Film Industry

The film Industry

The film industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, it's very diverse as countries from all over the world are in the film making. However the main countries that are in the centre of the industry are the United States, as well as India (the largest producer of films in the world), Nigeria, Hong Kong and a few countries in Europe.

Watching films has now become an everyday activity to a lot of us but we don't notice how much time, effort and planning is put into each film. In the film industry there are four stages that need to be carried out in order to produce a film. Those four stages are production, distribution, marketing and exhibition. 

Production - At this stage everything needed for the film is planned and designed. The director visualises the film and the storyboard is then created. Once the storyboard is created the production budget for the film is then drawn up, this budget is an estimation of how much will be used for each stage of the film making (production, distribution, marketing and exhibition). After the budget is drawn up the size of the crew is then determined – small production companies have a crew which consist of nine crew members or less, whereas mainstream production companies hire hundreds and have a cast. After the storyboard, budget and crew members are sorted the film is then filmed, edited and treatment is then carried out. 

Distribution - Distribution is the process of which a movie is made available to watch by the audience. At this stage the rights for the film is sold to companies (and occasionally  DVD's, Blu-Ray's or a download provider) and then distributed to cinemas for screening. Weeks later the film will be released on DVD.

Marketing - Once a film is released promotion and advertisement are then made for the film. Some examples of promotion are merchandise (toys, drinks etc.), prints (newspapers, magazines etc.), internet (websites, online screening etc.) and television (trailers, behind the scene footage etc.). Huge production companies also known as conglomerates would spend thousands on advertising and promotion. The reason why is because the more money they spend on advertisement would mean the more recognition the film gains and the more profit they get. The type of advertising that the company decides to use depends on the type of audience that the film is targeted at. Therefore if the company decides to target a film at teenagers they would advertise via internet or in a way which uses technology.
Films are sold to different audiences depending on age, gender, interest etc. For example a production company would target teenagers for a horror film because national statistics show that teenager's favourite genre of film is horror. 

Exhibition/Exchange - Once the film is made, promoted and watched. The rights are then sold to different companies so that the film can be streamed. The audience then has the choice in which they want to engage with the film. Some of the main ways that the audience watch films could be via internet (streaming), hospitality (aeroplanes) or home streaming (sky box, virgin media).