Evaluation Activity 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your product and why?
What does a production company do?
A production company provides for the requirements in the realms of television, radio, video and film. It mainly handles budgeting, scripting, scheduling, supplies talent and resources, organization of staff, post production, distribution and marketing. Production companies can also work alongside another company is a co-production, which could mean finances and budgets are shared equally between the co-producers.
Someone who might run a production company could be a Director, producer, or even a production executive. A production company relies entirely on its talent to lead the production to a success, and therefore make a profit.

Our production company:

This is the name and logo for our production company

We decided to call it 'Spine Chiller Productions' as when we were conducting research, we used a thesaurus and looked up synonyms of both 'thriller' and 'horror' and we found a very catchy, but uncommon phrase, and thought it would be perfect for our production company name, as it is both unique and striking, and definitely represents our production company to be one that distributes films of a scary/horror genre nature. The logo was created by me, and I wanted the text itself to be very unique and connote to the horror genre, but also be very clear. I found the font on picnik.com and thought it was very unusual but the use of skulls, lightning and distorted writing really drew me towards it. Also, I decided to use contrasting colours, but also keeping it simple, so I opted to use black and white, as black and white both symbolise death or threat, and I didn't want to keep it very typical by including red (even though it connotes blood and the horror genre) as I wanted to create something original and unique.

Opening credits for our film:

In the beginning of the production, the opening credits are set out in a specific order, as from watching films previously, we wrote down the order of job titles for each film, and applied it to our own production. We also found that they go in order of importance, which is why they are set out this way. Each credit is in a clear, readable white text, which is the basic text any film would use, this does not draw the eye away from the scenes, however does make it clear and readable for the viewer to acknowledge the roles within the production. Each opening credit has about 3-4 second intervals between them, which allows them to be read efficiently in this time, and not have them on screen for too long. In the credits, the production company is named first, thereafter the director, cameraman and editor, and lastly the cast. We thought we would only name the main contributors rather than having a lot of credits, as we wanted to sustain simplicity.

What is a film distributor and who would distribute our film?
A film distributor is a company who is responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically (i.e. to cinemas) or for home viewing (DVD). The distributor will also be in charge of marketing the product, in the form of advertisements, merchandise, trailers, posters etc. If the film is a foreign film, the production company will also be in charge of dubbing the film or adding subtitles. The funding and money for our own film will come from a film company which specializes in horror/thriller films.

Who could potentially distribute our film?
The SAW franchise has been distributed by a company named 'Lionsgate', and is known for distributing films of a horror/thriller genre. The film would benefit being produced from a well-known distribution company, as it is made more aware of, and in the public eye; which will therefore attract a larger and broader audience. The company is known to release and distribute successful horror/thriller films, which will heighten the ratings of the film, and make it successful as well, as a well known company will be sharing it with the world, and it would be very prestigious to be linked to a company as big as Lionsgate.

This is the logo for Lionsgate entertainment

We wanted to conjoin with lionsgate, as the logo is similar to ours in terms of color scheme, because this logo uses basic colors such as black and white, which is similar to our production logo. The two companies combined will both suit each other and create a visual relationship between them.
Our target audience is for teenagers, over the age of 15, as the BBFC states the film would be suitable for no-one under the age of 15. Through research, we have discovered that teenagers like to watch gory horror/thriller films, especially psychological thrillers/horrors and even supernatural horrors such as Paranormal Activity. Therefore, if our film was to be distributed by lionsgate, we would be able to address our audience better, and have them more liable to watch our film as they would have heard of it, as the distribution company is so well known.