FDA UK Distribution Guide and Questions on Film Distribution

1: What is meant by the term film distribution?
Film distribution is the process through which a film is made available to watch for an audience by a film distributor (making the public and target audience to know about the film).

2: What does a film distributor do?
A film distributor is an individual or a company responsible for the marketing of a film. (getting people aware the film is about to be released). The distributor can set the release date and the platform/materials the film is to be exhibited (made available to view), such as advertisements during television breaks. A distributor must also feel confident that they can make a sufficient return on their investment. They have numerous roles such as:

- Valuing the revenue prospective across all the platforms/materials of its release
- Identifying its audience
- Considering why people would watch the film
- Persuading cinema operators to play the film 
- Acquiring partnerships to form interest and awareness of the film

3: How much reach relate to the film distribution?
Reach means how many media platforms the film has promoted, this means that if the film has a big reach then it has promoted across the board for example radio, TV, trailers, posters, competitions etc. Reach has high expenses. It costs a lot to have a lot of media platforms to make people aware of a film, however taking the risk of not having many media platforms can result in not many people coming to watch the film which means profit costs decrease, therefore a decent amount of reach is needed to make publicised impact and an impact to a campaign's profit. How much money is spent to achieve a successful reach means that you need to make more back to get anything from it. Big productions can aim to gain a lot through their promotion schemes and their confidence of having strong fan bases via the well known actors or if the film is a successful series franchise.

For example the woman in black had a huge reach with Harry Potter fans following Daniel Radcliffe to his new acting role and their advertised posters being displayed across platforms both physical and digital; on the sides of buses and on social networking websites etc.

Here's the path a film usually takes to get to your local theatre:

• Someone has an idea for a movie.
• They create an outline and use it to promote interest in the idea.
• A studio or independent investor decides to purchase rights to the film.
• People are brought together to make the film (screenwriter, producer, director, cast, crew).
• The film is completed and sent to the studio.
• The studio makes a licensing agreement with a distribution company.
• The distribution company determines how many copies (prints) of the film to make.
• The distribution company shows the movie (screening) to prospective buyers representing the theatres.
• The buyers negotiate with the distribution company on which movies they wish to lease and the terms of the lease agreement.
• The prints are sent to the theatres a few days before the opening day.
• The theatre shows the movie for a specified number of weeks (engagement).
• You buy a ticket and watch the movie.
• At the end of the engagement, the theatre sends the print back to the distribution company and makes payment on the lease agreement.

 

4: What is meant by the distribution plan?
The distribution plan is finding out if you have any competition and finding out if there is a big budget or not for distributing. It also looks at the release and how to release the film. It finds out who the target audience is, finding out whether or not the film is a genre film.


5: What is meant by the marketing plan?
A marketing plan is all about the materials: cost; banners; trailer poster; word of mouth etc. It helps to create a marketing budget which helps knowing how to reach its target audience. Each film will have a detailed marketing plan. Film distributors use marketing objects which creates an raised awareness (engaged interest) and visibility of the film.


6: What is the difference between advertising, publicity and promotion?
Advertisement: is the material/formats used to promote when releasing a film, such as posters, online banners and trailers.

Publicity: is not funded for (unlike advertisement).  Publicity includes reviews, screenings for critics and any possible way they can publicise their film. An example of this is the Actors/Actresses that are not acting but are seen by the public. It also includes things such as reviews,

Promotion: This is achieved through advertising. The five parts to promotion are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and publicity. Promotion is about the merchandise. Companies will let people pay them to use their trademark.


 

Halloween costumes and masks have come to be widely recognised and are popular iconic choices to buy inspired and remodelled from such traditional horror films. Halloween is an example, the knife, the mask and the blue workman's overalls are all iconic in relation to the film's imagery of it's villain 'Mike Myers'. Children's costumes have been crafted to make children appear to be miniature versions of Michael; wearing this promotes the film itself by being iconically recognisable to some whilst also making people who are unaware question "what film is this from?" and potentially looking into to it to find out about it, maybe to even watch the film.

ZOMBIELAND: the marketing campaign

 

Teaser Poster:

Teaser Trailer:

Main Poster:

Main Trailer:

The studio distributor for ZOMBIELAND is Sony Pictures Worldwide, it was released in 50 different countries and in it's opening weekend it made $24,733,155 in the USA alone, with a total screening of 3,036 in October 2009.



This is a list from box office mojo, showing all of the countries it was screened in and its total gross.