Concluding Post

In summary of my research through out this course, I have explored various topics related to the film industry and how it is connected to the network. First, I explored the history of film, which began in New York City and eventually grew to become the internationally recognized city of Hollywood. I then explored how film became integrated into our culture, through the construction of theatres and the affordability to all citizens in the 50’s.

In my research I also looked at what people are watching today, and how they watch it. It was interesting to see which genres were most popular, vs. those who generate the most income. (Go Titanic!) Although many people are turning to YouTube, Netflix and other online sources for watching movies, it is debatable whether or not the Theatre industry is dying or not. On one hand, we have discussed in class how sales have declined drastically, however, many theatres have been successful in adapting by offering more services, better quality facilities, and the ability to purchase tickets online.

This has been an interesting topic to explore over the past few months and has certainly opened my eyes to the possibility of film and where it will go in the future.

Cheers!

Chloe

Movies and the Network – Shaping Culture

Film has become an extremely important factor in shaping our culture in the 21st century. In North America, we adopted film as part of daily life and allowed it to influence our perceptions of reality. For example, film created ideas in our minds about War, sex, and life in America. On a global scale, people were influenced by what they saw in film and accepted these ideas to be true about American Culture. Many films played a role in doing so, such as Wall Street, Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club, etc.

It is interesting to note that there are often negative connotations associated with outsider understandings of American culture. For example, I have met people who are unfamiliar with American culture, however believed that what they saw in movies and in music was true to what goes on in reality. This is certainly not the case when you watch movies such as American Gangster or Forest Gump.

The basis of this argument is that American culture is often shaped by film and can create both positive and negative understandings of reality based on what is portrayed in film.

http://blog.interexchange.org/career-training-usa/2011/11/02/a-glimpse-of-american-culture-through-film/

 

Chloe

 

Job Well Done Everyone!

Well I have come to the end of my blogging past time (for now) and appreciate all who have taken the time and interest to read my (and our) posts! The advancements in technology and increasing number of social networking sites have kept the movie industry on their toes. From our blog you can see that the movie industry has to keep adjusting to these changes in the industry in order to stay competitve with the online movie viewing access that is now available to individuals. The movie industry has to go the extra mile to stay connected with viewers in order to motivate them to continue going to the theatre. The marketing area of the industry is quickly becoming aquainted with the ways of the networked world in order to understand viewer preference and promote movies through contests, special viewings, promotions and deals in order to connect the movie and the viewer. Having days like “cheap Tuesday” and coming up with new innovative ideas such as IMAX and 3D productions are strategic ways to keep those movie theatre seats filled. As time goes on we are seeing that the movie industry is trying to reach out and connect with the audience in every way possible and continue to work towards keeping the movie-goers wanting MORE. With the advances in technology, the movie industry will continue to see changes in movie viewing preferences and will have to learn to adapt while avoiding a possible loss.

I hope you have all enjoyed your blogging experience as much as we have and you didn’t mind my “constructive” comments on your blogs on a couple of occasions. It was a pleasure being in 3601 with all of you and good luck with upcoming exams!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

A (FINAL) Post from Katrina 🙂

The Most Anticipated Movies of 2013

Thinking of the movies of 2012 that made a stamp in my memory as being highly advertised and most talked about, The Hunger Games, The Dark Knight Rises and The Twilight Sage: Breaking Dawn Part 2 are significant in my mind. It is interesting to see which movies are the most anticipated because you’ll never know if it is a sequel, another story to the same movie or a totally different idea that gets viewers most excited. You always wonder what sparks the interest in the minds of the viewers. Is it the actors that get viewers in anticipation, the book that the movie is based on, the well-know director/producer or is it the story-line and plot? For me personally, I am motivated to go to a movie based on either the actors in the movie or if it is based on a book or previous movie that I know. What makes you motivated to go to a movie?  Here is a list of the top three 2013 most anticipated movies from three different sites:

IMDb: 1) Iron Man 3             2) Thor: The Dark World        3) Star Trek into the darkness

PAJIBA: 1) Iron Man 3         2) R.I.P.D                               3) Oblivion

Movie Insider: 1) Iron Man 3    2) G.I. Joe: Retaliation       3) Fast and Furious 6

It seems like Iron Man 3 takes the cake! Are you going to go see it?

Reference Links:

http://www.pajiba.com/seriously_random_lists/the-10-most-anticipated-films-of-2013.php

http://www.imdb.com/list/2-H9fKXWCCA/

http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/anticipated/2013/

A Post from Katrina

YouTube Generation

In our presentation on Movies in a Networked World, we discussed the many mediums in which people watch movies today, one being YouTube. In recent years, YouTube has become an extremely popular way to watch movies and television, due to its convenience, easy access, and of course because it is free. This is just one of the ways that movie producers are adapting to the demands of their customers. Because of the increase in YouTube popularity and demand for film online, entire movies and shows are being made available online via YouTube for all to see. From 2010 to 2011, YouTube saw a 72% increase in total time spent watching videos per individual viewer, which equaled 472 minutes. Because YouTube is a free and legal way to watch movies online, consumers are using this resource more often to watch their favourite movies and shows, also having the convenience of watching them whenever and wherever they wish.

How far will YouTube take this new way of watching film? Only time will tell!

Information Retrieved from: http://paidcontent.org/2012/01/18/419-comscore-video-rankings-youtube-usage-spiked-72-percent-over-2010/

Chloe

Most Influential Movie Actors on Twitter

I was wondering what actors are most popular on twitter and got a number of different suggestions. I was going to decide based on the number of follwers they had because obviously those with the most followers had the most fans that wanted to connect with them. From one website, their opinion of the top five “most influential” characters associated with the movies was:

1. therock – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson

2. itunestrailers- official movie updates

3. rollingstone – the Rolling Stone magazine

4. Marlonlwayans

5. Tinch

Now, I don’t know about you guys but I dont even know the last two. AND, as much as I like The Rock…most influential? Really? I doubt it. So then I decided to look on twitter myself and see who was interacting with their fans the most and in turn gaining a number of followers. The star who exceeded all else that I looked up was Britney Spears with a whopping 22 million followers! Now I know she is not in many movies these days but she IS a new judge on the X-Factor this year and from her account you can see her constantly retweeting her fans comments and even replying to them! She usually is tweeting with her fans while the show is airing too so her fans are “watching it with her” and they tweet back and fourth. This is HUGE publicity and a great way to increase ratings. My next search was Seth Rogen, funny guy and very likeable, only has 367.7K followers while It Girl Jessica Alba has 4.5 million followers. Twitter is a great way to interact with fans and keep them excited about upcoming movies. Actors/Actresses and producers of movies need to take this into account and make twitter happen for their upcoming movie! If any movie has a twitter account with half as many followers as Britney then I bet you their ticket sales will have a bright future! Who do you think is most connected to their fans? Do you think that actors/actresses have the power to get their fans to the movies?

Reference: http://wefollow.com/twitter/movies

A Post by Katrina

Netflix – What makes them successful?!

I have always wondered how Netflix became so popular and what their position was that lead to their success. A post on the website, Digital Trends, outlines one theory that explains how Netflix became so popular. I would like to first point out that I am not really a fan of Netflix, because I simply am just not attracted to their selection of movies. This may be the case (and maybe I’m not the only one?) because the author of the article suggested that Netflix appears to be angled more towards children rather than adult audiences. McMillan (2012) suggests that although many adults do use Netflix, it appears to be more for their children. Is Netflix a new form of childcare? McMillan (2012) proposes that this may be true, due to the perceived benefits of this offering. From the perspective of care takers, Netflix offers control over content, lack of commercials, and ability to multitask, which are highly beneficial to the modern parent. Perhaps it will be so, that Netflix is the new Cops and Robbers or Barney. It will be interesting to see where the world of technology will take us in the future.

Chloe

McMillan, G. (2012). What makes netflix so successful? Kids stuff. Digital Trends. Retrieved from: http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/what-makes-netflix-so-successful-kids-stuff/

Keeping Theatre Alive – Response/Building on Kat’s Post

One question that has come up often in the discussion of film and the network is where the industry is going today and what will happen to movie theatres. One way in which theatres have adapted to the changes in the market, as Katrina mentioned in a previous post, is to offer 3D movies. I wanted to draw upon an example of this by discussing the re-release of Titanic 3D this year. Titanic was first released in 1997 and set records with its $1.8B earnings, only to be recently beat out in 2009 by Avatar (CBC, 2012). In April this year, they released the 3D version of the classic film, marking the 100 year anniversary of the ship’s tragedy. This expansion of the wildly popular film is an example of how film producers are finding ways to meet their customers demands and adapt to the changing dynamic of movie watching. Titanic 3D has been very successful thus far and might have an opportunity to regain their spot as #1.

Chloe

CBC News, (2012). Titanic 3D sets sail for new box office record. Retrieved from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/04/16/titanic-3d-ticket-sales-2-billion.html

Crimson Hexagon

Crimson Hexagon is a five-year-old company in Boston that was founded by a Harvard Professor. Studios such as Paramount and CBS have started using tools devised by this company in  order to answer specific questions about the desires of their consumers for various products, including movies. Crimson Hexagon allows their customers access to every public tweet that has ever been written since 2010. Having this information is a huge advantage to movie producers in that they are able to differentiate between what viewers want to see in the production and what they didn’t like. As an example, through Crimson Hexagon, flim companies are able to compare comments from viewers on the movie “Ted” to “The Hangover”.

Crimson Hexagon customers pay more than $100,000 a year to access this information. In one situation, by viewing the volume of tweets expressing a desire to go to the film across seven different movies,  there was a 98.8% correlation observed with actual gross revenue per theatre. Crimson Hexagon’s has researched and revealed that social media comments are highly correlated to opening-weekend box office.

Reference:

Rachel, D. (2012, August 3). Twitter goes to the movies . Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443343704577553270169103822.html

A Post from Katrina

Keeping Movie Theaters Popular

As the price of movie tickets and concessions go up, viewers interest goes down. So, the movie industry has had to come up with innovative ideas that keep us viewers excited about the theatre experience. So what have they come up with? Say hello to Dolby 3D movies!  Within one year of Dolby 3D being introduced there was more than 70 cinemas in 30 countries that adopted this version of screening. Dolby 3D Digital Cinema costs between $20,000-$30,000 to bring the 3D technology to theatres for viewers to experience.The first major title with this technology was Beowulf 3D and every showing was either sold out or very close to being sold out. This fact, as well as the fact that we now see some of our favorite classical movies being reintroduced to the theatre in the 3D version is a good indication that for now, 3D movies are helping ticket sales and keeping those movie theatre seats filled!

Reference: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/3d-movie-theaters-finally-a-reality,5102.html

A Post from Katrina