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The Impact of Visual Communication Innovations on the Film Industry
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of visual networking technologies and communication innovations within the film industry. The researchers investigated companies designing and implementing uses for the new systems within the manufacturing cycles of film production. The project selected two case studies, one from the advertising industry and one from a large scale Hollywood feature film, to examine emerging benefits and issues for companies innovating in this area. The research found that this new area of technological change is impacting on international divisions of cultural labour by affecting decisions concerning facility location, collaborative work practices, and the scheduling of production activities. The findings identified a number of economic and social advantages for companies who adopt the systems. However, they also revealed characteristics about the industry and innovation which would act to inhibit the rate of adoption.
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Author and article information
Notes and References
The authors wish to thank the management and staff of Film Graphics Productions, Bates Dorland, Halifax Building Society, Warner Bros, L.A. and Cinesite US for their willing participation in this study and their permission to publish these results. The study was supported by the Australian Research Council, the Australian Film Television and Radio School and the Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney.
For selected reports on the emergence of visual communication technologies see D. Kaufman, ‘Digital post-production: Hollywood dials into distance networking’, American Cinematographer, September 1995, pp. 30-3; K. Mills, ‘Video on the run-eliminating geography as an obstacle to production’, Millimeter, March 1995, pp. 131-40; and R. Mizer, ‘From post-production to the cinema of the future’, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Journal, December 1994, pp. 801–4.
For a description of the innovation-development process of diffusion and classifying adopter categories see E. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, The Free Press, Collier MacMillan Publishers, London, 1983, pp. 135-9 and 242-51.
For an analysis of regulatory changes governing advertising on Australian commercial television stations see the report to the Media and Communications Industries, M. Smythe, Trends in the Use of Standardised Advertising Material Across National Borders, Mervyn Smythe and Associates, November 1994. For an examination on the impacts of internationalisation on national screen industries see S. Cunningham and E. Jacka, ‘Global mediascapes: theory and industry’, Australian Television and International Mediascapes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 3-38; and T. Miller, ‘Hollywood and the world’, in J. Hill and P. Church Gibson (eds), The Oxford Guide to Film Studies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998, pp. 371–9.
The most recent data on the industry, supplied from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for Film and Video Production in Australia, 1993-94.
Data supplied from Encore, the Production Bible, Directory, Reed Business Publishing, New South Wales, 1995.
E. Rogers, op. cit., pp. 246–7.
Setrag Khoshafian and Mark Buckiewicz, Introduction to Groupware, Workflow and Workgroup Computing, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995.
Mary O'Hara and Robert Johansen, Global Work-Bridging Distance, Culture and Time, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1994.
E. Rogers, op. cit., p. 248.
K. Strickland, ‘Moving pictures’, The Australian, 16 January 1995, p. 30.
Ibid, p. 30.
E. Rogers, op. cit., p. 362.
E. Baker, A. Chandler, T. Fisher and R. Moss, ‘Moving pictures: a case study of the Videofax’, Media International Australia, 80, 1996, pp. 66–74.
Space Jam, 35 mm. Feature Animation Film, Dir. Joe Pytka, Warner Bros., 1996.
T. Miller, op. cit.
S. Christopherson and M. Storper, ‘Flexible specialisation and regional industrial agglomerations: the case of the U.S. motion picture industry’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77, 1, 1987, pp. 104–17.
Ibid.
E. Rogers, op. cit., p. 106.
Ibid, pp. 246–50.
D. Lamberton, ‘Diffusion of new information technologies and products’, Attachment 1 to Communications Futures Project, Work in Progress, Diffusion of Communications, Entertainment and Information Services, Bureau of Transport and Economics, Canberra, 1994, pp. 5–29.
Ibid, p. 15.
For information on film industry responses to digital editing and other new digital technologies see, K. Aisbett, C. Griff and E. Jonker, Talking Digital: Impact of Digital Technology on Film and Television Creative Teams, Australian Film, Television and Radio School Research Department, 1997, pp. 4-12; and S. McGuire, Crossing the Digital Threshold, Screen Industry, Culture and Policy Research Series, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, 1997.