VR virtual reality cinema coming

IN THIS POST: short overview of some major technogical changes from digitization, then a focus (TBC and rolling updates) on VR


The film industry, at times reluctantly, has embraced a series of new technologies over recent decades, and the disruptive forces of digitization always seem poised to transform what at heart is quite a conservative industry, locked into franchises, the star system (changing?) and dominated by a mere 'big six' companies despite all the changes.

As with cassette tapes, you may have been born after the VHS tape disappeared from the high street

DVD meant they could:

1. re-monetize back catalogue [long tail...]; just as the music industry got millions to replace their tapes/vinyl with (sonically inferior!) CDs so too did the movie industry make billions from VHS tapes being replaced
2. the monetizing went further with editionalising: usually starting with a vanilla (movie only, perhaps a trailer added) edition, and leading over time to any combination of special, collector's, ultimate (etc) edition, not to mention director's cut, with commentaries and other extras to push sales, plus footage cut for cinema release

Geek.com headline, 2014.

DIGITISATION, GLOBALISATION, CONVERGENCE Superhero hegemony in brief

Another critic (Jason Wilson) rather irked at the hegemony of superhero tentpoles. If you use the superhero tag in particular you'll find several linked articles analysing the rise of these films and this me-too strategy.

A quick summary follows of key points you can utilise to show your understanding of how (British and global) cinema functions ...

3D Sky's not the limit for 3D after all

Launched with an Avatar exclusive, as brazen an example of both vertical and (with heavy plugs in The S*n for instance) horizontal integration, Sky has announced its shutting its 3D channel.

That's great news for the cinema industry, a strong sign that there are limits to the appeal of home cinema.The writing's been on the wall for 3D for some time now, but Sky is finally acknowledging the fact that, really, we just don't want to wear 3D glasses in our living rooms thank you very much.So Sky will pull the plug on its dedicated 3D channel this June. It will move its 3D content to its booming On Demand library section, giving it a much better home. That is, until Sky rolls out its 4K content and we forget this whole 3D thing ever happened. [http://www.techradar.com/news/television/tv/sky-just-pulled-the-plug-on-3d-tv-1292274.]

That's rather good news for the cinema industry at least, a sign that home cinema does have its limits.

Global, not US, market dominates Hollywood (Obst, 2013)

Look out for useful terminology/neologisms below: pre-awareness and tentpoles and tadpoles

$101m global box office, $21m budget (1993)

A few useful nuggests from this article by Phil Hoad, which highlights and critiques some of the points raised by one-time Hollywood hit producer Lynda Orbst in her bio (given an excoriating review by an unimpressed David Thomson, here), but the really important point concerns WHY Hollywood has turned to tentpole CGI/SFX spectaculars, usually within franchises and/or using 'pre-known' brands/books.

Her line of attack, that Hollywood has wrongly turned its back on medium budget concept movies, where the script, not CGI, is king, is a common one - especially from industry veterans...

If it wasn't startling enough when, in 2011, Universal president Ron Meyer commented on the amount of "shitty movies" on his own slate, founding fathers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas stepped up in the same week as Obst's book was published to denounce Hollywood's blockbuster dependency. ... The reckoning – led by baby boomers attacking the recent homogenisation drive in mainstream films – has exposed a generation gap in Hollywood.

Digitisation emerges as one key cause in this shift:

the shrinking of DVD revenue in the mid-noughties halved the studios' profit margins and reduced their appetite for risk

3D declining in 2013

You can find much more on the key topic of 3D cinema in this post.
Back in 2011 there were some arguing 3D would soon decline - and now it seems it may have peaked.

3D films set for popularity slide

First drop in 3D box office projected for this year despite hotly tipped summer blockbusters, according to Fitch Ratings report

• James Arden
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 12 April 2013 15.23 BST
• Jump to comments (42)

Box office blues … 3D exploded into our cinemas with Avatar in 2009, but now the novelty appears to be wearing off. Photograph: Rex Features

Audiences for films in 3D are projected to decline in 2013, the first drop since 3D exploded with Avatar in 2009, according to a report compiled by Fitch Ratings.
Since the success of James Cameron's sci-fi epic, more and more movies have jumped on the latest iteration of the 3D format, which is no longer confined to animation or big-budget action films. The likes of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby and Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity will also exploit the new technology.
However, Fitch has concluded the novelty is starting to wear off. 3D box office takings in the US and Canada have remained static at $1.8bn for the past two years, and are set for a slight year-on-year decline in 2013 despite a strong lineup of 3D releases, including Star Trek Into Darkness, Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel.
"Attendance likely benefited from the initial proliferation of 3D films," says the report. "However, the initial excitement has dwindled, and consumers are focused again on the overall quality of the film and are weighing the cost of a premium ticket versus a base 2D ticket."
While overall box office takings increased in 2012 to a record-breaking $34.7bn worldwide, 3D failed to make a similar impact. "Going to the movies remains one of the lower-cost forms of entertainment," says Fitch's study. "However, increased pricing, particularly on 3D films, may erode this perception over time."

2011 UK Cinema report: key facts

Each year the BFI (British Film Institute, who have taken over duties from the UKFC) publishes a report on the UK film industry, highlighting trends and changes: the share of UK productions v US-backed UK productions v Hollywood imports; the share for Indies; the box office % for 3D; the rise of digital production etc, and more.

Below, I pick out the key points and include analysis (+ further links/quotes) to help you include this in your exam prep. There's a full list of definitions at the very end, but this one is especially useful: A UK film is a film that has been certified as British by the DCMS or by the Certification Unit of the BFI (acting on the authority of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics Media and Sport) or which is a de facto UK film by virtue of being made in whole or part in the UK by a UK production company. You can see from this that the definition of a British film, as far as the government is concerned, includes basically US films which are partially shot in the UK. Both Warp and WT are treated as British companies, despite WT being majority-owned (67%) by NBC-Universal

Here's some links to their latest reports:

Statistical Yearbook 11

The 2011 Statistical Yearbook offers the most comprehensive and accessible picture of film anywhere in the UK

New reports

• Film production in the UK - full year 2011 report (76KB, PDF), 31 January 2012
• The UK box office in 2011 (112KB, PDF), 31 January 2012
• British film certification, calendar year 2011 (60KB, PDF), 31 January 2012
• British film certification - Jan to Sept 2011 (1.3MB, PDF), 3 November 2011
• Film production in the UK - Jan to Sept 2011 (1.1MB, PDF), 3 November 2011
• British film certification, first half year (H1) 2011 (1.2MB, PDF), 1 August 2011
• Film production in the UK, first half year (H1) 2011 (1.1MB, PDF), 1 August 2011
• The UK box office, first half year (H1) 2011 (1MB, PDF), 1 August 2011
• BFI Statistical Yearbook 2011 (13.4MB, PDF), 1 August 2011
• BFI Statistical Yearbook 2011 Online

Statistical Yearbook Archive
Our Publications A-Z contains a pdf archive of all of our Statistical Yearbooks to date:

• Statistical Yearbook Archive

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SOME KEY POINTS FROM THE REPORT

The points/data below are taken from Film production in the UK - full year 2011 report (76KB, PDF), 31 January 2012 - I've also added some further analysis and links.

• Admissions (the number of tickets sold) rose to 171.6m
• the total box office from this was £1.4bn, up 5% from 2010, with Indie hits The King's Speech and The Inbetweeners Movie a key factor: both took over £45m  making them the biggest UK Indie hits ever
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 became the 3rd biggest UK hit of all time with £73m after Avatar and Toy Story 3
• there were 6 movies over £30m (compare that to the US where many of the top 10 in a typical week will have exceeded that), the above + Pir.Carbn: On Stranger Tides; The Hangover 2; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Its unusual for big 6 flicks not to take the top spots!
• the surprise £23m success of Bridesmaids showed the strength of female-centred movies [DB: prospects for a 3rd BJD movie look good right now]
• WT's biggest UK hit was #12: the £20.6m (1 of 13 in UK to top £20m) Johnny English Reborn (its final total is higher still, as it overlaps with the 2011 figures), tho' parent company Universal also had #9 Bridesmaids and #14 Fast and Furious 5
• WT also had #12 in 2010 with Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (£16.53m) - this shows the importance of franchises to film producers and distributors; again, with BJD3 imminent this trend is not going away
• over the past decade UK films account for 24% of UK box office, but 18% of this is US-financed productions; only 5.5% of UK box office came from UK Indies - that average was doubled to 13.5% in 2011
• WT are classed as a UK Indie, which suggests that the genuine % for actual Indies is much, much lower! Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was the 3rd biggest 'UK Indie' hit of 2011. Warp X made it into this chart, #14 with the brilliant Submarine (£1.46m); Four Lions was 5th biggest Indie hit in 2010. Only 5 'UK Indie' releases earned over £5m in 2011, again showing why their releases rarely exceed £5m in budget
• The Harry Potter sequel took 48% of its money from 3D screenings. There were nearly twice as many 3D films as in 2010, 3 times as many as 2009 ... BUT, perhaps the 3D bubble is finally bursting? In 2010 3D took 24% of UK box office, this was down to 20% in 2011. More and more '2D-to-3D conversions' (where software is used to reprocess films not shot in 3D into 3D) are being released, and perhaps the novelty is wearing off - maybe Avatar will prove the absolute peak of 3D? While you can still double ticket prices, though, 3D will remain a tempting proposition: right now a 3D conversion of The Phantom Menace is doing well worldwide, and Titanic is soon to be re-released as 3D as well. We've yet to see any WT 3D (and its far too expensive for Warp to consider). Cinemas have been desparate to compete with the growing trend of home cinema, expensive large-screen/surround-sound living room set-ups that many people now use in preference to cinema, with its (sorry, but its true!) noisy teens, over-priced tickets and horrid food:

Cinemas are obliged to split money from ticket sales with the film studios, but get to keep almost all the cash they make from selling food. That means that the "concessions" (popcorn, sweets and the like) make up 20% of a cinema's revenue but 40% of its profits. A box of popcorn is around 85% profit to the cinema, and salty foods of course encourage people to buy more soft drinks, increasing receipts further. "Without the hefty concession profits," declared an article in Time a few years ago, "there would be no movie theater business". (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/mar/07/cinema-snacks-a-view-to-a-killing)

see also prev posts on 3D/digitisation:

• Cineworld 2011
• Digital piracy debate
• DVD finally to kill cinema?
• iPhone in cinema????
• Kermode: 3D is Rubbish!
• Some thoughts on the Digitisation effect
• The 1st iPhone movie
• UK Film Distribution + Digital Cinema
• UK motion-capture studio?
• Viral Video chart

• Despite the apparent promise of digitisation to open up the film industry to low and micro-budget productions, with reduced distribution costs also helping, the number of films produced in the UK in 2011 actually fell from 322 (2010) to 237. In 2010 there were 184 UK films made for under £500k, in 2011 just half that at 98, again, not what we expect from the benefits of digitisation. Will the closure of the UKFC further damage the prospects of low-budget UK Indie releases in 2012? The total spend (all the budgets added up) actually increased slightly, to £1.26bn, though most of this was US money.  

The terms used by BFI:

A UK film is a film that has been certified as British by the DCMS or by the Certification Unit of the BFI (acting on the authority of the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics Media and Sport) or which is a de facto UK film by virtue of being made in whole or part in the UK by a UK production company.

A US studio film is a film that is produced in whole or part by one of the major US studios or one of the major US studios’ specialist subsidiaries.

An independent film is a film made by an independent production company or group of independent production companies.

US studio films are generally distributed in most territories by the parent studio. Independent films are usually distributed by different distributors in different territories. 

[Source: The UK box office in 2011 (112KB, PDF), 31 January 2012]

Cinema in 2013 will be...

Lengthy feature, broken down into shorter themed sections, from the Gdn Film Blog (if you don't already follow it you should!) here on what 2013 will bring for the cinema industry: read the article here or (partially reproduced) below.  

Care to add your own predictions as a comment? Will the 3D boom continue or tail off? Will home cinema 3D once again undermine cinema? Will streaming overtake DVD sales as a source of revenue? Will the window between exclusive theatrical exhibition and DVD/TV/streaming continue to shrink? Will the US audience continue to shrink as a % of Hollywood revenues for its own films - and if so, will this lead to greater multi-ethnicity in the casting of leads, or a shift away from depicting American power (surely a key tool of US political hegemony)? Will digitisation open up greater opportunities for Indie producers ... or will the tentpole strategy (closely tied to franchising sequels, prequels and remakes/reimaginings) continue to maintain big 6 global dominance? Will YOU go to see any film in the cinema in 2013 - or turn increasingly to viewing film on tablets, laptops etc?

Brits in Spandex and girl power: movie trends that will keep us talking in 2013

Last year, Hollywood was flush with international cash and films starring Matthew McConaughey. What will this year hold?

Tom Shone, 3.1.13, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2013/jan/03/brits-spandex-movie-trends-2013 

Angelina Jolie as Maleficent represents the latest trend for Actresses of a Certain Age Who Aren't Really That Old: playing the bitch. Photograph: Disney

Time travel was popular. Prequels were hot. As were guns-for-hire, vampires and movies set on boats. Which of the year's cinematic trends, people, cultural avatars and epiphenomenon are most likely to set the agenda for 2013?

Jennifer Lawrence

In X-Men First-Class, Jennifer Lawrence wore the lightly stunned look of someone suffering from an acute case of Newcomer Bends. But then she narrowed her eyes, strung her bow and fired The Hunger Games towards $686m: Lawrence's imperturbability was revealed as the genuine article. The scene in Silver Linings Playbook where she walks into de Niro's lair and has him eating out of her hand in under five minutes may just win her an Oscar at the tender age of 22. If that weren't reason enough for New York magazine to put her at the top her their "Celebrity Brunch League" – the lost of famous people they'd most like to have pancakes with – the editors listed a few more:

She complains about her fussy premiere clothes; she crashes into cars while looking for Honey Boo Boo. There was that time that her entire family went to Sleep No More in search of orgies … Jennifer Lawrence cannot be contained by your Movie Star Rules of Decorum; Jennifer Lawrence has too much to share.

We concur. She's like Liz Taylor without the alimony.

Girls

Jennifer Lawrence wasn't the only ballsy princess of 2012. We also had the flame-haired, cinch-waisted Princess Merida in Pixar's Brave, the studio's first female protagonist; plus Kristin Stewart riding, fighting, and shooting her way through Snow White and the Huntsman, not to mention her swan song for beloved Bella, now a momma grizzly protecting her vampire cub in the last Twilight movie. They all added up to "an interesting new breed of warrior princesses," said the New York Times' AO Scott, "whose ascendance reflects the convergence of commercial calculations and cultural longings."
Much of the credit must go to Lionsgate, who released both Breaking Dawn Part 2 and The Hunger Games, thus proving conclusively that young female actresses can 'open' and power a movie move way past the $100 million mark. "Girls actually need superheroes much more than boys," said Gloria Steinem, approvingly. Boys aren't the only ones to play Han Solo.
Princess Merida – and her bow and arrow – were big hits in 2012. Photograph: Pixar

A beginner's guide to blockbusters

Great article from Murdoch paper The Times taking a wry, but well-informed, look at the process of making a hit movie - lots here you can reference, especially within your coursework blogs and evaluations:

From Times Online

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April 24, 2010

A beginner's guide to blockbusters

You need neither script nor star to have a box office success, it’s all just a matter of timing, chutzpah and explosives

--> --> --> --> --> -->

“The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things — Bread and Games!”
So wrote the poet Juvenal in AD104, but then he never lived to witness the blockbuster movie season in America: one long canyon run stretching between Memorial Day and Labour Day, in which the studios loose one $200-million behemoth after another in what amounts to what one observer has called a “multimillion-dollar demolition derby played with Porsches”. To make sense of all this, here is a ten-point guide to surviving the summer season.
1. Pick a date. Any date, as long as it lies between May and August. The summer used to be a wasteland, the place the studios dumped dreck like Electra Glide in Blue (“He’s a good cop. On a big bike. On a bad road”); blockbusters were things that happened once in a generation, like Gone with the Wind. But then along came Jaws and Star Wars, ripping up all known box-office records, and audiences hunkered down for repeats. Blockbusters became things that happened every year. Now, a new one is expected every week. This year Iron Man 2 on May 7 is followed a week later by Robin Hood, then Shrek Forever After, then Prince Caspian, all jostling for position.
“There are more teens living in America now than in the history of this country,” says Tom Sherak, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. “It’s all about when the schools are out. It’s driven by that, by how you get them into theatres

Kermode: 3D is Rubbish!

Excellent Film Guardian article by Mark Kermode, fellow quiff-bearer, on the economic importance of 3D to the film biz, but also on why he sees it as basically a con.
There's an interesting comment too by 'chewtoy':

Call me paranoid, but the new 3D offensive has a much more sinister side to it than merely fighting piracy and getting bums into cinema seats. Cinematic immersion is a concept straight out of Brave New World. It's the extreme opposite of the Brechtian distancing (a.k.a. alienation) effect. The audience is meant to lose itself passively and completely in the depicted action, being transformed from consciously critical observers to mindless consuming drones.

This touches on a key debate within Media Studies (and amongst practitioners too; whole movements, such as the French New Wave, have come about as a response to the perceived power of the media over the audience): whether an audience is essentially passive and meaning is controlled by texts' authors (eg the hypodermic syringe model), or active and in control of meaning (eg the uses and gratifications theory).
The article: