Digital Distribution Essay

To what extent does digital distribution affect the marketing and consumption of media products in the area you have studied.

Introduction

• Internet and digital types of content has revolutionized the way films and other media products have been distributed.
•  The internet is used widely for the marketing and exchange of products.

On Demand Services

• Video on demand services have broadened the audience for the products.
• Video on demand services have made the products widely available and easier than ever.

 

• In my case study Star Wars: The Force Awakens, free online VoD services such as YouTube used for trailers.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens made use of the “Disney Movies Anywhere” – A private subscription VoD service days before the DVD and BluRay.

 

• Similarly, Special Correspondents is a Ricky Gervais film produced specifically for the Netflix subscription VoD services.

 

• The Film4 production “A Field in England” was distributed by the vertical-integrated 4DVD company, throughout online transactional VoD services such as iTunes.
• The production sold 1,462 copies of the film via these VoD services.

Added Content

• Digital Content allows for the easier-to-access, added content.
• Digital Content allows for a large range of added content types, such as websites and other online media types.

 

• “A Field in England” hosted a Q&A session, that was streamed and uploaded to the internet.
• Ben Wheatly, the director for “A Field in England” produced an online seminar of film-making, which was provided for free to the public.

Draft Essay

Introduction

The new methods of storing content digitally has majorly affected the way the media products are distributed and consumed. With many different types of storage, such as DVD, HD-DVD, Bluray and digital viewing via methods such as streaming, online downloads and VoD services. Furthermore, the marketing and consumption of media has been revolutionized by the age of digital content.

On Demand Services

Video on demand services (also known as VoD), have broadened the audience for media products, and the way that the products can be sold. Many products are sold on online web-stores via transnational VoD, where viewers can purchase or rent a “virtual” copy for viewing. Such services have made products easier than ever to consume, and to also distribute to the consumers.

A popular Star Wars: The Force Awakens, was a massively popular film produced by Lucasfilm (and inherently Disney). The film’s P&A crew placed a lot of effort into free online VoD services, such as YouTube, where they uploaded movie trailers. These VoD services allow for a massively wide distribution path, for free, which makes these services a very important asset when it comes to digital marketing. These trailers gained in excess of 90 million views.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens also utilized the Disney-based VoD service “Disney Movies Anywhere”. This service is a private subscription VoD service which provides full-quality Disney-based movies to customers. Disney used this private service to gain a boost in subscriptions, by releasing the film on their service, earlier than they did on DVD and Bluray.

Special Correspondents is a Ricky Gervais film produced specifically for the Netflix subscription VoD service. Netflix is a service with 98 million subscribers world-wide, giving the upper-hand when working with the film. Those who wanted to watch the film were forced to purchase or try a Netflix subscription. Advertising for the film was also considerably controller by the corporation. Netflix, just like Disney, utilized the free YouTube VoD service to distribute their film trailers. Their trailer was published on the service 33 days before the film was released on Netflix, and racked up 853, 420 views world-wide.

The Film 4 production A Field in England, was distributed by the vertically integrated 4DVD company, throughout transnational VoD services such as iTunes. Viewers could choose to purchase out-right the film, or to rent the film for a specified period of time. The film was distributed via online services such as iTunes and Google Play, although the film was also available as a disk-based copy. The film sold 1,462 copies of the film via these services, even though a free screening had been given on the Film4 TV channel.

Digital content allows for viewers to easily access added content. Added content can be embedded into disk-based copies of the film, or online via websites, extra footage and other such methods.

A Field in England used this to host a Q&A session that was live-streamed to the internet. The Q&A was hosted in a cinema, and viewers in other cinemas screening the film could watch it happen live. Similarly, the director of A Field in England, Ben Wheatly, produced an online seminar or film-making, which was provided for free to the public. This was used to both encourage smaller guerilla film-making, but to also bring publicity to his film, which took the same idea.

Ultimately, the internet plays a large role in the digital distribution of films. It also plays a massive role in the consumption of media, allowing viewers to gain access to the films and it’s added-content at a cheaper price, whilst being able to watch it practically anywhere. The internet has also revolutionized the marketing for films, as producers and distribution companies can now freely and quickly distribute trailers and other such advertisements to potential viewers.