Week 13 - Spectacle, Technology and Globalisation

In this topic, we look at more contemporary issues to do with the rise of new film technologies, the rise of a global film industry, and their effect on both filmmaking and viewing. In the last topic, this idea was hinted at in terms of the change in how we watch films with the advent of the Internet and other digital technologies, as opposed to traditional cinema viewing. As William Whittington (2013, pp. 42) states in your required reading:

Film technology has developed based on a complex intersection between industrial and aesthetic factors, which include global and industrial economics, advances in other fields such as electronics and computing, shifts in audience expectations, and the needs of specific film productions as well as the preferences of the filmmakers.

In other words, the rise of digital film technologies is a result of the relationship between industry, filmmaker and audience needs and desires. We will be looking at how these are manifested throughout this topic, however, we will also identify some of the costs of this, not in economic terms, but in terms of the effect on visual storytelling.

A history of technological development: Hollywood

We have already made mention throughout this unit various developments in camera technologies at the beginning of cinema in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the shift to smaller cameras to assist in camera mobility, which was connected to the development of cinematographic film language, changes in performance styles and the way audiences could identify with certain characters on screen. So even then, technology, storytelling and exhibition were in a tight relationship with one another.

Classical Hollywood era — introduction of sound and colour

During the height of the studio system, one of the reasons why the big studios became such global powerhouses was due to the implementation of sound technologies at the end of the 1920s. Warner Brothers, who produced Don Juan (1926, first synced sound effects) and The Jazz Singer (1927, first synced dialogue film using a Vitaphone), was one of the first studios to implement new sound technologies into not only the production of their films, but also in their cinemas for exhibition. The Jazz Singer is best described as a silent film with some passages of synchronised sound. The video below highlights how The Jazz Singer showcased this new technology within the familiar silent film format, introducing the idea to the audience and creating demand for more.

As the video notes, what the audience found truly remarkable was not Joleson's appearing to sing---which they were well familiar with from gramophone recordings---but the passages of perfectly synchronised dialogue. While sound recordings had existed since the 1870s, and film had existed since the 1890s, it was only in the 1920s that technology allowed for sound and image recordings to be properly synchronised.

Technological developments have always been a way to market a film since the studio era. As we have seen with the beginning of the sound era and through to the introduction of colour and widescreen, films have been partly marketed as films you “must see” at the cinema. This strategy was intensified in the 1950s when box office figures fell with the 1950s with the introduction of television into most US households. Audiences no longer needed to leave the house to engage with screen entertainment. Hollywood had to accentuate its points of difference from television. The television image was small, black and white, and low-definition. By way of contrast, new cinema technologies made the film image larger, more colourful, and more clearly defined. Watch the video about the history of the Vistavision format, the advertisement for White Christmas (1954), and the marketing material for Vistavision. Note the consistent messaging in the marketing.

These days, film studios are not structured as there were in the studio era and therefore companies specialising in the innovation and creation of visual and sound technologies sell their products at places like trade shows (ShoWest, Cinema Expo International, or CineAsia, for instance). These tradeshows feature educational workshops and demonstrations aiming towards marketing their products to the film industry, particularly to exhibition spaces. Here is where you will see companies demonstrating new digital and 3D developments and products, which will normally require expert customised installation and specialised training for filmmakers and operators. In other words, these are not the kinds of technologies for prosumers (professional consumers) or consumers. They are very much intended for industry use.

The beginning of the blockbuster era in 1975 with Jaws also meant that the notion of cinematic spectacle (the bigger is better mentality) became of focus for Hollywood. We can argue that there has been nothing since the introduction of the blockbuster that has been so integral in the evolution of technologies for the enhancement of spectacle. Developments in camera, projector and sound technologies up until the present aim to enhance visual and sonic immersive spectator experience and something that we’ll look at soon is whether it has come at the detriment of other aspects of filmmaking and viewing.

Technical development is never conducted in isolation though. Normally it will be the major studios, theatre chains and global manufacturers who work together to make their technological innovations a possibility for use and implementation in production and exhibition. A major example of this is the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a joint venture between Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Brothers and publishes a number of papers and best practice documents to establish standards for audio and image encoding. The DCI addresses these issues in a cinema theatre context as well as a TV broadcasting context. These standards are not mandatory and there is room for discussion with manufacturers, various marketing groups and audiences through the use of forums, surveys and mobile posts. So audiences are also consulted here, as all this technology is, in essence, to make their (our) experience of film of the highest visual and audio quality it can be, so we will pay the ticket price.

One of the fundamental factors that drives new film technology innovation is necessity. In contemporary film, filmmakers and production units often develop new and innovative technologies for the needs of specific production circumstances. For example, George Lucas encouraging his special effects company “Industrial Light and Magic” (ILM) to develop computer software packages to create entire digital characters for the Star Wars prequels.

Computer technologies have been implemented in a number of blockbuster films in order to find ways of cutting production costs, however, this has the contradicting effect of raising film production costs due to the expanding global market place and the implementation of these new computer technologies.

For deep sea diving footage, Cameron and his brother invented submersible robots that can withstand the pressure of being submerged in the depths of the ocean. He also helped invent the 3D reality camera system, where he coaxed Sony in Japan to help reconfigure their HD cameras to fit into small spaces in order to fit 2 lenses side by side. For Avatar (2009), he also created a ‘virtual camera system’ which allowed him to interface with a CG world so that he could view his actors as their characters when they were doing performance capture. In this clip, we see that process, sometimes labelled ‘e-motion capture’, from the actor’s point of view as well.

Filmmakers like Cameron are what we could call ‘technological determinists’ in that they see the innovation of technologies as a necessity for evolving their craft. Let’s take a closer look at this idea.

Theories of technology

Technological determinism

This is a critical approach that suggests that technology itself determines what is possible within an art form and that in some way the personal agency or artistic freedom of the filmmaker (as artist) is lost or degraded. This is similar to what we sometimes see in science fiction films like the Terminator series where technology is created and embraced due to the efficiency it can bring. On the flip side, however, what happens in Terminator is humanity to becoming enslaved to the technology. This is technological determinism taken to the extreme and describes the way this theory has been criticised.

Some scholars have found this approach limiting, even though the idea of it is evident in a lot our popular culture and discourse surrounding social media technologies (like Facebook and mobile technologies). This approach can be problematic due to the difficulty of drawing a direct connection between the technology and the effect it has society, yet there are other effects and variables that would also need consideration, such as cultural contexts (East versus West) or economic concerns (smaller national cinemas don’t have the budgets to afford highly priced film technologies).

Some filmmakers like Christopher Nolan or Michel Gondry are reverting back to older techniques for their visual effects and stunts. Some of these techniques include the use of prosthetics and make up for actors, matte paintings, miniatures for sets, and various other in-camera techniques. For example, Nolan used wired rigs, rotating sets, and slow motion photography for a lot of his visual effects in Inception. We can see his approach int he following clip.

Something you may like to discuss in tutorials is what kind of approach do you prefer? Cameron’s technological approach to visual storytelling or more traditional Nolan’s? What are some of the positives and negatives to each one?

Technology and the film audience

As we looked at in the previous topic, fans utilise online technologies to engage with film and television texts through discussion forums and websites. This is part of a strategy for audiences to feel connected to the film and television texts they enjoy watching. In this sense, online technologies have allowed audiences to immerse themselves and deconstruct certain texts for pleasure in the form of fan videos, mash-up, slash fiction, forum discussions, etc.

We can also look at the purpose of technological innovation in cinema as a method for filmmakers to immerse their audiences even further into the fictional (or in the case of some IMAX documentaries, the natural) world. This forms a rationale for filming in IMAX 70mm, like Nolan did for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises (2013) recently, as well as the use of 3D. In the following clip, Alfonso Cuarón discusses his film Gravity (2013) as immersive through the filming and exhibition of it in IMAX cinemas. Note what is said about immersion and technology.

Globalisation in the film industry

Let us consider selected aspects of globalisation of the film industry adapted from a study conducted by Associate Professor in the Department of Innovation and Organisational Economics, Mark Lorenzen (2008). In particular:

involvement in filmmaking

film consumption

film production

organisation of filmmaking

Involvement in filmmaking

Filmmaking is growing significantly in places outside of the USA making it a more globally pervasive activity. Here we can see a rise in feature filmmaking for multiple exhibition spaces, such as traditional cinemas, TV, and online. Countries where filmmaking is growing includes large countries that have a history of filmmaking already, such as India and China. In these countries, however, the number of films released per year has been steadily growing for at least a decade, which Lorenzen sees as a result of significant investments in cinemas and other exhibition spaces.

Film production has also grown in smaller state-subsidised film countries, where the film industry has been supported by new governmental policies and funding opportunities. Films coming out of European nations such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden are attracting international attention by placing more emphasis on higher production values, as well as winning domestic box office numbers against the Hollywood imported films.

Lastly, film production is on the rise in a range of relatively new filmmaking countries. For example, South Korea has an expanding art film scene, as well horror genre films; and Brazil and Nigeria have had booming video industries that have been assisted by new exhibition channels and cheaper production technologies, such as digital video cameras.

Film consumption

The second aspect of globalisation is the rise of global consumer tastes and how films are consumed by audiences. Besides mass film markets growing and continuing to grow, we can also consider how film producers are reaching niche audiences much more easily. So audiences who are fans of martial art movies, art cinema, or particular national cinemas, can view these film via digital technologies (Internet, cable TV, DVD/Blu-ray) anywhere in the world. In the case of national cinemas, this does mean films viewed in the country of production, but films that can be watched by ethnic diasporas (communities of ethnic emigrants from, for example, Afghanistan or India, who can see films from the countries of their birth).

As a result, the previous method of exhibition was a very strategic process in terms of international film release. Films would usually have been released in the home country first, then have a staged release in other countries. So a French film would be released in France in May, but not released in the US until July and then maybe Australia in November. Now it seems to be a more global phenomenon where the release dates would be very close, if not the same day, in multiple countries. Hollywood still has a lot of power in this area and the setting the strategies for film release globally, however, major filmmaking countries, such as Japan and India, have been more aggressive in utilising new technologies for distribution and exhibition than has Hollywood that results in more products exported overseas than before. You may have noticed this in your local cinemas, where more Indian or Japanese films are appearing on the schedules. Hence, globalisation of consumption is ultimately propelled by film companies in a range of countries finally sinking sufficient costs into production, marketing and distribution, thus taking minute steps in catching up to the early investments and scale economies of Hollywood.

Film production

The third aspect of globalisation is that of film projects crossing national borders or what we would call ‘global productions’. Co-productions have been around for over a century, with countries like France and Italy producing films together during the 1940s and 1950s under government co-production deals, for example. However, co-productions are experiencing a recent boom, and many Asian, Canadian and European film productions now cross borders even more than before. Why do you think film productions would consider a co-production scenario? What reasons would inform this kind of production?

Firstly, it could be to utilise particular talent or skills sets (cast, creatives and crew). In Australia for instance, we have a reputation for visual effects work with a number of studios striking deals with Hollywood films. Organisations like Animal Logic, Illoura and Rising Sun Pictures have worked on major Hollywood productions such as Ted (2012), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)and the Lego Movie (2014) in fields of animation and visual effects. Another creative reason may be to film on a specific location, like the deserts of Tunisia to stand in for Tatooine in Star Wars (1977).

An Australian example would be The Matrix (1999) in Sydney.

Instead of creative reasons, it could be purely economic or financial reasons to enter into a co-production. When the Australian dollar was significantly lower than the US dollar in the early 2000s, a number of large productions from America were shot in Australia using Australian crew and cast in order to take advantage of the tax incentives in place. With a certain amount of local talent being used, Hollywood productions can be more economically viable if made in another country.

Organisation of filmmaking

The final aspect Lorenzen discusses is the emergence of global forms of organisation. The most obvious example of this is through the rise of global film corporations. As mentioned above, as Hollywood production companies internationalised their operations, integrated horizontally and diversified into multi-media corporations, several of them were acquired by or merged with French, Japanese and Australian business conglomerates.

Many of Hollywood’s multi-media corporations — big studios, like Fox or Warners for instance — are owned and operated globally. Even some smaller media corporations (smaller by Hollywood standards) originating in Europe or Japan are also now run as global enterprises. This means that they have branches of their companies located in various parts of the world in order to market and distribute their films to the local national market. As Lorenzen notes, however, the branches are unevenly located or present in differing capacities. He (2008, pp. 8) states:

In a high number of countries (with, for example, India as notable exception), the global corporations are strongly present with efficient distribution and marketing subsidiaries, offering global (i.e. typically US) products to the local market. In a limited number of countries, the global corporations are also present with local production companies (such as film and TV companies, record companies and publishing companies) in financing and distributing relatively low-budget local products purely for the local market.

Another way film organisation is made global is through the expanding social networks of film crews. As film projects are generally short term, the industry relies on a very “intricate and informal” (Lorenzen, 2008) set of social relationships between people who have worked together on these projects. Therefore, it is more likely to work with these people again on future projects as a trust has already been built. Considering that film production, as we have already looked at above, is expending globally, this also means that the relations between talent and crew is also becoming a more global phenomenon.

Besides the globalisation of the film industry in the ways detailed above, we can also see a shift to a global form of film storytelling, where similar narrative and formal techniques are evident in a range of films from all over the world. This is what has been labelled ‘post-classical narration’.

Post-classical narration

Another way we can look at the effect of globalisation on film is through the new structures in film narrative that assist in breaking down the notion of Hollywood Classical cinema narrative (a Westernised narrative structure). As we learned in topic 3, the classical narrative is a linear style bound together by a chain of cause and effect relationships. This is kind of narrative was established during the Golden Age of Hollywood (beginning around the late 1920s-1930s). Therefore, we can describe post-classical narration as characterised by:

• Multiple plot and story lines

• Fragmented/episodic narration

• Loosened cause and effect structure

• Use of space privileges layered images full of special effects

• Editing style challenges and reworks classic continuity editing (fast cutting, extreme lens lengths, close framings, free ranging camera movements)

• The use of digital techniques in post production

• The frequency of events shown x many times from different perspectives

An example of how globalisation of narrative cinema is evident through Eleftheria Thanouli’s (2006) comparative analysis of Amélie (France, 2001), Chungking Express (Taiwan, 1994), City of God (Brazil, 2002), Run Lola Run(Germany, 1998) and Pulp Fiction (USA, 1994). There would be a number of films these days that would could use as examples here as well. Each film comes from a different part of the world, with highly different cultural structures. As Thanouli points out, however, each film also displays similar uses of narrative and formal methods described as post-classical.

In terms of globalisation of narrative cinema, there is an argument that the Western world of filmmaking, specifically Hollywood, sets the trend that the rest of the world then follows. For example, film and cultural theorist, Dudley Andrew (cited in Thanouli, 2006), has stated in a study on World Cinema that the West provides the formula and then the rest of the world adapts it to the local material. This may be true of the classical narrative structure associated with early and post-war Hollywood cinema, but post-classical narration may be a different story. According to Thanouli, the primacy of Western cinema is more difficult to understand when it comes to post- classical cinema. She argues that we can consider post-classical forms of telling stories in film as an international or transnational, meaning that film conventions are shared and cross over international borders. A good example of this kind of transnational exchange are the many profitable remakes of East Asian film that has prompted Hollywood to expand its horizon in the East, which in turn, has started a trend of globalising the film industry -blending cultural and ethnic differences, fusing cinematic styles and diverse techniques, and homogenising on-screen performances and off-screen talents.

After the success in remakes of the popular Japanese horror movies, Dark Water (2005), The Ring 1 & 2 (2002, 2005) and The Grudge (2004), major Hollywood studios tried to expand the American market and capture the rapidly expanding Asian market by purchasing the rights to motion pictures from South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong for remakes with Hollywood star casts. We could perhaps also see this occurring more recently with Scandinavian cinema and Hollywood remakes — The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Sweden, 2009; USA, 2011) and Let the Right One In/Let Me in(Sweden, 2008; USA, 2010).

In fact, several dozens of Asian films are slated for remakes to be shown in 2006. Furthermore, the high-wired martial arts Chinese films, Zhang Yimou’s Oscars-nominated The House of Flying Daggers (2004) and Hero(2002), and Ang Lee’s Oscar- winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000), have attained international acclaim and admiration in Hollywood.

As we have in this unit, Hollywood’s interest in Asian films is nothing new. Akira Kurosawa, a famous Japanese director, had inspired many renown filmmakers for decades. John Sturges’ Western The Magnificent Seven (1960) was a remake of Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai (1954). Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964) was also a remake of Yojimbo (1961). George Lucas’ main characters in Star Wars were based on Kurosawa’s drama The Hidden Fortress (1958).

When the legendary Bruce Lee introduced kung fu to the silver screen in the 1970s, he had forever captured the American fascination with martial arts. To this day, many action pictures have adopted martial arts as the standards for fist-fight scenes. Director Quentin Tarantino created the highly popular Kill Bill series, illustrating the best of the Japanese and Hong Kong martial arts genre. The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) featured martial arts moves shown in slow motion -boxing kicks, flips and somersaults, long-distance leaps, and running up walls. So here we are seeing the breakdown of distinctly Western and distinctly Eastern forms of filmmaking.

Films containing similar narrative and formal strategies from different parts of the world illustrates that a new mode of narration has begun to take shape in the hands of new international filmmakers who challenge the Classical Hollywood cinema and establish a new set of narrational rules for telling stories. In fact, these rules not only form a paradigm of their own, but also reflect the wider changes in the audiovisual terrain, which is characterised by unprecedented media coverage and radical technological innovations. In other words, the post-classical narration is not a haphazard occurrence but rather a cinematic phenomenon in direct dialogue with the latest trends in new media, television advertising and ‘hypermediatised’ aesthetics. And that partly explains why these films are so popular with young media savvy audiences who can enjoy following trails of fragmented plot lines and can easily adjust to swift editing patterns and temporal jumps.

One of the major aspects that has changed and assisted in the breakdown of this idea of specific national and local filmmaking as we have understood it in the past is the globalisation of production, distribution, and exhibition. This has become far more complicated than simply making a film, showing it in a movie theatre to an audience who has chosen to pay a ticket price and sit down for one and half to two hours. The flow of ideas, technologies, and media policies have made it easier in some respects for filmmakers all over the world to experiment with different ways of storytelling with different methods of producing and exhibiting their work.

Conclusion

It is fitting that we have finished this unit by looking at the globalisation of the film industry and the evolution of a global film language, as it sees a number of threads we have looked at in previous topics come together. For you as filmmakers, it is important to have an understanding of this evolution, to see when film has come from and where it is headed. Although the effects of globalisation have not yet been fully felt as it is still expanding into new areas via new technologies (for example), being aware and able to explore new avenues of distribution is going to be an integral element to your own practice. Something you may wish to discuss in tutorials is the rise of online viral marketing campaigns as another example of the way low budget filmmakers can create hype around a film in a cost-effective way. Overall, throughout this unit, we have explored many different approaches and ideas on how film has been discussed, made and consumed from its early beginnings to a contemporary context. It is hoped that some of these approaches have resonated with your own practice or opened up some new ideas on how to approach and create your own work.

References

Lorenzen, M. (2008). “On the Globalization of the Film Industry”. Creative Encounters. Retrieved from http://openarchive.cbs.dk/bitstream/handle/10398/8146/x656557108.pdf?sequence=1. Pp. 1–16.

Thanouli, E. (2006). “Post-classical Narration: A new paradigm in contemporary cinema”. New Review of Film and Television Studies. Vol. 4, No. 3. Pp. 183–196.

Whittington, W. (2012). “Contemporary Film Technology”. In J. Nelmes (Ed.), Introduction to Film Studies 5th ed. London; New York: Routledge. pp. 41–58.