WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT

DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

IntroductionWhen considering which media institution might distribute our media product a number of different terms had to be looked over in order for the most suitable one for our selected genre and storyline was chosen. Also both mainstream and independent distributors had to be considered as they tend to have different methods of distribution, this would prove to be helpful when it came to choosing a possible distributor for our project. If a company such as ‘Warp’ were to distribute our media project it would be much different to if it were distributed by a larger much more mainstream distribution company such as ‘Warner Bros’. These differences include:

Budget LimitationsA smaller budget meaning limitations on the ways in which it could be consumed. This would include smaller premiers, limited cinema release and it would be less likely that there would be a Blu-Ray release. Also advertisement and online consumption would be limited.

Style ChangeThe style of the film would have differences due to the differences in British and American cultures. For example, the use of language would be different as ‘Warp’ being an independent British company would want to appeal more to a niche local audience and therefore would use a more local accent and dialect. Whereas, ‘Warner Bros’ would work towards appealing to a larger audience and therefore would adopt a more global dialect and generic accent.

Product AvailabilityThe availability of our product would also be affected by the size of the allocated budget and therefore would mean that ‘Warner Bros’, being the company with the higher income, would have a greater budget and would allow for a wider range of consumption such as: DVD release, blanket releases, overseas viewings, greater scaled premiers, online services (Netflix) etc.

Project ContentThe content of our project could also show differences depending on the distribution company as the British and American film boards have slight differences in the way they allocate age ratings and the content that they allow to be shown on TV. Also, the inspiration from the viral ‘Northampton Clown’ would not be understood by an American audience and therefore content would have to be altered. Whereas a company such as ‘Warp’ would know of this online sensation, due to them being located in the British area and so would a British audience.

ConclusionAlthough, after much discussion within our group we decided to settle on the distributor ‘Dimension Extreme’. We felt that this would be an ideal distributor as although it is a more independent distributor than its parent company ‘Dimension’ it would also be able to provide a good overall budget. Also this distribution company was created with the idea of focusing on specific genres, horror being one of them. The only problems that we may have faced with this company is that it is based in the USA, but its recent expansion over to the UK allows to make this company a possible distributor. This distribution company has also distributed films such as: