tech essay

How have the technologies introduced in recent years had an impact on the film industry?

Technologies are very important when it comes to the film industry especially in recent years as it is vital for the three main stages, production, distribution and exhibition to expand.

As part of production, recent technologies have changed the ways in which movies have been filmed as now you can do this in many different ways such as, digital cameras, IMAX cameras, 3D Cameras and CGI. For the film I have studied (The Dark Knight Rises) I have found that IMAX cameras are the most important contributor as a massive 72 minutes of the film was filmed with these cameras which is a large step from the previous franchise to The Dark Knight, which only had 30 minutes of IMAX. By using these cameras they are highly expensive to film on as they are twice the size of a normal film, but seeing as they are Hollywood they are able to do this with the maximum amount of quality and resolution.  They didn’t use digital cameras at all but stuck to the traditional film, as the director was Christopher Nolan, criticizes it and believes the new format to be inferior. Other directors such as Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino also agree with this traditional method of filming. However with an independent film, you would find them using digital cameras as they are easy to access, low cost, and easier to film on despite the lower quality it is the best available option for them. As the first digital film was Star Wars two, it shows even Hollywood can use this kind of camera but it is normally found with low budget films. These are your everyday cameras in which you may own yourself which is typical of independent films to use however this will impact on a smaller audience as the genre of the film would not have a lot of detailed or special effects.

The way we distribute films are also more advanced and different as to how we would  have a couple of years back as technology has advanced widely, things like internet marketing, mobile apps, competitions, video cameras and also now digital distribution. As marketing on the internet would be very useful with independent as there is no added cost in the promotion charge with my film that I have studied, Broken took advantage of this and set up many social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, youtube to promote their film with trailers, posters linking onto these sites. This is helpful because it is easy to access, and targets their audience as they would be prone to be using the inherent daily and happen to stumble upon this film maybe even my chance. With Hollywood films you would expect them to go all out on using new technology to distribute their film. With The Dark Knight Rises they linked their film with a game version, which then also went into a Lego version, tying in synergy with other companies to benefit both for a profitable income. There was also a mobile app which was free of charge and masses of internet marketing for their film as it was a successful way of targeting their audience by using new digital devices which they are more prone to use. Further distributing the dark knight rises, they set up a series of competitions all over the inerter involving different things, one of which was when they teamed up with Empire magazine to win a custom made bat man Xbox and consoles.  There were masses of internet marketing involved as pop ups, the dark knight rises web site, advertisement on other websites as well help contributed significantly to the success of the film as it was just as important as the production, even more.

The last part which is key to the film industry is the exhibition of it all, as now technologies has advanced so we can see our films In IMAX,  as two are situated in London and only 26 in the whole of the UK, Multiple platforms have now been introduced and 70% of cinemas in the UK use this widely. And even digital cinemas. But the big problem is internet streaming as this reduces cinema views and a massive loss in the film industry.

Hollyowood films tend to be shown in the big screens and most public way possible, they will show them now in different settings such as multiplatform as they have become popular with every year. However there are problems as many old fashioned directors like to make their film on film which then has to be converted to digital to be shown in digital cinemas, which cost the cinema money to do so, as this benefits one it increases a loss in another. We have advanced so much now that we can see films on so many different platforms as it keeps advancing into new ways which are more accessible. The cinema ratings are slowly decreasing as internet streaming on sites such as net flicks, love film are growing on a higher demand as people want films now, online, and be able to download it faster.  However sites which are illegal such as the 1chanel and let met watch this are now increasing as they are free, and update the fims as soon as they are released in the cinemas, for teenagers you would find them using these websites more because of the cost and the wait is sooner.

As independent films will find this idea as a good thing. Because not many people would have heard of their film, they may put them up straight on these sites without even going through the whole cinema process; you would hardly find low budget films being shown in a vue, or IMAX, but mostly on the internet or straight to the leading TV channel. They do not have the money to pay cinemas to put their films up, so it would go straight to DVD, which is much quicker and easy to access. The dark knight rises took 8-12 weeks before it was put on DVD or online, while Broken went straight to DVD and published online including the illegal free sights.  This can have an impact mostly on the cinema business as less people are going but boosting the new technologies’ of online viewing.