Jess' Evaluation - Question 3

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

Omniscient is a low budget UK thriller, in our role as an independent British Film production company. The term distribution means to deliver a product from the producer to the consumer. There are three stages involved in the process of distribution. These are:

• Film production - making the film
• Film distribution - the place the audience watch the film (traditionally the cinema but increasingly becoming more options)
• Film exhibition - securing the placement of the film on an exhibitor's screen and for home viewing. 

• Films used to be exhibited in the cinema, on the TV and video, however now they are exhibited on YouTube, Netflix, lovefilm.com, which are all accessible on mobile platforms/tablets, and also on hardware platforms such as Xbox and PlayStation.

• As our film is a low budget one, our aim isn't too compete with the big thriller films already out there. Our goal isn't to distribute our film to cinemas along with the highly profitable films available in the cinema, instead our film would be more suited to home viewing. The most efficient way of distributing this would be via the internet. This way, we could potentially reach a mass audience and gain profit and a name for the company if it's a success, but without spending too much. The best website to upload this to would be YouTube, as it is a highly successful and popular website (3rd most popular) and it has many videos similar to this already on there. With so many people using YouTube, and with it being accessible on mostly every platform, it is possible that our thriller sequence could be viewed by millions of people. For example, Nick Lawrence released his 93 minute comedy film 'Time Expired' in late 2011. Since then, the film has been viewed almost 700,000 times, with 2,0003,000 people watching it everyday. This has resulted in them earning $3400 in ad revenue in the last year.

• It would be possible to earn a profit through merchandise. Such as t-shirts, jumpers, mugs, stationary, ect. Also, giving out free DVD copies to your target audience is a big risk however if the film is a success then it will gain popularity and you will receive the money back. If the film gets a lot of views, then YouTube will pay you in return for them being able to advertise on your videos. The more click through an advert gets means that you receive more money. This then enables you to post your video on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, ect, to gain popularity that way. YouTube, and social networking sites have a mass audience ranging from males and females of all different age groups, therefore it will suit our target audience of 15-24.