Noise reduction helps clean the image from tiny dots that appears on images captured with low lights and high ISO. The tiny dots look like a TV that has bad signal. The noise reduction filter eliminates these tiny dots by adding more pixels to the image. With it you have the control over luminance and color noise. In other works, it can help you have a better definition and sharpness.
it most likely is the first one cause distribution is when the film is sold, development is basically like the process and how it's going, production is during the creation of the film so pre-production is my best guess
