MEST1 Section B: A Field In England

MEST1 Section B: A Field In England

The Media Magazine article based on the arthouse film ‘A Field in England,’ discusses not just the distribution of that film in particular, but also the significance of it in film distribution as a whole. This can entail traditional methods such as billboards and adverts on TV, but now also can involve social media campaigns which we see in productions such as ‘Ill Manors’ with the Tag London initiative. It’s said in the article how important this distribution can be, particularly in terms of box office figures, but it’s also made clear that distributors have to understand a number of certain things before they can go ahead with starting their advertising campaigns such as the film’s audience and also working to build interest in the film prior to its release.

1. The release of A Field In England was quite different to what is usually seen with films since it released all on the same day not just in cinemas, but also video-on-demand, DVD and Blu-Ray. This was quite a radical move by the institution involved in it since the more typical/conventional film release involves a cinema release followed by DVD and Blu-Ray ones a few months later.
2. The advantages to this kind of approach is that it helps the institution reach the largest audience possible with all the different options that they provide them to go and watch it. With this it also gives a range of people to go and view the artistic aspect of the film created which is one of the primary purposes of arthouse cinema as a whole. At the same time though, it may appeal to those interested in the portrayal of drug usage in films due to its psychedelic nature, but fundamentally fans of the arthouse genre as a whole.
3. Disadvantages to the approach are that people may choose to just watch the film on Film4 simply because it's free. While the purpose of arthouse films isn't necessarily to make a huge profit, the intent of the institutions behind it is likely to still be able to make the money they put in back, so this is likely to be a disadvantage. Additionally with the different things offered by watching the film on a different platform, audience members may have trouble deciding which one to attend - 'people instantly tweeting that they want to see it in all of the ways on the same day.'
4. A Field In England would be possibly aimed at a more older generation of people. With the film being centred around the English Civil War, it's likely to peak the interest of people interested in aspects like history and maybe even elements of their heritage - things an older generation may find themselves wanting to know about.
5. In my opinion, it's unlikely that all films will be released in a way similar to 'A Field In England' mainly due to the already quite high prominence of the online platform. With things like VOD services becoming increasingly popular, other ones like DVDs and Blu-Rays will become essentially redundant so with this said, institutions would only be wasting their money doing a rollout on all platforms.