Entertainment continues to be the most important driver of the digital medium.

IAMAI’s Second Digital Entertainment Conference, which was held in Mumbai on November 11, put the focus on the platform or access points – movie halls, television, PCs/laptops and mobile devices – while adoption, innovation and convergence was the defining theme of the Conference.

The first session saw a panel discussion on ‘Entertainment from 25 Feet’. The panellists included PS Saminathan, Group Chairman, Pyramid Saimira; Rajjat Barjatya, MD, Rajshri Media; Jai Maroo, Director, Shemaroo Entertainment; Rajesh Mishra, CEO – India, UFO Moviez; and Navin Shah, CEO Percept Pictures. The session was moderated by Aditya Shastri, CEO, People Pictures.

Starting off the session, Saminathan said, “I believe technology is beginning to destruct our business model. It would be wrong to say that money and creativity are commodities as creativity is equal to acceptance by people. Technology, on the other hand, will change traditional usage of this industry as it is the quality of content that is accepted by end users, and if the last few years saw more films succeed, it was only because of the concept of the film. Creativity of any kind is required in selling an unknown face.”

PS Saminathan blamed the Film stars as culprits who have spoilt the system with their exhorbitant fees. He stated in many cases a movie star’s salary is more than the films collections. He felt that exhorbitant film star fees killed the creative process of film making and hence there needs to be introduction of a mechanism which changes film distribution from push mechanism to pull mechanism. He said that digital had the potential to bring about this change.

He made the following points on the impact of digital cinema:
1) Big institutions will vanish
2) Institutions will become platform agnostic
3) Creativity and money wont be commodity

On Whether digital distribution will change cinema?
1) India is at the fore front of digital technology
2) Indian theatres are much better and ready to go digital
3) Digital has changed the way people look at territories
4) Digital will change the way small films are made.

In the next 10 years we shall see a shift from push entertainment to pull entertanment.