What does the future hold for the UK film industry?

Consider

UK expertise: working title, Aardman, case study

1.     intro

       2. Production Digital technology Web 2.0GauntletCosts Environment

2.     Distribution conglomerate, indie benefits, vertical integration, synergy, market branding, cost economy, efficiency, battle against piracy

3.     Consumption convergence, exchange, exhibition, cinematic experience, audience, loyalty, new technology

4.     Conclusion

The UK film industry has gone through many spells of success since the 1930’s. It fell to an all time low in the 1970’s when Hollywood dominated the film industry and they did not want to fund the UK. But this changed when Titanic emerged as America’s largest production companies wanted to incorporate vertical integration back into the industry. So this shows the uncertainty the ever-changing industry.

            The production of film making is becoming more and more expensive as there is now more advanced special effects and 3D is available so therefore films are trying to out do one another with their vast use of technology. One of the main factors of new production is digital technology it makes it cheaper and quicker to be produced and sent off to where it is needed. But the down side of this is that not all cinemas have a digital film screening so therefore they are unable to play the film, so most films are produced in both. In the future if all cinemas had a digital film screening all films would be produced in their way but it may lead to more piracy as it is easier to copy the film, so this will probably not happen unless they find a way to resolve the piracy issue, which they are trying to do with companies such as ‘FACT’.

Audiences are now seen as active and no longer as passive. Web 2.0 Supports this as examples are social networking sites, blogs, video sharing, so therefore audiences are able to interact and collaborate with one another rather than get pushed the new media the audiences now pull, finding their own choice of media, (Gauntlett). Films now rely on much more than just the film, they rely on market branding. But they cannot fund this by themselves so they usually work within a conglomerate such as working title which is a british company get funding from Universal, which get their funding from Vivendi.

As due to piracy the revenue received does not exceed the budget therefore they have to find other ways to produce profit. Disney is a large example of this as they have may toys all over the world and they work in synergy with McDonalds to produce a large profit. But this can only be done by large companies, therefore companies with a smaller budget will have to work within a convergence to produce a higher profit, such as a game for hardware such as the play station, or an app for a phone.