EVALUATION QUESTION 2 - Distribution & Audience

"How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text"?

Part 1 Distribution 

In this part I will address the definitions of distribution, which explain what it means and what a distributor is. I will then talk about the Big 6 and the mini-major studios. Lastly I will post a YouTube show, which I created for distribution. 

Definition 1 - Taken from Wikipedia 

A film distributor is responsible for the marketing of a film. The distribution company is usually different from the production company. Distribution deals are an important part of financing a film.

Definition 2 - Taken from BBC

In terms of shorts, a distributor is an individual or organisation who will represent your film at festivals and markets around the world and who will attempt to sell it to television (including terrestrial, cable and satellite), airlines and other companies that show short films. The major short film distributors in the UK are (in alphabetical order): Dazzle, Futureshorts, Network Ireland TV and Shorts International. See the distributor section of our Related Links: Exhibition & Distribution – Shorts for information and links to these distributors and others.

In terms of features, a distributor is generally an organisation who handles the theatrical release of a film in a particular country as well as the marketing and circulation of films for home viewing (DVD, Video-On-Demand, Download, Television etc). Often feature films have different distributors representing them in different territories and different distributors handling the home-viewing circulation. Independent film distribution in the UK is generally managed by indie distributors such as Metrodome, Optimum Releasing and Momentum. See the distributor section of our Related Links: Exhibition & Distribution – Features for information and links to these distributors and others. 

Distributors

On this website: http://www.the-numbers.com/market/distributors I found a table with the overview of the market share for each distributor from 1995-2016. As you can see Warner Bros. (one of the Big 6) lies at the top 1 spot with it's 655 movies that it has distributed. After that follow the other 5 member of the Big 6, which are Walt Disney, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. 

The rest below are all part of mini major studios although it has lately been discussed that one could talk about the Big 7 due to the latest success of Lionsgate. 

The table below is one, which I got from wikipedia that gives you the overview of the Big 6 conglomerates.

As mentioned above these are the current majors. However, there are several other distributors such as Lionsgate, Dream Works etc. These are known as mini-major studios. 

As mentioned earlier a created a Youtube show to answer questions on distribution. I created it so that my audience would send me snapchats with questions only on distribution and then I would reply to them.



There was one question with the advantages and disadvantages on self-distribution. Since we are self-distributing I created a podcast also in which I explain the advantages and disadvantages of it. I got these from the BBC website.



Part 2 Audience

For this part I decided to create a radioshow together with my sister. She is playing the interviewer and I am the interviewee who answers all the questions on how our product engaged with our audience.