Evaluation Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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Film Idea (Pre-Production) Institution Research

Distribution is the process of making a product or service available for us or consumption by a consumer or business user, using direct means, or using indirect means with intermediaries. The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing, and promotion.



Based on my film idea, I made a powerpoint explaining my choice of institutions and why they would produce my film. When we were developing the idea in pre-production, we carefully thought about different cinematography and mise-en-scene. We wanted the thriller to look visually good and therefore as if it was expensive to make. As a result, I researched into Metro-goldwyn-mayer: An american production and distribution company, known for films such as The Hobbit, Hercules and the Bond franchise. Our idea displays the conventions of an espionage thriller, similar to the conventions in the films Spectre and Stormbreaker, both produced and distributed by Metro-goldwyn-mayer.

Furthermore, Columbia, an american film production and distribution studio of Sony pictures, partnered with Metro-goldwyn-mayer to create the latest Bond films. The studio has also created other thriller films, such as Spiderman, Men in black, Ghostbusters and American Hustle.

 These distribution companies are for big hollywood films, which I believe at this moment would suit the style of our thriller.
Film Product (Post-Production) Institution Research
Once we had finalised and produced our opening sequence, I looked back to my original research ideas and compared my explanations to if they were still valid with the result product.


This is my result product, I think we effectively portrayed the cinematography and mise-en-scene to how we pictured it to look. I believe the overall image of the sequence is dark and mysterious; created through lighting and shot compositions. If I were to watch this from an audience's point of view, with little knowledge about how this was produced - I would believe this sequence to have been produced with a bigger budget than what it actually is. 
I therefore believe that this opening sequence would be distributed by a big hollywood company. 

After researching further into different Hollywood companies that may distribute this film, I found and looked into 20th Century Fox; an american film studio, distributor, and one of the six major american film studios. This company has distributed many famous film series, such as Star Wars, Maze Runner, X-men, Die Hard, Night at the museum, Percy Jackson, Fantastic Four, Avator and Titanic. 

The studio was founded in 1935 by Joseph Schenck and Darryl Zanuck. In 1932, these two founders created 20th century pictures, before closing the company after discussing a merging with the financially struggling Fox Film. Fox Film's was rapidly declining in popularity. It's biggest star Will Rogers died in a plane crash weeks after the merger. It's leading female star Janet Gaynor was fading in popularity and leading man James Dunn was dropped due to heavy drinking. Schenck and Zanuck found that there was not much left to the studio. At first it was to be called Fox 20th century. Eventually it was called 20th century-fox film, in which the hyphen was dropped in 1985. Zanuck built Fox back to profitability - by signing young actors in contracts with the studios, and favoring popular biographies and musicals. Due to record attendance during WWII, Fox overtook M-G-M and become the third most profitable film studio. In 1953 the studio introduced CinemaScope in the hit film The Robe. The success of this film was so big that Fox agreed to install CinemaScope in theatres ($25,000 per screen), and to ensure enough product, Fox gave access to CinemaScope to any rival studio choosing to use it. 

When researching into this company, I considered many aspects. Such as the target audience, the style of film they produce (genres), budgets of films and features. In terms of my thriller, I now believe that in addition to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia pictures, 20th century fox would also be a very good option to sell my thriller to.


20th century also produces films of a similar genre to my thriller. They have produced many espionage films, such as Spectre and Bridge of Spies; Thrillers such as the martian and x-men apocalypse; and artistically composed cinematography, such as Suffragette.
 With this in mind, I think 20th century fox would make my thriller a success, as they can use the same directors and actors that they may have contracted with for other films.

Fox can also ensure the success of our film globally, as it deals with international distributions (Bridge of Spies was distributed by 20th century fox internationally) and is a household name.

This Means War Poster.jpgI also began researching into different directors and cinematographers who have worked for the institution. I believe my film would fit into the ethos of a more serious and less comical direction of film. For example, McG directed the 20th century fox romantic spy comedy This Means War. Although this is similarly an espionage film, the style of direction McG specialises in is more comical and light-hearted; and therefore will not suit the conventions of our thriller.

A few directors I found included:

  • Brian Percival: A british film director known for his work in The Book Thief and Downton Abbey. 
  • Chris Columbus, american filmmaker known for his contribution to the Harry Potter series and Percy Jackson.
  • David Fincher: known for directing Fight Club, House of Cards, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and his latest film Gone Girl.


I discovered a cinematographer who specialises in more artistically composed films, such as Life of Pi. Claudio Miranda has also worked on films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Tron:Legacy. 
Another cinematographer I found is Jeff Cronenweth, known for his dim-lit, close-up long shot filming as shown in Fight Club, as well as The Social Network and Gone Girl. I personally think this cinematographer would be suitable for our thriller as he specialises in dark lit shallow depth of field shots "to keep the audience focused on what we wanted them to see."



The cinematography of Jeff Cronenweth
Known for it's safe reputation in creating successful films, 20th century is a reliable company that pretty much guarantees a successful profit for the film. 20th Century Fox is also owned by the media conglomerate 21st century fox. This conglomerate owns many different companies such as SKY, Fox broadcasting company, and Nat Geo Wild.

This therefore means that 21st century fox can horizontally integrate my film, by producing, distributing and promoting through many of it's owned products without spending much.

Here are some examples of marketing from 20th century fox:




This film studio doesn't particularly specialise in any genre, however they have previously produced many espionage thrillers fitting into the same conventions as mine. 

I attempted to create a movie poster that may fit into the espionage styled marketing by 20th century fox.


I believe the target audience for this studio is a wide range of 4-50.  As the studio produces many different types of films, it attracts different audience members of different ages and genders. From Peanuts the movie (2015) to Titanic (1997). This means that my target audience of 15-25 will be suited in this institution. 

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