Distribution

This lesson we did some research into distributors of films, companies, and how they are produced and distributed. We got some information about potential companies to distribute our film.

The Production of Films

Film-making involves a number of discrete stages including an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a film release and exhibition.

Production

In production, the film is created and shot. More crew will be recruited at this stage, such as the property master, script supervisor, assistant directors, stills photographer, picture editor, and sound editors. All other crew such as actors will most likely be requited in the pre-production stage. These are the most common roles in film-making but the production office will be free to create any unique blend of roles to suit the various responsibilities possible during the production of a film. A typical day's shooting begins with the crew arriving on the set/location by their call time. Since set construction, dressing and lighting can take many hours or even days, they are often set up in advance. The grip, electric and production design crews are typically a step ahead of the camera and sound departments: for efficiency's sake, while a scene is being filmed, they are already preparing the next one. While the crew prepare their equipment, the actors are wardrobed in their costumes and attend the hair and make-up departments. The actors rehearse the script and blocking with the director, and the camera and sound crews rehearse with them and make final tweaks. Finally, the action is shot in as many takes as the director wishes. The filming days can last up to 18 hours. At the end of the day, the footage is reviewed for continuity and the director approves of the next filming location. 

Post-Production

Here the video/film is assembled by the video/film editor. The shot film material is edited. The production sound (dialogue) is also edited; music tracks and songs are composed and recorded if the film is to have a score; sound effects are designed and recorded. Any computer-graphic visual effects are digitally added. Finally, all sound elements are mixed into "stems", which are then married to picture, and the film is fully completed ("locked").

Distribution 

This is the final stage, where the film is released to cinemas or, occasionally, directly to consumer media (DVD, VCD, VHS, Blu-ray) or direct download from a digital media provider. The film is duplicated as required (either onto reels or hard disk drives) and distributed to cinemas for exhibition (screening). Press kits, posters, and other advertising materials are published, and the film is advertised and promoted. A B-roll clip may be released to the press based on raw footage shot for a "making of" documentary, which may include making-of clips as well as on-set interviews.

Exchange is what the audience does with the film. There are many film-exchange buildings globally. Western Film Exchange was founded in Milwaukee in July 1906 by John R. Freuler and Harry E. Aitken for the purpose of mass-producing and distributing Western films to movie theatres throughout the American Midwest.

A few examples of film distribute companies are Warner Brothers Pictures, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. The companies have produced some of the most popular films to date, such as The Shining from Warner Bros. and Fight Club from 20th Century Fox.

I looked at the distributors of similar films to the one we are creating. Eraserhead (1977) was distributed by Libra Films International, however this film was made a while ago. I also looked at the more recent film Mama (2013) which incorporates the parenthood theme. Its distributor is Universal Pictures.

'The Surrogate' - The Title, Tagline and Pitch

We were given the task to create a 50 word pitch for our chosen idea, along with a title and tagline. We decided to develop our first idea titled 'The Surrogate'. We came up with two ideas for our pitch.


The Surrogate. An outsider in need of money. Living in a squat, life is already tough. Paid to subject in intensive experiments, she is inseminated with a 'child'. Living as usual, her unborn child begins controlling her. After growing concern she is sent to a asylum. The child is born.

An innocent 25 year old woman was willing to undergo suspicious scientific experiments with her unborn child, little did she know about the unseen sinister world she was about to step into, and that her life would become 'uncontrollable'

These pitches will not only be able to show what the film is about, but it will also help our group since it highlights the main themes of the film which we should show in our title sequence.

The tagline is 'Once it's inside, you're not coming out'

This is intended to outline the themes of pregnancy caused by an experiment and asylums.

We used Facebook chat to communicate with each other about our ideas to come to our final decisions. Lou also made a poster to create a feel for our title sequence, this is shown above.

Film Ideas Presentation

This was the presentation that we showed to the class to pitch our film ideas. We also showed our tumblr and pinterest accounts as well as a clip from Eraserhead that gave us inspiration for the atmosphere of our film. It connects with the parenthood theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivqvobC9sm8

Presentation Feedback

In our film groups we were set a homework to present our two film ideas to the whole class. We needed to impress our teacher so we had to include a range of media and make it as detailed as possible. In class we presented our two film ideas together. We talked in detail about our inspiration and things we had gathered to come up with these ideas. Including this that inspired us, other films like ours and talking about our target audience. we made a powerpoint on these two ideas. Other members of my group made a Prezzi presentation showing other similar films and facts and statistics about them related to our target audience and age range. i made a Pinterest to give us some inspiration for our films and to make our presentation to the class more interesting. Another member made a tumblr again improving our presentation and giving us inspiration. We included videos in our presentation that we would like to base our work on. Our films ideas are show in the screen shots below from our presentation. The Pinterest and Tumblr boards are on the previous blog posts below. We handed out questionnaires to the class to get feedback from our film ideas and overall presentation. The picture above shows our findings.

Tumblr

Here's the link to our Tumblr blog - http://mediapitchblog.tumblr.com/

Pinterest Inspiration

 

Lou decided to make a Pinterest board on my personal account to get inspiration for our Horror sequence. It includes films We will take inspiration from and lots of scary pictures, real and fake with spine tingling stories attached. Pinterest is a good way to look at individual, interesting ideas for thousands of things. Pinterest can be used for lots of things such as finding art for school work in certain subjects or looking for inspiration on decoration or crafts and new things to try. It's a nice way to share images you've chosen in a aesthetically pleasing way. You can search for specific things and put them together so easily which I really like. Also following people who have similar interests to you or boards is a good way to expand your board and learn new things. Making one for horror inspiration gave us some ideas for colours to use, we also looked at other films we liked, costumes, typical horror lines from memes on there from Tumblr, locations e.c.t. We searched for things like horror and then went into more depth like particular films we wanted to take inspiration for our sequence from to create the board. (Some of the pictures/stories that go with them are quite unsettling, be warned)

Here is a link to the Pinterest board and the account.

http://www.pinterest.com/louwebb92/scary-truth/

Film Ideas

Art of the Title

In my group, we looked into an already existing title sequence, for American Horror Story which is a horror/drama television show. We did some analysis into the images shown (which is on the powerpoint) and also the timing of the titles. 

Link to the full intro: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/american-horror-story/

BFI Research

For my task, I did some research into the film industry to help me understand what audiences want and how the film industry works.
First I looked into the box office report of 31st Oct-2nd November as this the was the Halloween weekend so I can look at the horror movies.

What I found most surprising was that the most gossing film that weekend was a none-horror genre, however, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has a large following. The majority of the films featured are also action/adventure films, which shows what the majority audience may want to see. Action/adventure is a genre in which escapism is easy and the films are mostly enjoyable to watch.
The horror films featured are Ouija, Annabelle and The Babadook. Although Ouija looks to be of the horror genre, IMDb categorises it as a Thriller/Adventure. This could suggest why it's so highly ranked, as thriller and adventure are popular in the box office. The film was given very low ratings, however, I think the reason it was ranked high was because of its low age restriction. This allowed younger audiences to enjoy horror in the cinema and less people are likely to illegally stream it because they are too young to see it in the cinema. The film has a young cast also, so it will be more appealing to younger audiences who may use the cinema as a social outing.
Annabelle had a slightly higher rating of 5.7/10 from IMDb, however, it's views will have mostly been gained from the past connecting film, The Conjuring, which was also highly viewed.

Surprisingly, The Babadook, with a higher rating, was the lowest ranking. My first thought was if it was a higher age restriction but it is a 15, just like Ouija and Annabelle. Another reason may be because the distributor is lesser known than Universal and Warner Brothers. It also seems more independently made and may not cater towards the mainstream viewers. This is what my group plans to aim for, a less mainstream feel. The fact that the top ranking horror films are 15 suggests that some people may want to see a film that is family friendly, with less gore and sexual themes.
Overall I have learnt how well some films have done recently and possibly why. This helps me to understand what our audience is and what they will want to see.

Pen Portrait for Target Audience