micro budget film – £110,000
Funding
- Raised entirely through investment by individuals
- No funding body (e.g. BFI Film Fund) was willing to fund Chicken
- Raises questions about whether film industry is accessible to lower-income filmmakers
Distribution
- UK cinema release followed in May 2016. Selected for film subscription service MUBI and acquired by Film4 for TV premiere in April 2017.
- UK DVD release distributed by Network Releasing. Digital distribution in USA/Canada – January 2018.
Promotion
- film festivals, new technology was vital to promoting Chicken to a wider audience
- Some traditional marketing: trailer, film poster with review quotes etc.
- Social media very important to market film – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.
- Film available on-demand now; Stephenson hoping for deal with Netflix or Amazon Prime to bring in revenue and find wider audience.
- The guardian reviewed it on a poster
Hesmondhaulgh
- risky business- the producer didn’t know if it would be successful and didn’t know if people would even watch it.
Curran and Seaton