The continuing development of digital
media technology has had a large significance on media audiences and
institutions. over many years there have been many developments of distributing
films; cinemas to DVD to now being able to use cross-media to watch film online
using VOD such as Netflix.
In production, digital media has come
along way, for example in mad max: Fury road- directed by George miller, they
used a phantom camera. A camera that can shoot 300 frames per second,
increasing greatly in quality. Another camera they used was a flash camera,
allowing them to film it in 2D and 3D at the same time. They also used an edge
arm to film scenes on moving vehicles. For example, in the scenes where Nux
hangs off of the truck, we see very close detail and it allows the audience to
follow him as he moves around. This is a large improvement, saving them time
and money. This film also consists of CGI to add detail to the background and
make it more dramatic. Another film that used CGI is ex machina-
directed by Alex Garland. In this film they use rota-scoping to pencil in the body of the AI
after shooting the scene twice, once with the actress and once without.
The marketing process of films has had
significant development, which is important to get the film out to audiences.
Ex machina was
marketed using viral marketing. They did this by creating a fake tinder account
in Texas under the name of Ava, who is not a real person and got people to talk
to 'her'. When it came out that it wasn't a real person, it caused a lot of an
up roar on social media pages such as twitter and Facebook, creating free
advertising for the film. Having the access to viral marketing is really good
for low budget British films such as Ex machina. Mad max had more traditional marketing
such as posters and adverts, which would have costed a lot of money. However,
This film worked in cross-media with a gaming company to create a game that was
released before the film came out. This style of marketing was not available
when the first of the mad max series came out, showing a significant
development in the marketing processes.
When films where first about they could
only be seen in the cinema, this was later developed to now being able to
purchase DVDs and later on, blurays. There where many cases of films being
illegally downloaded online, so blurays introduced a way of over coming this by
giving a free download of the film they purchased. In very recent developments,
we now have VOD (video on demand) this is a legal way of watching films online
or at home. This has become very popular because it saves the user a lot of
money because instead of spending £10 on a cinema ticket, they can pay £10
monthly instead to get a wide range of over 1000 films to watch at home. The
biggest VOD site is Netflix, this site contains both old and new releases of
films for the user to enjoy.
In conclusion the significance of the
continuing development of digital media technology has meant that both
institutions and audiences have benefited from a great film experience. Media
institutions have made hit films such as Mad Max and Ex Machina generating a
huge profit and media audiences have had the opportunity to watch the new films
for their enjoyment.
