TASK 3 - Who would distribute my film

As our film will be a small independent film in Britain we will not be looking at big, global production companies like Warner Bros, Universal or Fox to distribute our film. Instead we looked at Vertigo, BBC films and Film 4 to make our film as they are more suited to our scale of film. Vertigo was good as it took small budget films and made them successful, such as Bronson, The Firm and Football Factory; however target at a male audience, whereas our thriller would target women more than men due to the positive representation of our main character, the woman.

This is why we decided to have BBC films and Film 4 make our film, as they have a very open target audience and appeal to a lot of people. They are well known for typical English classic films, such as An Education, Billy Elliot, Trainspotting and This is England, which also appeal to an American audience as they are interested in England's history and culture. The Iron Lady, made by Film 4, is another English history film, but in some ways is similar to our story line as it represents Margaret Thatcher as an intelligent, strong, independent woman; this is how we wish to portray our main character, which will appeal to a female audience as it is inspirational.

However they have also been known for thrillers, such as The Lovely Bones, The Awakening and We Need to Talk about Frank. Our thriller will fit well aside these types of films as they are psychosocial and complex in their story lines, making the audience think.

Our film will fit in the ethos of the institution as it is British and Film 4 and BBC films often invest in low budget films, by first time directors. They would market our film mainly by DVD and make money from selling it mainly to the British public, who are aware of previous Film4 and BBC films or people who watch channel 4, E4, BBC 1,2 or 3, etc. They would also make money by premiering/airing it on TV and by the adverts that played during the film.

BBC often targets an older, mature audience, who are interested in politics, world news and current affairs, watching series such as The Hour, set in the 50’s, containing political drama, action and violence. Channel 4 have aired similar series such as Secrete State, about a Prime Minister and involves assassinations, spying and secrets. However channel 4 also target a younger audience, of boys and girls, towards teens and young adults who watch series such as Skins, Misfits and The Inbetweeners, as they relate to them. This will attract them to watch a Film4/BBC film, especially as it is a thriller, which is a popular genre amongst the younger generation. The main characters will be young adults which will also appeal to people the same age as they will relate to them; however this will also attract an older generation as they are interested in people of this age and life style. We will attract a secondary audience of around 30+ from the psychological/ spy/assassination thriller perspective.