• Chicken is a micro budget film which was approximately £110,000, and was independent financing, box office made £10,000, this means he lost around £100,000
• Compared to Hidden Figures which had a $25 million budget, received a net profit of $95.5 million
• B Good Picture Company, Joe Stephenson was the director
• Distribution: Relied on streaming, new technology, VOD
• Used trailers, posters, film festivals etc to promote the movie Chicken, normal distribution factors
• Chicken received positive reviews and holds a 100% ‘certified fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 12 critic reviews
• CineVue praised the film and mentioned that it is ‘the sort of British indie which restores faith in cinema’
• Independent films are often screened at local, national or international film festivals before distribution
• An independent film production can rival a mainstream film production if it has the necessary funding and distribution

Funding/BFI:

• Chicken tried to secure funding from the BFI Film Fund who use the money paid for lottery tickets to provide financial aid/support young filmmakers. The films created often have cultural and/or artistic value and are typically aimed at niche audiences.
• BFI didn’t think Chicken would be successful or make a good enough profit. Joe Stephenson was also an unknown filmmaker so the BFI were unwilling to help fund the film

Production:

• Filmed in 19 days and mostly outside locations which means there could have been problems with weather
• Adapted a play by Freddie Machin which originally ran at Southpark Playhouse

Distribution:

• World premiere on June 27th 2015 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Theatrical release was on May 20th 2016
• Film festivals help to promote low budget films so they can reach a wider audience. This means most distributors would see the success of the film which would make companies more likely to distribute the film
• DVD and BluRay release by Network September 18th 2017

Hesmondhalgh – risky business

• Joe Stephenson took a risk when deciding to produce a film as he didn’t know if people would watch it or if it would be successful
• Took a risk when choosing to produce a film especially as an independent production
• People take risks so that they can potentially maximise their profits and challenge themselves to see if they can be successful in certain industries
• Companies were unwilling to invest time/money into this film as distributors found it unlikely that Chicken would generate enough revenue to create profit

Curran and Seaton – more diverse media landscape

• “The media industry is driven by the twin forces of creativity and business” – Chicken had a creative idea in the sense that Stephenson wanted to promote a message about not judging people based on how they appear, this brings a more diverse media landscape as Stephenson is attempting to implement a different idea which will add diversity to the film industry
• Bringing innovative ideas into the film industry, independent film makers can adapt mainstream producers in order to create something that is more diverse and can be something different for the film industry