What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and

why ?

Evaluation Q3

Production

The Evil Dead(Raimi 1981) used unknown actors to keep the budget low which was they only thing they could do as they were on a tight budget of 350,000-400,000. They could not afford a camera dolly so had to makeshift one and in this essence is similar to our film in terms of production values. They're majority of filming was in the woods indicating they're low budget. This reflects many aspects of our shoot mainly that we improvised using a tracking dolly with a longboard and used a tripod as a steadicam. In this our film could be similar distributed through Cannes film festival and then distributed by New Line Cinema.

The film would be aimed at an audience of 12-24 to utilise our target audience. They art-house audience who are older would also be considered in the production of the film as they are highly likely to watch our film through cinemas they frequently visit and have heard about through places like the guardian.

Top hat is typical of a uk independent production in that it has a low budget which is typical of uk independent films as they have little funding behind them. For example A Field In England(Wheatley 2013). For example the film was written and edited by the same person suggesting a limited budget.

Distributor case study A distributor of key uk

independent films are Eone who have distributed up to 27% of UK independent films. They’re partners include lions gate and other companies in the theatre, production, digital and home markets. They have distributed films such as The Hunger Games(Ross,2012).

Distribution methods

Film festivals and competitions would be entered in an aim to showcase the film to a wider audience and attract a distributor such as New Line Cinema like The Evil Dead(Raimi,1981). Other film festivals such as The British Horror Film Festival would be entered.

Considering they low budget UK independent feel of our film prints and advertising would be out of the budget therefore viral methods of distributing would be used.

Youtube would be a key marketing tool to create buzz for the film and increase awareness through the form of trailers and clips of the film. With this we would have a website and interactive pages to create buzz for the film.

Facebook and twitter as well as other social media would be used as a marketing tool to create buzz for the film

Horror Forums such as horror.com would be utilised to target the direct target audience.

Reviews in newspapers like the guardian would also contribute to the attraction of the target audience.

Exhibition

Platform release to select independent cinemas in city sites such as Curzon to attract the core target audience and see how they receive the film as they are the most likely people to enjoy the film. Only using select cinemas would reduce the risk of the film being a flop as it is less expensive.

Not blanket release because it would not be financially viable due to the limited budget and Hollywood giants dominating the larger audience. Although films like The Evil Dead(Raimi 1981) who were produced independently and taken up by an industrial distributor have been released on a blanket release due their popularity within the niche market.

This would be the ultimate goal for our film however this would be unlikely so the film would be distributed online otherwise.

Simultaneous release could also be an option such as like Afield In England (Wheatley 2013) Through technological convergence on film4 vod on demand and possibly DVD format.

Who and where might our product be distributed and is our media product independent or industrial?

We would distribute in art-house cinemas such as Curzon cinemas due to our unconventional plot and characters. It would appeal to more of a niche market.

One way our low budget film could be distributed could be through an international or local film festival such as Cannes or Sundance. This could relate to our inspiration of the evil dead (1981, Raimi) which was shown at Cannes film festival. This then led to New line Cinema distributing the film.

Our product would be heavily advertised and distributed through web2.0 utilising services such as vimeo.

Our low budget film similar to that of Monsters(Edwards, 2010) which was distributed by Vertigo films that likens to ours in filming techniques such as . Therefore it would be appropriate for our film to be distributed via vertigo films.

Our independent production would be distributed to art-house cinemas and online using a platform release typical to that of independent films such as monsters.

Strategies in connecting film to audience?

Another way to utilise synergistic promotional activity would be to provide text such as a comic book to enhance the awareness of the film or toys.

We could utilise the use of trailers on web2.0 and adverts on YouTube of other similar films to accurately target the precise target audience of around 15 to 25.

This would target a niche audience through web2.0 while keeping marketing affordable.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Evaluation Q6

How did we use a blog to work collaboratively?

Blogger enabled us to work in a synchronised fashion and put up posts at the same time.We also used YouTube to embed clips into the blog which was extremely effective.The comment facility also allowed the teachers to give feedback so we could improve our work. We could change our work with the editing feature on blogger.

Blogger also allowed us to look at other blogs and look at tasks and deadlines to accomplish as well as embedding stills into the blog to add more visuals to give the blog a more attractive design.

How did we film our work?

We filmed our work using a Sony nex-3n compact camera. Other kit we used included a tripod and longboard on which we film tracking shots.

We used 2 tripods to get the best high angle and low angle shots which were needed but sometimes awkward or out of the question. The 2 tripods helped solve this as 1 went lower than the other. The larger tripod was also of use as a steadicam in the reliable hands of Jack day. Panning with the tripods was also an issue as it was occasionally hard to get the camera to move at the perfect speed consistently without juddering.

With the camera we were able to achieve some pull focus shots and the large screen allowed us to utilise the rule of thirds and positioning of things within the frame. It also allowed us to interpret the depth of field. The brightness and contrast on the camera is extremely bold.

Adobe Premiere Element 9.0

The off the shelf editing software we used was adobe premiere elements 9.0 costing around 40 pounds to purchase. This although limiting allowed us to edit in creative ways.

The contrast and brightness of the visuals could also be changed to get the desired effect on the film.

For example we would merge many clips together and expand the timeline to get the cutting rate to the nearest second. Using Dafont we were able to embed titles in the optimal places throughout our piece. We were also able to fade these in and out and reduce the transparency or increase the transparency of many shots. This allowed our two time dimensional timeline to be more clear. The editing software allowed us to embed sound from freesound.org to use in our piece.

We could overlay more than one sound to enhance the effect using different layers.

Editing issues were that the software did not always sync the sound as we would like and there were not as many layers as we would have liked.

YouTube

We used YouTube in many ways. One way used YouTube was to research other film opening productions to give us inspiration for own production, for example The Shining(Kubrick,1980). We also used YouTube to upload our opening and the preliminary to the blog. Allowing anyone to view our video. This makes it a highly cost effective way to get your film out to the audience and potentially distribute making. This is because the only cost is of the technologically converged device and the internet broadband.