Digitalisation of the flm industry in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The structure of the flm industry has changed signifcantly over the past two years. The decline in cinema attendance, the activation of flm distribution on digital platforms, the decline in the level of flm production and other reasons have led to a transformation in the production and consumption of audiovisual content. The change of the main content customer has become an important trend in 2021. Online platforms have replaced production and television companies. Neither the personnel nor the infrastructure of the flm industry was ready for such a volume of orders for production from online cinemas. This caused a sharp rise in prices and an increase in the cost of flm production. The industry is actually in crisis. Based on the study, the authors concluded that today state pays quite a lot of attention to the issues of the digitalization of the flm industry. The study notes the strengthening of state control over digital video platforms, a change in the scheme of state fnancing of the industry, the allocation of large fnancial resources for the digitalization of video archives, the introduction of electronic document management in the feld of flm production, flm distribution, in the process of submitting flm copies to the archive, etc. The authors of the article offer a partial solution to one of the main current problems of the industry – the crisis of traditional cinema distribution with the strengthening of digital distribution. According to the study, the participation of the state can also help with it. For example, by strengthening state funding of audiovisual products intended for cinema rental, as well as strengthening support for cinemas in times of crisis.