Unexpected Media

Cinema’s punk era?

In Göteborg for the launch of Crossover Nordic at Lindholmen Science Park, my presentation was preceded by a talk from Michael Gubbins, Editor of Screen International.

His theme was the inevitable shift from theatres and DVD to digital download as the primary means of distribution of feature films.  To date, Hollywood’s solution to the bottleneck caused by too many movies competing for space on a limited number of screens has been to make fewer, bigger films. But this is a short-term fix which will inevitably give way to more profitable distribution models based, in part, on less costly product reaching smaller audiences.

Gubbins didn’t see the move to sales direct to the home as a threat to cinema ticket sales, citing the example of football where the live, social experience still beats the more comfortable and, in many ways, superior experience of viewing a match on TV. He suggested that an economic downturn was just what the film industry needs as a boost for the cinema as a cheap night out.

Is the film business about to enter it’s equivalent of the punk era? Gubbins argued that now that primary school pupils can plausibly carry video cameras in their pockets and are beginning to use them to express themselves, we may a real democratisation of the moving image. It may be anathema to the established industry but production cost are getting so low that there are now unique opportunities for new voices to speak through new types of film.

It’s ultimately a pretty rosy view of the future: the big boys will continue to find ways of making profits both through traditional distribution mechanisms and on new platforms while wider bandwidth and the long tail will provide space and a market for independently produced niche product.

Can it really be that easy?