This document discusses potential strategies for distributing an independent British film on a small budget. It suggests appealing to distributors like Momentum or Film 4 who focus on growth over large revenues. It also recommends direct online promotion through sites like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Facebook, and YouTube to build an audience. Generating controversy around the film's portrayal of racism could attract significant interest and criticism, similar to Four Lions. Creating an official website and product tie-ins could further promote the film.
2. If we were given the opportunity to actually fabricate the
film there are only a few companies that may help
produce and distribute it. From the opening sequence we
would only appeal to independent British film companies
such as Momentum or Film 4. This is because it is an
independent British film, with an unknown cast and
unknown directors. The use of our own props, local
locations and school equipment shows that our budget is
extremely small. Momentum and Film 4 would be the
ideal distributors because they are known for distributing
films for growth rather than achieving a big gross revenue
such as larger film distributors such as Warner Brothers or
20th Century Fox do.
3. With the right research and promotion it is possible for
our film to be a success, if you were to look at the
example of Slumdog Millionaire and its achievements
of four Golden Globes and seven BAFTA's, by being
distributed by Momentum. To distribute our film we
would directly advertise to our target audience via the
internet, websites such as IMDB or Rotten
Tomatoes, social networking sites such as Facebook
and Twitter, or on YouTube, this in turn could then be
spread to more and more people, gaining a large
interest or following. If film companies are interested
in our concept they may attempt to contact us and
fund our filming, production and marketing.
4. I feel as though our film premise is likely to gain wide amounts of
attention due to the controversy surrounding racism in wider
society and how characters will be portrayed, due to our
protagonist being ensnared in a web of conspiracy and prejudice.
It will receive a significant amount of criticism and many will be
interested in what actually happens in the end of the story, this is
much like the film Four Lions. To promote the film, a key element
could be that the movie studio could create an official website for
the film, allowing visitors to view trailers, see behind the scene
footage, interviews with the cast and crew, plot synopsis and pre-
order tickets for promotional events. Another strategy that we
could use is highly visible product tie-ins so that we can affiliate
with companies which are linked to our target audience.
