Distribution of Films

Distribution = Marketing + Duplication + Getting it into cinemas
A film distributor brings a film into the movie market place, their responsibilities and tasks are massive they need to:
-Identify the USP (Unique Selling Point)
-Identify the target audience
-Research to help determine audiences, USPs etc.
-Decide the best way to advertise to your target audience (Internet, TV, Radio, Posters etc)
-Track their advertising campaigns to check to see if the advertising for the film is working.
-Decide a release date (which will almost always be a Friday)
The first element of advertising is the posters followed by teaser trailers for the film and then a full movie trailer.
Nowadays distributors find that the internet is becoming increasingly useful in reaching the masses with their advertising. For our no-budget film we would rely almost exclusively on the internet to publicise it. This may be difficult but there are examples of low budget films gaining enormous success using viral ad campaigns as a starting point. These include the Blair Witch Porject and Paranormal Activity.