Function of a Distribution company

All films have their individual distribution plan. The distributors in accordance with the producers and/or studio decide on when and how they will release the film thereby increasing it's chances to work by attaining the largest audience possible and hopefully make a profit.


Planning a release: Even before thinking about sending out a movie to the mass market, the distributors need to think how they are going to do this. Through their market knowledge, commercial experience, statistical research and professional judgement this goes a long way to making a film release as successful as possible and gain the best suited audience.  

Focus on the audience: For the distribution company they want to acquire as large and diversified audience as possible, including niche groups and not forgetting the core target audience of 15-24 year olds. They need to fully understand the target audience in a variety of areas:
- Age group
- Gender
- Lifestyles
- Social networks used
- Media consumption patterns
These all allow the distributor to decide when and how the film will reach its audience.
The audience can vary greatly from families with young children, teenage males and females and older adults. There can be a combination of any of these if the film includes interests for all age groups. Not all films can target all age groups, for instance a horror would be targeted primarily at the 15-24 age group and not at families with young children. The distributor's challenge is to attract as wide an audience as possible and to "break out" and "cross over" with the different target audience groups.

The competitive jungle: There are other factors that need to be taken into account apart from the target audience and commercial risk. The distributors need to consider their competitors and the affect they will have on releasing their own film.
Issues for consideration for the distributors on other competing film releases:
- Is the film a mass market blockbuster, an event film or a specialised film for a particular audience?
- Is there a star actor/actress in the cast. If so did they create a positive or negative impact among the public and critics?
-  Is the film made by made by a "name" director or producer e.g. Steven Spielberg?
- Can any of the cast members be available for a premiere?
- Is the film being released in a holiday period, which season and what holiday periods have been successful previously?
- Does the film have hopes of recieving award nominations such as Golden Globe and The Academy Award?
- Will the film lead the media reviews of that weeks new releases?
- Is there already a positive feel for the film, due to stars in the cast, follow on from the book or a controversial issue?
- Is it a sequel or franchise entry?
- Has the film already started its viewing abroad, especially in the US with its huge target audience. If there is positive reviews here then it will help the success in the UK before it gets there.
- Wgat certification does the film have? This will affect the potential target audience.

Satisfying anticipated demand: A film is commonly released either as saturated or staggered and this is done in either way chosen to attain the largest audience possible. For a saturated release, the film is released everywhere, usually in over 1,000 cinemas with 2 or more screens per theatre. This strategy is usually taken out by "tentpole" titles such as large-scale sequels or star-led holiday releases. This enables the distributors to recieve mass audiences who are eager to see the film at the earliest possible opportunity.

Digital Regeneration: In this day and age the majority of films are released digitally or on 35mm celluloid prints. A digital release is in the form of a disk which has encrypted codes for security which are released to the cinema and then fed into a server and from here is projected onto the screen through a state-of-the-art projector. The advantages of the digital disk is that it is firstly 10 times less the cost of the 35mm prints. Also the disks can be copied to a high quality without the sound or picture being damaged.

Budgeting the release: There are many costs involved to work out an accurate budget . The distributors will stick to a strict budget as to make sure that they will cover the costs from releasing the film and other such spin-offs such as merchandise will help towards the most important stage of breaking-even. Although they can't hold back on certain cost otherwise the film will not be able to be marketed very well and win the needed target audience.
The distributors in the UK have to pay all of the release costs including marketing and the multiple number of prints which are duplicated (either 35mm or digital). The budget also contains the launch and sustaining of the film post-release.
A distribution budget can be categorised into different cost areas to make it easier for the distributor to see where there money is going. These include the following:
- 35mm prints
- Digital prints
- Media Costs, e.g. all advertising including tv, radio, press, online, outdoor and in brochures.
- Promotions
- Publicity, e.g. press screenings, premieres, festival screenings and journalists' travel/cuttings.
- Campaign production, e.g. poster printing, film poster designs, Tv spots production, Film trailer production, and Official UK film website content.
- Other costs including courier, copying and research screening.