Situating our film in the industry
If we were to produce our film we would need to consider possible funding, genre distribution methods, marketing, new technology and costs, in order to place our film in the industry and to create a chance of success in a very competitive market.
There are many ways of funding and to accumulate the full amount needed, more than one possible ways may be used, however before thinking about funding we will need to decide if out film is an extremely low budget film or a film with just a low budget.
A low budget film is a film with a low budget but has more than 10 million pounds whereas extremely low budget films has a budget of less than 10million pounds and are normally self funded.
Examples of films that are extremely low funded are ‘Clerks’, ‘Colin’ and ‘The Blair witch project’. Two of these films are of the horror genre.
The reason why films that come under the horror genre can be self funded is because there is already established audience, which means that it is easier to plan the film because there are existing text out that cater to the same audience.
An example of conventions used through the horror genre is the iconography of the woods or the abandon house or both appearing in every slasher film. Sticking to conventions doesn’t just make it easier to plan the film but also makes it easier to advertise and market the film because the existing intended demographic are already familiar with the conventions, so by putting an iconic image such a house or some woods allows the intended demographic to relate or recognize that the poster is of a horror film, therefore making marketing easier and cheaper.
It can also be cheaper to produce films of a particular sub- genre because special effects, a special editing software and high tech equipment aren’t needed. For example supernatural films tend to have bigger budgets than slasher films because to follow the conventions of the supernatural genre and to produce a verisimilitude that is acceptable special effects, a special editing software and high tech equipment is needed. Our film’s sub-genre is slasher and is cheaper to make because of the nature of the film.
Films that need a low budget could be self funded however there are other ways of getting funding as well. Such as, part government funding, private investment, banks and studio backing.
Part government backing is when an awarding body/ government give some money to help produce the film. The reason why the government subsidies films is due the American culture imperialism.
American culture imperialism can be explained to be the American culture taking over in
France faced a similar problem with American culture imperialism and cinema, however France was faster with noticing that people were watching more American films than French and were scared that everybody would start to talk in English instead of talking in French, and therefore put a quota in place that says a certain amount of films that are shown in the cinema in France have to be French films. This reassures that however popular the American culture becomes in
Examples of the public sector companies that provide funding are ‘The UK film council’, ‘BBC’ and ‘Film4’. Two films that have been subsidized by ‘Film4’ are ‘My beautiful launderette’ and ‘This is
‘This is England’ by Shane Meadows shows social realism and brings up issues about British society and the issues it faces, such as, racism, politics and poverty, whereas Hollywood films tend to show Britain to be full of extremely posh people that live in big houses. This is the American escapism view of lives of British people, whereas the reality is very different to what is portrayed and this is why the government is encouraging the film makers reflect on the British culture.
Private investment is investment that is not apart of the government. The investor doesn’t need to know much about film making to fund the film however there might be a few issues with commercial backing.
There is a chance of studio backing. Studio backing is where the company gives money to the film maker to make the film however there are issues with this type of commercial backing as well.
With these two types of commercial backing there is a chance that the film and the story might be changed because the primary goal for backing a film is to make profit so if they think that film isn’t going to make any profit then they might choose to change the film plan in the pre- production process.
The last option is loans from banks. Banks could lend a loan but it is unlikely that the full amount needed is given, so therefore to accumulate the full amount of funding needed a selection of these possible investment can be used. For example, funding from the bank, private investment and ‘The UK council’ can be secured to accumulate the full amount.
Moving on to distribution; to get the distributor interested in the film, so that it can be distributed, film festivals are available. At film festivals the distributor get an idea of what the film is about and decide what films they would like to distribute. The distribution rights can be sold to more than one company all over the world, so that they have the right to distribute the film in certain countries.
Some distribution contracts may include a marketing budget, which states a figure that will be spent on marketing the film. The film can be also marketed by the buzz created around the film at the film festival. This is a way of marketing the film with no costing involved, which is a bit like viral advertising.
Viral advertising creates a buzz about the film over the internet without a budget. This can be done posting videos on a website, such as, YouTube, that reviews the film or talks about the film and the making of the film. Trailers can be put on the website as well which attracts the audience without spending extra cost on broadcasting however it depends on the intended demographic, because, for example, if our intended demographic is 65 and over advertising on the internet wouldn’t attract that many people as the intended demographic, of 65 and over don’t tend to use new media, however our intended demographic is teenagers and teenagers tend to use the internet more so it should attract many more people.
An example of when viral advertising and advertising on the internet has been used, which has made a film extremely successful is the ‘the Blair witch project’. The ‘Blair witch project’ had a extremely low production budget and marketing budge, so they used viral advertising and creating a buzz about the film over the internet which attract a huge amount of people. They created a story about students that have actually gone missing but have left some footage behind and they are trying to recover the footage. Having a website and keeping the audience update with the news of the poor kids that are missing kept the audience interested which created a buzz. This buzz was amplified by viral marketing.
New media has not only changed the way we produce, distribute and market films but has also changed the way we view films.
Cinema has changed over the years. The films were made of huge black and white film rills and were extremely expensive to make, edit and distribute, whereas today everything is done digitally and is much quicker in terms of capturing, editing and distributing. Digital technology has revolutionized the cinematic industry and the pre- production, production and the post- production processes have become cheaper and faster.
This development of new media brings up issues, such as media convergence that could have threatened the cinema industry the cinema industry.
Media convergence is two existing media to create one. An example of this is IPods, MP3s and mobile phones converging with music, which decreased the sales to CDs, however the expected result of attendance decreasing for concerts was prove to be wrongs as the convergence made people more aware to different kinds of music and therefore making this social event more popular. Putting this example into a cinematic context, the industry was scared that computers and IPods converging with films would decrease the number of ticket sales, however this didn’t happen as the experience of watching a film with family and friends couldn’t be replaced by the convergence, so the cinema industry is quite safe from media convergence due to a commercial/ social experience.
In conclusion our film could easily be a extremely no budget film as the film has an established audience and is part of the horror genre, with the sub genre of slasher, meaning that special editing, effects and equipment aren’t needed.
To distribute the film we could either go to a film festival and sell the distribution rights or like ‘the Blair witch project’ create a buzz around the film by viral advertising which will produce a high demand for the film to be shown in cinema.
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