3: Creative Critical Reflection

1. By Richie Batey
Engagement And Distribution

2. How Do Your Products
Engage With The Audience?
• One of the first things I did was identify my target
audience, to do this I needed to find out who they
are (factors to consider may be include age,
gender, ethnicity, social class), what their media
needs are (so that I could produce a product that
they will want) and how to reach them.
• In preparation for creating my own audience
profile I investigated how brands define audiences.
I looked at how major EMedia brands profile their
target audience by looking at Bauer Media, NME
and Sky, this helped me profile my audience.
Piktochart – Audience Research.

3. Identifying My Target Audience
• After my research, the first form
of action I took in trying to
identify my target audience was
creating an audience
questionnaire on Google Forms,
this helped a lot as it was a way
of getting answers to the
questions that helped us identify
our audience.
• I asked both quantitative and
qualitative questions, such as
What is your age? And What are
three things that you would like
to see in a short film?

4. Questionnaire
Results

5. How I Used Social
Media To Engage
My Audience
• As I learnt from Lionsgate’s
Matt Smith, the spend on
digital marketing has increased
massively, after hearing this I
created a Website, Facebook
account, Twitter account and
an Instagram account, which
are all free to create. As Matt
Smith says there are two types
of distribution there is
marketing which is paid for and
publicity which is free.

6. Our Film’s USP
• As well as profiling my audience, I worked out why my
audience enjoyed the genre, I asked myself, why would
they want to watch the film? What makes my film
different from my competitors? And how will my film
appeal to my target audience’s viewing wants and
needs?
• Our short film short film sets out to be slick & fast-
paced with thrills and spills, enigma and suspense, a
twist at the end and sophisticated settings and
technology. I think that it offers a really interesting,
topical and exciting experience to my target audience. I
also have tried to make my website easy to navigate
and ensure that my post card communicates the genre
efficiently.

7. Research Into Audience Profiling
• Some brands do a lot more than have just a Facebook page and a
Twitter feed, I discovered how a large budget can buy integration of a
film launce across a range of existing successful products that engage
strongly with the target audience, for example Lionsgate linked
Celebrity Big Brother to their 2016 film Nerve, the reason why this
was successful was because the target audience for Celebrity Big
Brother was similar to that of Nerve.
• "We all know young people are big users of social media, and
therefore to truly engage with this audience, the use of a social
platform was key within the campaign.”
• Reports show that 74% of millennials, particularly those aged from 14
to 17 regularly use smartphones during TV viewing. Since the start of
new-age distribution Celebrity Big Brother has been one of the most
talked about TV programmes on Twitter, this is because of the non-
stop action, it causes the audience to tweet about it with their
friends. Finding out that the audience of Celebrity Big Brother tweet a
lot during the programme made it clear to Lionsgate that this was the
right platform to promote Nerve as it was this generation of active
Twitter users that was the target audience for the film.

8. Who Is My
Target
Audience?
How to Find
Out
1. Who Is My Primary Target Audience? For example:
British, Male and female, 18-45+, Loves thriller films, TV
crime drama and Psychological thrillers.
2. What Kind of Films and Television Programmes Are They
Likely to Prefer?
3. What Platforms Do They Choose to Watch Films and
Where Are They Likely to See Information About Films?
4. What Brands Do They Prefer? (Food, Clothing, Media).
5. What Makes My Film Stand Out from The Competition?
For example: Our film is about a war photographer who
suffers from post-traumatic stress and kidnaps a child.

9. • The time I spent understanding and identifying my
audience has helped me create a profile of my ideal
audience member. The information that I found out
during my research was very useful when creating my
marketing and distribution strategy.
John Bailey - Aged 19:
My Audience Profile

10. The Role Of A
Distributor
I learnt that the role of the distributor is to
sell the film to cinemas so that the film can
bring in income, this is done by:
• Identifying its audience.
• Considering why they would go and see
the film.
• Estimating the revenue.
• Persuading exhibitors to play the film to
the public (in a cinema).
• Developing plans and partnerships.
• Building interest and buzz about the film.
• Aiming to convert as much interest as
possible into film visits.

11. The Role Of
A Distributor
• The distributor needs to think about
the film's target audience. Every single
film has a target audience, for example,
an action-packed crime drama will be
targeted at older boys aged 16-40.
• The reason why finding a target
audience is so crucial is because this
who the distributor will base their
marketing campaign on, when making
a Disney princess film for example,
they will have a general idea of who
their target audience is, but when
making a 15 rated comedy film, a
distributor would have to find a more
precise age range as boy/men and
girls/women aged from 15-40 could go
and watch these films.
• The usual audience for cinema tends to
be young adults aged between 15-24
and family groups, a film which appeals
to a very particular age group or
personality would have to do very well
in the box office to stay in the theatres.

12. The Release
Date
The marketing team is usually in charge of the release
date, they will usually release a film at a tactical time
to generate views, for example, films aimed at
children are usually released during the summer
because they are on school holidays and romantic
films tend to be released around Valentine’s day or
Christmas time.
How UK Distributors Acquire the Films They
Release:
• A third-party sales agent.
• A continuous flow of new content from a big studio.
• Negotiating with a studio or production company.

13. Distribution Companies
Distributors Ask Themselves:
• WHO will want to see the film?
• WHY will they want to see the film?
• HOW will they be persuaded to see the film?
Independent Film Distributors:
• Lionsgate.
• Magnolia Pictures.
• A24.
• The Weinstein Company.
Independent British Film Distributors:
• Warp.
• Vertigo.
• Verve.

14. How Would Your Products Be
Distributed As Real Media?
• Film distribution is the process of making a movie available
for viewing by an audience, during my research into the
distribution of short films, I watched a video about the role
of the distributor, I learned about the specific steps which
are taken to distribute a film. We looked at three different
distribution companies that we thought we could use for
our short film, we looked at Verve, Vertigo and Warp.
• I decided that Warp Films should distribute my film
because when doing research into the types of films they
produce and distribute, I noticed that many of them are of
a similar genre or plot to Conned, ”We’re drawn to
distinctive, amusing and thought-provoking content.”
• Another reason why I decided to choose Warp films to
distribute my film was because the films they distribute
tend to get nominated and win awards for different aspects
of the film, as an aspiring film maker this is a valid reason
for choosing them.

15. Verve Pictures
• Verve and Vertigo were both strong contenders as they were both
open to independent film makers using their platform to
distribute their film, this appealed to us as the budget and
marketing for our film would not be as big as say Jurassic World
which would have been distributed through one of the Big Six.
• At Verve Pictures, they said they specialise in the release of
independent film in cinemas and on DVD, offering audiences the
chance to enjoy original and thought provoking cinema from the
UK and around the world, we all liked Verve as a distribution
company as, similarly to Warp, it specializes in the distribution of
independent film but we chose Warp above it purely based on
the genre of films released by Warp. Verve distributed the film My
Brother the Devil (2013) which won the Most Promising
Newcomer at Evening Standard Film Awards.

16. Vertigo Films
• Vertigo Films is a British independent TV and Film
company founded in 2002 by Allan Niblo and
James Richardson. They have built up one of the
most successful feature film businesses in the UK
and are now concentrating on television
production.
• Vertigo’s focus is on original, cinematic and
international stories, they have unique marketing
skills which led to the success of its first two
shows for Sky – Britannia and Bulletproof –
Vertigo is rapidly becoming one of the UK’s
leading independent TV production companies,
the reason why we chose against Vertigo was
because its focus now seems to be more on
television production and we wanted Warp who
are primarily focused on independent film
distribution.

17. Matt Smith’s FDA
Interview
• I watched a video by Matt Smith, the Co-Head Theatrical
at Lionsgate UK about Launching films on the FDA website,
in this video he talks about the more modern way of
distributing films.
• One of the things he mentioned was “You used to get two
and a half minutes and now you only get five seconds…”
By this he was referring to YouTube trailers as a lot of the
time, the audience gets the option to skip the advert after
5 seconds so distributors have to draw them in, in that 5
seconds and they have to get all the important
information in that 5 seconds, release date and the main
actor/actress for example.
• To combat this distributors now add an advisory warning
telling viewers that a worth while trailer is about to load to
try and prevent them from skipping.

18. Matt Smith’s FDA Interview
• Another thing that Smith spoke about was the adaptation
to the world of mobile phones, he says that they have
had to “re-cut the portrait frame” for recent films as a lot
of the promotion for these films is seen on a phone
screen which is long and narrow instead of the wide and
tall cinema screen as it used to be. He also mentioned
that they have generally “cut down trailers” as people
attention span is shorter than it used to be, and it is
harder to keep them enticed for two minutes so they are
usually cut trailers down to one minute.
• Smith spoke on how YouTube vloggers are a key to
success when trying to promote the film because the
vloggers audiences care about their opinion and they will
tend to do what their favourite YouTuber does because
they are such big fans, Smith said “We try to get them
engaged with the film so they can get their audience
engaged with the film as well.” This is a very tactical
method as the audiences of such vloggers will usually be
the target audience for the film they are promoting.

19. Roma (2018)
• According to the FDA's 2017 handbook, audiences visit the
cinema 2.6 times a year, and Simon Duke, Technology Business
Editor (20.12.18 The Times) reports that the British box office
is on course for its best year since 1971. Filmgoers are
expected to have clocked up 176 million visits for this year, it’s
a similar picture across the Atlantic, where takings are forecast
to top $12 billion for the first time.
• However, internet streaming giants are pressing their bets on
in-house film productions, while catching the eye of the Oscars
and Golden Globes. Netflix had high hopes for Roma, by the
Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, and is expected to release 90
feature length films next year.
• Many studios are now launching their own streaming services,
as well as BBC Sounds. In an ideal world, I would love our short
film to be picked up by a streaming service who would
distribute it to potentially huge numbers of viewers.

20. Manchester By The Sea (2016)
• There are other distribution methods for indie films which
have been made possible by Web 2.0 such as Netflix,
Amazon Prime, iTunes, BitTorrent Bundle and Vimeo on
Demand.
• There are rapid changes taking place in the film industry
from the traditional ways of distributing film through to the
digital formats used today. Online platforms are now being
used to distribute and market films (Netflix) and the
relative success that different films texts had with these.
For example, Netflix and Amazon were outbidding all the
major movie studios at Sundance in January 2016.
• Amazon outbid Hollywood heavyweights Fox and Universal
for the rights to distribute Manchester by the Sea—a
Sundance debut. Amazon paid $10 million for the film and
gave it a traditional theatrical run to ensure it qualified for
all the major awards. The film then streamed on Amazon
Video.