Logo Homework

Logos used by movie and TV program studios are usually used to brand what they make and are also used to tell which production company the movie or TV program is being represented.

1.) Warner Bros. pictures:

















Warner brothers have changed their logo around 13 times over the past 97 years ad has had around about 200 different variations of the logo that has been made to appear in various different movies to say fit the theme or a certain character in that movie per se. Others of these variations of the logo, however, were created to show different shifts in leadership/ ownership or just to refresh the look and show a little bit of change. In 1966 we see the owner, jack warner, sell the company to steven arts inc. which saw a dramatic change and face lift, not only, to the company and brand, but also to the logo. However again this was changed up when Kinney services bought the brand changing the corporate name down the bottom of the shield and the logo to the iconic shield and clouds seen in the logo today. Although they have kept the shield and logo, there have been some changes to the corporate names, once again, since 1984.

"A consistent yet adaptive brand identity is the secret behind the tremendous success of Warner Bros. Over 100 years of its existence, the company has preserved its logo almost intact while slightly stylizing it to fit different movies. For example, the Batman version of the logo had spectacular wings. To celebrate the release of Polar Express, the design way customized with icicles. The film company pampers moviegoers with hundreds of logo variations, showcasing its passion for experiments."  by Logaster logo maker.

2.) Disney 





"Making magic since 1923, Disney is the undisputed king of the entertainment industry. From movies and TV shows to merchandise and theme parks, Disney now has a hand in almost everything…and it all started with a cartoon mouse." by logomyway.com

The Disney logo again has changed many a time over the years since it started. The original logo actually started off as a profile of mickey mouse which would revolve and change colors. This idea was both innovative and exciting and also showed some of the technological developments Disney was making at this time. Although this logo and the technology used were groundbreaking, Disney went through a massive overhaul of this logo in 1995 into the basis of the logo we all know and love today. This new logo featured a light blue castle with the writing "Walt Disney pictures" plastered across it. This was then changed again in 2006 to the logo we see throughout the movies we watch now. The logo we now know and love by Disney in my view should be seen as a testament to the technological advancements Disney as a company has undergone. This new logo also serves us as a symbol of Disney and the company it is representing. 

3.) Paramount pictures:





"Paramount's logo is one of the most iconic images in all of film - but few people know its true origins. Most moviegoers are familiar with the logos of various Hollywood studios. From Disney's grandiose castle backdrop to the outer space view of Earth courtesy of Universal, every movie begins with a slew of logos for the various companies involved in the production, and the biggest is legendary. Of all these major movie houses, perhaps none are more iconic than that of Paramount Pictures. Its majestic view of a massive mountain encircled by a field of stars is intrinsically linked to memories of classics like The Godfather, Chinatown, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, as well as modern blockbusters like Transformers and Mission: Impossible. The first Paramount logos were inauspicious, but in 1914, the mountain and stars made their debut and cemented their place in film history. The Paramount logo may have changed over the past one hundred years, but its core foundation, the mountain, was present all the way back in the beginning. The exact origins of the logo are shrouded in mystery and are now firmly in the realm of Hollywood legend, but it's commonly accepted that the original mountain was based on the ranges seen by William Wadsworth Hodkinson during his youth in Utah, though the identity of the original artist seems to be lost to the ages. Originally, the mountain was a charcoal drawing but was redesigned in 1951. This new version is seemingly based on Artesonraju, a peak in Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range. Jan Domela was the chief matte painting artist for Paramount, and he painted the version of the mountain which would define the company for decades. The next major revision came in 1975 when the detailed matte painting was replaced with a more minimalist interpretation, rendered entirely in stark shades of blue. For the 75th anniversary of the company in 1987, artist Dario Campanile was commissioned to paint a new representation of the mountain, which would serve as the basis for a new version of the logo. This iteration was created entirely through cutting-edge CGI graphics. In 2002, the logo was redesigned once more, this time pushing the location of the mountain further away from the peaceful lake and growing it to the scale of a glacial peak, poking through the clouds with lots of snow and a somewhat more steely finish, complete with more spirited camera movements to accentuate the scale of the peak. Aside from the mountain, the other key element of the Paramount is its stars. Originally, there were twenty-four stars, one for each of the actors Adolph Zukor had signed to prominent contracts with the studio. This symbolic gesture lost much of its meaning as the old-timey studio mentality of long-term actor contracts began to simmer down, although the stars still remained in the logo. Curiously, the number of stars changed from twenty-four to twenty-two in the 1970s, though the reasons behind this change are unclear; it was probably just an aesthetic choice. Initially, the stars were as static as the rest of the logo, and then they were made to fade in after the mountain appeared. But as technology became more advanced, the stars took on a more dynamic role; starting with the 75th-anniversary logo (which actually debuted in December 1986, not in 1987), the stars would fly into view from behind the camera before encircling the mountain. In the latest iteration of the logo, one of the stars briefly skims the surface of the pristine blue lake, making ripples on the water before it reaches its spot on the mountain." Screen Rant. 

Sorry I copy and pasted all of this, it was just hard to pick what was the best parts because I found it all to be well informed, but it is in quotation marks.

4.) Columbia pictures:







'The Columbia Pictures logo, featuring a woman carrying a torch and wearing a drape (representing Columbia, a personification of the United States), has gone through five major changes.

Originally in 1924, Columbia Pictures used a logo featuring a female Roman soldier holding a shield in her left hand and a stick of wheat in her right hand. The logo changed in 1928 with a new woman (Columbia, the female representative of America) wearing a draped flag and torch. The woman wore the stola and carried the palla of ancient Rome, and above her were the words "A Columbia Production" ("A Columbia Picture" or "Columbia Pictures Corporation") written in an arch. The illustration was based upon the actress Evelyn Venable, known for providing the voice of The Blue Fairy in Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Also, Columbia's Rare Rollercoaster Logo was reused by the Jake Salois Picture Corporation in 1999.

In 1936, the logo was changed: the Torch Lady now stood on a pedestal, wore no headdress, and the text "Columbia" appeared in chiseled letters behind her (Pittsburgh native Jane Chester Bartholomew, whom Harry Cohn discovered, portrayed the Torch Lady in the logo). There were several variations to the logo over the years—significantly, a color version was done in 1943 for The Desperadoes. Two years earlier, the flag became just a drape with no markings. The latter change came after a federal law was passed making it illegal to wear an American flag as clothing. 1976's Taxi Driver was one of the last films to use the "Torch Lady" in her classic appearance until 2019's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which used the classic appearance of the "Torch Lady" (with a minor alteration to add a Sony byline to the logo) to match the year (1969) the film takes place in.

From 1976 to 1993, Columbia Pictures used two logos. The first, from 1976 to 1981 (1976 to 1982 for international territories) used just a sunburst representing the beams from the torch. The score accompanying the first logo was composed by Suzanne Ciani. The studio hired visual effects pioneer Robert Abel to animate the first logo. The woman returned in 1981, but in a much smoother form described as resembling a Coke bottle.

The current logo was created in 1992 (same time as the television version’s debut) and started its use in films the year after when Scott Mednick and The Mednick Group was hired by Peter Guber to create logos for all the entertainment properties then owned by Sony Pictures. Mednick hired New Orleans artist Michael Deas, to digitally repaint the logo and return the woman to her "classic" look. Michael Deas hired Jennifer Joseph, a graphics artist for The Times-Picayune, as a model for the logo. Due to time constraints, she agreed to help out on her lunch break. The animation was created by Synthespian Studios in 1993 by Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, who used 2D elements from the painting and converted it to 3D. In 2012, Jennifer Joseph gave an interview to WWL-TV: “So we just scooted over there come lunchtime and they wrapped a sheet around me and I held a regular little desk lamp, a side lamp,” she said, “and I just held that up and we did that with a light bulb." Deas went on to say, "I never thought it would make it to the silver screen and I never thought it would still be up 20 years later, and I certainly never thought it would be in a museum, so it’s kind of gratifying.' Wikipedia


Our group logo:
For our team logo, it is still in progress so I do not have any images at the moment, but our logo is a dragon head inside a circle, which symbolizes the fear that we are trying to convey through our media company, seeing as the main focus of our media production is thrillers and we are again trying to convey that fear aspect through our logo as people are scared and fearful of dragons. Also, our logo will GCH in Chinese writing before the productions writing in  English, because we wanted to link the dragon and how its Chinese back to another aspect of the logo. Also, G, C, and H are all characters in the Chinese alphabet that look similar to the English characters so it will not be hard to understand what it is.

Foundation portfolio planning

Script:

Folau - "He's downstairs when your ready boss."

Pesalili - nods his head 

Folau walks out and waits in the elevator with Tim.

Pesalili walks into the elevator with Folau and Tim behind him.

The elevator opens and Pesalili walks out into the underground car park with Folau and Tim following close-ish behind him.

They reach the other man Aminiasi and send directly in front of each other staring straight at each other.

Pesalili - "do you have the goods I ordered ?" 

Aminiasi just nods his head and signals to follow him. Aminiasi is followed closely by Pesalilis 2 henchmen/bodyguards, Folau and Tim.

Aminiasi opens the boot of the car and we see a big bag with what looks like a kid/ person inside and they open it up and you see Toby with duck tape and a bandanna on his mouth and ropes around his body.

Folau and Tim grab Toby out of the boot of the car and hand him to Aminiasi who holds a gun to the back of his head as he hands him over to Pesalili.

As he hands him over Pesalili will then hold a gun to his head.

Pesalili - "this isn't what I wanted !!" "But I'll take him anyway"

Pesalili will then hand over the briefcase of money and it will cut to black.

It will then cut to black 

Characters:
- Aminiasi = Boss #2
- Toby = Slave guy
- Chene & Deborah = Aminiasi's Henchmen/guards
-Pesalili = Boss #1
- Tim and Folau =  Pesalilis Henchmen

Location:
- Mount wellington

1. Offices 
2. Underground car park
3. elevator

Logo:

Part1:

For the first part of the logo for our foundation portfolio, I decided to look into objects/animals that strike fear/are scary and that is powerful to give the meaning behind our logo, as our vision for our group because we are doing thrillers was to have a scary-ish logo which comes back to the thriller genre, and the power side of things we wanted to add as we wanted to have a powerful effect on the viewers that are watching. so we ended up choosing a dragon, also the meaning behind the circle is that our group is unified and not just scattered around in a way and also just as a practical thing to make the logo look a bit more complete. so with all these factors in mind, I set off to find a good logo base. From there I found the picture that you see selected on the screen. 

With this base, I went on to deselect and remove all the background so that when I put an aftereffect on for the end product it does not show with a black or white background behind. This ended up taking a lot of my time and was the most time-consuming of the process.

My third step was quite simple, where I literally just changed the colors of the ring, and flames around the dragon to a nice darker red and changed the tint of black to a darker shade. these 2 changes added a little bit more of a darker feel to the dragon and the overall logo to again add to the thriller feel. 

In the next step, I will add a lightning inferno effect to it when I add it to the movie and add the name underneath it. Also with the lightning inferno effect, it will make it look like the fire is from the dragon and that it appears behind the fire adding a cool effect.

Mood board:

CCR Preliminary Task 2

CCR PT.2 planning

Question 1:

Common Conventions:

Narrative:

1. Aim is to create suspense and excitement
2. Often violence is a key theme in thrillers
3. Usually has a Antagonist who is dodgy or immoral 
4. Thrillers usually start with equilibrium and this is disrupted and by the end it will be restored by some sort of hero or something.

Mise-en-scene:

1. Antagonist/ bad guy usually wears dark or black clothes.
2. Blood and violence is common
3. Guns, Knives, Weapons
4. Low key lighting, create suspense 
5. Dark colors
6. Settings are usually in isolated areas 

Sound:

1. Starts with slower tempo and builds up often
2. Slow or eerie music to create suspense and mystery/uncertainty
3. Silence
4. Diagetic sounds increased/heightened

Camera:

1. Shadows 
2. Quick cuts
3. Lots of close ups and extreme close ups 
4. lots of back shots, low key shots, and silhouette shots
5. Tilt shots and distorted shots to show discomfort 
6. High angle shots of antagonist to protagonist to show dominance over protagonist. 

Lighting:

1. Low key lighting
2. Shadows

Themes:

1. Story line designed to make the audience think that it could happen to them and feel more scared. 

Editing:

1. Lots of jump cuts but still has to make sense
2. Cross cutting to build suspense
3. Continuous editing can also be used to help the audience understand certain things.
4. Usually dark or grainy gradients are used in thrillers 
5. It can be edited to look black and white often 

Conventions we challenged:

1.  In the narrative their is no hero shown, so it makes it look as though the little girl is forever gone and no one will end up helping her.
2. No weapons are shown in our video and also not used to cause harm.
3. Also it is not in an isolated location and there are people around.
4. There are no scenes where the it is silent, there is always a scene where their is some sort of diagetic or non-diagetic sound. 
5. Besides from the credits, there are no quick cuts
6. There are only a few back shots and low key shots.
7. Only used tilt shots in the credits.
8. No jump cuts
9. No dark or grainy gradients used.
10. No black and white gradients either.

Conventions used:
-Low key lighting, because this adds the unknown effect like anything could jump out at any minute and it adds a scary look to it, also conotating with the fact nothing very good happens at night.

-shadows, i want to be able to show some sort of shadow effect where the shadow is behind the tall man because this could give the audience an idea of the fact that this man is fronting to the girl so that he can almost gain her trust a little bit but in reality he is just putting a front up in front of his sinister ideas.

-change in angles, the change in angles shows something almost distorted meaning that it may look okay at that point but there is something going on in the bigger picture that is dodgy and the audience will be able to see this as i would like to play around with the idea of when the little girl looks at the tall scary man she is looking on a skewed angle at first to show that he may look normal but there is something sinister in his "motives".

-low angle of the girl looking up at the tall man and a shot looking down on the girl from the POV of the tall man, this shows the effect of the tall scary man being dominant and stronger and dangerous, also the fact she is looking up to him gives us the sense he is very tall and scary.

-Dark clothing,The tall sketchy man will be wearing dark and ominous clothing to make him again shown as not being seen properly for what and who he really is.

Movies I took inspiration from:

After watching the following thriller films/thriller openings, get out, inception, split  I have been influenced by them in the way where I want to use the following theme used in get out, as well as the dark lighting. From inception I would want to take the action music in the background, and the danger element. From Split I want to use the fact the young girl is alone and isolated while everyone else is with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0nkLTAUfyA

Images of vision for setting:

These are a few images i found that was the same sought of look i wanted for the playground to make a more empty and isolated feel which makes it a bit scarier.

Question 2:

How does your product engage with audiences? How would you distribute it as a real media text? :

Target audience:
Our target audience is people aged from 16 and older who usually like thriller movies or movies that include mystery, suspense, violence, danger, and can be scary as well. I feel like we have been pretty successful in our efforts to make a movie that fits this target audience we have set ourselves, being able to add the violence and suspense aspects to it as well as making it a thriller movie and also making it have a scary aspect to it, we probably did not make it so that it was only for people 16 and older, but that was only as a guide line, as most thrillers are only PG13 or R13 and we wouldn't want it to be too scary, as then it would start going into a Horror genre. 

Distribution:
For our way of distribution i was thinking, because of the massive rise in people using streaming services as well as social media, i was thinking of doing most of the distribution through streaming services like Netflix, Neon, TVNZ on demand, Light box, and even YouTube. This will allow the viewers to be able to watch the movie from the comfort of their homes and also it can make it to smaller towns that might not have cinemas/ movie theaters because they can just watch it through streaming services. Although i would distribute through streaming services, I would also distribute through the cinemas, because it is also a place a lot of people still go to, just for the experience. This will also give it a lot more publicity. I would also use platforms such as YouTube and Instagram, as well as Facebook and other social media platforms to advertise our film.

Characters:
-Mum:

the Woman in the car who should be watching her daughter while she plays on the playground but instead she is sitting in her phone in the car. The phone is symbolism of distraction and how it was her mother downfall that she is ultimately kidnapped.

-Little girl:

Unnamed at the moment, the little girl is arguably the main/ most important character along with the kidnapper. In the scene we see her playing on the playground and then walking to the bathroom and eventually following the kidnapper to his car unaware she would b kidnapped. Her symbolism is her costume which is her bright vibrant clothes that make her stand out in the dark lighting,. Not only this though, it also shows her innocence and sweetness which is contrasted by the dark lighting and dark colors of the kidnapper.

-Kidnapper:

Also unnamed the kidnapper is probably equal to maybe more important to the story, in essence stalking the young girl trying to find the perfect moment to catch her off guard and eventually kidnap her. The symbolism used for him is, his van, the knife and gun in his car and, his dark clothes. So first, the dark clothes symbolize his dark and shady character not wanting to reveal his identity, secondly, his van, this is a common car/ carrier for kidnappers as it has no windows etc... it also is quite mysterious as it is dark in there with no windows again meaning it is hiding or concealing something. This, "thing" that is being concealed in the van is the gun/knife, which is the final symbol in the "movie", which symbolizes the danger and also makes us think, what is he going to use those for ?? and what is he going to do to her ?

Narrative:

At the beginning the girl is just playing on the playground , her mum has just left her to go to the bathroom. there are other kids around but she wants to stay by herself. A man then comes up to her and asks her if she wants a lolly, and she takes it . She then realizes that it is not good to take lollies from strangers and tries to run away, while she tries to run away however, the man chases her and grabs her pulling her over his shoulder and chucking her in the boot of his car. As the man is driving away the little girl screams and cries hitting the window. The mum then leaves the bathroom and notices her daughter missing, and tries to run and find her, but the man is already gone.

Editing/ Music:

I want to make the editing slow and not quick cuts because the slow cuts can emphasize that the girl cant escape and is not fast enough to get out. Also it stretches everything out and emphasizes everything making it that much more effective in making it more and more nerve racking and suspenseful making us want to know even more what will happen to the girl.

And then for the music, i used a lot of dark ominous music to add the scary and suspenseful aspect to it. Also i added extra sounds, like the action music for the chase scene, and a sound of the car boot closing, as well as a glitchy/scratchy sound for my logo at the end.

Question 3:

- in the first try we filmed at Kennedy park and this didn't go too well, we did not have the camera settings right for the lighting so as it started to get dark, you couldn't see a thing, also we didn't get the sound right as well and the rain ended up forcing us to have to leave.

- we then decided to try a closer and easier location the next day because of the bad filming on the day before, although grace picked this day, i was not able to make it because i had other commitments, apart from i wasn't there and that some shots did not carry verisimilitude, the filming looks like it went well and they managed to get quite a few good shots that work well.

In my peer revision, my peers told me to:

1. slow down the one scene where she is dropping the lolly to slow motion.
2. Add the chase music rather than just adding the eerie music the whole time. 
3. They also said for me to edit the car shots to make it look like it was cutting between the shots of the mum coming out the bathroom, making it look like it was happening at the same time.
4. Another point made was to draw out the establishing shot more to add the fact that the man is watching the girl even creepier.

-I ended up changing all of these things, making it have a much better effect to the movie.
-I was actually not there for the filming process, so i wont know what went well and what didn't, so i will ask my group for that input next time we film.

Question 4:

I added technologies like Adobe Premier pro, Adobe After affects, Adobe Photoshop.

A list of things i used:

https://ytmp3.cc/en13/

PT.2 Final product

Technical changes essay

A massive change has occurred in terms of the way technology has advanced, also changing the way we now consume media. Possibly technology's greatest effect in the modern era is likely felt in new cameras used by photographers to shoot video in a much higher definition. Technology as a whole is currently driving whole parts of film, making things in movies possible that weren't possible before. Here are a few examples that have made film making a lot easier through technology.

Over time technology has become more advanced and changed the way media is made and watched. One of the biggest changes, however, was probably the switch from film, to a digital camera. In the past, the only way to film was to use a film camera which were these big machine like cameras that were very expensive as well, meaning it was not widely used for just anything but rather just for big productions and movie sets, just to name a few examples. You would have to put massive amounts of these rolls of film which usually could only film for about 10 minutes or so. Mistakes had to be few, as you could not just delete a scene that didn't span out well because it was seen to be a waste of film and the actors' time. Also, there was no watching back the scenes that had happened, so filming was a very specified job meaning the person controlling it had to make it as near to perfect as possible with as minimal as possible mistakes so that they did not have to reshoot when they had watched it back later on. When it has all been filmed it is sent to someone to become developed so it can be looked at the next day. Also like I mentioned before if the filming didn't go well, they didn't get the finished product they wanted, they would have to do it all again and wait to see if they did it right the second time, this caused the actors to become quite good at their acting which meant they didn't have to keep redoing shots again that didn't work out the first time. At first, when digital cameras came out in the early 90s the first models didn't even compare to the quality of the original film camera. This allowed the cast and crew to re-watch the clips back and took away the need to all watch it later the next day, which they called daily's as they could just watch it from the camera, this was revolutionary. Also, the need to buy large rolls of film was no longer needed as they could just be electronically stored, this meant budgets didn't have to be as big because there were no big, bulky, expensive cameras, or film, there were only the digital cameras. Along with the fact they were more compact and smaller, it also made it easier that it was handheld and more mobile, meaning they could make the movements more realistic. Also, the digital camera could film for extended periods of time compared to the film cameras meaning they only had to do an easy and fast changeover which would last them a few hours, rather than the film cameras which could only film for about 10 minutes on average and took longer to swap out the rolls. 

Post-production was also affected in a positive way. Before the days of computer edited movies, they used to have to carefully cut each little piece of film and place it and tape in the right order, so that the movie had a good flow-on effect. Editing the film also included color grading some of the shots which meant they would have to cut out those shots and color them separately, putting them in order. This more often than not took longer than the actual filming of the movie. In our day and age, all we need are different computer programs that do essentially what the old filmmakers used to do but faster and better with more options and effects, also making it easier with the ability to just delete and redo with the touch of buttons, whereas it would have taken the filmmakers in the past ages to redo and fix any mistakes they made. Also, the addition of special effects greatly benefitted the movie industry, making the movies look better and more realistic in the cases of explosion etc...

Back in the days of film cameras, they used to try and get the movies into the cinemas and then release it on videotape, but this idea was mostly scrapped, besides from the attempts to get their movies into the cinemas, because people still go because of the experience although they have to go out of their way to go and watch it whereas they could just stay at home and watch the movie later on online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Disney +., also they want to go to the cinemas when a movie is newly released because they are able to see it before others do on these streaming platforms. This is why a lot of production companies do not bother spending money on creating physical copies of a movie because it is a waste of time trying to compete against the multi-million subscribed to streaming sites that make mega millions from the people who are subscribing daily. As well as this there are free platforms like youtube, that allow you to constantly upload for free to billions of people around the world who are active daily, and social media sites like Facebook, and Instagram where you can freely advertise your product so millions and billions of people can see your advert about your upcoming movie. Although this is all well and good with the new invention of streaming services, it does make it easier and more likely that films become pirated and illegally downloading movies is easier than ever with 100s of websites selling the product, that people have spend lots of money on, for free which is very sad and unfortunate. 

This shows how much technology has changed over a very short span of time and it is always growing better and more efficient, what will technology be doing for the media in 10 years time?  i guess well just have to find out.

Technological changes question

Technical changes essay 

Planning 

Opening sentence: A massive change has occurred in terms of the way technology has changed the way we produce and consume media.

- film is a 19th century invention

- each roll of film lasts for about 10 minutes before it needs to be replaced 

- must be developed overnight 

" it is like painting with the lights off"

-digital camera doesn't use film but instead the light comes through the lens and hits the pixels to form an image 

-  Through the invention of digital cameras it is a time saver as you can see exactly what you are filming at the exact moment 

- CCD chips were introduced to save the film so it could be later edited on screen. 

"film making is like a work of art where the film is being manipulated to create an image"

- a digital editing machine called the editdroid was introduced in the 1900s this made editing online faster and more efficient

- before digital cameras were introduced editing meant physically cutting and piecing together the film to create what the cinematographer called a 'masterpiece' . 

CCR Distribution Question

• There are 2 common film distribution strategies, 1.) Bidding war at a film festival, and 2.) selling your movie to a streaming platform.

1.) The bidding war at a film festival:

• In this scenario, it would go sought of like this. You would premier your movie at a film festival so it can be seen by big movie distributors, who would then bid millions for a full buy out of your movie.
• However, bidding wars rarely happen now, due to the fact big streaming platforms like Amazon and Netflix have changed the road to distribution. 

2.) Now we come to the option of selling your movie to a streaming platform like those of Netflix and Amazon: 

• Because of the 150 million subscribers to Netflix, now it is probably even more of a dream come true to have them distribute your movie, because of the massive publicity you would get. Now don't get me wrong, those big distribution companies like Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox would also be a dream come true, but with all the people watching from home now, the publicity you would get would be phenomenal.
• Although route number one would be amazing and life-changing, it takes a lot of effort to get a signing with these bidding wars, because you need to know your movie and its audience inside and out and, it involves a lot of research.
• When you are trying to get those big distributors on your side, it's all about numbers and making them feel secure that your product will keep their reputation and make them feel good about the decision they have made.

The 6 steps to successfully distributing your indie films:

1.) Funding the distribution campaign

• Use crowdfunding platforms to your advantage.
• Asking for funds to bring your film/product to a larger audience/ group of people is an admirable goal.
• Provide instant downloads when you are done with your indie film through some sought of private link to get the incentive of investors behind you and back your product.
• If you would prefer not to add a link of the movie, show teaser, and trailers, or even share footage from the making process of the movie. this generates a great fan base.

2.) Prepare the film for distribution:

• Make sure these things are on the list of to-do's 

         - Digital Files: Most cinemas accept deliverables as digital files in .mp4 and .mov files. .mp4 is             the international standard, while the .mov is Apple’s preferred format.

         

         - H.264 format does a super job of encoding high-quality video and audio for streaming online,             but it won’t do your movie justice on the big screen. Apple ProRes 422 codec or the Avid                     DNxHD codec. Outputting either as a .mov file will yield the best results.          

         

         - 1920 x 1080 (“1080p” for short) is the preferred resolution for cinema screenings with an                   aspect ratio of flat (1.85) or scope (2.35).

• Formats required to distribute a film online

         - As with cinema, online streaming and download-for-purchase platforms accept Pro-Res 

            422.mov format.

         - In addition, files may be submitted as AVC/H.264 in .mp4, m2t, and .ts format.

         - MPEG-2 formats are also accepted.  

3.) Deciding on an online release strategy:

• Third-party aggregators, vendors who specialize in movie distribution, aggregators also take care of everything else, like encoding, packaging, and delivering your film to the digital platforms. Aggregators also charge steep rates and usually own part ownership in your film.
• DIY,  You can still find a home for your independent film by way of one of the dozens of VOD distribution platforms, best of all, if you do end up securing VOD distribution, you will retain ownership over your film rather than splitting ownership with a third-party aggregator.

4.) Target the VOD distribution platforms:

• indie filmmakers have plenty of avenues to find their viewership via the various VOD platforms. 
• Ad-Supported Video-on-Demand (AVOD), Ads that viewers must watch before, during, or even after the video. These include Youtube, Hulu, and crackle.
• Subscription Video-on-Demand (SVOD), This includes platforms like Netflix, people fork over monthly subscriptions to use the library of content which can sometimes make it harder to get your indie film in, as people are paying to get the best and Netflix will often pick films that have probably had a few film festival wins under their belt. Or have a large viewer following in things like youtube and social media.
•   Transactional Video-on-Demand (TVOD), in this pay-per-view model, audiences pay for each film they want to watch. There are two options: Electronic Sell Through (EST): With EST, the consumer downloads the film and has unlimited viewing access. Download to Rent (DTR): Download to Rent is the digital equivalent of renting a movie for a very short period of time. Platforms leveraging the TVOD model include iTunes. iTunes extends filmmakers 70% of the profits, with Apple retaining 30% for every movie download or rental. Amazon Video is another TVOD player, however, at profits 50/50, the split is less generous than iTunes for the up-and-coming filmmaker.
• Cable Video-on-Demand, premium channels pretty much buy the rights to your movie and stream it on their platform, examples include, HBO, Starz and, showtime. Providers also distribute media through cable boxes at hotels. 
• Free Video-on-Demand, these are platforms like youtube and Vimeo, this pathway is usually for people who are trying to get as many eyeballs as they can in front of their product, as quickly as possible.

5.) Determine Whether You Want a Theatrical Release:

• If you’re intent on getting your film on the big screen, there are some things to consider, 1.) it's pricey, essentially, you are working with a theater to “book” a showing for a flat-rate. And 2.) The cost can range from $250 and up to secure such an arrangement. Although expensive for a single showing, if you can pack the house you may even come out ahead. 
• Theatrical Booker, there are theatrical servicing companies that specialize in booking, advertising, promoting, and collecting the tickets. While costly, the trade-off may be worth it for their expertise and contacts.

6.) Promoting Your Independent Film:

• Building audiences for your film is key to generating buzz. If you can tap into a niche audience who will get behind your movie and act as ambassadors, you can plan for crossover into broader audiences. it comes down to a few key ingredients:
• Promote your film with a trailer. If it’s shareable, your fans will do the legwork for you.
• Put together a press kit. Your press kit should include a one-pager (synopsis of your film on one page), images, and a personal story.
• Create a website for your production. Keep things personal and include authentic stories of your major above-the-line team members, factoids about your film, and news on upcoming screenings.
• Be sure to cultivate an email list of your fans. You can announce to your minions when your film lands distribution and where they can view the film. Your email list can also come in handy when it comes time to promote your next film coming down the pike.