1. INSTITUTIONS AND AUDIENCES
FILM INDUSTRY
INTRODUCTION TO PRODUCTION,
DISTRIBUTION AND MARKETING

2. AIMS
• To understand the focus for KEY TERMS
the Audience and Audience
Institutions section of your Institution
Exam
Production
Subsidiary
• To understand the structure
Distribution
of a Media Triangle
Marketing
Exhibition
• To understand the different
sectors of the film industry Horizontal Integration
Vertical Integration

3. THE EXAM
Section B: Institutions and Audiences
Candidates should be prepared to understand and discuss the processes of production,
distribution, marketing and exchange as they relate to contemporary media institutions, as well as
the nature of audience consumption and the relationships between audiences and institutions. In
addition, candidates should be familiar with:
•the issues raised by media ownership in contemporary media practice;
•the importance of cross media convergence and synergy in production, distribution and marketing;
•the technologies that have been introduced in recent years at the levels of production, distribution,
marketing and exchange;
•the significance of proliferation in hardware and content for institutions and audiences;
•the importance of technological convergence for institutions and audiences;
•the issues raised in the targeting of national and local audiences (specifically, British) by
international or global institutions;
•the ways in which the candidates’ own experiences of media consumption illustrate wider patterns
and trends of audience behaviour.
This unit should be approached through contemporary examples in the form of case studies based
upon one of the specified media areas.

4. Film Four
• Trainspotting
• Looking for Eric
• Slumdog Millionaire

5. MEDIA TRIANGLES
What they have
produced
Media
Text
Target
Institution
Audience
Who has produced Who it is produced
the media text for.

6. THE FILM PROCESS
There are three distinct areas of the film industry.
Each one of these could be viewed as a type of media institution.
PRODUCTION DISTRIBUTION EXHIBITION
What would you expect to happen at each stage?

7. IDEA (Pre-production)
FILMING (production)
(in/out of sets)
EDITING (post-production)
PRODUCTION
MARKETING
DISTRIBUTE TO CINEMA
(prints)
DISTRIBUTION
EXHIBITED (sown in) CINEMA
DISTRIBUTE TO
DVD/SHOPS
EXCHANGE (TV, online (itunes,),
EXHIBITION
downloading ( netflix) piracy etc)

8. • Production involves the creation of the media
product and is the responsibility of the
PRODUCTION COMPANY
• This includes all pre-production, production & post-
production processes.
• Before that the writer/director/producer must find
finance for a film – which may come from one or Figment Films is the
many production companies (a co-production) production company
who made
Trainspotting.
Channel 4 (film 4)
financed the film

9. •Film distributors are responsible for prints and marketing:
PRINTS – producing physical copies of a film for cinema/home
release and finding the exhibitors/retailers to sell the film
MARKETING – raising audience awareness and anticipation of a
new release
•A distributor may:
-Be a part of the same parent company as the production company
-Have a long term arrangement with a production company and
provide financial assistance for many of their productions
-Provide financial assistance for a single film by a production
company Miramax distributed
-Acquire a film after it has completed production Trainspotting and
bought the rights for
•A film will likely have different distributors for: $750,000 – in your case
-Releases in different countries study look carefully at
how it was marketed
-Cinema Release
and distributed.
-Home-Video Release

10. • Exhibition is divided into two sections:
- Cinema – the distributor is paid by the cinema for a copy
of the film FilmFour made its
reputation with films
- Home – the distributor is paid by the company who is such as Trainspotting
selling the film for a copy in 1996, which made
£23m at the box office
• A film’s success is often decided on the amount of money but cost only £2.4m
it makes during it’s cinema release. This is known as the and was the highest
Box Office Takings grossing British film in
1996.
• However, it was far
Home Exhibition is becoming an increasing valuable and
more successful on
varied source for distributors to increase profits. DVD, spawning
numerous versions and
WHAT METHODS OF HOME EXHIBITION CAN WE THINK special editions
OF? Why would this film be
more successful on DVD
than in the cinema?

11. HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL INTEGRATION
Often a single parent company will own multiple
companies in the film industry.
HORIZONTAL
This is divided into two types of ownership: The parent company
owns multiple
companies at the same
stage of the film
industry. A smaller
PRODUCTION PRODUCTION PRODUCTION company, owned by the
parent is a subsidiary.
VERTICAL
DISTRIBUTION The parent company
For example Warner Brosalso owns:
For example Walt Disney owns multiple
companies across
owns:
•Miramax Films different stages of the
•Warner Bros Studios (Production) film industry.
EXHIBITION •Hollywood Pictures
•Warner Bros (Distribution)
•Pixar Animation
•Used to own Warner Bros Cinemas What are the
in the UK (Exhibition) advantages for a parent
company of each type
of ownership?

12. RECAP
What do the following terms mean in relation to the film industry?
• Production
• Subsidiary
• Distribution
• Marketing
• Exhibition
• Horizontal Integration
• Vertical Integration