The Film Chain

THE FILM CHAIN

 

The film chain is the different stages of the process of a film being made, these stages involve Production, Distribution, Marketing and Exchange.

 

Production:

• The very first stage of any film is when the creator first imagines or thinks of the idea for the film, and they begin to write it into a script or story board. From here the story can be pitched and sold to producers in an attempt to get funding. Once and if,  funding has been acquired, you can begin to hire directors and actors and all of the crew needed, and you would film the film! After that stage has been completed the footage is handed to the editors, who will cut the footage together to create the final product.

 

• Fox are a major film production company in the USA, they own 21st and 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky Studios, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic. Another large production company is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation, or MGM, and there is Universal studios.

 

• The size of the owners of the production company would affect the films, because the larger and richer owners would produce higher budget, wider audience films, whereas smaller owners will have a smaller budget, therefore the films will be more indie, concentrating on the story line and characters.

 

• The definition of an independent production: An independent film is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system.

 

Distribution

• The definition of distribution: Film distribution is the process of making a movie available for viewing by an audience.

 

• Often the film distributors are company or an individual specifically hired to make the movie available for viewing.

 

• The traditional way of distributing a film is through the cinema, however if the film is not on a big enough scale for a cinematic release, the film could be released straight to DVD or online. This could also be a new way to distribute films, online viewings or something along the lines.

 

• A film festival is an extended presentation of films usually situated in screens in a close region. Notable film festivals are Venice and Cannes, BFI also hold a film festival.

 

• Distributors may release specific films coinciding with a date in attempts to get the highest box office numbers. E.G: producers may release a children's film around a school holiday, or a horror film around Halloween!

 

• It is essential to distribute your film successfully because that is the base from where your film is viewed, publicised and profited from.

Marketing:

 

• Marketing is how the film is made known and publicised to the general public, This is different to distribution as marketing does not involve showing the full film to the audience, it involves teasing and inciting them to want to view the film.

• Marketing techniques may be differentiated for specific techniques so they can be more relatable. E.G: A large English language film being marketed in a non English speaking country may focus more on the aesthetical aspects of the film, whereas if it was being targeted to say, the older English speaking generation the story and emotion of the film may be concentrated on more.

Exhibition

 

• There are many ways that audiences can view a film, these are:

-Cinema

-DVD/Video

-Netflix/Lovefilm/etc.

-Online downloads

-television exclusives

 

• The box office is "used to refer to the commercial success of a film in terms of the audience size or takings that they command." This is so useful because it allows us to rank and arrange films in order of their success considering what is taken on the first weekend of release. However higher budget films will always draw bigger audiences, however more indie films will not bring in such large audiences, but may be more critically acclaimed.

 

• Normally the film distributor takes more than half of the profit, and the rest goes mainly to the production company, but depending on contracts the actors or crew  etc. could take a cut of the profit.

 

• Cinemas make the majority of their profit from the sales of refreshments, not the sales of tickets. To encourage audiences to come to the cinema they try to heighten the experience of the cinema through many ways. E.G: the refreshments offered, the seats and luxuriousness, they also offer special extras with the film like 3D or a much larger screen.

 

• Ancillary markets are non-theatrical ways of exhibiting a film, for example online, or on a video or DVD, also airlines are used to exhibit films.

 

The BFI

 

The BFI is the British Film Industry is a charitable organisation set up to encourage the development of the arts of film and television and moving arts. It also holds the world's largest film archive, and  they also run cinemas, mainly in central London, like the IMAX near south bank. This helps the film industry as people are encouraged to enjoy the arts more which would increase sales and box office figures.