1. Logistics of the film
The company that supplies the film to the dispatcher will need to meet the legal requirements. The film that the company has made is transported via lorry/ van to the cinema that has borrowed the film off of the film owners, the film is transported because the film is printed, this means that the film is a big, heavy object and this means manual labour is needed to transport it to place to place. The prints are very expensive to make, as a result the low budget films can only afford to buy and make around 10 prints (e.g. Dead Man’s Shoes), on the other hand the higher budget films can buy around 1000 prints (e.g. Harry Potter), the cost of a standard print is around £1000, but if a subtitled one is needed then the cost is £2000. The film: This is England and its makers were given a grant by the national lottery of almost £90k, this meant that they could buy more prints for the film and they purchased a further 20 more on top of their 10 prints before they were given the grant, this meant that the film was shown in more cinemas and as a result it was a successful film and it was watched by more viewers. The film prints can get damaged on the delivery, so the company send two of the prints to the cinema in case one of them is damaged/ broken on the way there.
2. Licensing
The company that make the films and then put them on prints sell them to the dispatchers and then the dispatchers rent that film out to the cinemas. But first the company need to send the film off to the regulatory body to give the right to show the movie and they put an age rating on that film depending on all of the violence, sexual scenes, language and so on... the age ratings are (U, PG, 12, 15 and 18) these are all of the age categories that films have with U being suitable for anyone and 18 being suitable for people equal to or over the age of 18 only. When the movie is shown in the cinemas the distributer gets paid every time that movie is shown, but the distributer then has to pay the production / the makers of the film some of that money. In the world there is 90 different territories for the films, the smaller independent companies will only send their movies out to 1 of the 90 territories and this usually tends to be at local destinations like in the UK, but the larger international companies send the films to all of the territories.
3. Prints and advertising
The different sized companies send different amounts of prints out to the cinemas and they also make different advertising techniques and categories. The smaller companies would produce around 10 prints and the marketing would be below the line advertising, this is advertising like: on the TV, on the internet, and in magazines, this sort of marketing is where the audience will have to look for the advert themselves and it reduces the chance of them hearing of that film, but the smaller companies usually use the method of recommendation, this cuts the advertising cost down by lots. The medium company would make around 200 prints and they would use all of the advertising methods in below the line advertising and they would also use some of the above the line advertising like billboards, posters and so on... finally the larger companies would make around 1000 prints and they would use all of the marketing methods in both above and below the line advertising. When the film is sent to the cinema there is the print and the trailers of the film (this is when they are renting the film) the posters that are made to advertise the film are on average size of 30X40 in the UK. The advertising is used in every way possible like being on busses, billboards, escalators, buildings and so on... when the film is being released there may sometimes be two films with the same genre, this means that the cinema will select the film that has a higher budget, also the film will need to have a sensible time to be shown like prime time. Almost 50% of the films budget will go on advertising. The trailers need to make the movie look good and they will also need to create the mystery, tease the audience and display the release date.
4. Digital distribution
There is a method for films that is using a digital format, this method has many advantages and it has some disadvantages. The advantages are: the film won’t have to be delivered, the film won’t get damaged, it costs a lot less, it can be downloaded which means it will be cheaper to watch and buy, cuts down piracy/ copying of the films, able to make more e.g. one for every cinema in the world, cheaper to send and so on... the disadvantages are: cuts out the middle man meaning lots of people are out of a job, the cinemas won’t have many people watching the films because it is cheaper to download, the films are compressed which means the quality of the picture is not as good, the sound quality is affected and so on... this scheme is a large scale in Brazil and China.
5. Film making
The films that have been made are released within certain days of the week, this is to make the audience watch the film more times and it will also increase the interest in the film. Most of the films are release on a Friday, this is because most of the other films are released during the week and this will increase the chance of people watching the film, also it is the end of the week, this means that it is the beginning of the weekend so this will also attract more of an audience. On average there are 10 films that are released every week. When the company that have made the film have received the information of the release date they can then start to make the marketing e.g. trailers and posters.
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