DIGITAL CINEMA AND DISTRIBUTION

Annabelle Parish

WHAT IS DIGITAL CINEMA?

Digital cinema is the use of digital technology or project motion pictures over the historical use of film reals. It has the ability to be shipped to different cinemas in a range of different ways which include: over the internet(streaming), dedicated satellite links, hard drives or optical disks such as Blu-ray disks. The formats are then projected at the cinema through digital projectors, so that both the footage and sound of the film can be shown to a paying audience. Digital cinema is not dependent on things such as using television or high-definition video standards and frame rates. Within digital cinema this is measures by the number of pixels there are horizontally across the screen.

POS IT IVES OF D IG ITAL D ISTR IBUT ION

Traditional distribution was expensive so there wasn’t much gain for filmmakers especially independent filmmakers. Where as with the take over of digital distribution it means that some of the money made gets back to the independent filmmaker’s pocket.

Digital distribution eliminates any worry of limited releases finding it difficult to reach a wide array of audiences, and if any small releases will even reach its target audience. This is because we can now distribute film online, which means that the audience can find the production work as long as it has been marketed properly and effectively.

Digital distribution stops the fear of films leaking or being spoiled by bloggers because, Online Distribution can make their services to the audience irrelevant and redundant. As it recognises that the audience wants to be FREE, as in be able to view the films within their personal space where it suits them and when they want.

NEGAT IVES OF D IG ITAL D ISTR IBUT ION

It is known within the media industry that digital distribution doesn’t make much money at the moment, people believe that this is because the method is still new and untraversed. This is because audiences are still slow at realising and changing their mind set of the internet being a free service to paying for online content. At the moment it is not very popular to pay for a film especially when there is so much free content available online to the audiences.Marketing is more important for the digital distribution industry than the normal distribution because there are multiple interferences that can come between a film and the audience related and unrelated. It is vital that there is a strong marketing strategy to accompany any digital distribution strategy.

COST ISSUES AND BENEFITS OF DIGITAL CINEMA

Digital cinema has a significant saving feature due to saving on print expenses. For example the minimum cost for printing of $1200-2000 where as the printing cost of Celluloid print production is between $5-8 million per film. With the several thousand film releases a year digital distribution and projection is saving over $1 billion. The cost savings are allowing larger scope of films to be screened and watched by the public. This also allows the minority and small budget films that would not otherwise be given such a chance.

BEFORE DIGITALBefore digital film was created 35mm film was the most commonly used form of film gauge for both motion picture and chemical photography. It was called 35 mm because this referred to the width of the photographic film that was used. Over time this versatile product developed and has been modified so that it can now include sound along withth digital sound, been redesigned to create a safer film base, can have the ability to contain/ capture colour and can accommodate a range of different widescreen settings.