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UK Film Council funding to support digital innovation in film distribution

The UK Film Council is trialling an earlier application process within its Prints and Advertising (P&A) Fund that will support distributors in harnessing the internet to transform the way British audiences discover and engage with films.

19Aug09

The UK Film Council is trialling an earlier application process within its Prints and Advertising (P&A) Fund that will support distributors in harnessing the internet to transform the way British audiences discover and engage with films.

The new Digital Innovation in Distribution process will allow distributors to apply for P&A funding at an earlier stage to cover the specific cost of innovative digital and online tools for marketing films and developing audiences over a longer lead time.

Many distributors are working online activity into their promotional plans for new films much earlier than the traditional four-week trailer, press and outdoor PR campaign window as a way of building film brands and getting audiences involved much sooner, sometimes before a film is even completed.   By providing support for film distribution at an earlier stage, the UK Film Council's initiative will help innovative campaigns reach wider audiences over a longer build-up to a film's release.

Funding is available for digital promotional and marketing materials such as:

  • creating digital assets such as clips, trailers, podcasts, stills, etc;  
  • developing social media elements such as blogs, widgets and social networking profiles;
  • interactive websites; and
  • viral marketing.

Distributors applying for funding will also be encouraged to factor in the collection of audience research information in their marketing strategies for films, such as viewers' contact details, viewing habits and opinion polls of whether audiences would pay to see the film in the cinema. This kind of information can be then used to inform the theatrical and overall distribution plan, enabling much more effective targeting of the film's audience.

Overall findings of the scheme will be shared with the UK distribution sector so that the industry can benefit by learning from the projects that are awarded funding. Films which receive UK Film Council P&A funding already share audience exit poll information.

In addition to film distributors, rights holders can also apply for funding if the film they planning to distribute is not yet completed, so long as the intention to theatrically distribute in the UK can be clearly demonstrated.

Pete Buckingham, Head of the UK Film Council's Distribution and Exhibition Fund said: "The UK Film Council is driving forward new solutions for reaching out to consumers and we want this new process to inspire unique plans to tap into the growing appetite for discovering film online. The internet is transforming the way we engage with films, and there are real opportunities out there for distributors to use new methods that grab the attention of UK audiences. 

"Working over longer lead times, maybe even before a film is completed, means that a film's cinema release becomes the main event within a bigger buzz that has already fired up the imagination of film fans boosting the size of that film's potential cinema audience."

The trial of the new application process will run until 31 March 2010 and will make up to five awards of a maximum of £30,000.  The awards are part of the UK Film Council's P&A Fund which allocates £4 million a year to helps distributors gain broader exposure for films that might otherwise have a limited distribution, thereby giving audiences greater opportunity to see a wider range of films.

For more information on the Digital Innovation and Distribution application process, visit www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk/prints

For more information contact:

Tara Milne/Tina McFarling
UK Film Council press office
T: 020 7861 7901/7900
E: tara.milne@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk / tina.mcfarling@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk  

Notes to Editors:

  1. For information on the Digital Innovation and Distribution application process, contact Alex Stolz – alex.stolz@ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
  2. The UK is one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to release films, and this can lead to limited choice for cinema-goers.  While blockbusters such as Harry Potter are often released in the UK with more than 1,000 film prints, the average number of prints for a foreign language specialist film is under ten.

    The UK Film Council has created a single fund, the UK Film Council's Prints and Advertising Support Fund, also known as the P&A Fund, with an annual budget of £4 million. This fund   also offers support to more commercially focused 'British' films that nevertheless remain difficult to market.

    This fund is not intended to substitute pre-existing investment but rather is seeking to add value to the investment already being made by distributors in each film.

    The fund aims to benefit audiences by:
  • widening access in terms of the range of films available;
  • widening opportunities to view such films across the UK; and
  • widening audience awareness of the range of films potentially available.