Film Distribution and Marketing

What is meant by the term film distribution?

Film distribution is the process of making a film viewable to an audience. It makes it accessible and attractive towards them. Film distributors share and discuss their idea with the film makers and producers. Once assigning the rights to a producer or company, they take rights to the marketing and campaign to raise the film’s awareness to the public. Advertising, marketing and cinematic release is all a result of film distribution.

What does a film distributor do?

The distribution company works hard to ensure that the budget for the film is not wasted and a high profit can be made where possible. They look into the target audience and decide what marketing materials would be best suited to attract them specifically. In order to make the film do as well as possible, they take charge in advertising and spend money wisely in order to achieve this. They decide the scale of release of the film and where and when it will exactly be distributed.

How does reach relate to film distribution?

The term ‘reach’ is used for the audience scale that the film will be available to. The reach varies greatly on the variety of film that is to be distributed.

What is meant by the distribution plan?

The distribution plan is the plan created by the film distributers in terms of where the film will be shown, setting out how and when they will be distributed. The plan sets out important information such as the exact release date.

What is meant by the marketing plan?

The marketing plan focuses much more on the audience as consumers. It plans how the advertising will take place to attract a specific target audience. The marketing plan will use methods such as marketing research to understand how to really connect and appeal to their target audience more. The marketing plan is important as it is the first way the audience will become award of the film and plays a very important role in raising interest for it.

What is the difference between advertising, publicity and promotion?

‘Advertising’ refers mainly to trailers and posters which grab the audience’s attention and makes them aware. ‘Publicity’ takes place in the hands of the actual cast more than anything. This means they will go out to do interviews, red carpets, and events on more mainstream media where they can talk largely about the film and go into more depth to make it appeal to onlookers. ‘Promotion’ is where the distribution company works with other companies to raise even more awareness. These are known as ‘promotional partnerships’. Allowing the audience to become more interactive with the film.

The Woman In Black-Teaser Poster

The Woman In Black-Main Poster

The Woman In Black-Teaser Trailer

The Woman In Black-Main Trailer

The Woman In Black was distributed by Momentum Pictures (UK), Alliance Films (Canada) and CBS Films (US). It was released in 64 countries, from Canada on February 3rd 2012 to Japan on December 1st 2012.