Institutional Research

'Sup!

When doing institutional research, I initially began searching British films of the genre romantic-comedy. Surprisingly, the list I referred to on Wikipedia only named 108 films in that genre category made by British production and distribution companies, some of which include Bridget Jones' Diary (Working Title Films), Tamara Drew (Monumentum Pictures) and Mamma Mia! (Universal Pictures, Playtone and Little Star).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_romantic_comedy_films

I decided to research various British institutions which created films within my genre to educate myself in which companies would best be used to produce a film like ours. I chose to research Artificial Eye, Momentum Pictures, Entertainment Film Distributors and Working Title Films.

Artificial Eye

Artificial Eye is a British film distributor, specialising in foreign-language and art house films. It was founded in 1976 by Andi Engel his then wife, Pamela Balfry, who had a background working with Richard Roud at the London Film Festival. She became Artficial Eye's first managing director. Artificial Eye releases some 20 new theatrical films and 30 DVD titles in the UK each year. 

It distributed a variety of films including Fish Tank, a low-budget British Film, as well as 360 and What Richard Did. Although Artificial Eye is a British Company and showed willingness to distribute low-budget films as it did with Fish Tank, the genres it seemed to focus on are foreign and art house films, both of which don't fit with our chosen genre of romantic-comedy, therefore, the distributor is inappropriate for our film.

Momentum Pictures

Momentum Pictures, my second researched company, is one of the leading independent motion picture distributors in the UK and Ireland and releases approximately 20 theatrical films a year. The studio produces a variety of genres in film, including romance, comedy, horror, and family films.

Among other films, it has distributed Just Friends, P.S. I love you, and Dear John, all of which are romantic-comedy genre. Although the company doesn't seem to specialise or endorse low-budget production films, they do distribute a films with a range of genres, some of which are popular rom-coms and as a result, is a suitable choice for our film to use.


Entertainment Film Distributors

Entertainment Film Distributors is another British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, currently run by Nigel Green. The fact that they distribute independent films implies that they specialise in backing newcomers, unknown film makers and low-buget films, ideal for our film project.

The company distributes a variety of films in different genres, including Run Fatboy Run, 17 Again, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This indicates that this distribution company would be suitable for our film due to the fact that the company delves into our genre of romantic-comedy based on their wealth of films in that category. The films they produce in the rom-com genre are popular and well-known, inspiring confidence that our film would get wide-spread exposure and circulation. The company also works with newcomers to the film-making-scene and back low-budget films, which puts them ahead of Momentum Pictures and Artificial Eye, as Momentum pictures doesn't do a lot of work with low-budget projects and Artificial Eye specialises in art house and foreign films, neither of which are our genre.

Working Title Films

Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London. The company was founded by tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983. It produces feature films and several television productions and is one of the most successful and well-known British production company, and its parent company is NBC Universal. It produces films in a variety of genres, including romantic comedy and have produced, among others, Love Actually, Bridget Jones' Diary and Definitely Maybe. All these films share the similar category of romantic-comedy and all three have been popular classics which are loved by the British public (Love Actually won a series of BAFTAs and Golden Globes), inspiring confidence in us as directors looking for a production company to create our film. The company has a positive image and history if success and is a promising option as a production company.


Pheebs OUT! ;)