Film Distribution

Having produced a film you need to get it into cinemas.A film distributor is company or individual responsible for releasing films to the public either theatrically or for home viewing. If a distributor is working with a theatrical exhibitor, the distributor secures a written contract stipulating the amount of the gross ticket sales to be paid to the distributor by the exhibitor. 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. 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.
There's recently been much talk about the film release, motherhood, that has broken records for being the largest film flop ever within the film industry. this has been argued that it could have been done purposely, creating media uproar, making people want to go see it, to see whats really that bad, or it could simply be due to bad distribution. the filmw as released on one screen, in one cinema in london, the film was released the same day as the DVD release and there was  very little PR done to advertise the film.

Danny Boyle and how he matched new technology with old to film "Slumdog Millionaire"

It is too simplistic to argue that that digital technology and cameras on their own led to Boyle's outstanding results - it was achieved through a combination of very old and new technology.  That is, technological convergence in its widest sense! Danny Boyle simply showed ingenuity and fine practical sense when he combined an old technological device with the latest digital, hand-held cameras. the cameras used are 2K resolution on a digital system, it was rented to Danny Boyle to use for the filming of SlumDog Millionaire by a German company, its similiar to the same resolution of a RedOne Camera. It'd like a smaller, heavy version of a handheld camera, these camera's were used as they were hidable, helping not to disturb the natural occurances in the set of the slums where some of the scenes were filmed. The crew used for the filming of SlumDog Millionaire was very minimal, also not to distrub the people in the slums, 10 westeners were taken, along with the help from bollywood workers.

Mark Kermode on piracy

Copyright infirngement and piracy when unauthorized copies are made of music and music, incidients of this sort have massively increased since the 1970's as growing technology has enabled the unauthorised duplication to be recorded copy alot more discreetly than before. Copyright infringement surged in the entertainment industry after the advent of the VHS home video equipment. Initially, unauthorized recordings were made using hand-held video cameras to surreptitiously record movies shown at movie theaters. Mark kermode argues that instead of removing peoples hald held mobile phones before entering a movie theatre or cinema, the solution is to make the movie available in the format that people want to see it, be that DVD release or downloadable to mobiles and computers, on the day of the release, the use of this simultaneous release could reduce piracy due to the availability of the movie straight away in many different formats making it less tempting to go into the cinema screening to record it for home use and resale, or for it to be leaked on the internet as an illegal download. The low budget move Mum and Dad was simultaneously released in the cinemas and by DVD release, and finanically the movie sold well, since this film, other distributors have followed Mum and Dad and released their film in simulataneous formats. it has been argued against this however, that it could take away from the cinema experience, damaging the box office of film releases, however Mark Kermode feels instead of ending cinema, it will broaden the movie to whole new revenues.

Silicon Imaging the camera used on "Slumdog Millionaire"

Slumdog Millionaire,. swept the academy awards in 2009, bagging a huge 8 out of ten nominations, including BestPicture, BestDirector and BestAdapted Screenplay. It also won seven BAFTA awards. In the crowd pleasing fantasy, Danny Boyle tells a love story about a teenager who rises from the slums of Mumbai to win the Indian version of the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Many of the fast-paced chase scenes and game show set were shot with the SI-2K Digital Cinema Camera, developed by Silicon Imaging of Niskayuna, New York, like the one seen below.

Alot of the scenes were shot in the slums in India, and the director, Danny Boyle, was adement he did not want to take large, cumbersome, 35mm cameras into the slums, he wanted to use smaller, more flexible, digital cameras to enable them to shoot quickly with minimal disturbance to the natural flow and communities.Unlike modern HD cameras, which develop and compress colorized imagery inside the camera, the Silicon Imaging SI-2K streams 2K (2048x1152) data as uncompressed raw “digital negatives” over a standard gigabit Ethernet connection. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor-based computer embedded in the camera or tethered to a laptop up to 100 feet away, processes the digital negatives, where they are non-destructively developed and colorized for preview using the cinematographer's desired "look" for the scene.The digital negatives and "look" metadata are simultaneously recorded to hard drive or solid state disk where up to 4-hours of continuous footage are captured on a single 160GB notebook drive; this is the equivalent of 14-reels of 35mm film which has an associated cost exceeding $25,000 for materials and processing. The recorded files, can be immediately played with the target color look at full resolution, without the need for film scanning, tape ingest, format conversions or off-line proxies.

RedOne Filmography

Jaw dropping imagery recorded on board a camera light enough to hold with one hand, the red one camera has been said to change everything. Where as a traditional camera is recorded onto film, the Red One camera is more of a digital technological camera, it has better sound quality and filming quality, its more easily distributed and alot more easier to edit. Its cost effective due to the speed and quality and saves funding for film. Along with numerous other films, and series, the 2010 hit film, The social Network was recorded  by a RedOne camera at 4K resolution.

Disney's "Mars Needs Moms" - A flop!?

One of the most recent 3D films to be distributed is 'Mars needs mom' produced by Robert Zemeckis, it follows the story of a nine year old, Milo who doesn't eat his broccoli, and whose mother ends up being kidnapped by Martians, the film seems to be a successful choice for 3D distributors at the time, however the film cost abouyt $175m to make and market, yet grossed less than $7m on its opening weekend in the US, this boom causing a huge backlash to the 3D film industry. Bad storylines, poor quality and high ticket prices are all resulting in 3D film flopping so often, costing companies more money than the films are actually managing to make back. Prices are being argued back and forth, whether to be cut or increased, however many directors are arguing that people would be willing to pay a substantial difference in ticket price compared to a 2D ticket, if the film is fully emersiful and give an audience the real 'wow' factor.

3D films

It can be argued that 3D films are a 'flop' in the film industry compared to how distributors and theatre owners perceieved they would be, however distributors are making more money than ever from 3D films, having films queued to be produced in 3D. 6months ago people 3D was the new craze, and people couldn't get enough of films like Avatar and the 3d remake of toy story and alice in wonderland, however due to lesss acknowledged films being produced and distributed in 3D, such as step up 3D and cats&dogs, figures seem to be falling, simply due to lack of interest and high ticket prices. the percentage of 3D-2D is and will definately continue to grow due to the way you can massively differentiate between the two, and there being a huge appetitite for it in the film watchers market, however the film industry are now questioning whether the falling figures are due to the mass amount of films they are converting into 3D, and will more than likely begin to be more selective about which films are converted and distributed in 3D, helping to increase figures.