Exam Question - Technology

The increase in hardware and content in media industries has been significant in recent years. Discuss the effect this has had on institutions and audiences in the media area you have studied.

Over the recent years there has been a large increase in high tech film making hardware, which as a result has made film content easier to produce. This means that much more film content has been produced in the last decade than it has in many decades before. This increase in hardware, and therefore content has both positive and negative impacts on institutions and audience in the film industry.

One piece of hardware that has advanced and improved in the last few decades is camera equipment. Film makers now have the opportunity to use digital cameras to film instead of the traditional film cameras. These cameras are smaller, much lighter and can often be cheaper to buy than film cameras. This technological advancement means that more people who has a small budget can produce films. Not only have digital cameras emerged, but even phone cameras can be high quality enough for shooting films. An example of a film that implemented this is 'Tangerine', a film about transgender prostitutes that was shot on three iPhone 5S smartphones are received critical acclaim when it debuted at the Sundance festival as well as raking in $700,000 at the box office. However, some directors would argue against the use of film. Directors such as Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino argue that the quality you get with film is much higher than that of digital and that film creates a more natural image than digital does

Another piece of technology that has developed in recent years that has had an effect on the audiences and institutions of film is projection equipment. Several decades ago, the only choice for projection was a 35mm film or smaller, which produces 6k lines of horizontal resolution. However, in the recent years, technologies such as IMAX have been developed. IMAX requires a larger 65mm film, but does however produce 18k lines of horizontal resolution, which is a much better picture quality than offered by a standard 35mm film. This increase in quality means that IMAX films can be projected onto a much larger screen for an overall more impressive viewing experience. This technology is often paired with 3D film projection technology and moving seats, smells and audio sensory features to create "4D" movies. These movies are often attractions at theme parks and resorts.

With the internet, movies are much easier to access by consumer, through on demand services, such as Netflix and Amazon prime instant video. These services require you to pay a monthly rate, and allow you access to hundreds of television shows and movies which you can stream to your device. This has decreased cinema sales, with only 3.4% of film viewing taking place in cinemas in the UK in 2011, while films being watched on television and through streaming services accounted for over 80% of all film viewing that year, and the number has likely increased since then. The rise of these services could be partly due to the rising prices of cinema tickets; an adult cinema ticket works out around the same price as a months subscription to a streaming service such as Netflix. However, you are unlikely to get the same quality experience that you will get in a cinema, which will offer a much larger screen, a high quality sound system and extremely high resolutions.

However, the development of the internet has also had a negative effect on audiences and institutions of the film industry, through the development of internet piracy. While some will rather pay the cheaper price of a subscription services, others will opt to not paying for films at all ,instead downloading them or streaming them illegally for free. While this has little effect on the sales of huge Media conglomerates such as Disney and Universal, Independent film producers suffer greatly from this. This is because they have usually have little budget to produce the films, and they depend on local distributors to distribute their films for exhibition. When they get invested in by these companies, and the films are then exhibited. If these films earn very little in the box office due to a large amount of people illegally downloading the film, the production company will lose a large amount of royalties from the film's exhibition and the local distributors will too, meaning they are less likely to invest in these indie companies again the future.