Question 3

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 Our production company name is 'Spotlight Productions', which contains the moving

 image of a stage light panning upwards. 

Including a moving object serves the purpose of obtaining the audience's attention. The decision to include a prop or spotlight as the object of choice was made as it is something usually associated with film or production, immediately denoting to people who see the logo what type of company it is and its involvement in media. Inspiration for this ident was drawn from Pixar's famous lamplight animation, which has become the iconic marketing image of choice for the American company. 

Similarly to the Pixar ident, there is a blank background in our ident, which ultimately forces the viewer to alter their attention to the more concentrated foreground, meaning that both the company name and image will be more often seen and remembered. Warner Bros. is another example which demonstrates the tactic of displaying nothing focused or important in the background, necessitating the viewer to recognise the ident image displayed.­

 In production company idents such as Paramount Pictures, typography is used in order to make sure that the key focus in the shot is the name of the company, e.g. using the golden mean so as to place the name of the company on the area of the screen, as opposed to placing it nearer the bottom or towards the side. Paramount places their title at the top of a mountain peak, the highest and most distinguished point on the screen, with a significant amount of lighting on top of this. Clouds are utilised to make the surrounding area less interesting to the viewer. 

A production company is the largest and most prominent group in a movie or film project, and they are often tasked with being the main fundraisers for the film being created. They oversee the majority of what is placed in a film and are often owned by a film studio, however can be independent. The purpose of a production company is to garner funds for a filming project and is heavily involved in many processes including budgeting, scheduling, scripting and marketing as well as distribution and post-production work. Choices of actors and directors will be based on the type of movie being created and the budget given to create the production. Overall sales of a certain production will be an influencing factor for production companies in setting a budget for their next production.

For our distributor, we considered using various companies, including larger companies that are notable for producing and distributing thrillers including Paramount Pictures and Hollywood Pictures. Hollywood pictures, the production company for the movie ‘The Sixth Sense’, is based in California. This location would be beneficial for creating a thriller as there are many film studios and sets in the surrounding area that would be easily accessible. While this company was a division of Disney, it had a history for producing relatively low key thriller and action movies. But due to its ties with Disney, the company had a large financial backing, which means there would be little in terms of limitations for a budget for a thriller film.

 Eventually, we decided to choose New Line Cinema as our film producer and distributor. 

New Line is an American film studio founded in 1967, and has distributed and produced various thriller movies, most notably Se7en. The company is now merged with Warner Bros, and still co-produces films with the company today. Combining the companies’ previous endeavours with incredibly successful psychological thrillers we have emulated such as Se7en and with the company now being owned by the highly established Warner Bros, which also produces thriller films, we felt that New Line would be appropriate both topically and financially. Even without our thriller receiving additional funding through New Line’s connection with Warner Bros, the company has a successful history of turning smaller budgets into massive gains from the box office. Se7en’s initial budget was $33 million, which became $327.3 million grossed from the box office.

Our production company is placed before the opening of the thriller, which is something almost always replicated in most films in general. We decided to have the director as the first title during the film, seeing as the role is arguably the most important individual role. This is followed by the actor names and then the various production roles including casting, editing and sound. The actual title of the film comes towards the end of the opening, which was deliberately to create enigmas and to support the conventions of typical thrillers, including Se7en, which places the title towards the end of the opening.

Films similar to our production ‘Missing’ that were distributed by New Line Cinema include The Conjuring and Se7en, both of which include similar settings and narratives. Despite The Conjuring being a horror film by definition, the audience viewing would be of a similar target age group, so watchers of that film would likely be interested in watching our production.