How has digital impacted Film Exhibition
What is Film Exhibition?
Film exhibition is the public screening of a film. This is usually for paying customers who have paid for a screening of the show however in recent years services for films have grown significantly with the rise of services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix. A lot of movies can go directly to these services or even the services create films and shows directly to be released on their own service. This is all down to film being digital and allowing people to stream films all across the world with this service instead of needing physical film.
Film Exhibition is the main source of income for most films with box office sales and services paying for a film to be put on their service. However, this is not the only source of income with many blockbuster films with other on-brand products also being used to gain money.
However, one problem with the film industry using digital film is that cinemas across the world were pretty much forced to purchase a film projector which may not affect larger cinemas as much but the following shows just how much that film projectors can cost.
A cinema can purchase a projector for as little as $10,000(U.S) (though projectors intended for commercial cinemas cost a lot more than that at round $20,000 - $30,000(U.S). They then must purchase the long play system which can cost up to $10,000(U.S). This means that cinemas may have to spend as much as $40,000(U.S) in order to show the new film that were coming out at the time.
Pros of Digital:
Allows more access for the consumer to watch films such as large services like Netflix and Amazon Prime being all digital.
Getting to cinemas is a lot of secure not having to worry about damage being done to the film since it doesn’t need to be transported.
Easy distribution to DVDs as the film is already in a digital format.
Cons of Digital:
Can be at risk of being leaked or exposed if the film is taken after it has been transferred to a computer which may have some sort of virus.
The expense of cinemas needed to purchase a projector with a long play system is high.
Donne Darko Case Study:
Donnie Darko was released in 2001 and was filmed on celluloid film with a budget of 4.5 million. 15 years after the release of the film, it was given a 4K remaster and multiple screenings in large theatres on high quality projectors to show the film in a fidelity that had never been seen until then.
“These high-resolution tools and projection can actually make you see the celluloid like you’ve never seen it before” - Richard Kelly (director)
Bibliography
http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Criticism-Ideology/Exhibition.html
https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/15148430/donnie-darko-4k-restoration-re-release-review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko
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