How does digital technology affect the film industry?

Digital technology

Digital technology has taken the world by storm. The film industry began to boom in the 1930’s when it was first introduced to the world, as the general public were completely excited by a brand new aspect of entertainment. However it was in 1945 that the annual UK cinema admissions reached over 1,600 million this was because the cinema was the only way in which an audience could consume a film. On the other hand a lot has changed since the 1930’s, as technology has been developed faster and faster, the film industry had to keep up in order to remain successful and profitable. Technology has changed absolutely everything in some way; therefore there were many different aspects of film that technology changed e.g. certain aspects of production, camera equipment etc. Digital technology is dominating the world due to its speed and good quality, its fairly cheap price also contributes to its success, digital doesn’t cost as much because its such a quick process.

How times have changed!

The most obvious change to filmmaking as a result of digitisation is the shift to a digital film stock. And the positives are numerous; faster processing times, first-grade image quality regardless of age, and easy manipulation make the switch to digital video inevitable. The use of DV cameras among audiences has significantly affected the film industry, in that audiences themselves can feel closer to the film industry and take part in similar processes of production. The decreasing price of DV cameras, as well as the introduction of new technologies over the last decade has increased the use of them, making them available to more people, and increasing the quality of the product. The use of DV cameras has benefitted the film industry, in that the audience can create their own productions, and extend the brand of the film, where users can upload their own ‘films’ to the internet, on websites such as YouTube, due to the increased number of broadband connections in homes, promoting the films in doing so.

Costs

Digital technology has also decreased many costs for production companies, so that films can be produced at a higher quality, with a lower budget. As many films are shot partly or fully in the digital format, some film can be offered to cinemas in the digital. However, films distributed in the digital format currently have low demand, because the costs of converting cinemas to theatres with digital screens are very high: up to $150,000 per screen or more, and it is debatable whether the picture quality is any clearer-there are also more risks of digital projectors having faults and may require a replacements after only 5 years.

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