What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?

The development of digital technology includes the development of new technology, such as cameras and viral marketing. It is changing day by day which will improve the quality of films and also the way they are marketed and distributed. Although these new technologies are only available to the companies that have a big enough budget to include them in their films. For example big six companies such as Universal are able to take advantage of the technologies such as 3D as films as they have the money to invest in them and as they are a big company, they have the ability to make a profit. An example of this is Prometheus which was distributed by 20^th Century Fox who are one of the big six; the film contains approximately 1,300 digital shots, and several different effects studios including Moving Picture Company. The film was successful as the special features made the film better and more interesting for the audience.

Whereas a contrast to this would be the film Attack the Block which is a British film distributed by Optimum Releasing, this film didn’t have as big a budget as Prometheus, to get their aliens they had two men dressed in gorilla-like suits, and 100 effect shots were used to get the aliens looking better, this is 1,200 shots less than Prometheus. Smaller film companies such as Optimum releasing and Working Title do not have the same kind of money as the bigger studios have, this is why they don’t release as many films with special effects such as 3D films. Working Title has only released one film in 3D as they don’t have the money to use a lot of special features regularly.

The growth of digital media technology has now produced Blu-ray DVDs, this is a new type of disc that has caused original DVDs to have been recreated in high definition to sell more copies of them, the same thing has happened with 3D, many older films have been re-made in 3D to create a new experience and a chance for the company to get more money. These modified films and DVDs have been marketed to the public and they have gone out and re-purchased their favourite films as they now look better, this adds to the profit of the company.

Another way digital media technology has affected audiences is the way films are now marketed, the use of the internet has caused film sales to increase. Viral promotion of films has been taken to another level, now because social networking sites such as Facebook are so widely used it is easier for companies to advertise the film through word of mouth. Sites like this can be used for the company to promote their film by producing specific pages, accounts and groups just for the film, also especially with Facebook if somebody ‘likes’ the film on Facebook this will pop up to their friends and generating a kind of viral word of mouth about the film. On sites such as this videos, interviews, images etc can be posted on there for people to look at, so that the company can entice the audience. An example is The Inbetweeners Movie Facebook page set up by Film4.

Audiences benefit from the development of digital media technology as they can have the experience of watching films in better quality that include better features, it also means that some of their favourite films can be re-lived in better quality, this makes the audience happier. It is also much easier for the audience to be aware of films now as well. This is a selling point as the audience want to go and see the best quality film with the best special features such as 3D, and this will continue to grow into the future as everybody will want to witness the best special features in films. Although the growth of digital media technology may not benefit the smaller film companies as they will be less likely to afford the high price of the latest special features and will therefore release films that are may be not as good quality as films released by the big companies. This can create a kind of divide between the companies with the ones that can afford the features and those who can’t; it may then mean that smaller companies find it hard to make as much money on films.