Pop a spot
James Whitmore, managing director at Postar, wonders whether cinema is on the brink of a revolution – both creatively and commercially…
Last week the BFI published its annual round up of the state of the film economy. The “Statistical Yearbook” is a zippy 218 pages that you can read for free, online. Anything and everything you want to know about cinema, it’s here.
It was a good year at the box office, with admissions about 3% higher than the ten-year average.
Perhaps the most striking thing is the popularity of British film and British independent film in particular. The ratio of UK to US market share was 38:62. The previous year it had been 25:75. Within that, the year-on-year share of UK independent productions went up by a whopping 246%.
What constitutes an independent UK movie? The top five were, The King’s Speech; The Inbetweeners Movie; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Horrid Henry The Movie; and Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre had the most skewed audience of all; 86% of the audience were women and 54% were aged over 55. I saw it and with hindsight it is a wonder that I came out alive. The most upmarket movie was One Day, which goes to show that affluence and discernment are not necessarily linked.
The trend continues for mid-week audiences to grow in importance. This is partly driven by the Orange sponsorship. Wednesdays accounted for 14% of total box office, the highest for eight years. It is also the result of catering for a broad demographic – nearly half the admissions for My Week with Marilyn were midweek.
It is all very jolly. So what next? I have no idea. A number of shapes are forming on the horizon and it should be a fascinating few years.
The strength of home-grown films may in part be the result of a fading Hollywood. So far this year, seventeen of the top twenty worldwide films were sequels to existing franchises.
Eastern money is beginning to play in Hollywood and growing disposable income in massive markets such as India and China is catching the eye of the film moguls. It seems that artistically, the big studios may not know which way to face and where to go. The prevalence of franchise films suggests a blockage in creativity and corporate imagination in Los Angeles.
Technology further confuses the issue. 3D increases revenue per seat but has not overwhelmed many punters. To come, there may or may not be a commercial push behind volumetric display – “4D” images, a sort of stereoscopic trumping of 3D. Not that I’ve actually seen it, I hasten to say.
Perhaps modern mainstream cinema is already the ultimate “culturally neutral” medium. The focus is less on character and narrative and more on images and effects that engender an overwhelming corporeal response from the audience. The intention is a rollercoaster for the senses and imagination. But then the yearbook shows that in this country at least, audiences hanker for more varied, finely wrought fare. Does one-size-fits-all product actually suit fewer people?
It seems that the big studios are looking in many directions, not certain which way to go. This could be a squash-able rabbit, at the prey of a well-focused headlight.
Also last week, DCM, the larger of the two cinema advertising sales houses, announced that it would shortly move to serving copy digitally, thus opening up a world of new opportunity for advertisers.
In the short-term, it will be difficult to disaggregate the advertising inventory without credible and detailed knowledge of the audience numbers by time of day and day-of-week.
I suspect that the first uses of the newfound flexibility will be in the creative use of space and time. How long before the end credits are squeezed to reveal the winner of a social media competition set in the opening ad break?
At first glance, it seems that the medium is in good health. The numbers suggest that today is OK. At the same time, there is no clear sign that anyone knows what is next. In that sense, it feels like the brink of a revolution – both creatively and commercially.