Cinema figures up for the first time in 7 years!

See this article from the Daily Telegraph, really up to date!!

Cinema audiences boom as people look to escape recession
Cinema audiences have jumped this year, as consumers flock to watch comedies and teenage fare to escape the recession, according to industry figures.

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 10:17PM BST 26 May 2009

More than 55 million cinema tickets were sold in the first four months of the year Photo: GETTY
More than 55 million cinema tickets were sold in the first four months of the year, an increase of 14 per cent on the same period last year and the highest number for seven years, figures collected for the Cinema Advertising Association indicate.
Despite pubs, nightclubs and restaurants struggling during the recession – with customer numbers falling sharply – it would appear film fans are refusing to forego a regular trip to the cinema.

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The latest figures follow a bumper year in 2008, when cinemas in Britain enjoyed their best summer since 1969.
The UK Film Council said the figures were proof cinema was fulfilling its longstanding role of providing escapism during a recession.
John Woodward, the chief executive, said: “These figures underline film’s vital contribution to our wider economy and the central role it plays in all our lives. Today, more UK audiences are going to the cinema than ever before, and not just to see the big blockbuster movies.”
The Great Depression, coinciding with the early years of "talkies", produced some of the most popular films of all time, including King Kong, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business.
With the exception of Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscar-winning film which securely holds the number one position, most of this year's block busters have been romantic comedies, animation or films aimed at teenagers.
Fast & Furious and 17 Again, aimed at teenagers, have grossed £10 million or more, despite having been in cinemas just for a few weeks.
David Gritten, film critic for the Daily Telegraph, said: "These two films are absolute must-sees for teenage boys and teenage girls. And the great thing about teenagers is that they tend to go once, and then twice, and often a third time to see a film.
"That's why cinema distributors and advertisers love these films." They are the fifth and sixth most watched films this year.
Behind Slumdog Millionaire, the second and third biggest selling films were two animations, Monsters vs Aliens and Bolt, both of which were shown in a small number of cinemas in 3D – a technology expected to take off next year and encourage even more people back to the cinema.
Film experts pointed out that the average price of a ticket was £5.20, which compared very favourably to the cost of two pints of lager, which on average totals £5.52 in a pub.
"The cinema remains a relatively cheap form of entertainment, especially compared with eating out or a night down the pub," said Mr Gritten.

Examplar essay for TV drama

Click here for an example essay provided by the exam board for a high level answer on TV drama

The Big Six

Consider the 'Big Six', the six largest media corporations in the USA who own most of the other media companies or who hold controlling shares in them. They are so powerful that there are groups that campaign against so few institutions having so much control over the media.

D-Cinema

Be careful how you talk about this, it is in its infancy and is only around 150 cinemas in the UK presently. We are interested in it more in how it will affect the future!!


Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute and project motion pictures. A movie can be distributed via hard drives, optical disks or satellite and projected using a digital projector instead of a conventional film projector. Digital cinema is distinct from high-definition television and in particular, is not dependent on using television or HDTV standards, aspect ratios, or frame rates. Digital projectors capable of 2K resolution began deploying in 2005, and since 2006, the pace has accelerated.

Digital cinemas can deliver live broadcasts from performances or events. For example, there are regular live broadcasts to movie theaters of Metropolitan Opera performances.

In China, an E-Cinema System called "dMs" was established on June 2005, and is used in over 15000 screens spread across China's 30 provinces. dMS estimates that the system will expand to 40000 screens in 2009

The UK had Europe's first DCI-compliant fully digital multiplex cinemas. Odeon Hatfield and Odeon Surrey Quays (London) have a total of 18 digital screens and were both launched in February 2007. There are now around 150 digital cinemas, some Odeon, Vue and Cineworld and some independent 'art house' cinemas such as

Kino

Here is a really good link to DLP Texas Instruments the biggest D- cinema supplier in the UK

This link explains really well the advantages to D- Cinema

Chicken Little from Disney, with its experimental release of the film in digital 3D, increased the number of projectors using the 2K format. Several digital 3D films surfaced in 2006 and several prominent filmmakers have committed to making their next productions in stereo 3D. Bolt is the latest film to be released as a digital film and the 3D version was released before the normal one.

Savings in distribution
Digital distribution of movies has the potential to save money for film distributors. A single film print can cost around £84 (£20,979 for a 1-time print of an 80-minute feature), so making 4,000 prints for a wide-release movie might cost £3.5 million.) In contrast, at the maximum 250 megabit-per-second data rate (as defined by DCI for digital cinema), a typical feature-length movie could fit comfortably on an off the shelf 300 GB hard drive—which sell for as little as £50 and can even be returned to the distributor for reuse after a movie's run. With several hundred movies distributed every year, industry savings could potentially reach £1 billion or more.

An added incentive for exhibitors is the ability to show alternative content such as live special events, sports, pre-show advertising and other digital or video content. Some low-budget films that would normally not have a theatrical release because of distribution costs might be shown in smaller engagements than the typical large release studio pictures. The cost of duplicating a digital "print" is very low, so adding more theaters to a release has a small additional cost to the distributor. Movies that start with a small release could scale to a much larger release quickly if they were sufficiently successful, opening up the possibility that smaller movies could achieve box office success previously out of their reach.

Greater protection for content
A last incentive for copyright holders for digital distribution is the possibility of greater protection against piracy. With traditional film prints, distributors typically stagger the film's release in various markets, shipping the film prints around the globe. In the subsequent markets, pirated copies of a film (i.e. a cam) may be available before the movie is released in that market. A simultaneous worldwide release would mitigate this problem to some degree. Simultaneous worldwide releases on film have been used on The Da Vinci Code, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Mission: Impossible III amongst others. With digital distribution, a simultaneous worldwide release would not cost significantly more than a staggered release.

Costs
On the downside, the initial costs for converting theaters to digital are high: up to £150,000 per screen or more. Theaters have been reluctant to switch without a cost-sharing arrangement with film distributors. Recent negotiations have involved the development of a Virtual Print License fee which the studios will pay for their products which allows financiers and system developers to pay for deployment of digital systems to the theaters, thus providing investors a certain payback.
While a theater can purchase a film projector for US$50,000 and expect an average life of 30–40 years, a digital cinema playback system including server/media block/and projector can cost 3–4 times as much, and is at higher risk for component failures and technological obsolescence. Experience with computer-based media systems show that average economic lifetimes are only on the order of 5 years with some units lasting until about 10 years before they are replaced.[citation needed]
Archiving digital material is also turning out to be both tricky and costly. In a 2007 study, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences found the cost of storing 4K digital masters to be "enormously higher - 1100% higher - than the cost of storing film masters." Furthermore, digital archiving faces challenges due to the insufficient temporal qualities of today's digital storage: no current media, be it optical discs, magnetic hard drives or digital tape, can reliably store a film for a hundred years, something that properly stored and handled film can do.

Film Distribution Process

Film distribution process

The primary agenda of the distributor is to convince the exhibitor to rent, or "book", each film. To this end the distributor usually arranges industry screenings for exhibitors, and uses other marketing techniques that will make the exhibitor believe they will profit financially by showing the film.
Once this is accomplished, the distributor then secures a written contract stipulating the amount of the gross ticket sales to be paid to the distributor (usually a percentage of the gross after first deducting a "floor", which is called a "house allowance" (also known as the "nut"), collect the amount due, audit the exhibitor's ticket sales as necessary to ensure the gross reported by the exhibitor is accurate, secure the distributor's share of these proceeds, and transmit the remainder to the production company (or to any other intermediary, such as a film release agent). Ordinarily there are standard blanket contracts between a distributor and an exhibitor that apply to all films subsequently booked, although on occasion some of the terms, such as the percentage of the gross to be paid by the exhibitor, may be varied with regard to a particular film.
The distributor must also ensure that enough film prints are struck to service all contracted exhibitors on the contract-based opening day, ensure their physical delivery to the theater by the opening day, monitor exhibitors to make sure the film is in fact shown in the particular theatre with the minimum number of seats and show times, and ensure the prints' return to the distributor's office or other storage resource also on the contract-based return date. In practical terms, this includes the physical production of film prints and their shipping around the world (a process that is beginning to be replaced by digital distribution) as well as the creation of posters, newspaper and magazine advertisements, television commercials, trailers, and other types of ads.
Furthermore, the distributor is responsible for ensuring a full line of film advertising material is available on each film which it believes will help the exhibitor attract the largest possible audience, create such advertising if it is not provided by the production company, and arrange for the physical delivery of the advertising items selected by the exhibitor at intervals prior to the opening day.
If the distributor is handling an imported or foreign-language film, it may also be responsible for securing dubbing or subtitling for the film, and securing censorship or other legal or organizational "approval" for the exhibition of the film in the country/territory in which it does business, prior to approaching the exhibitors for booking.

Wikipedias definition of the process of film making

A useful overview of the whole process which usually takes around 3 years.

The process of film making and exhibition