Evaluate the role of digital technology in the production, marketing and consumption of products?

Throughout the year’s technology convergence has always been taking place. This entails that’s as technology changes, different technological systems sometimes evolve towards performing similar tasks. This happens in production, marketing, exhibition and distribution in many ways. Throughout my research, I took an interest in The Amazing Spiderman 2 produced by Marvel Entertainment and Sony pictures and released by Columbia Pictures. Throughout the production of the film they had a budget of $200,000,000 which included paying the cast, the filming of the scenes and the marketing and distribution involved. Within the marketing, they used synergy and decided to produce a TV advert with Evian (the water drinks company), editing in a baby dancing Spiderman. It aired and drew attention to the new film available in cinemas. It also has produced a game which allows you to travel round you virtually free reign to web-sling your way through New York, picking out objectives on your trusty new smartphone Satnav. There are optional distractions to the main action, including picking up collectable items and taking photographs, but your main concern remains saving the city from genetic freaks and Oscorp's ham-fisted attempts to contain them. Again, adding to the spread of the films target audience.

There are three types of production; pre-production, production and post-production. Pre-production being before shooting begins, it included the story boards being made, set construction, location scouting and the finances of the product. Production is the next step, when things are being filmed, past this point financially the directors and producers cannot back out of the film. Then finally comes post-production, which is where the editing of the footage and adding in of the non-diegetic and diegetic sounds comes in and are enhanced. There are many new technologies included in these areas including drones, 3D printing and CGI. CGI is also known as computer generated imagery and during the production of The Amazing Spiderman 2, twenty layers of lightning CGI effects were applied to depict Electro. Jamie Foxx was photographed as Electro by KNB EFX team and the skin colours used to show the moods of the character. For the ‘pre-production’ of the film, the studios hired James Vanderbilt to write the screenplay and a selection of writers including Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci rewrote it to make sure the final screen play was the best that is could be.   The ‘production’ part of The Amazing Spiderman 2 took place during February through to June 2013, in New York city.

Distribution is a key factor when creating a film. This entails the way a film is shared out among a group or spread over an area. It is very important that the distribution of a film is done properly as it is what makes people want to go and see a film, the correct advertisement is what gives people interest in the product you are trying to sell. The process of distribution are as followed: a studio or interested investor decides to purchase the rights to the film, they then receive the licensing agreement which gives them access to produce the trailers websites and a free preview of the film. For instance, pirates of the Caribbean gave a preview of the trailer at the super bowl, which had millions of viewers publicising the film. For the smaller companies with a smaller distribution budget, there lots of below the line ways of marketing which can become very useful, including on social media and through interviews.  In the Amazing Spiderman 2, it was distributed by Sony. On the 17^th of July, they released a clip from the film with the first footage of Jamie Foxx as Electro to encourage viewers at the San Diego comic-Con international. This was cleverly throughout as comic-con is a large event where a majority of the target audience would be attending therefore make the audience excited about the film’s release.

Exhibition is the selling of the film on to cinemas either independent or mainstream. Types of exhibition depend on the type of audience the film is wishing to achieve. For example, YouTube is viewed by a wide audience although vimeo is more specified. Imax 3D, and the software’s used in Disney’s brave are both sound systems used to enhance the way a film is exhibited, to increase the audience satisfaction. The 3D and 4D resources are useful for the distributors and producers as it means their film cannot be pirated. The Exchange is how the audience views the film; Netflix, DVD, Blu-ray, sky movies, streaming, cinemas. Some of these sources can be pirated like streaming for instance on sites like putlocker. Many of these are usually shut down as piracy is illegal although technology has become so advanced that it is occurring more and more.

All in all the role of digital technology has played a large role within the film industry by expanding the way the films are marketed and also to do with the way films are produced. The industry has come a long way from black and white films to HD screening with 4D effects. Although the negative side to this is that some of the effects in films are too unrealistic and ruin the whole message that some of the films are trying to bring across. This can then take the purpose out of producing a film. However, I feel that the development and need for technology is positive as it means within the film industry it will always be able to stay one step ahead. For example, in Back to the Future thought up the idea of hover boards in 1989 and in 2015 we had Segway’s in every shop.