Simran Hussain

Media Evaluation
Activity 3

What kind of media institution might distribute

your media product and why?
What does a production company do?
A production company provides the basic provisions needed to produce a film. These
include: financial services (budgeting of finance put into film production), scripting,
timetables and arrangements, providing the directors, actors/actresses and other necessary
resources (e.g. props), pre-production, production and post-production requirements,
distribution of the film and the marketing that needs to be carried out. Aside from providing
these necessities, production companies are held liable for almost everything that happens
during the production of the film, for example, if a member were to get injured, the
production company would be held accountable for it and would be blamed, as it is their job
to ensure that the working environment is safe. Eventually, once all the pre and postproduction work is complete, the production company would be responsible for the
outcome of the final product.
Our Production Company is called Pixx Productions. This idea was developed from the
acronym for the word pictures, which was pics; we changed the word to Pixx in order to
allow diversity and creativeness. Pictures is also a direct link to media and so, we thought it
best fit its purpose. We then decided to add Productions to it, to ensure the name is more
professional.
What is a distributor?
A distributor is one that deals with the marketing of the film. With marketing comes the
responsibility of selling the film to the target audience. To do this they must have effective
methods of promotion, considering release dates, managing social networking sites,
creating trailers and teasers etc. Having a distributor would mean they would be able to
decide how the product is to be presented to the audience. Examples of ways in which it
could be presented are through submissions into film festivals, home viewing options like
television it would be viewed on specific distribution channels and online downloads from
computers. Some high-flying distributors in the UK are: 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate UK,
Warner Bros. Universal, Icon Film Distribution, Eros Entertainment etc.
Where does the money come from for a film such as ours?
In any case, when producing a film, it is necessary to consider thinking about who would
budget the film and where the money would come from. Our film is one that would be of
low popularity as it would be a 90-minute amateur film with actors of little or no acting
experience; therefore having a low budget for the film. As a group we would reduce the
amount the money spent into producing the film. Whilst filming the opening sequence we
found that we did need not spend any money on necessary resources such as costume,
props (e.g. candles, IPhone, etc.), equipment (e.g. cameras, lights, tripod, fig rig etc.). This
was possible because the costume used by both actors were ones they owned themselves,

Simran Hussain
Media Evaluation
Activity 3
the props used were objects that were already in possession by either the actors (IPhone
was owned by Stefania Sopterean), or by us (group members) and finally, equipment was
supplied to us by the school this consisted of things like the camera and its equipment etc.
However, despite our low budget, if we did consider having a produced a big budgeted short
film we could usually be funded by film grants. Film grants can come from:
UK film council/British Film Institute After the takeover of the UKFC by BFI, funding
for films has been closed until further notifications about future funding models
National and Regional Screen Agencies
Local councils they would fund towards short filmmaking initiative
Charities various charities fund short films, if we think about getting funds from a
charity, we would have to think carefully about the
Production Schemes and Competitions various schemes set up by broadcasters
Completion Funding you are able to secure vital completion funds for filmmakers
and production companies.
Help with festivals the British Council run a scheme where selected films are
promoted to the list of 50-60 major international film festivals.
If we were to distribute our film to the wider society, aiming to a higher number of our
target audience, we would consider different production companies, which would present
our work on their programs. For example: BBC who are known to promote and present
small-scale films on their website, which is popular amongst the British communities.
Another may be Film 4, which is another British channel owned and operated by Channel
Four Television Corporation or Working Title, which is a British film production company,
owned by Universal Studios, it produces feature films and several television productions.