What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media institutions and audiences?

What significance does the continuing development of digital media technology have for media
institutions and audiences?

Throughout films the continuing development of digital media technology has a very big impact in big Hollywood films such as The Dark Knight Rises (distributed by Warner Bros.) as digital media technology such as IMAX, websites, countdowns etc helped Warner Bros and the audience in many ways. For smaller films such as Sightseers, it wasn't such a huge impact as smaller films are distributing (Channel 4) to a smaller audience (Britain in sightseers case), although the development of digital media technology such as newer cameras, and blogs to keep the audience updated allows the audience to stay interested within the film. 

The Dark Knight rises is part of a world wide trilogy, therefore the audience they are setting out to attract is very wide spread, as Warner Bros distributed it to UK, USA, Australia  New Zealand and so on. One of the key things the director of The Dark Knight Rises- Christopher Nolan wanted to focus on was the quality of the film. As he had a huge passion for IMAX, him and his producers came together and decided they wanted more IMAX filming in the film. Going from only using about half an hour of IMAX shooting in The Dark Knight. Nolan wanted the whole film to be shot with IMAX cameras to increase the high definition of the picture. Although the IMAX cameras were too loud to shoot in the dialouge scenes. But from going half an hour from his previous film to now it being just over an hour of the film. This clear development of digital media technology impacted Warner Bros in a positive and negative way, as it negatively cost a lot more, however as it was shown in IMAX cinemas and cinema tickets increased the profit increased dramatically (the positive side to it). And the audience are getting the big high definition to watch the film in to make the film seem more realistic, almost as if they were part of the scene. Contrasting with this however is Sightseers due to the low budget and all of the filming being filmed in the muddy parts of Britain Lake Windermere, (to recreate their childhood caravan holiday) Ben Wheatley (director) focused more on the acting of the filming rather than the quality. The camera was shot in a hand held shot a lot throughout the film, which really emphasized it was a caravan holiday, almost as if someone was filming them. The suited the British audience very well due to most British people can relate to a caravan or camping holiday. The fact that they can actually connect and relate to the film was a bigger quality of the film. And this helped film for because they attracted the audience they set out to attract. 

The internet is a big development of digital media technology and has a big impact on the audience and institutions. For example sightseers main characters Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, both had a blog they wrote on daily during the filming of Sightseers. This allowed the audience to know where they were and what they were doing. Leaving a bit of tension and excitement for the film, so that the audience wanted to instantly go and see the film. And for people who hadn't seen this before the film, they could simply go and research back into the film. This helped Film 4 because not only people of Britain could find out about the blog but other parts of the world could, as Sightseers recently has distributed to New Zealand, Australia, and the USA. The Dark Knight Rises went a bit more extreme with using the development of the internet and set up a whole website dedicated to The Dark Knight Rises, due to Warner Bros being a very big wealthy institution they were able to afford such a big advertisement. The website had a countdown with clues on the film. They also distributed different trailers to different sites to allow the audience to tr and glue the plot together. This had a really big impact on the audience to the excitement of the audience. This led to many fans pre ordering their cinema tickets, so Warner Bros had a nice start with money to sit on securely. This worked very well due to the box office of The Dark Knight Rises being $1,081,041,287.Very popular social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook helped both of these films with the distribution, due to the quick development of especially Twitter, children and adults of all ages are now using twitter and also Facebook. It is a great way of advertising the film digitally. 

The last way development of digital media technology used in these two films is how the film was distributed, for example by DVD, Blue-Ray, or even streaming. With The Dark Knight Rises the filmed was produced into a DVD, Blue-ray and streaming. On the website of The Dark Knight Rises however you could pre order the film, the advertisement of streaming was advertised. This is a really knew way of watching what film you want on your pc, phone, ipad etc. All you need is to download it. The fact that The Dark Knight Rises shows how ahead of technology they are, Warner Bros is offering all of their customers the best and newest technology around. And for that specific target audience, (superhero, sci fi, people who are into technology) this can be a very exciting thing. Where as with Sightseers, you are only able to purchase the film on DVD or Blue-ray. This is still advanced technology as Blue-ray is higher definition of quality than DVD. Channel 4 as a smaller company couldn't afford or didn't see much point in advertising streaming due to the smaller audience and not really knowing how the film would sell. 

Over all these are all a way to show the development of digital media technology of today. And usually if you a bigger and wealthier institution such as Warner Bros then they can use there wealth and popularity to it's advantage and it always benefits the audience. However with smaller institutions such as Channel 4, although they are restricted to what technology they can afford within the film sometimes, they low budget look may suit the film a lot more. For example using IMAX for a film based on a serial killer couple going on a caravan trip around Britain may seem a little extreme and doesn't fit in with the film.