Question 3 - Thriller Evaluation

Question 3 – What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?

In order to distribute our thriller film 'The Pursuit' I would approach a film company like Revolver entertainment. Revolver entertainment have released a few relatable films that are similar to The Pursuit such as 'Ill Manors' and 'Kidulthood'. These two films also share the same target demographic of 16 - 18 British males as we tried to achieve with our thriller film. Revolver is one of the UK & Eire’s leading "All Rights" distribution & production companies. At revolver entertainment's core is a spirit of pioneering innovation that has led Revolver to achieve a catalogue of industry firsts. It is an ethos that informs every aspect of the business and one which is most evident in the unique approach taken to managing its enviable slate of edgy theatrical and home entertainment releases. In the past 10 years Revolver's independent spirit and flair has been awarded with 18 of the industry's top awards for marketing excellence. 

 

User Ratings for 'Ill Manors'. Females under the age of 18 gave Ill Manors the highest ratings. Unfortunately due to a drop out from Holly Bergman, we are unable to gain a female actress which would have been helpful as we could have had an ambiguous female character which would have attracted a strong female audience.

User Ratings for 'Kidulthood' yet again show strong attraction to our target demographic.

Revolver Entertainment distribute their films both nationally and internationally as they have studios and offices set in both London and Los Angles. Our thriller film would perfectly suit Revolver Entertainments ethos and distributing style, Revolver would ideal distributors for our thriller; The Pursuit aims to target and reach a British audience of 16 - 18 year olds and so Revolver would know the techniques in order to achieve this using previous strategies from Ill Manors and Kidulthood which did just so. Revolver Entertainment have had a large amount of success throughout the years with a variety of their films such as 'The Imposter' and 'Offender', backed up by the Bafta won by The Imposter for outstanding debut and winning best doc at the London critics circle film awards 2013. Revolver distribute to cinemas and also release films on DVD. They don't just cater for the UK, catering for USA and other countries dotted around Europe, this means that we would have the option to distribute The Pursuit internationally, so if our thriller became successful and gained acknowledgment it could be shown in other countries that may be interested in the thriller genre of film. The success they have had with their independent films such as Ill Manors gives me great confidence that they will be able to make The Pursuit another great hit.


Another big asset of Revolver Entertainment's is their digital distribution. Revolver's means of distribution would be able to effectively distribute our thriller film into cinemas across the nation and possibly internationally, not only would they be able to do this but also be able to distribute our film online to a wide range of companies and social media sites. For example revolver have a very successful YouTube channel with links to Love Film Netflix and many more. Our thriller film would fall under the category of an independent film, emphasized by its use of artistic camera angles/shots and it's puzzling and thought provoking editing style. Leading on into the point that Revolver would be the ideal company to work with on our thriller film as they would have worked with smaller, independent companies before on fairly low budget productions. This is useful to us as our film would fall under these categories and the fact that Revolver have produced such low budget films before gives us confidence that they would have knowledge and experience of how the film industry would react to these types of films. A film that Revolver has distributed before named 'Ill Manors' had a micro-budget and was shot for well under £100,000. This film is similar to ours in a few ways, in that some of the surroundings used in our thriller film are similar to that used in Ill Manors, in the form of derylict buildings and gritty streets. Revolver would recognise that The Pursuit has similar features and is in the same style to films they have distributed before. 

http://www.revolvergroup.com/uk/ - Link to Revolver Entertainment's official website.

To distribute my thriller film via TV, it would be distributed through Film 4. The reason for this being that they specialise in independent films and show a range of films ranging from mainstream to independent. They also short films and productions that they have produced themselves. The fact that they specialise in independent films, would give The Pursuit the chance to show on their channel, they are a well known film station so our film would hopefully gain acknowledgment and be viewed by many. They also specialise in short films which could be useful for us as if it short in length. Film 4 also have an official website containing information about what they do and their TV listings for the upcoming days/weeks along with reviews of their films and a demand service so its easy for people to catch up on what they may have missed. 



Cinema City would be most likely cinema to show our thriller film. This is because they are a cinema that specialise in independent films and are known for showcasing them regularly. Cinema city would more open to show The Pursuit than say Odeon cinemas because it is a short film and Cinema City have hosted events for many short films over the years. Cinema City say they aim to show a vital range of films therefore this would help to convince them as we are supporting their statement by giving them the opportunity to show a diverse independent short film. They are maintaining to show independent cinema, foreign cinema and art house type programming. This is England, distributed by Warp Films, is an example of an independent film Cinema City have shown. Cinema City has an obligation to provide education and this would link well with our production, seeing as it has been made for an AS level coursework project. Cinema City would be good with helping young people to screen their films, especially those in education because of their policies and dedication to helping educate young people about films.


Cinema City, Norwich, Norfolk.


Cinema City Film listings. The listings are stated on the website a week in advance and are updated daily.


Uploading our thriller film onto YouTube would be a useful marketing strategy. This is because well known and successful film trailers are uploaded onto YouTube to market the film. Films that people may be searching for may be in a similar category to ours i.e. independent British thriller, therefore when searching for this they shall receive what they searched for but on the right hand side will be listed other suggested and similar films such as ours, this will encourage people to view our product. Another reason why YouTube would be useful to us is due to the main users of YouTube being within our target age range; 44% female, 56% male with 12-19 being the dominant age group operating on YouTube. Distribution and promotion can also be aided by the use of social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Both of these sites have access to an extremely large audience, with a big proportion of users yet again being in our target age demographic, due it being free to create a page, it would be easy to distribute/promote our film through these two sites, these social media sites have applications that are available to people through mobile devices which means we are able to broaden the audience we want to reach. Through social networking we would have the option to advertise our film, for example creating a poster for our film could greatly help in distribution/promotion. An advantage of creating a Twitter/Facebook page is that it may well have a word of mouth effect, people who enjoyed the film could tell others and recommend our film so that we gain a larger audience. Again the age range of the audiences using these social networking sites are in the age range of 18-24. 



If we were to use Video on Demand (VOD) services it would mean that we are broadening our distribution services allowing the chance for a wider variety and bigger audience to view our film. It is also a more efficient way of distributing our film compared to the classic DVD release as DVD sales have gone down hill shown by many stores closing down nationwide such as HMV. On the other hand VOD services such as LoveFilm and Netflix have seen a rise in the number of people using their services.