Film Distribution

The idea of distribution seems to be very crucial if I want my short film to be a success. The whole purpose of distribution is to make sure the short film made is noticed. If it is noticed, then there is a chance that it can become well-known. By distributing my short film whatever money spent on actors and equipment, then this could be gained back. However, again this is not always simple and can be costly.

There are many ways to distribute a film; usually an actual distributor is an organisation or individual that will represent your film at festivals and markets around the world and who will attempt to sell it to television. This means that a lot of the work is done for you. However they will probably not do this for free.

Distributors will more than likely show it in film festivals and markets, such as; Cannes, Rotterdam, Tampere, Encounters and Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival (shorts).It is important that the films are aired to as many people as possible because you never know who could be there watching the short film, it may be someone that is willing to help if they see the film has potential, maybe acting as a sponsor.

Even though it could seem simple to distribute a film, I would l need to make sure you have all the right assets in place. If they do not like certain aspects of the film they do have the opportunity to refuse. There is no guarantee that employing someone or a company to distribute you’re film would be the best option. A lot of people find that this is too much hassle when considering how big they really want their film to be; distributers will need to have signed contracts, so if I really wanted to do it that way, I would have to be willing to sign contracts.

When making deals with distributers, there is a lot of different areas that will need to be well thought-out, some of these areas include:

· Term: This will decide the period of time the distributor will have distribution rights for the short film.

· Termination: If you decide there is a better deal available you must understand that you may not be able to terminate the contract if it states that you have the contract for a certain amount of time.

· Sales and Income: Be aware that distributers will collect royalties from the film and when selling small budget film, they usually sell them in packages so don’t expect too much of a profit.

· Territory: this identifies the countries the distributor can distribute the films in.

As those clauses above can be quite complex, for that reason some people decide that self-distribution is the best option. The great advantages of this is that If I were to self-distribute my short film I would choose where I wanted my film to be shown, I would have full rights to my film which means there is less chance of confusion, and there will be no money given to anyone else as all the work would be done by me.

However if I am not familiar with the distribution of films, I will find it hard to know where to go and what to do with no advice from someone who has a profession in it. It also means that it can be a full time job and a very unsatisfying job if I cannot get in contact with the right people. If the film is put into the hands of the wrong people and I am not clear of the legal aspects it would be easy for someone to steal my idea if is not copyrighted, because of this I would have to pay out money anyway for my idea to be copyrighted.

I would have to ask for funding from companies if I did want to distribute the idea, this is because I will need the money for marketing and advertising.

There are many ways to distribute the short film that I will create. If I had a large budget I would think about putting it on TV spots as those who would enjoy watching TV would more than likely watch films too. I know that there could be posters and billboards put up to advertise it and I would have to think of the best locations where I know that my target audience is more likely to be.

There is the option of using social networking sites to help too. Also, I could go onto radio shows, have press releases and have free screenings of the film to raise the awareness, the problem with all of these ways of advertising costs money, and it could take some time to actually get information and actually talk to the necessary people, so I think the best way to do this would be to organise a couple of weeks with dates that are relevant to each other; there is no point in going on the radio one week and four weeks later start putting up posters,; by this time the public would have forgotten about the radio interview. The main point I think of this type of advertising is to bombard the target audience to make them believe the film is bigger/more expensive than what it really is, this means that as much should be done as possible in little time.

If I were to use all of the above I would have to look at what other films are coming out around the same time, this is because I want to be able to have the most publicity as possible and if there is another film that interests my target audience it could mean that I would have to battle with them to get the publicity.

If I didn’t want to use anything like posters and radio shows , I could always look for any film competitions , this means that a lot of people would know because of the event, this could be an easier way to get the short film known, especially if I won.

In conclusion, it is clear that it doesn’t matter if a company or myself distributed the film as there are advantages and disadvantages with both and it would be whatever I felt was best, I would still need to get the film advertised if I wanted it to become well-known and this would cost quite a lot of money either way.