How your experiences of media consumption illustrates wider patterns and trends

In recent years, consumption of media products have changed dramatically. The expansion in how media products are consumed has had a big impact on the both the institutions and audience. Within this question, I am going to discuss the different ways in which I consume films.

In order to consume films, I go to the cinema quite often. I think that going to the cinema to watch a film allows for the overall experience to be more entertaining. I personally enjoy being at the cinema as viewing the film on a big screen makes the film appear more dramatic to the audience. This is due to the fact that the cinema experience is louder and bigger than watching the film at home. The cinema also does 3D showings in which I go to see the latest movies that are out in 3D. This change in dimension means that cinemas had have to change the way they show films. By having 3D screens, more people have been encouraged to go to the cinema to watch the film for the experience of being at a cinema and getting out of the house. Although there has been a change in the experience and dimension of films at the cinema, statistics indicate a decrease in the amount of people who go to the cinema. In 1945 approximately 1,585 (million) people went to the cinema, compared to 169.2 (million) in 2010. This is due to the fact that consumption has become more advanced and more methods have been made. Netflix statistics show that the research carried out on the 5/3/2013 indicated that Netflix had 29.2 million subscribers. This gives an indication into the fact that more people are using online services in order to watch films instead of going to the cinema.   

The way in which I find out about the films that are on in the cinema is through the marketing in which the institutions do. I watch TV quite a lot and trailers and teasers are commonly marketed on channels where there are potential target audiences for the viewing of the film. I also use social networking sites everyday and adverts, tweets and posts are shared and spread through word of mouth on sites like Twitter and Facebook. By sharing the film, I find out what other people who use social networking sites think of that specific film in which they watched. This therefore gives me an idea as to whether I want to go watch the film myself. The Hunger Games used Facebook prior to the release of the film in order to create 'hype' about the film. By doing this, word of mouth got around and therefore demonstrates the way in which films have been marketed. Another way in which I find out about the latest biggest movies is through my friends. Often, my friends follow actors and actresses on Twitter and Facebook. The actors and actresses often promote the films that they are staring in and therefore word of mouth spreads. Due to the fact that my friends follow them, they get informed and therefore check the trailer for the film. The therefore go to watch the film even if it looks bad because of the people who're staring in it. They then therefore ask me to go and I say yes and go to watch it at the cinema. Often, we are into the same actors and actresses so have the same taste - this means that we all go to the cinema together to consume the chosen film of our choice. 

Another way in which I consume films is through DVDs. I tend to get DVDs from companies like Play.Com, Amazon, Ebay and retail shops. When the hunger games came out, the domestic DVD sales was approximately $138,761,678 and the Blu-Ray sales were $64,289,451. When Fish Tank was released, it flopped at the Box Office and therefore DVD sales could not be found. My brother has a Blu-Ray player in his room that was quite a lot compared to how cheap it is nowadays. This therefore means that my family buy both DVD and Blu-Ray discs in order to watch them. I therefore to watch Blu-Ray discs as the quality is a lot better and there are more extras on the disc compared to a DVD. This therefore means that you can interact more with the film itself as you are able to decide whether you want to watch the Director's cut or the normal cut and whether you want to watch extras like bloopers or deleted scenes. 

I tend to watch films whose production companies are well known as I can be guaranteed quality. Larger companies are able to produce better quality films as they are able to have better equipment to shoot with. The camera in which fish tank used was the Arriflex 35 IIC. This cost roughly $15,000 compared to the camera that was used to film The Hunger Games  which cost $55,000 upwards. This difference in price means that more established companies like Lionsgate who produced The Hunger Games have a better opportunity than BBC Films. The hunger games was released in order 70 different countries and had an opening weekend turnover of $152,535,747 compared to Fish Tank - which was released in 
over 40 countries and had an opening weekend turnover of $25,854.