What kind of media institution might distribute your media product

and why?

Produced by Charlotte Richardson

What is an institution?

An institution is a company that disperses a media product for audience consumption. For example a film is made by directors and producers and cinema companies such as Cineworld and Vue disperses them to the British population.

Films can be dispersed via cinemas either nationally or internationally and to do this the film makers either edit the dialogue in order to be understood in other languages or add subtitles, thus creating a world wide audience for the particular film.

After being shown for a short period at cinemas (depending on the popularity and success of the film) the film is then dispersed into shops to sell as merchandise as a DVD at a reasonable price.

I have done some research into the selling of DVD’s in different types of shops and found that new releases are often sold at £13-£14 yet when the DVD has been released a few months, the price starts to decrease. This is because the popularity of the film is rated by how many people pay to view it in the cinema and amount of copy’s sold in a shop.

However, I also found that different types of shops sell films at different values for example, Asda are currently selling the newly released film Tangled at £12.93 yet HMV are selling the same film at £11.99 which I believe is due to the different types of audience’s they get in that particular shop. HMV is known for selling contemporary music, a range of DVD’s for all ages and tickets for different types of gigs. However the shop is mainly attracts a middle age audience and as Tangled is a Disney film, the regular customers may not be interested in a PG film thus selling the DVD at a lower price than ASDA to either attract a wider range of customers or focus on catering mainly for their 25-30 year old customers. Where as Asda is a family based store which also offers a wide range of DVD’s and music CD’s yet attracts all ages as they sell other items such as groceries and clothing and more likely to have child customers in which the Disney film Tangled would suit their film rating and narrative.

Producers and Directors of a film, in most cases would go to institutions and ask for funding for their film project.

Research into Institutions

Several studios pursued to finance the Hancock film, but Columbia Pictures succeeded in the end.

Hulk was funded by Marvel Studios and Universal Pictures

Having a film distributed well is an important task that is understated as the correct distribution can be the deciding factor in the films success or failure of that film.

Both films shown above are of similar genre and attract a similar target audience, however their produced with different types of institutions as the companies also need to choose which films to distribute in order to uphold a particular image to maintain their popularity and involvement within the film industry. Marvel is suitable to distribute and finance the Hulk as Marvel comics was its original creator in 1962. Where as Hancock was produced by Will Smith and although many institutions wanted to fund the film, Columbia Pictures offered the most funding and better success as its one of the big six.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF MEDIA DISTRIBUTORS• Lions gate Entertainment Corporation is a Canadian-American entertainment company. • Founded in 1955• Produces a wide range of horror films yet also associated with many other genres

• Twisted Pictures mainly creates films of the horror genre • Gained wide attention through the productions of the Saw films• Founded in 2002

New films produced by Lionsgate:

New films produced by Twisted Pictures:

• Walt Disney Pictures is part of the Walt Disney Company• Founded in 1923• Mainly creates PG – 15 rating films • Mass target audience of both children and adults and associated with family films • Produces many genres such as: action; adventure; comedy; romance; fantasy; science fiction; family and musical

• Universal Pictures is one of the big six • Founded in 1912 • Mass audience, targets both children and adults • Various genres for all ages

New films produced by Universal Pictures:

New films produced by Walt Disney Pictures:

After my research, I now have a greater understanding of media institutions and the ways in which films are distributed

As my film is only an opening sequence and currently only 1 minute and 42 seconds long, my film wouldn’t be funded by one of the major production companies. However, my film is currently broadcasted on YouTube allowing anyone world wide, to view it.

YouTube is the ‘largest world-wide video sharing’ streaming website which allows my opening sequence to be viewed by a mass audience of any age.

YouTube became available for public use in May 2005 and was created so that people could watch TV clips, funny videos and upload almost anything (by the rules of the site)

This public site has allowed me to upload my opening sequence which could allow thousands of viewers both nationally and internationally

Other forms if distributions: The Internet:The internet allows me to broadcast my opening sequence world wide through a variation of different sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace. Social networking sites enable me to blog about my film and upload pictures and videos. The internet also allows me to advertise my film for free.

TV and Radio:Although my film is only an opening sequence, I could advertise it through TV and radio, and as a majority of the population have access to these it would enable me to advertise my locally.

Another way to distribute my film would be to enter it into the Student Film Festival Awards, in which I could upload my video and potentially be recognised by one of the major production companies.

There are many ways in which I could upload and share my opening sequence to be world wide, but as it is too short I wont be funded by one of the major production companies. However, the internet allows me to broadcast my film and allows me the chance to become recognised within the film industry.