Film Distribution and Marketing

The term film distribution is when the film is made available to audiences for viewing; this is done by the professional film distributor who will be in charge of the marketing strategy for the film and how and when the film will be shown and released. The idea is to make as much profit as possible- a film that doesn’t go to the cinema will lose out on the ‘theatrical window’ making it less known and not creating as much money as it could, the film distributor needs to decide which sort of release the film will have; a standard or simultaneous for example, how long before it comes out on DVD etc.

The term reach relates to film distribution as it means the total amount of people/households the film will literally reach, reach works as a fraction or specific total such as ‘TV households of women aged 30-35’ television channels use reach each week to see how many viewers they receive, ‘x minute weekly reach’ meaning how many viewers watched for a certain amount of time that week.

A companies/businesses market plan is an outline of what they are aiming to achieve, what marketing methods they are using and how they’re going to do it as well as any important information or data, it is usually part of an overall business plan. A distribution plan is a method in which your ‘product’ gets to the audiences, it focuses on locations, methods and costs as well as other aspects, there are different distribution options as this chart shows.

Advertising, publicity and promotion are all very different; advertising is the display of a product e.g. billboards and posters, publicity is when the media show attention to a certain product e.g. it is mentioned in a news report/ magazine article and promotion is an activity that enhances the awareness of the product to increase public knowledge for example a celebrity endorsement. 

The Cabin in the Woods

Teaser Poster:

Teaser Trailer:

Main Poster:

Main Trailer:

The teaser poster and main posters for the cabin in the woods are very similar however the main poster reveals the actors in the film and release date, one of the actors being famous Chris Hemsworth which could bring more viewers in, the teaser trailer gives a lot away and most of what is in the teaser trailer is again shown in the main trailer although with an add of more of a back story and more key horror moments. This film was distributed by big company Lionsgate, who have distributed famous films such as The Hunger Games Series and successful horror film series Saw, the film was released in about 40 countries and on opening weekend was screened in 2,811 cinemas creating $14,743,614.