Thursday 21 November 2013


In what ways have the improvements in hardware and content affected institutions and audiences?
There are many ways that improvements in hardware and content have affected institutions and audience’s one of these being the re-introduction of 3D which stands for three dimensional viewing. 3D is a motion picture that enhances the illusion of depth perception. Some forms of 3D films have been produced from as early as 1915, but 3D never really took off as the hardware was costly and the process required to produce a 3D film was considered to be to time consuming. 3D film was incredibly reintroduced by James Cameron who directed the Film Avatar which was released in 2009 this was really one of the first 3D films to be featured in a wide release, and it sent people all around the world into a 3D craze The avatar made a staggering £2,782,275,172 from box office and suddenly 3D television was reincarnated in the world once again and better than ever before. Three dimensional viewing had a huge impact at first with institutions and audiences as Television company's introduced The 3D home television this gave viewers the chance to watch sport, television shows, documentaries and films in 3D all from the comfort of their own home. But sadly as an owner of a 3D television the improvements of a 3D television owner were short lived. I would personally not class the 3D television as an improvement in hardware or content but it definitely did effect institutions and audiences, television channels on sky were created exclusively for 3D and for a while it was an international sensation but after a while the novelty wears off as the owner of a 3D television I would personally not want to sit at home and watch a 3D movie straight through to the end as personally there is to many distractions and as you are wearing the built in 3D glasses you cannot go on your phone it is hard to eat and adding to this the room has to be completely dark, these problems arose to many 3D television owners and now currently only 6% of the population of Great Britain own a 3D television. After the avatar was released many audiences were attracted to the cinema all of the 4 quadrants in fact and the Avatar promoted many other films to be screened and filmed in 3D but after a while many people of the UK realised it wasn't worth watching films in 3D and it was just a gimmick that is why sales in 3D televisions and The amount of people that visit the cinema has decreased since 2010.

 An improvement in hardware and content has dramatically affected institutions and audiences. People throughout the world have replaced buying DVDs with subscriptions to online movie sites such as love film and Netflix these sites require a monthly subscription fee but offer viewers 1000's of movies to watch every single week for as little as £5.99 a month. Not only this But some of the latest game consoles provide a feature where gamers can also watch movies online, Xbox have teamed up with love film so console users can use love film on their Xbox's. The surging increase in online movie viewing has contributed to the death of the Blockbuster DVD rental chain and the death of the old fashion movie stores. Online websites provide much more of a variety for very little cost without the inconvenience of renting films and having to return your DVDs back to the shop. This improvement in hardware and content regarding the way we view films has changed the way institutions release films big institutions sell their films to online movie viewing companies. For example love film brought the rights to the new Star trek into the darkness film so they could show it to their online audiences. The figures for how much love film brought the rights to show the new star trek is kept disclosed though as its private information between love film and paramount productions.

Another aspect which you could say has resulted in the improvements of hardware and content regarding how it effects institutions and audiences is the improvement in the quality of cameras and the quality of the way audiences view this better quality footage. Many Hollywood productions such as Batman the Dark Knight rises directed by Christopher Nolan have started to predominately use IMAX cameras for the vast majority of the filming the reason why is because it captures a better quality. IMAX movie theatres are becoming the most popular movie theatres in the world by September 2012 there was 697 IMAX theatres in 52 countries. Due to various upgrades in hardware and content (upgrade in American cinema) the British film industry and cinema had no choice but to try and keep up with The way Hollywood were making and producing films and as the majority of films made in Hollywood were big budget films, this meant British producers were forced to use digital films instead of the old format film and cinemas had to be changed from film format to digital format. This posed as a great disadvantage to British film makers as digital cameras cost more to buy than cameras that use film, this posed as a major problem because the vast majority of British films were made by using a relatively small budget and big production companies such as Warner brothers and paramount pictures own the majority of the best quality film cameras, an example of this would be the Sony HDC F950 this camera cost $115,800.00 and was used in the making of Avatar in 2009. This leaves many British film directors unable to get funding for their film so their films end up being produced by various different companies from the UK and from outside of the UK. An example of this would be the 2012 version of Dredd that by right was a British film but had many South African aspects to it. Dredd was filmed in South Africa because it was cheaper to record there and although they had a budget of 45 million the director Peter Travis did not want to use equipment from big film production companies as it was too costly.

 In conclusion there are many different aspects of hardware and content that effect institutes and audiences and the ones that are mentioned above are what I believe to be the main changes that have most certainly affected the audiences and institutions British film companies such as Film four and monumental pictures are finding it harder and harder to compete with American Film companies simply because of the continuing advancing in content and hardware, This question very much shows the Influence that The American film industry has on content and software because of the Money it has not only this but because of their capabilities. Although British film companies do have low budget films that haven’t used the best content and hardware but have still pleased millions of people around the world an example of this would be slum dog millionaire but some film critics argue that the only reason why that made money was because it fit in all four sections of the 4 quadrants and appealed to many people like a film produced in Hollywood would do the majority of the time. There are currently different aspects of film though that are changing and innovating so you cannot be sure what the viewing of the audiences will be like and how exactly this will affect institutes.   








No comments:

Post a Comment