Brief Outline of the Film Industry

Production:
A small production company will form a new idea for a film. They will then have to find funding for this film which they will go to a distributor for. If the distributor likes the idea of the film they will agree to lend money to the production company in order for them to finance the making of the film. There are three main stages of production: 1. Pre-production (planning, designing, storyboarding, casting...etc.) 2. Prodcuction (the actual shooting of the film) 3. Post-production (editing the film together and adding sound and special effects)

Distribution:
The distributors are the people with the money. They are often the large studios such as Universal, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers. They are wealthy and own much of the worlds media and often part of huge media conglomerates. Once the film has been produced then the distributors begin to market the film (posters, interviews, merchandide, soundtracks, trailers... etc). Seeing as the distributor leant most of the money for the film they scoop up the majority of the profit. The distributors tend to be mainly American hence why the American Film Industry dominates our screens.

Exhibition:
This refers to the showing of the film, for example:
-> Cinemas
-> DVD(rental and sales)
-> Satellite/Digital TV
-> Box Office
-> Terrestrial TV