3. What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?

There are 2 different kinds of media institutions that may distribute our thriller “Blackmail”, these are Conglomerates and independent. A Conglomerate is a much larger company made up of many smaller companies known as subsidiaries. This is useful as these subsidiaries make easier film productions as they can do their own special effects and their own make up and props. However, independent film companies are much smaller companies who rely on the help of the finance of larger companies to create their films.

Our thriller would almost certainly be distributed by an independent film company as we do not have a good, well known actor or director associated with our thriller. This would mean that huge conglomerates such as Time Warner are almost certain to ignore us. Our thriller would firstly be introduced to small independent cinema before later, after a large waiting time, be released to DVD. It would not be released on BluRay or in 3D as this is the more expensive and our distribution company is not likely to have that much confidence in our production as it is from first time directors and poor acting (mainly from myself).  In conjunction with this, our thriller would only be produced in standard cinema and not in 3D or IMAX as once again these are much more expensive to produce and we will be doing everything we can too at least break even which will mean a lot of cost saving and sacrificing.

Whilst doing research with Linden on two possible distribution companies we discovered Hammer and Brain Damage films.  Hammer specialise with physiological thrillers which would complement our film as our film has a lot physiological factors and a dark and mysterious story line which Hammer would certain help us to perfect and do too full effect. Brain Damage films however are a Independent distribution company who specialise in Horror and physiological films.

The positives of working with an independent company is that it will apply to a much more invested niche market, which means our customers will be much more committed to the film and its franchise meaning we will benefit from increased sales of merchandise such as action figures, props and costumes.

However, there are negatives to working with an independent company. One of those is the lack of trust in the film can be de-motivating for the producers of the film, this is portrayed by the independent films being only shown in small cinemas and in standard cinema screens: not in HD or IMAX.