Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

LS29 are basically a no cost film company to the extent that we don’t use famous actors, expensive costs, special effects or an ideal location that would cost money to rent. Therefore, a famous distributor such as 20th Century Fox or Dreamworks aren’t going to be interested in our film simply because it doesn’t fit with into the category of being a huge budget, worldwide film with incredible special effects and famous actors like most of their films do.

For this reason, I believe that LS29’s debut production, Red Run would be suited to a low budget indie production company such as Optimum Releasing or Warp X, a company that produces cheap films such as Dead Mans Shoes (2004) which had a budget of £723,000 and went to box office, avoiding "straight-to-DVD" and got a 7.7 imdb rating. I believe that our film would suit this company as it can be distributed cheaply on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, keeping the cost low, meaning that they make more profit from the film. Also, to keep distribution cheap, Red Run could simply be downloaded to hard drives worth £50 rather than spending £1000s on producing film reels.

I don’t believe that by distributing Red Run cheaply, the film will not make a lot of money as a lot of Indie productions can make a giant profit. For example, This is England, directed by Shane Meadows, an auteur on a budget of £1.5 million made £207,676 (UK) on 62 screens on its opening weekend. My Beautiful Laundrette, directed by Stephen Frears with a budget of £650,000 grossed $2,451,545 (USA) which shows that films which are cheap to produce and distribute don’t have to remain that way and can become highly profitable. My Beautiful Laundrette, a controversial film made on a small budget was only intended for television but when it was extremely successful at the Cannes film festival it was brought out as a film and on dvd showing that a lot of Indie productions may be underestimated and can compete with Hollywood productions, for example The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow on a budget of $11,000,000 which grossed $12,647,089 (USA) (15 November 2009).

Therefore, a company that would be likely to distribute LS29 Production's film, Red Run would be Warp X, a Subsidiary of independent film producer and distributor Warp. Warp X were given £1,000,000 to produce 10 films, denoting that they are a low budget, Indie company. Red Run would fit the low budget film category as neither of the cast are famous and therefore expensive to pay and also the props were very cheap, almost next to nothing. Also, the film was produced using digitization rather than traditional film equipment which is very expensive.