What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
We believe that ‘New Line Cinema’ is the perfect company to distribute our film due to the fact that they mainly deal with distributing mainstream films, like Binary. Another factor is because they have also distributed such films as ‘Seven’ and ‘The Conjuring’ which are both Thrillers, with a crime or psychological element. Which is perfect as we are classing Binary as a psychological thriller. Binary is definitely similar to Seven in the way it is planning to be manufactured, due to the similarities of the genre, the mise-en-scene and the use of big name stars, which is why we believe that New Line Cinema would be interested in funding Binary. It is known for dealing with big actors such as Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman (as shown in seven) which makes us believe they would be capable of helping us acquire the services of other big star thriller actors like Matt Damon, Tom cruise and Joan Allen. They would be capable of providing binary with a medium to high budget in order to cover the costs of effects, advertising and big stars. We believe that the film could be very successful if based in America, which is a very similar mise-en-scene to other films that the company had produced before, this is also used in the movie ‘The Conjuring’ which contains big name stars like Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, both renowned for being successful thriller actors. As a mainstream film, we feel it would be very important to have a successful advertising campaign, and due to New Line Cinemas high status in the movie world, we feel like this could hugely help with marketing our movie, and making sure we attract the audiences that we want, along with making sure that the movie is a success. The films ‘Seven’ and ‘The Conjuring’ were both very successful in their opening weekend making £11,434,343 and $41,855,326 respectively, something Binary will also aim to do.
We felt that we could can see Binary being distributed as a mainstream film. This is because we believe the film would work best with a medium to high budget behind it, in order to cover the costs of making the mainstream movie. We also feel it would be important to have big well known thriller stars act in our film (e.g. Tom Cruise, Matt Damon, Joan Allen etc.) to attract a bigger audience. The use of special effects would be needed in order to make our story believable, and make a film which can compete with other mainstream films visually, it would also be a contributing factor to making our storyline more believable and would gain us the ability to add things which are not possible to film. Due to the story of Binary, we believe it would attract a huge audience, leaving it with high production values. In order to make sure the production values were reached we would also need a high profile marketing campaign, which is usually the case with mainstream films, using things such as trailers, posters, billboards and large viral campaigns. We would use such things as Facebook and Twitter as a social network in order to try and gain attention, and in order to try and make the movie trend. By opening up a Facebook page, there is a possibility that people could ‘Like’ the page, and in turn receive regular information and teaser posters and trailers about the film, after a period of time, there would be more in depth teasers and trailers, which would give the potential audience an idea of the storyline of the film… this gives them a little preview, and hopefully makes them want to see more of the film. By setting up a twitter page, the chance of ‘#Binary’ trending would increase, meaning more people who are interested in psychological thrillers will find out about Binary.
Independent Films Low budget New, emerging talent Genre & content more attracted to a niche audience (small or UK etc.) No expensive special effects – character & narrative drives the film Production values reflect low budget Small marketing campaign (viral marketing, website, niche media texts, festivals & awards) For examples: Optimum Releasing (Kill List); Lionsgate (The Holding); Revolver (Kidulthood); Pathe (Adulthood), Mainstream Films Medium -Big budget Big stars – well known Film genre & content attracts a wide mainstream audience Special Effects – ‘spectacle’ High production values High profile marketing campaign (trailers, billboard, posters, large viral campaigns, TV IV’s, awards etc.) For example: Universal; Paramount (Shutter Island); New Line Cinema (Se7en).
As we aim to produce Binary as a mainstream film it would be important for us to distribute it through large cinema chains, multiplexes / large festivals and award ceremonies. The type of cinemas we would be looking to distribute it to are cinemas such as Cineworld, Odeon and Cinema city. All of these chains are well known for showing films that have been backed by a high budget, and have also been backed by big companies like New Line Cinema, Paramount and Warner Bros Pictures. We feel it is very important to spread Binary on a global scale, through many mainstream cinemas, as we want to attract lots of attention, in order to make sure a sufficient number of people are interested and come and watch our film. We also know it is very important to showcase our films in important film festivals to ensure that it is viewed by as many people as possible. It also means it can be reviewed by film critics and fans, which in turn will help ‘Binary’ become a topic of conversation, and will help the film catch peoples attention. We would hope to showcase our films at such film festivals as Chicago International Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival, this is because they are both international movie festivals. We would aim for our big name actors to try and win awards such as an Oscar or a Grammy. During the opening weekend of the showing of Binary, we aspire to create the same attention and money as films like Seven and The Conjuring which made £11,434,343 and $41,855,326, respectively. We would hope to gross at least £19,234,230 by 2 months after the release of the film, as this is a similar number to ‘Seven’