How does technological convergence affect institutions and audiences?
Technological convergence is the move towards different technological systems to evolve towards similar tasks, or simply the merging of more than one piece of technologies into a single device, meaning it has multiple functionalities. An example of this would be the combining of a video and still image camera, telephone, a music player and an internet browser into a smart phone, such as the iPhone. Technological convergence has many influences on film institutions, throughout the production, distribution and exhibition processes, as well as the audience of film products.
Technological convergence impacts production institutions for many reasons. Firstly, the development of technology means that film production is widely accessible to prosumers and amateur film makers, as well as well-established production institutions. This is because technologies such as smartphones offer both production and post production platforms, such as a camera to record initial footage with as well as editing applications such as Magisto. This means that an entire product can be produced with a single piece of relatively low-cost technology. This is becoming increasingly popular, with entire film festivals becoming dedicated to iPhone produced films. Due to this increase, there will be more potential content to be exhibited, leading to more competition within the film industry. This would be detrimental to many production institutions, as it would mean that they would have to increase their production value in order to retain an audience. This would particularly affect smaller independent institutions such as Vertigo Films, a UK based independent production, who would generally create products with relatively low production values, generally budgeted around £2m. In contrast, many major conglomerate production companies, such as Disney who own subsidiary MGM, would commonly spend around $200m on a film production, as they did with Skyfall. This would mean they would not suffer so much from the threat of technological convergence. This is because they are already well-established and would have the finances available to increase the production value of the films, ensuring to retain their current audiences with successful film productions.
Furthermore, technological convergence can also affect the way films are distributed and would therefore affect distribution companies. Firstly, technological convergence would mostly benefit the marketing divisions within many of these corporations. This is because there has been a huge increase in the amount of devices that have access to an internet browser, making the internet an increasingly used tool by a vast a number of people. In the modern day there are a wide range of devices that now have internet access, such as smart phones, PC's, smart TV's, games consoles (such as the Xbox and Playstation) and tablets (such as the iPad). Due to this, the internet has been transformed into a significant marketing tool and plays a large part in the promotion of films - especially through the use of social media websites such as Facebook. This is a relatively cheap marketing method, but allows companies to reach very large audience. These strategies are adopted frequently by both independent and major distributors, however it is more beneficial for independent companies, as they often lack the capital to finance large marketing projects, as majors can afford to. An example of a distributor that has benefitted from this technological convergence is Revolver Entertainment, who used social media for a large part of the marketing for Ill Manors.
On the other hand, distributors may find other aspects of technological convergence disadvantageous. An example of this is the evolution of film storage from 35mm film reels to digital copies. Previously, although some are still used, films were stored using traditional film methods. This would involve distributors physically dealing films to exhibitors. Nowadays however, due to technological convergence, there are a variety of devices that offer information or data storage, which can now be accessed on many types of PCs. This means that films can be transferred to exhibitors digitally. Although this is a cheaper alternative, there are many risks associated with it. Whilst many of these files are encrypted, digital film transfers to exhibitors can lead to piracy. Meaning that the film files can be redistributed illegally, and sold or given away for free to consumers, which can be very costly for both the production and distribution companies.
In addition, technological convergence also affects film exhibition. The main reason for this is that there are so many platforms and devices that allow audiences to consume a product. For example, whereas there were only limited ways to watch films in the past, i.e. at the cinema, now there are multitudes of media that allow film consumption due to technological convergence. For example, now films can be viewed on tablets, games consoles, PC's, smartphones, Smart TV's, as often many of these technologies would contain various media players or even would be able to access the internet and therefore view films through online streaming websites, such as NetFlix. Not only do consumers now have access to convenient means of viewing media, high quality exhibition is also available in the comfort of peoples own homes, such as by using the Blu-Ray player, an example of technological convergence in it's own right, as it can display both DVD's (in a higher quality than a DVD player) and Blu-Ray's, offering a superior experience to general home movie viewing, both visually and audibly. This has a colossal effect on exhibition companies, as this has lead to the decline of the cinema user, causing the box office to lose significant amounts of money.
In order to tackle this, cinemas have introduced a variety of new experiences in order to keep the viewing experience unique and unparalleled, keeping viewers returning and buying tickets, rather than compromising and watching films in their own homes. Firstly many cinema establishments, such as ODEON, have begun to offer Premier seating, where customers can pay a premium in order to watch the film more luxuriously and comfortably, with extra leg room, wider seats, and a better viewing angle. Most cinemas will show films in 3D also, making the viewing experience more unique still, although now many TV's offer this at a lower quality, again due to technological convergence. Also, some cinemas are beginning to introduce a '4-Dimensional' viewing experience, where audience members are seated in chairs that move, vibrate and provide physical effects to match onscreen visuals and audio. This experience is completely unique, and could not be imitated in other surroundings, giving 4D cinemas a unique selling point.
To conclude, technological convergence - the combining of more than one piece of technology into one device - is significantly affecting both audiences and institutions. Mainly, it is giving audiences more opportunities to consume film products, in turn negatively affecting cinemas, as less people are attending cinemas.
