Film Industry: Homework 1

Production
Producing a film has various stages including planning, filming and assembling.
Before the process of filming, the planning also known as the "Pre-production" must take place to enhance ideas/thoughts that will be apart of the project.
During the production of the film Avatar in 2007, beginning at the locations of Los Angeles and New Zealand, cast members, the script and costumes were all indentified through this process which allowed the production team to prepare themselves. Whilst the film sequence, Avatar trained their cast members to their specific character role before the next stage which is "filming".
Filming begins as soon as the relevant locations and scenes are planned out.
The director has main control at this point as it is their responsibilty for the film to construct and be at it's best quality. However if the filming is incomplete by the next stage of assembling, this will delay the process causing the production team to lose money.
This is known as "Production".
Lastly, to conclude the stages of production is the assembling of the film.
The film editor is to create a rough cut of the scenes previously filmed, in order to select the best shots for the final outcome. Through the process of trimming and editing the editor will then create a fine cut to flow in a seamless story. Graphics, music and other editing are added during this stage and once approved by the director and producer the film will become "locked".

Distribution
Distributing a film is in hands of the film distributor, which is the process of when the film is available for the audience to view. This is normally when a film launches directly at the cinema, however can be automatically seen for home viewing (DVD, downloads, etc).
Most conglomerate companies have their own distribution company meaning less money would be spent when releasing the film. However, the studio and distributor will come to terms on leasing or profit-sharing coming to an agreement on what percentage each party would fund aiming a goal of being both satisfied.
The final stage is allowing the film to be available to viewers as the film distributor takes control, ensuring that the movie is shown to prospective buyers who are interested in representing the film in their theatre.

Marketing
Marketing also known as "Promoting" is the process of the film being advertised to attract viewers interest into the movie. The first stage of marketing a film is usually having a theatrical trailer targeted at a specific audience giving them a taster of what to expect, leaving the viewers to want more. The next major step is to promote the film through advertising whether it is viewed on posters, TV, online or billboards. Below are examples of the film 'Avatar' being adertised to the public:

This can also be known as 'Publicity Blitz'.

Exhibition/Exchange
Exhibition now formally known as 'Exchange' is the last stage that is apart of the film industry process. This includes 'The Film Value Chain' which is to help the film to continue to earn money when the movie has no longer been showing at the cinema and is now released for home entertainment such as DVD, online and blu-ray. As the growing range of the formats continue viewers can watch the film when/how they want, this is known as 'Ancillary Markets'.