail 6 sheets (on bus stops) and billboards around cities to advertise and promote Fourteen Years. We feel that our biggest target audience will be on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter because of their age being between 15 and 34.