Film Industry: General Introduction

Why is convergence both a blessing and a curse for the film industry?

- Convergence is good for the film industry as it means that there are many more ways in which a film can be consumed by an audience. This gives producers and distributors the ability to release films through many media, and tie them in with video games, music releases, or any number of different media. This all means that more money can be made by companies, which makes the film industry more lucrative than ever.

- Convergence could also be seen as a curse for the film industry as it makes copyright infringement and film piracy all the more prevalent. 5% of UK adults have illegally downloaded films and more and more are being downloaded, the average has risen to between 7 and 15 titles per year. This produces a problem for the film industry, especially with the rapid take up of broadband in the UK.

How has the Internet allowed filmmakers to find and attract audiences in different ways?

- Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking websites have allowed audience groups to be broken up, which allows for more specific targeting.

- YouTube has greatly affected the film industry as it provides new ways to promote films, both in advertisements and in the release of trailers, interviews, and other ways in which the audience can engage with the film before they've even gone to see it.

- Increased Internet usage has led to a loss of interest in keeping audiences together on the part of the film industry. Many more films are now aimed at producing a cult audience rather than being huge budget movies.

Summarise how you think sites like YouTube, Spotify and Facebook are good for film audiences. What do they let us do that we couldn't before.

- YouTube allows amateur filmmakers to distribute their content, and influences the industry in this way. This is especially effective due to the site's use of social tagging, which allows the classification of content by users. This means that audiences search for specific things that they are interested in. Social tagging limits the effectiveness of releasing trailers on YouTube, as users will search only for films that they are already interested in, however the use of advertising on the site gives film trailers a larger audience on the Internet.

- Facebook, and other social networking sites, can be used to the film industry's advantage in a few ways. The first of these is advertising, as this gives a whole new outlet for companies to promote their films. Another way is through the 'liking' mechanism, which can be used both for gauging audience reaction to the film, and also for audience targeting, depending on which pages users like. This is especially useful as a large proportion of Facebook's users are directly within the industry's target audience of 16-25.

- Spotify, like YouTube and Facebook, presents advertising opportunities to film companies. It can also be used to release the soundtrack to the film, often before the film's release, which will build up the pre-release hype.