Distribution Plan

Masks would follow a traditional distribution within theaters. Masks would aim for an October release to emphasize the horror elements of the film. The film would stay within the theaters for four weeks. This would allow the audience a month to see the film during a time with a high appeal towards horror films and movies due to the Halloween spirit.

Masks would follow a lot of the traditions of a horror film's distribution plan. The film's home release on DVD/Blu-Ray would be 90 days after the theatrical release. The film would release on streaming services around the same time. One action we would take it to advertise the film during the Halloween season on streaming platforms. Streaming platforms normally pay upfront for films. Netflix's budget for buying movie licenses is expected to increase to about $17 billion, and each film they pay for in recent history has been bought for no less than $100,000. Another idea that would help the film produce profits would be to sell the licensing rights to a company such as Showtime or HBO. These companies would handle the distribution of the film by letting the audience subscribe to their service through other applications. These companies pay a lease upfront for the rights, but the prices are varied based on the title. These add-ons are normally for sale for $10-$15 a month.

Distribution Research - Halloween (2018)

The 2018 version of Halloween is a sequel/reboot of 1978's Halloween. The 2018 addition to Michael Myers lore is a direct sequel to iconic original Halloween released in 1978, and skips over the other entries in the series. This installment is not seen as an undisputed classic like the original, but it was successful at the box offices with 76.2 million in the first weekend. This marks the second most successful opening in October and in the Halloween franchise. The film ultimately grossed $255.5 million overall, with $128.5 million in profits.
Halloween (2018) was released on October 19th and followed the traditional 90 day schedule for its digital release. The film was released digitally through Cinemax. Cinemax is an add-on service for streaming websites and TV. Cinemax can be purchased on traditional TV services such as; Directv, Dish Network, Comcast's Xfinity, etc.. Cinemax can also be purchased as an add-on on streaming services such as; Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Sling Tv. Halloween is available to buy on YouTube, Google Play Music, and Vudu for $15.

Revision 2 - Titling and Text on Screen

In the midterm submission, we had our credits in the same spots every time they were on screen. How we revised this is by putting them in different places and changing the sequencing of names. This makes the scene's opening seem a little more natural. We also changed the titling of the film. In the midterm submission, we had the film play after the gunshot and the music would return. This made our film seem more like a trailer to the film, so we moved the title to the beginning credits as the scene's ending is now a cut to black after the gunshot and started bird noises were added. The ending now looks more like a movie as it would continue to the next scene. Another small revision we made was with the font. We notice that the first and last letters were being cut off, so we added spaces to the beginning and end of each name and the issue was fixed.

The videos below are the revision made:

Distribution Research - Get Out

Get Out is a psychological horror that plays on the idea of racism in society and has similar ideas of how we intend to scare the audience. Get Out is a Blumhouse Productions horror film released to theaters on February 24, 2017 to critical acclaim. Get Out grossed $255.5 million worldwide, with profits of $124.8 million. The film was released to 2,781 theaters and grossed 30.5 million in its opening weekend. Get Out was in theater for the traditional 90 days, but saw more time in theaters after it was nominated for an Oscar.
Get Out is currently available for digital download and streaming on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies, and Vudu for $4 and ITunes for $15. Get Out was created under Fox Entertainment Group before the Disney Merger. FXM owns the rights to play the on TV. After the

Disney-Fox merger, Get Out is now available on Hulu with a subscription.

Distribution Research - Avenger's End Game

Avenger's End Game has a surprisingly similar target audience as our films are geared towards 15-30 year old men. The distribution methods followed a very orthodox path that involved the films theater life to be extended to continue sales. This was down to beat Avatar as the highest grossing film of all time. The original theatrical release was April 26th and followed the world premiere at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The film grossed $1.2 billion worldwide opening weekend. The film was ultimately short of the record. The original release of the film made roughly $2.76 billion in the global box office and was short $27 million from Avatar's record. Disney then rereleased the film with a deleted scene, a tribute to Stan Lee, and an additional trailer for Spiderman: Far From Home on June 28th. This edition of the film allowed for the film to surpass Avatar by about $20 million.
The digital distribution of End Game started on July 30th as Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment sold the rights to buy and download the film from services like Google Play Movies, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, and Vudu for $2.99. The film had a late introduction to the streaming services as Disney was waiting to release it on Disney+ on November 12th. Disney+ also boasts all of the exclusive featurettes, director/actor commentaries, deleted scenes, and blooper reels.

Traditional Distribution Research

The traditional distribution process for a film follow these steps; obtaining production funds, licensing agreement, negotiating with a film brooker, and ancillary revenues. These steps hold very important step for the legal ownership of the film and establishing the flow of money for a film. The first step of the filmmaking process is making sure that your film has an established producer. This producer would finance the films production costs for a return in profits generated. The five major production companies are Warner Brothers, Paramount, Columbia, Universal, and Walt Disney Studios. These production studios are owned by conglomerates that are able to produce the films. Most films have a secondary production company that is credited, which is the filmmakers production house. An example of this can be seen with the Star Wars Franchise as Disney has purchased Lucasfilm. Lucasfilm is still the production company of the film, but the film is produced by Disney. The distinguishing factor between the two companies are, who is making the film and who is paying for the film. The film distribution starts with two groups; production representatives and film sales agents. The production representative is responsible for distributing your film to within the United States to movie theaters and other venues. The film sales agent is responsible for the international distribution of your film. An example of the importance of this step is the film Bridge of Spies, where Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures distributed the film nationally but 20th Century Fox distributed the film internationally. Film brookers work for companies like Regal Entertainments that show the film. These brokers negotiate the revenue split between the theaters and studios. The average Hollywood release sees a split of 90/10 in favor of the studios. After a film's theater run, the licensing rights for the film are sold to companies that will sell physical and digital copies such as Blu-Ray or Google Play Movies. The other alternative would be to lease the film to a streaming company such as Netflix so that your film is exclusively on a streaming platform. Media companies has started to form their own streaming platforms to create a new stream revenue such as Disney+ did.
The way that out film could benefit from this process is that I would be seen by the mass media. This is the traditional path for a Hollywood film, which is what Masks is intended to be. This format would allow for my group and a production company to create a great profit, as we do not own a production company.

Revision 1 - Audio

The midterm submission had issues with audio. The issue came from the camera focusing noises and our other camera having issues with recording audio. Our Canon EOS Rebel T7I had audio issues as the camera is mainly used for picture taking. meaning the focusing sounds were heard within the shot. What we did to solve this issue was reshooting the scenes that had these noises with an iPhone 7+. We traded video quality for audio quality, but we decided the video quality with the iPhone was better than having the unnecessary sounds. The other issue was the sound was the use of the DJI Phantom's camera because it didn't have a working microphone. How we solved the issue was using the iPhone 7+ and a gimble to rerecord the shot. The new shot has better quality and sound.

The videos below are the revision made:

Marketing Plan

We plan on focusing on two aspects of our film for the marketing campaign, mystery and gas masks. By focusing on these elements it allows for the plot of the film and the twists it contains to remain hidden, while also introducing the antagonists (the terrorists). We have created a rough draft of one of the posters that we would like to use.

The simplistic element would add to the mystery that is being presented to the audience. The goal is to get them asking questions about the masks like, "why are they wearing gas masks?", "What is their goal?", etc. By creating those questions in the audience's head, it would draw them to see the film when released.
The other major form of marketing that our team would be able to utilize would be creating an ad campaign on Instagram and Snapchat. Instagram has a range for the cent per click (CPC) ranging from 20 cents to $2, which means that every time someone clicks on the ad on the platform we would be charged. For Instagram our ad would be based around the idea the terrorists slowly appearing out of a smokey and black background. Snapchat has a more straight forward cost as its starting costs are $3000/month and about $450,000/day (Sunday-Thursday) for their signature Snapchat Sponsored Lenses. My idea for the Snapchat marketing would be a 5-second ad that plays during and in between stories and to buy a Snapchat Lens that would let the user wear a gas mask.
The final form of marketing that we would utilize would be TV. We would obtain a commercial slot on a network. This would be similar to a trailer released for the film that would fit within a 15-30 slot.