Fil Distribution and Class System Research

We have carried out extensive research on different class systems in Britain. We are aiming the household in out teaser trailer to be more middle class. Considering the class system was not so popular amongst the Americans, and was extremely so in Britain, we have decided to target the British audience, using a British distributor.

Film Distribution

“The whole objective of film distribution is to try and get the film into a cinema and hold it there” – Pete Buckingham from Virgin Vision interviewed on the Media Show.

Typical jobs of a distributing company include choosing which films to distribute, deciding how many prints to make, negotiating where and when the film is to be released, sending trailers and publicity material to cinemas and publicises the film through: posters, trailers, press/TV advertising and press releases, etc.

A typical release pattern for the UK: Films usually open in London where reviewers and the largest audiences are to be found. After screenings in London the film will be released in Outer London and selected cities, followed then by a wider release across the remainder of the country. This release pattern can in many ways benefit films which do not have the budget for a saturation advertising campaign.

Art house and foreign films benefit from a more restricted release pattern, which carefully targets specialised cinemas. A release in a key location, like London, is followed by a release in other selected cities, followed by a release in a small number of other cities. This type of pattern allows maximum use to be made of a small number of prints.

In distribution now, the British market is dominated by six main American distributors. These are UIP, Buena Vista, Warner, Columbia, 20^th Century Fox and Universal. These were responsible for distributing films that took 85% of British box office takings in the year 1999.

As well as the major players above, the independents play a part in the box office. There are many more independent distributors in Britain; however, they only took 15% of box office takings in 1999. The independents tend not to distribute American blockbuster films, handling British, art house, foreign and low-budget American films. In majority, they need to work incredibly hard to get their films distributed in the circuits and multiplexes as they are in massive competition with the American majors. Independent distributors often have strong relationships with art house and independent cinemas.

We discussed different British distributors, and decided that Film 4 would be a good option, targeting the British art house audience and middle class audience.

We also looked at 20^th Century Fox, who recently released Juno and Ice Age 3, however, we felt that this didn’t suit the historic genre in which we had chosen. Another distributor we looked at was the Major UK production and distribution company, Entertainment Film Distributors. Recent releases include My Sister's Keeper and The Time Traveler's Wife. This is a distributor

http://www.independentcinemaoffice.org.uk/distributors.html