Media Production, Distribution & Marketing and Exhibition

Production:


Firstly, you have to start with the pre-production.
Within pre-production you start developing ideas, choosing locations, meeting the client, research and storyboarding.
Secondly you have the Production stage, this is when you actually start filming the footage and creating the sets. Once you’re at this point in time producers usually find it cheaper to produce the whole film instead of backing out and cancelling it.
In A Knight's Tale, Heath Ledger read the character description and script and fell in love with his character therefore he played the part well and believably, this is really important as it doesn't make the film look fake.
Finally, you come to the post-production stage where you edit, add special effects, add sound and do the titles and graphics for the movie. Post-production is very time consuming and can take longer to do than the actual production stage.

Distribution:

Once the film is produced and sent to the studio, the producers make a licensing agreement with s distribution company. This allows them to decide how many prints of the film to make and show a screening to potential target audiences to determine how successful the movie will be. The movie is then sent off to the theater a few days before the first opening, its then shown for a set amount of weeks where the audience can then buy a ticket to watch the film.

Marketing:

There are many ways to market a movie. Some of the most highly used methods are advertisements on tv, billboards, posters, social networking ads and bus ads. Despite companies paying lots and lots of money to get their movie marketed. word of mouth is a highly effective way to get your movie out there and spoken about. Films tend not to make a profit due to how much the production costs added with the marketing costs so companies rely on a few hit movies a season in order to make back the money they lost from all the movies that didn’t break-even. Marketing is highly important in getting the audience wanting to see the movie because it's everywhere they look, and everyone knows about it, it's human nature to get involved with what everyone else is doing and thats what movie marketing is using to their advantage.

Exhibition:

An audience can watch a film in many different ways nowadays whether it being from a DVD, Blu-Ray, cinema, mobile phone, computer or even your games console. You can access a film from almost anywhere you want, this is really important in the ways which we engage with films today. The traditional action of going to the cinema to see a film is still highly used due to its big-screen glamourous feel. However, more and more films are being viewed online by people on their own or in their livingroom with family members or friends, this feels more comfortable and relaxing. People are pirating films all the time and downloads are rocketing at high speeds, this jeopardizes cinema business’ and people’s experiences when watching a film.
Cinemas in a more commercial area, surrounded by fast food joints would sell tickets at a considerably higher price than a cinema in a more rural area where they aren't going to get as many customers. The layouts of the cinemas are also different varying from smaller, more intimate screenings to big stuffed screenings of a higher demanding place.