Digital Screen Network

1). What is the digital screen network?
Digital screening cuts the cost of releasing films. The UK Film Council and the Arts Council England have created the Digital Screen Network. It's a £12 million investment to equip 240 screens in 210 cinemas across the UK with digital projection technology.
2). How can it help independent producers and exhibitors like picture house?
Places like picturehouse can show a wider range of movies because its cheaper and their audience numbers will increase because of the wider range of movies. They will have a varied audience instead of the same people coming in, and this will also help them get more money.
3). What will it mean for audiences?
The more choice an audience has the more likely they will choose a non-mainstream film like foregin movies, and independent movies. Digital screening helps stream live events like football, or a music concert so audiences will be able to view these from their cinemas.
4). How does your local area benefit?
Digital screening benefits my local area because it allows people in the area to watch specialized movies, and widen their interest in different genre's. Having digital screening in cinemas will increase the use of smaller cinemas like Cinema City because they can show more movies, and some of the movies you cannot watch at Odeon or Vue. For example, Cinema City put Breakfast at Tiffany's on the big screen which gives people a chance to re-watch a certain movie. Odeon also have a digital screen so they can show live events and other things like Cinema City which does cause quite a bit of competition between the two cinemas because Odeon is a bigger cinema than CinemaCity so have the upper hand when it comes to showing specialized movies or live events.
5). How does it impact on your film consumption?
It widens my impact on film consumption because I can go and see a movie at more times but also watch specialized movies which I wouldn't be able to see at a mainstream cinema.
6). What will this technology also provide to cinemas?
The cinemas will gain a bigger audience because of their wider range in movies and this will also increase their profits.
7). What can you suggest this might mean for other technologies?
Instead of using 35mm film you can use digital screening which is much more cheaper, because it costs a lot of money to reproduce a film with 35mm film but also the film can be easily damaged whereas with digital screening they can't. So, with the increase of digital screening 35mm film won't be used as much.

Film distribution in Norwich

How many films in total are being exhibited?

Vue: 17 movies

Cinema City: 17 movies

Select a range of three different films for each cinema. How many times is each film screened? What does this mean for audiences?

Cinema City: A Single Man, shown once at 18:10. A Prophet shown once at 16:45. Hamlet, shown once at 17:00. Audiences can only see these movies at one time during the day, so if they're busy at this particular time they won't be able to go and see the movie.

Vue: Alice in Wonderland, shown 8 times. Green Zone, shown 10 times. I Love You, Phillip Morris is shown 10 times. Audiences have a range of times to go and see these movies, however the cinema only shows mainstream movies so if you wanted to see an independent movie you would have to go somewhere like Cinema City and they usually show movies only once during the day because of their limited screens.

Identify the total number of films in relation to the total number of screenings

Cinema City is showing 17 movies which are screened 24 times throughout the weekend. Whereas Vue has 17 movies, and they are all screened 84 times throughout the weekend.

Identify the % of hollywood films vs british films for each cinema that weekend

Cinema City: Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll - British, Floods of East Anglia 1912 - 1953 - British, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Swedish, Kick Ass - American.

Vue: The Lovely Bones - American, Shutter Island - American, I Love You, Phillip Morris - American, Green Zone - British.

What conclusions can you draw about how different audiences are catered for in your local area?

In our local area audiences are offered a wide range of films between Cinema City and Vue. Vue show mainstream movies which appeal to mainstream audiences, while Cinema City show British independent movies and other things like documentaries for varied audiences. Vue do show British movies but they are mainstream and have been advertised well and a lot of money have been spent on these movies. Cinema City's movies are less advertised and usually the movies they show have been made with a low budget.

How do 'The Third Man' ,director Carol Reed and 'Insomnia',director Erik Skjoldbjaerg use the conventions of a thriller

The Chase scenes

In Insomnia and The Third Man they both have similar chase scenes which involves the detective (Jonas and Holly Martins, even though Holly Martins isn't a professional detective he does take on the role in the movie) chasing after the criminal. In The Third Man they use a sewer to chase the criminal through which creates a maze because there are several places for the criminal to run too and it is difficult for the detectives to find the criminal. Carol Reed uses backlighting to create silhouettes to create the feeling of being followed. In Insomnia they use the fog to create the same feeling The Third Man does. Jonas is lost in the fog while trying to chase the killer, and the effect of the fog creates the feeling of being lost and blind because you can't see anything, so Jonas doesn't know what he is running towards or shooting at which creates suspense.

Femme Fatales

A 'Femme Fatale' is french for fatal woman. The Femme Fatale is a woman who is seductive and leads men into dangerous and compromising situations. The Femme Fatale uses her beauty, charm and sexual allure. In The Third Man the Femme Fatale is Anna who is an actress and the lover of Harry Lime who faked her a passport so she wouldn't be sent out of Vienna. Anna is a Femme Fatale because she uses Harry Lime's attraction for her to her own advantage because he can help her from being deported, and Martins set up Lime for Anna's freedom and at the end of the movie Anna ignores Holly Martins which shows she used Martins like she did Lime. In Insomnia the Femme Fatale is less obvious because she could be the murdered girl at the beginning of the movie, Tanja, or Tanja's class friend Froya who Jonas seduces in his car on the way to seeing the location of Tanja's murder.

The big wheel and the cable car

In The Third Man and in Insomina they use the big wheel and the cable car so the arguments leave the audience in suspense because the big wheel and the cable car create tension and isolation because of the small space and being high off the ground. The arguments which happen inside the big wheel and the cable car make you think that someone is going to be pushed out of the big wheel or the cable car so the audience is left in suspense about what is going to happen.
The use of light and dark

In The Third Man Carol Reed uses strong key light to create shadows, and the lighting also makes the black and white much stronger and the white and black contrast really well againist each other. In Insomnia the lighting is very pale, and the palette is a lot of blues and grey's, and later on in the movie when Jonas kills his partner by accident he tries to shut out the light which makes his room totally dark, and in the picture above you can see the light trying to push through which is really effective in the movie. In The Third Man the colour palette is very limited because of the movie being made in black and white but this helps the lighting make the shadows more intense for example in the chase scene in the sewer you see the shadow of Harry Lime but the audience and the chaser aren't sure exactly where he is.