Lauren Carroll Harris, a PHD candidate, in her paper ‘Not at a Cinema Near you’, says “our [Australian] film culture does not live in the motion-picture theatre, but in the audiences utilising it…other circuits are largely invisible because the mainstream media continues to measure Australian cinema solely according to box office sales and ratings” (Harris 2013 cited in Kaufman 2013, para 4). Further, these audiences are demanding more content to be available online and Screen Producers Australia executive director Matt Deaner believes that the industry needs to match these demands (Eaton 2014, Audiences demanding more content on the net section).
“No medium . . . seems to do its cultural work in isolation from other media, any more than it works in isolation from other social and economic forces. What is new about new media comes from the particular ways in which they refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media” (Gitelman 2008, pg. 9)
When content is made available on online, the potential audience for it expands to a global level, while simultaneously helping it to reach the ‘right’ audience through search functions and recommendations. Further, the internet never sleeps; films can be viewed at any time, anywhere, and when you compare this to what a screening at a local theatre can offer, the benefits become all the more apparent. Broadcasts disappear, whereas inscriptions don’t (Gitelman 2008, pg. 6).
Audience behaviours are changing/have changed, and although an online screening is no replacement for the traditional cinematic experience, Screen Australia reports 57% of online residents use it as a complement for it (2012, Key Insights section 3). Chris Anderson argues how digital distribution is undeniably the way to go for media distribution in a digital age.
Screen Australia found that local stories are valued by Australians, with 90% believing its important that the Australian film industries support local stories (2012, Key Insights section 6). It seems apparent that the challenge is then to enable people to find these. If we take Anderson’s model and apply it to Australian film distribution, successes like ‘Crocodile Dundee’, ‘Australia’, and ‘Babe’ could be used to invite both new and old audiences to revisit these hits, while directing them to the ‘misses’ of Australian cinema through recommending similar but less recognisable titles.
References:
Eaton, M 2014, Tribeca Film Festival programmer urges film industry to forget piracy and embrace internet, News ABC 17 April, viewed 17 October 2014 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-17/film-industry-urged-to-forget-piracy-embrace-internet/5388156>
Gitelman, L 2008. Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.; London: The MIT Press, viewed 17 October 2014 <http://vogmae.dropmark.com/182742/3710774>
Kaufman, T 2013, Radically re-thinking film distribution, RealTime Arts Magazine issue 118, viewed 17 October 2014 <http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue118/11419>
Screen Australia 2012, What to watch? Audience Motivation in a Multi-screen World, Screen Australia, viewed 17 October 2014 <http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/research/what_to_watch.aspx>