Q3

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

I chose Home-grown productions as my  company name as I wanted a name that showed my films are “home grown” by normal, imaginative people like my audience, so I am just like them so I know how much care and effort must be put into my films in order to make them enjoyable and entertaining for them. These ideas signify that my company goes to extra mile to make entertaining films for the individual. My Ident/ logo signifies my films are modern and high budget which connotes to the audience how contemporary my films are and that sufficient money is put into them to make them successful. The role of my company is to produce high quality, modern films of multiple genres, but specialising in thrillers, that are targeted towards specific psychographics/demographics and addressing important, relevant issues.

A production company provides the physical means using sourced funding to create different forms of media, for example film, radio, and performing arts. For the thriller genre there is the potential for small production companies and major production companies to produce quality films, from a wide range of narratives/settings, sometimes with little funding needed. Small production companies are companies that have not been involved in major productions, and do not a have a lot of funding, so are usually involved in small projects or upcoming major productions. An example of a small production company is Haxan films, which are a production company headquartered in Orlando, Florida. They are famous after producing the independent horror/thriller film The Blair Witch Project. The name is taken from the 1922 Swedish/Danish silent movie Häxan ("The Witch"). The company was founded by five graduates of the University of Central Florida Film Program. Also known as "the Haxan Five", the company is run by Eduardo Sánchez, Gregg Hale, Daniel Myrick, Robin Cowie and Michael Monello.

Major production companies are companies that have been involved in major projects, such as large, popular franchises, and also have a lot of funding from earnings and investors. An example of this is Lionsgate who are a Canadian-American entertainment company. The company was formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, July 3, 1997, and is now headquartered in Santa Monica, California. They are well known for producing popular films such as You’re Next, Now You See Me, and Snitch.

Small production companies are sometimes subsidiary companies of major production organisations. A smaller production company would most likely produce a low budget thriller that would be easy to produce physically, like The Blair Witch Project which only has Three actors and is set in the woods, in order to gain sufficient funding and reputation to produce bigger budget films, so they can build up to becoming a  major production company. A major production company would most likely produce a larger budgeted, action, special effects filled thriller such as Pandorum, which is set in space, and has a lot of CGI effects.

I think for a thriller film, depending on the budget and production company, would either have a theatrical release window of six weeks then be released to all other platforms or be straightaway released onto DVD and other platforms. This is because theatres receive most of their earnings from a film within the first six weeks and most of the earnings would be from the other platforms, so this way it would receive the most earnings in the shortest time.

The distributor I would like to distribute my thriller is “20^th Century Fox”. They are a large corporation that have produced a number of highly successful films, including popular thrillers such as Alien and Unstoppable. The organisation itself is large and complex with many subsidiary companies.  20^th Century Fox was founded on May 31^st 1935 by a merger of 20^th Century Fox Pictures Inc. (founded in 1935) and Fox Film corporation (founded in 1915). It was founded by Joseph M Schenck, Darryl F Zanuck and William Fox. Their headquarters is located in Los Angeles and its parent company is the Fox Entertainment Group. The genres they are usually involved in are Sci-fi and action however they have produced many films of other genres including sub/hybrid genre thrillers such as sci-fi/action thrillers like Predator and Alien. They are an appropriate institution to produce my thriller as they have a large support basis for funding with not only using their own earnings, from many of the large franchises they have helped produce such as the first few instalments of star wars, but also private investors and such. This would mean that they could support them film in making it high quality, professional and entertaining. They are also a well-known film distribution/production company and having the institutions name and logo on our film would reassure our audience of the quality of the film, based on films they have previously seen from that production company.

The order in which my titles are set out are firstly the production company Ident and the directors name, so that these are the names my audience will remember and look for in my other films they may want to watch. Then I have the actors, so that the audience see if any of their favourite actors, who have the star personas of the characters portrayed, may be in film, and want to continue watching it. Then I have the crew such as director of cinematography or set design, so the audience will see who worked on what area and may recognise names from other films. Finally will be the thrillers name so that the audience can relate what they’ve seen to what the films called. This is all so that they will make links with my film to others, in order to get a good judgement on the quality and whether it will be entertaining.

My thriller would most likely be similar institutionally to thrillers such as The Roommate or The House at the End of the End of the Street as they are produced similar in terms of quality to my thriller opening with the setting and the budget. They have also been distributed in different ways: with The House at the End of the Street having a theatrical window before being released onto other platforms, whilst The Roommate being released straight to DVD and other platforms. This is similar to how I would like my film to be distributed as I would like a short theatrical window of six weeks before being distributed onto other platforms.