1.1 Research Focus
This book is about the business of distribution, which is the point around which the international film business revolves. It brings together thousands of companies who participate in the process of selling and buying the rights of films in the marketplace. These companies mediate and consult between film producers on the one hand and exhibitors or retailers on the other hand. They directly influence the types of films that are able to circulate to international markets, well beyond the national or domestic markets within which they originate. As such, distribution immediately impacts on the structures of film production and film consumption. From the perspective of producers, distribution performs a critical role in the process of enabling or disabling access to audiences; from the perspective of audiences, distribution performs a critical role in providing public access to films they prefer to watch. In other words, distribution is situated at the heart of the film business, representing a powerful gatekeeping function in connecting the structures of production and consumption.
Studying the business of film distribution is therefore important for two reasons in particular. First, distribution is a process of regulating the circulation of and access to films in both national and international markets (Tryon 2013; Crisp 2015). Distribution organisations are operationalised metaphorically as ‘gatekeepers’ that filter out product at different levels in the marketplace. Such organisations in effect decide which films are made available to audiences: they exert control over processes of inclusion and exclusion, over the process of enabling access to some films and disabling access to others, and over the process of rendering films visible to audiences. Gatekeepers are particularly needed to deal with issues of oversupply and abundance of product in the cultural industries. For instance, in terms of the film industry, research by the European Audiovisual Observatory has revealed that an enormous quantity of more than 6000 feature films was produced worldwide in 2016, but only a fraction of these films secured (substantial) distribution in a range of international markets (Focus 2017). Reports by the German Films Service (2017) demonstrate that between 550 and 850 films were released in cinemas in large European markets such as the UK, France and Germany in 2016. The fact that only a relatively small number of films secure such distribution is also understood from the perspective of scarcity economics, whereby physical resources put restrictions on the process of media circulation and prevent products from flowing freely in the global marketplace.
The second reason why it is important to study the business of film distribution, which intersects with the first point, is that distribution is a process that impacts on the comparative value of films in the global marketplace. The distribution business classifies and evaluates the potential of films against each other. By making an investment in selected films and helping to shape their profile in the marketplace, the distribution business impacts on the process of value creation and creates hierarchies. To this end, studies by Brian Moeran (2011) and Timothy Havens (2011) have demonstrated that cultural, social and economic values in fields of cultural activity are created within a global institutional environment of festivals and sales markets in which cultural products are introduced and promoted; and cultural and economic values are created by distribution companies which become formally attached as investors and gatekeepers. The cumulative impact of such values has an important influence over the distribution process of films and the capacity to invest financial resources in marketing and promotion to reach audiences at the level of consumption.
The process of distributing films is organised by sales agents and distributors, who we can describe as traditional gatekeepers in the sense that they have developed a long-established reputation in the distribution business as key organisations through which films are traditionally distributed. They differ from other types of gatekeepers which have appeared in the marketplace more recently to capitalise specifically on the development of the online market. Sales agents organise the distribution of films to international markets: they represent films from particular producers and sell the rights to distributors in international markets. Distributors, in turn, acquire distribution rights from sales agents and release films in local or national markets. In industry discussions around film acquisitions in the marketplace, sales agents are often referred to as ‘sellers’ in the distribution business, while distributors are ‘buyers’. It is worth noting, however, that distributors negotiate deals with cinema exhibitors, DVD/Blu-ray retailers, online platforms and television broadcasters in local or national markets, and thus equally operate as sellers.
As I will demonstrate in this book, sales agents and distributors operate as part of international gatekeeping networks through which distribution processes are organised. They gradually filter out and narrow access through decentralised decision-making at national and international levels. Thus, sales agents often make a first selection from new film projects on offer in the global marketplace. There are several hundred such companies in the global film business, and film projects generally need their commitment to enable access to distributors in international markets. The distributors make the second selection and decide which films are made available to audiences in specific countries or territories. They negotiate deals with sales agents to acquire foreign films in the international film marketplace, but they operate from local or national markets. There are several thousand such distributors worldwide.
Sales agents and distributors are then the primary gatekeepers that invest in films and add values to those films by inserting them into the distribution process. As Miriam Ross (2010: 11) and Peter Bloore (2013: 34) note, they each have their own role to play in the value chain, between the processes of production and consumption. Their expertise and skills from different levels in the marketplace are critical in positioning films in the marketplace. Together, they create gatekeeping networks through which they exert power and control over the distribution of films in the marketplace.
This book examines in depth the functions of these gatekeepers and gatekeeping networks, in order to understand where power and control lie in relation to processes of cultural flow: which films reach which audiences in the marketplace, how those films reach these audiences and how distribution impacts on the commercial performance of these films. Given the powerful role of distribution processes, it is surprising that the practice of gatekeeping and the organisation of gatekeeping networks in the film industry have not been examined in more detail. What is missing is an understanding of the work practices, selection processes and distribution strategies of sales and distribution organisations, large and small. Such an analysis would provide an insight into their decision-making and their ability to exert power and control over the process of enabling or disabling access for films. It is this analysis that I provide in this book, and the first research question asks how gatekeepers and gatekeeping networks operate in the film distribution business and how their conventional practices have developed over time.
In addition to such conventional gatekeeping practices, it is important to acknowledge that recent online developments in the marketplace brought about by increasing digitisation have impacted on the nature of the distribution business. A recent surge of studies of digital disruption (Iordanova and Cunningham 2012; Cunningham and Silver 2013; Crisp 2015; Nikdel 2017), on-demand culture (Tryon 2013; McDonald and Smith-Rowsey 2016; Smits and Nikdel 2018) and connected viewing (Holt and Sanson 2014) has demonstrated that the film distribution business is in a state of transition. Stuart Cunningham and Jon Silver, for instance, noted in 2013 that the online film market was still very much in early development and had yet to grow into a state of maturity (2013: 31). They argued that the advent of new online corporations such as Netflix, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon would have a dramatic impact on film distribution, changing the current landscape and existing power dynamics. That has indeed proved to be the case. In addition, new-media advocates, such as Chris Anderson (2006), have drawn attention to the evolving nature of cultural access in the online market. They describe the implications of the new online economy of media distribution in relation to the long-standing phys...