Impact of technology essay

TASK 5

BRINGING EVERYTHING TOGETHER>

You will create an essay which discusses the impact of technology on the way large organisations such as Disney create block buster films as a means of creating an enhanced viewing experience for consumption within the cinema.

You will use material from the presentations on the 26th september and 2nd October.

You will also include the role of MPC through visiting their web site to show how film industries can “out sorce” or contract specialist organisations to support the production of films such as the Jungle Book

http://www.moving-picture.com/about-mpc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8bEp9cBvl0

The media industry is made up of 6 main companies; 20th-century fox, Sony pictures, warner brothers, paramount, universal and Disney. When it comes to distribution these companies have dominance over the market, as they have more power and resources that smaller companies don’t. Media conglomerates (of which Disney is the largest) are large companies composed of smaller companies, also known as subsidiaries, in a number of different mass medias. The media conglomerates make use of horizontal, (other production companies such as Marvel and Pixar owned by the Disney corporation.) and vertical integration (production, advertisement, and distributes (cinemas, TV, and Disney stores) all of its own products). Disney is a worldwide corporation; in vertical integration they own the production companies, (Marvel, Pixar, Touchstone and Walt Disney.) they do their own distribution (Walt Disney Studios) and exhibition, as they own cinemas (Pacific theatres), TV channels (ABC, ESPN), stores (the Disney store) and theme parks (Disney land, Disney world).

Over time technology has advanced to a point where people can create something that you wouldn’t have been able to necessarily film. CGI or computer generated imagery is special visual effects made using computer software, CGI can be used in video games, TV, movies, and more, but computer animation is the process which generates these animated images for movies. CGI is very modern in the film industry with the first 2D CGI film only coming out in 1973 (Westworld) and the first 3D CGI film coming out in 1976 (Futureworld). 

A good example of how far CGI technology has advanced is the blockbuster film “Avatar”. Avatar was a revolutionary film made using performance/motion capture, and Chroma key (CGI, green screen). Performance capture takes the actors and makes them into a digital character, using a suit with special markers and many cameras, what the actor is doing can be translated into a real-time virtual image. They also expanded this by adding a camera in front of the actor's face to take in their real human emotions, which then translate onto the character; this makes the character seem more human emotionally and spiritually. Chroma key refers to the use of greenscreen and CGI effects, in the avatar movie they had to use green screen technology to create the world around them; this is very much true for another movie, the jungle book. The jungle book (2017) produced by the conglomerate Disney is a massive step up from the animated 1967 version and is 100% green screen. The only thing in the finished movie that was real was Neel Sethi, who played Mowgli. Everything he had to physically interact with was a prop, but the details were added on later in production. The CGI for this movie was created by MPC (moving picture company)  “54 species of animals and 224 unique animals were created and new computer programs were made to better simulate muscles, skin and fur.” The CGI used in both of these films show advancement in technology from simple animation back in the 1930s, it also shows that you can create not only fantasy worlds but also the real world that we live in right now. 

The reason we use CGI in movies is that we want to create something that we can’t realistically film. The jungle book is centred around a young boy on his own in a jungle, even with hundreds of trained animals it would be very dangerous to film, and filming in an actual jungle is expensive and dangerous since you need to travel and live there, but with CGI you can be in a warehouse in America and create a whole world on your screen for way less than it would’ve taken to film it in real life, and the animals and plants still look somewhat realistic and natural. If avatar were to be filmed in real life every actor would’ve had to undergo hours of hair and makeup, and they would need to make realistic robotic animals as well as the entire world of Pandora. CGI in the film industry has opened the door to countless opportunities within movies, we don’t have to stick to things we already know or have already done, we can do new exciting things that people 50 years ago would’ve never dreamed of.

Another way technology has advanced is the viewing experience itself. IMAX (Image Maximum) is a motion picture film format that replaced the conventional 35mm film (which was limited to only 6K lines of horizontal resolution) with a 65mm film that produces approximately 18K of horizontal resolution. IMAX was developed for cinema viewing to increase the viewing quality for the audience. This can help bring more people into cinemas to watch it instead of buying it on DVD/Blu-ray, watching on streaming services, or just waiting until its old enough to view on TV.