FDA UK Distribution Guide and Questions on Film Distribution

1. What is meant by the term film distribution?

Attracting the audience to see the film, getting it to the largest scale audience it can reach. 

2. What does a film distributor do? 
They look for distinguishing features of the film that they know will be marketable to a well suited audience. They also realize that a 'local' product is very important. In selling to audiences, they naturally are more accepting of films that originate from their home country, such as a British audience will be more inclined to warm to a British film. 

3. How does reach relate to film distribution?
If the marketing of a film has a large spread, and has a good frequency in the number of products that are produced, it will reach a wide audience and frequently be seen. However, this may create a good reach, but will cost a lot of money, so will need to be assured a profit on the film at the end of it. 

4. What is meant by the distribution plan? 
When and how to release a film in order to maximize chances of success. They gather not only market knowledge, but also commercial experience along with statistical evidence to gain information and result in release dates for the films. Once the distributors have estimated how much the film will earn, they prepare a budget for how much they can spend on marketing and production for the movie. 

5. What is meant by the marketing plan? 
The marketing plan is put in place to create awareness about the film, and to gain as much publicity as is possible. This is done through finding the most popular ways to get the attention of a specific audience. For example, newspaper adverts will gain more attention from older audiences, as they are more likely to be reading it. However, trailers for the film that come on in the adverts of the channel four soap 'Hollyoaks' will be a younger, more teen based audience, because they are the age group that will be watching the show. Posters, trailers and online sources are ways of marketing the product. 

6. What is the difference between advertising, publicity and promotion?
Advertising is where companies pay for their product to be put our to the audience, and establishes awareness of it. For instance, the new new Hunger games film, Mocking jay will have paid for their film poster to be put in magazines, on websites and on billboards. The company pay for the amount of space the poster will take up, and for how long it will remain in/on there and in the public eye. However, the idea of promotions, is to build sales in the short term, rather than the large scale, long-term awareness that advertising brings. Promotion also can allow the audience to interact with the product. Examples of these are press releases and merchandise to promote the film. Alternatively, publicity is what is gained from the advertising and promotion of the product. Publicity can be gained by the film's cast making appearances and dong public interviews about the film. This has been known to engage the audience more than some advertising that has been paid for. The audience are more likely to take an interest, if it is of a more personal nature, such as interviews with famous talk show hosts, such as Johnathan Ross. This will all gain exposure for the film, making it more profit in sales, as it will be more popular and well known.