Technology and its impact on films

Abstract

As one of the largest film industries, Bollywood represents the cinema-crazy country we are. The industry origins date back to 1913 when the first Indian Film, “Raja Harishchandra” was released. The Bollywood industry has been continuously evolving ever since. These changes include introduction of sound, color films, changes in shooting locales, hairstyles, clothes, portrayal of characters and several others. Nowadays, a lot of actors, even the mainstream ones, perform in art-movies and documentary-like movies. The concept of Film financing has definitely seen a diverse change in profile. From the single producer concept, we see large production houses, often funded by actors themselves or in the form of partnerships. According to sources, even underworld has a role to play in financing films. A common misconception among the audiences today is that films have become bolder of late due to western influences. This has been due to films portraying more vulgarity and obscenity, smoking, doping etc. However, even earlier in the 50s and 60s, such scenes existed. Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi, Sharmila Tagore (Aradhana) and others used to expose in their movies. Based out of Mumbai, Bollywood reaches consumers in many countries like Japan, Nepal, Britain, U.S., Canada and Russia. ‘Raja Harishchandra(1913)’ was the first silent film made in India. Starting with 25-20 films per year in 1920’s, today approximately 100 films per year are being produced. This shows the success of the Bollywood industry and gives an estimate of the general demand for films in India. In 1931, the first with-sound movie was released named ‘Alam Ara’. Then came colour films. Filmmakers were quick to adopt colour technology as it made their films more appealing, economically more revenue generating and immediately clicked with the Indian masses. Black and white films slowly faded into the background. This report aims at understanding the linkages between technological changes in film industry and its impact on financing, marketing and production of films.