Distribution and Production Company

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures is an American film distribution and production company, which has produced psychological thrillers such as 'Secret Window' and 'Panic Room'. The company is now part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. As it does not distribute many British films we decided to consider other distribution and production companies.

New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema produced 'The Butterfly Effect' in 2004. This film has similar themes to our own, such as the destruction of the mind and the love obsession of a teenager. New Line Cinema was initially an independent film studio, but became a minor of Time Warner in 1996 and Warner Bros. in 2008. The company seems to invest in mainly American films, it is "one of the major American film studios" according to Wikipedia. It has invested in films such as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'The Time Traveler's Wife'. We wanted to aim more for a British film distributor and so New Line Cinema was not totally appropriate to distribute and produce our film.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

We chose Fox Searchlight Pictures as our distribution company as it specialises in indie and British films. It also distributed the psychological thriller 'One Hour Photo'. Wikipedia states; "Fox Searchlight Pictures is a film division of 20th Century Fox, established in 1994. It specialises in indie and British films, alongside dramedy and horror as well as non-English language films, and is variously involved with the production and/or distribution of these films."

Target Audience and Film Classification

The genre of our film is Pyschological Thriller, which we chose as this genre interested us the most out of the genres we assessed. We believe that people aged 15 to 25 would be most likely to watch this genre of film. We think this because we believe that people aged 15 and over can understand the notions of a psychological thriller, and people of ages 25 and under will still show interest in the horror and suspense of this genre of film. Because of this we decided people aged 15 to 25 would be our target audience. We are going to target our audience of ages 15 to 25's by appealing to their understandings of psychological thriller concepts. We want to make our audience ask questions and use their intellect when watching our film, which we think are elements this audience will respond to. Some of the ideas and notions of our film may also appeal to this audience, plus not be understood by people younger than 15. The characters in our film are young also and the emotions and experiences of them may be quite easily related to, at times, by people between the ages of 15 and 25.

The content of our film will be appropriate for people of years 15 to 25 meaning that, in accordance with the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the film will be classified at certificate 15. The BBFC criteria of this certificate states that strong threat and menace are permitted, as long as it is not sadistic or sexualised. Violence may also be strong, but the film must not dwell on pain or injury. Horror and violence are both important elements to our film, and so we want them to be effective in the menace of the film; meaning a certificate 12 would have limited what we could show much more, and the film would not have the same effect. On the other hand, we do not want our film to have a very high certificate, for example certificate 18, as this would decrease the amount of people and the range of ages that could watch our film. We also feel it is unnecessary to have a higher certificate rating.

Research of Psychological Horror Films

Opening Titles

'The Ring'

Distribution company: 0:18

No other titles in first 2 minutes

'The Others'

Distribution company: 0:2

Actor's name: 0:34

Title of film: 0:39

Actor's name: 0:47

Actor's name: 0:54

Actor's name: 1:01

Actor's name: 1:06

Actor's name: 1:10

Actor's name: 1:15

Actors' names: 1:20

Casting Directors: 1:25

Costume Design: 1:33

Screenplay: 1:44

Production designs: 1:57

Director of photography: 2:01

'The Shining'

Film company: 0:10

Director's name: 1:20

Actor's name: 1:25

Actor's name: 1:30

Title of film: 1:35

Actor's name: 1:34

Actor's name: 1:47

Actor's name: 1:51

Actor's name: 1:56

Actor's name: 2:00

'Hide and Seek'

Distribution company: 0:10

No other titles in first 2 minutes

'The Secret Window'

Distribution company: 0:15

No other titles in first 2 minutes

'The Butterfly Effect'

Distribution company: 0:12

Association company: 0:21

Distribution company name and association: 0:43

Title of film: 1:50

Apart from 'The Others' and 'The Shining' most of the films I have analysed have little titles in the opening two minutes, all films start with the Distribution company presenting the film, but most of the films do not show any others, or only one or two other titles after this. This is an element we will have to take into consideration in our film, whether we will follow the common elements of the opening titles of this genre, or be controversial to this general component.

Narrative On ‘The Ring’

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Narrative On ‘The Ring’

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Narrative On ‘Hide And Seek’

Narrative On ‘Hide And Seek’

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Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task Evaluation Report

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