Film Distribution Research

Social Media Advertising

One way a new producer could get their film into the public eye is by using social media as a method to advertise their film. This involves doing something such as setting up a community page on Facebook, or setting up an account on Twitter. An advantage of this would be that it is completely free, and it also allows the producer to engage with the audience. On the other hand, it can be very difficult to build a following on the social network sites; initially you will be advertising to no people until you’ve gained ‘likes’ or ‘followers’.

TV Advertising

The film producer could also go down the route of advertising on television. The producer can pay a set sum for a slot. The price varies depending on what time and what channel you advertise on, and it is essential to be tactical on what to choose in order to gain the most appeal. For example, you wouldn’t advertise a thriller film on CITV. An advantage of this is that TV advertising has the ability to reach a wide audience, and a niche one too if you select the right channel. However, advertising on TV is hugely expensive and is not realistic to a new producer.

Print Magazine Advertising

A producer may also choose to advertise on a printed form of media, such as a magazine or a newspaper. The great benefits of this can be that you are able to target a very niche audience, such is the nature of magazines. For example, you can advertise to SFX magazine or Empire, whose audiences will most likely be very interested in a thriller film. However, the cost of advertising on a national magazine such as that can be very expensive and unrealistic for a new producer.

Online Advertising

It may be a good idea for the producer to use some online advertising for their new film. This comes with many benefits: you can use a company to deliver your adverts for you (such as Google’s AdSense system) and have control on what type of websites they pop up on whilst having full control of how much you would like to spend on the advertising. This means you can target specific people, making it more efficient for your money. On the other hand, you do have to spend quite a lot of money if you want your advert to be widespread, and not everyone who enjoys watching thriller films will be actively online.

Conclusion

Out of the four methods of distributing a thriller film, I would at first say that printed media is the way to go as the best form of advertising. However, we are talking about a new producer (and therefore someone with a limited budget), so printed media would seem a little bit unrealistic. Based on the factor of money shortages, I believe that social networks are the best form of distribution for the new producer. Social media allows the producer to connect with his audience and get recommendations for future fixes. Whilst building up a fan-base will be hard at first, the nature of a social media page means that the advertising will be permanent, rather than a graphic you see on the side of a website for a split second.