The Evolution of Film Distribution
Once again… The internet has changed everything.
According to John Vivian’s The Media of Mass Communication, the three components of movie industry structure are production, distribution and exhibition. An interesting topic concerning movie industry structure is the ever-evolving development of distribution in movie making.
Distribution is the idea of taking the finished film and producing advertisements to figure out how to get the movie out there.
With the rise of the internet age, distribution strategies are consistently changing and evolving. The internet has made it possible for the potential of films to be fully maximized during the distribution stage.
Using internet resources such as advertisements on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. it is possible to take a cheap movie, spend a large amount of money on advertising and marketing and make a large profit from that. This is extremely important for all films, but especially for low budget films, independent films, etc. These films are not necessarily made with amazing cinematography and may not be as well known by a large amount of people, but through internet advertising these films are able to reach more people than they would be able to without the internet.
Think about how many times you look something up on YouTube and the advertisement that precedes your video is a trailer for an up-coming movie. Sometimes you do have the option to skip those ads but in my experience, a lot of times I will continue to watch the trailer anyways. Quite often I will not have heard of this movie before but now that I randomly came upon the trailer I am that much more likely to take interest in and see that movie.
Booking ad space for a movie in newspapers and magazines is extremely costly so being creative in marketing via social media and public relations becomes important for small and large films alike. Even more so, the booking of movies to be played in theaters is an expensive undertaking as well. The internet allowed film companies to connect with resources such as the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Amazon.com to promote new films without necessarily having to be played in big theaters.
Before the rise of the internet age, distribution of a movie depended on things like television commercials, previews before a feature film on VHS, DVD, etc. or in theaters, movie posters, and advertisements in newspapers, magazines, etc.
The methods used in movie distribution before the internet have been effective in many ways. For example there are still previews that are shown before the feature film in the movie theater as well as on DVDs. However, despite the effectiveness of these tactics, the internet has widened the audience to which films are advertised exponentially. In regards to a movie preview, the audience would be confined to current movie-goers or someone who purchased a particular movie on VHS, DVD, etc. On the internet, the audience is more likely to be a mix of both intentional customers for that particular movie as well as complete “passer-byes” who weren’t even necessarily on the topic of movies and did not have to purchase anything at all to be exposed to the trailer.
The distribution stage of the movie making industry has grown and developed along side with the new developments in technology. These changes have been positive for both small and large budget films and have allowed movies to be offered to much larger audiences.
