FILM DISTRIBUTION

Film Distribution

Film Distribution

Introduction

Film distribution is a step in the process of dissemination and public presentation of a film. Film distribution is often occupies an independent company, a subsidiary company or occasionally an individual, who works as the final agent between a house of production or some intermediary agent, and an operator, in order to ensure the projection of the film 's producer on-screen movie theater. In the field of cinema, the term "distribution" refers to the market and the circulation of films in cinemas.

Discussion

Early and persistent adaptations by film distributors helped to fuel demand through film entertainment's inception to the Paramount decree. These adaptations included increasing film length so that films ran as full-length features as opposed to sideshows of vaudeville acts, hiring and maintaining stables of stars, and introducing first sound for film and then color. Each progressive adaptation increased demand. Demand for filmed entertainment was especially high during the film industry's inception and throughout the Feature Film and Sound eras. Weekly attendance peaked at an estimated 110 million during the film industry's golden years. This occurred during a time when the US population was approximately 123 million (Parks, 2007). This outcome can likely be attributed to the lack of close substitutes to filmed entertainment. While studios of the Feature Film and later eras enjoyed the attention and profits, the pioneering film distributors gave rise to such enrichments.

Celluloid, created by George Eastman in 1884 in the necessary form needed (Donahue, 2010), was the medium that gave rise to the introduction of cinema. Soon after, competing companies sought to capitalize on this new product and moving pictures would soon follow suit. From the first moving, pictures, lasting mere minutes - if even that - to full length features, film distributors quickly capitalized on the market for motion pictures. Thomas Edison was one of the first entrepreneurs to do so. His company, the Edison Manufacturing Co., was among the first, to explore the uses of celluloid and the first to bring movies to life. Along with Edison, several others, Biograph and Vitagraph to name a few, joined the motion picture business to provide moving pictures to ever-increasing audiences. Together these pioneers initiated the film industry with first run pictures that traveled to vaudevilles, penny arcades, and nickelodeons.

To promote stability and prevent entry of budding competition, the earlier film distributors, led by Edison, cartelized the industry forming the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC). The cartel deemed illegal by the United States under the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1915, faced dissolution in 1917 (Cones, 2009). Soon after, the above-mentioned budding competitors were quick to launch their products into the market and serve the growing demand for moving pictures.

A breakaway from traditional practices began as the new distributors, freed from monopolistic practices of the MPPC, produced films of increasing length. As it was, these films were now features, and were no longer subject to the constraints they once faced as sideshow entertainment to vaudeville acts or the one to three reel shorts ...