Challenges Imposed on the Cinema Industry - Essay Example

Challenges That New Media Poses To the Cinema Industry Movie theatres today are perceived to be slumping down and losing its market where as DVD's or home theatre is gaining popularity. With the rising sales of DVD's and the higher cost of movie tickets, entertainment has been a factor in moulding the lifestyle of people. This paper will focus on one of the cinema industries threats which is the skyrocketing sales of DVD's. It discusses the contribution of the distribution of DVD in people's lifestyle as a result of home entertainment and positive and negative effects of DVD distribution to the cinema industry. This paper was made through thorough analysis and research of related articles on magazines and books. The internet is also useful and also provides a detailed survey in relation to the topic. Through the help of the latest technologies, flat TV's and surrounds existed and in buying a DVD, a theatrical experience is now accessible in the comfort of ones home. INTRODUCTION Modern movie theatres today are perceived as big enclosed buildings with excellent sound effects, comfortable seats, dimmed lights and a big wide screen where the latest international and local movies or films are shown. Movie theatres compared to the televisions are owned by corporations and visited by the general public while televisions are owned by individuals. The film is actually projected with a movie projector onto a large white screen infront of the auditorium. It is connoted as a "big screen" which contrasts the small screens of television to put a thrill and play with a person's imagination when it comes to movie watching. According to a 24 year old movie watcher, movie theatres add more thrill with the use of a larger than life images and loud sound effects. Televisions, on the other hand provide variety of shows and films to be watched in the comfort of ones home. Movie theatres are very popular. Long before television was made known in the 1950's, the first movie theatre which is exclusively showing motion pictures was launch in 1896. Non-commercial television is a system of broadcasting that is financed by means other than advertising revenues. (Paul Mareth) Today however, through the evolution of technology, hi-tech gadgets were being invented. Television is not only used to watch TV shows aired by television programmers and cable/satellites. With the existence of video tapes or video home system (VHS), CD's (compact disk), VCD's (Video Compact disk) and DVD's (Digital Video disk), and the innovation of wide flat screened television sets, it now provides a homely theatre for home entertainment. AIMS To discuss the contribution of the distribution of DVD in peoples lifestyle as a result of home entertainment To know the positive and negative effects of DVD distribution to the cinema industry Film Distribution Since the late 1970's, there has been a radical change in both film content and the distribution of the film product. (Gerald Mast) While more and more people subscribe cable or satellite connections, film industries has come to depend more and more on television rather than theatres. The President of Paradigm, Peter Broderick says "I don't recommend that filmmakers go it alone and try and reinvent the wheel. But I also don't recommend that they just blindly go into making overall deals assuming that all their problems will be solved by this one company, whatever it may be". (Rebort) A film doesn't have to be seen only in theatres with the existence of televisions and the evolution of film distribution. Acknowledging the threat of the growing number of couch potatoes, film doesn't need to be distributed through cinemas alone but also go with the fast flow of digital innovation. Eventually films had been distributed, designed or converted to cater TV viewing, since the early 80's. VCR equipments and video tapes had been popular and widely distributed and so do CD's and DVD's in today's era. However, DVD's won't be around forever. There is this so called "format war" that keeps on innovating and producing latest technology which will bring a more convenient and cheaper access to movies all around the world. DVD, is it helping the cinema industry People living in third world countries such as India are avid movie goers. Everyday, millions of people flock to thousands of theatres to see some of the 700 movies made every year in the country (Sudip Mazumdar) Back then, Indians avid moviegoers get to see a movie but in the back of a theatre lies a noisy steel movie projector that generates pictures and lights as well as a great deal of heat. Through these digital innovations, a theatre owner can sit in his living room and press a key to start a movie in the theatre according to Sentil Kunmar. (Sudip Mazumdar) When technology invented the DVD, it always leads to the question "What is the future of movie theatres" DVD's features include easy accessibility, easy to store, durable and produce great pictures so if DVD's are easily and cheaply acquired, does this foretell the death of movie theatres Just as the spreading gossip that the launch of VCR's would lead to the death of movie theatres back in the 80's is untrue; DVD would not kill the cinema industry, but rather help cinemas provide quality pictures. Home video never hurt the theatres because of the movie industry's staggered distribution schedules, from box office to DVD to cable. If DVDs were available the same day of a movie's theatrical release, it would have hurt movie theatres badly. (The Future of Movie Theaters) Watching films in movie theatres is a different and thrilling experience compared to watching movie in a television at home. Its quality and larger than life images captures audience differently which made a viewer focus its attention completely into the movie. In the contrary, a Forbes article by Dan Ackman states the status of movie theatres. NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners) doesn't track the number of seats per theatre, according to a spokesman. But if you assume 225 seats per screen and four showings per day, there are 12.2 billion total available seats in theatres nationwide. That means movie theatres are operating at 12% of capacity, and 88% of the seats are empty. One problem of theatre owners is too many movies mean too many screens. Based on the recent statistics, the gap between home video sales/rentals and the box office have increased dramatically in the last few years. The only thing saving the movie theatres is their exclusive access to new films for the first few months of their lifecycle. (The Future of Movie Theaters) Just as an article by Christian Caryl says, The movie industry is hoping that high-def video formats can stem the steady erosion of DVD sales, which have long since outpaced sales of movie theatre tickets and thus represent one if the industry's primary sources of income. It is observable though, that DVD format wars have become an issue. These wars however exists, because of the undying aim for improvement and the undeniable fact that more and more people buy DVDs. People still prefers tangibility especially when talking about package media, so rather than going to a movie theatre and pay a ticket to watch a movie, they would buy a DVD which they can carry home and collect it in their CD/DVD libraries. It is rather undeniable that DVD's as of today are treated like a collector's item book. Watching movies in big screens would be a one great night out. But after the novelty wears off, convenience becomes more important and there is nothing more convenient than waiting for a week, purchase the DVD and play it in a wide flat television with surround in the comfort of your own home. Since the birth of televisions to the innovations of VCR's to CD's and DVD's to the downloadable movies in the internet, more and more people preferred comfort and convenience and it has been difficult then for the movie theatres to lure the movie viewers up from their couch and out of their houses to watch movies. Plus the really very expensive snacks sold inside the theatres to compensate their loss, has never been attractive to the viewers. The availability of a DVD copy of a movie is also an advantage for those viewers who wanted to watch a certain movie over and over again. If owning a DVD is however, not a viewer's cup of tea, DVD rental houses has now been widely spread. Three questions have been asked by Monica Metha. If a movie you want to see is releasing today in simultaneous formats. Would you rather: 1. See it in your living room, where it will air on pay-per-view cable TV at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. 2. Go to a theatre and see it on a big screen 3. Wait four days, when it comes out on DVD, and buy and see it then When Director Steve Soderbergh wanted to release a movie simultaneously, a lot of theatre owners reacted on this for it will bankrupt the cinema chains. The fear that if DVD and a movie experience made no difference, it will altogether picture out the death of movie theatres. The movie theatres are starting to ride together with the sunset. Darren Barefoot had conducted a survey that asks why have you gone to fewer movies in the past year than a year ago. Cost of Movie Ticket 35 No Time/Too Busy 35 Cost of Snacks 17 Movie Quality 15 Move Theatre Not As Good As Watching At Home 13 Less Time To Wait for Movie To Buy/Be on DVD 9 Scepticism Towards the Promotional Hype 5 Theatres are Too Busy 3 Other 24 DK/REF. 1 In this survey, 54% of the respondents prefer to watch movies on DVD's at home than watch movies in theatres. Although very few have minded the long lines of movie theatres and there are few who doesn't mind waiting for the DVD's to be released, the top most reason as to why fewer people have gone more often to movie theatres is due to the high cost of movie tickets and next is, people are just too busy for movie theatres. Peoples Lifestyle and Home Entertainment According to George Hotellin in one of the forums last December 1, 2004, the trend is continuing to favor time alone, which means people would rather just buy the DVD or download the movie and watch it at home. That will continue for the next 10-15 years. After that, there will be a backlash that results in a revival of community. People will get tired of their closeted lifestyles, realizing that using bittorrent to download Spiderman 12 and then heading to a community weblog to talk about it isn't the same as dinner and a movie. Obviously humans need communal interaction to thrive and eventually we're going to trend back towards public gatherings. Also, the loss of movie theaters would result in millions of teens losing a potential venue for their first date. As of this moment, home theatre is gaining more popularity than that of movie theatres especially with the latest TV's and surrounds, a theatrical experience can be accessible at home. Today, movie tickets are slumping and DVD revenues are skyrocketing. This goes to say that more and more people prefer to buy DVD's and watch it at home than line up in a long row and pay tickets to the theatre to watch a movie and endure the noisy crowd or group of teens chatting up behind you. Buying a DVD would probably cost more bucks, but it will eventually paid up after a few viewings and renting a DVD would cost much cheaper than a movie ticket. Film entertainment has now the edge or captured more markets at home than in a theatre. REFERENCES Caryl, Christian (no date) DVD Cold War. Newsweek. Vol. CXLVII No. 5, January 30, 2006 Mareth, Paul (no date) Non-commercial Television. Groliers Academic Encyclopedia. Mast, Gerald (no date) American Film Today. History of Film. Groliers Academic Encyclopedia. Mazumdar, Sudip (no date) Stars Without Static. Newsweek Vol. CXLVII, January 9, 2006. Barefoot, Darren (25 July 2005) Movie Suckage Barely Affects Attendance. Creative Commons Licensing. Available from http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2005/07/movie-suckage-barely-affects-attendance.html [Accessed May 11, 2006] Metha, Monica (27 January 2006) Bursting Hollywoods Bubble. Alternet [online] Available from: http://www.alternet.org/movies/31379/comments=view&cID=79773&pID=79639 [Accessed 10 May 2006] Rebort (no date) Rethinking Film Distribution. Film Inside out [online] Available from: http://www.iofilm.co.uk/io/mit/001/film_distribution_20051115.php [Accesed 9 May 2006] (1 December 2004) The Future of Movie Theatres. Waxy.org [online] Available from: http://www.waxy.org/archive/2004/12/01/the_futu.shtml [Accessed 10 May 2006] Read More