Institutional Research

Taking into account that my media text would be a low budget British film, using smaller distribution company’s compared to bigger ones such as Warner Bros. and Universal that have been involved with the distribution of films such as ‘American Gangster’ and ‘The Bourne’ Series. Although these are all very successful films using well established film distributers I don’t think these would be the best companies to use as they are used to working with medium to high budget films, having filmed in many expensive location and studios. Considering a smaller distribution company like Capelight Pictures would be a better option. Capelight Pictures have been involved with films like ‘Kidulthood’ and its sequel ‘Adulthood’, ‘Cherrybomb’ and ‘The Reckoning’ all films with a sub genre or main genre of crime. How these films were made and the budget and age rating of the film would be very similar to mine.

There are different production companies that I could use to be involved in the production of my media text, big well known companies include Paramount, New Line Cinema however there are smaller companies that it think would be more suitable to produce my media text such as Cipher Films and TMC Films. The media text I am producing would be a low budget film therefore I would only need a small percentage of people to actually pay to watch my media text to make a profit. Because of this, using a smaller production company would be more suitable. Cipher films were also involved in the production of British drama film ‘Kidulthood’. Kidulthood has sub genres of crime and gangster similar to my media text. Kidulthood was also a low budget film costing around £600,000 to produce; this was possible as most scenes were filmed on the streets of London rather than in studios and it took about only a month to film. The qualities shown in the production of this film are very similar to what I think I would expect if producing my media text in ‘real life’.  Cipher Films also helped produce the sequel to ‘Kidulthood’, ‘Adulthood’. To keep the same production company throughout both films Cipher Films must be a reliable company. Cipher Films also has other experience producing British drama/crime genre films such as ‘All Things to All Men’. Therefore I think Cipher films would be the best production company to choose to be involved in the production of my media text.

Doing this institutional research has given me insight not only into the type of distrubution and production of my own media text but also into those of other films. This helped me to decide which companies would be the best for my short film and why. Looking at the distribution and production of films that would be similar to my media text was really interesting and helpful to understand how it would work in 'real life'.