What's next...? New competition forcing adaptation.

With the recent emergence of video on demand software, viewers have the ability to chose from an endless list of movie options without having to leave their home. At a comparatively inexpensive monthly rate (when held up to DVDs), rental subscription services offer increased accessibility, as well as reduced prices. Thus, resulting in audiences opting for the more convenient option, leading to a trend of falling revenues for the film industry during the last decade or so. How will the movie businesses adapt to the latest innovations in movie distribution? What new technologies can they integrate to persuade audiences to attend movie theaters en masse? These are some of the questions the film industry needs to pose itself to maintain its appeal in the Digital Age.

Michael Sterin states that, “[e]ver since the development of VHS technology in the 1970’s, the film industry has been able to harness the profit potential of home video sell-through and rental outlets”(Mass Media Revolution, 179), however, since VHS technology is entering its antiquity stage, the film industry is losing out on profits to new online service companies. Rental services are now easier to access (through the Internet) and cheaper to purchase. In order to reestablish their profits attained before the Digital Age, movie companies have two options - introduce a brand new viewing platform that will compete with online rental services, or sell their movies to online companies and receive a percentage of the profits from sales. The latter seems like the most plausible scenario, for example, DreamWorks announced that a streaming deal had been made with Netflix in effect as of 2013 (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 26 2011), supporting the notion that movie companies are gravitating towards the allure of profitable online rental services rather than TV time slots.

For the film industry to become as profitable as it once was, possible ways to continue the enhancement of authenticity need to be researched and introduced to moviegoers. As of now, 3-D movies are the most recent innovation to hit the theaters, however, the technology is still embryonic. Barriers exist that prevent the viewer from being completely submerged in the movie’s environment. The glasses that are required to experience 3-D movies are clunky and strain the eyes, which leads to headaches among many. Although the technology has yet to reach its pinnacle, being able to watch the movie without glasses would be a huge step in the right direction. As long as the film industry can continue to ameliorate its realism, audiences will remain in the queue.

The present is bleak for the film industry, yet, the future is bright if carried out in a proper manner. New innovations are being released at a much higher rate than ever before, creating heated competition between film producers. Also, the level of realism due to enhanced computer generated effects is increasing exponentially with every passing day. What’s next after 3-D? This not-so-new technology has become the movie industry's standard as of late, and I think it’s safe to assume that the elimination of 3-D glasses will be the next step in the evolution of film… but what about after that? Stay tuned.  

The film industry has been constantly evolving throughout its relatively short history. The constant output of new inventions related to cinematography has provided the opportunity to recreate ideas formerly restricted to print resulting in a stretching of realism boundaries in film. The industry has passed through several eras, simply characterized by the technological limitations provided by the time period. These advances in film technology are successful in increasing to blur the line between the audience’s own world to the world temporarily portrayed by the filmmakers. 

The mise-en-scene (environment) of movies has drastically increased in complexity since the silent movie era. The lack of dialogue and simplistic movie sets allow for a much cooler medium than today’s films, relying on the viewer to participate by imagining, for example, an obviously synthetic landscape as natural. 

The ability to record sound and movement on one device made possible the possibility of films with sound tracks that mixed location sounds with dialogue and background music - the talkie.  This new feat in moviemaking forever revolutionized the way films were made and viewed by their audiences. The modern feat of combining sight and sound on screen eliminates the viewer’s need for participation and completes the visual package automatically.

In the post-war era, film’s landscapes began to become more and more complex with increasing investments by filmmakers. The rise of the blockbuster film helped viewer’s dive into the intended world of the moviemaker with the access to more elaborate set designs created by higher investments. This was as close to reality as film producers could manage with the technological limitations of the time. The next phase came with the birth of computer generated graphics.

Computer-based special effects were pioneered  in movies by George Lucas and the makers of Star Wars in 1977, revolutionizing film in an almost superior fashion to that of the talkies. Computer graphics hold no limits, allowing any story based in print to be transposed into film. Movies could now be created entirely in a studio and look like they were filmed in the middle of a forest. This was the final stepping stone in creating no division between the viewer’s reality and the fantasy world portrayed on the silver screen. Over time, feats of engineering saw the emergence of jaw-dropping cinematic props, most notably the animatronics used in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.  The nonstop improvement of computer graphics has led to previously 

unimaginable movies being produced and viewed by audience members worldwide. Films such as Toy Story, Avatar, and The Matrix are just a few of the many movies that have advanced the movie industry forward in facilitating viewers to dive into the storyteller’s world, and forget reality for a mere two hours.

Toy Story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPhse4WlgEA

The Matrix:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM5yepZ21pI

Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRdxXPV9GNQ

Pure interest link. The Rum Diaries: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXI-X_346Nc