House of Cards "The Influence of Technological Change"

How has technology influenced the production of House of Cards and other long form media

Long form media is a cross between movies and normal television dramas. Due to the fact that they have high budgets they tend to have high end actors and production. Not quite to the extent of films, but much more so than normal television dramas. This means that they can afford higher end effects, special camera moves, cgi, etc. They start with an intense beginning to draw in the audience and contains several cliffhangers in order to keep the audience interested in the long form media.

Economic context.

Reduction in the cost of technology such as

CGI allowing visual effects even within TV budgets

Drones allowing ariel photography (ref. opening sequence of HOC and Washington)

Developments in Streaming e.g. 5G (generation) fibre optic technology which has enabled digital streaming service providers such as Netflix and Amazon to provide TV viewing.

Cultural contexts of technological change

This means that the way we consume TV has radically changed  as a result of high speed broadband connections. 

Consumers can view programmes outside of a TV schedule

Programmes can be watched as a complete series (binge watching)

Programmes can be watched on phones and tablets 

How Long form dramas came into being.

Digital (streaming) 

In just a decade, Netflix has grown from a video service with seven million U.S. subscribers to one that reaches 93 million people worldwide.

When Netflix first launched in the late 1990s, it distributed DVDs – mainly films – by mail. 

during the early 2000s, advances in compression technology – coupled with more homes gaining access to high-speed internet services – allowed large video files to be easily streamed over the internet.

video streaming services such as Netflix deliver programming “on demand” via the internet, viewers can choose what and when to watch instead of watching “what’s on.” 

Subscription TV therefore offers significant benefits to terrestial TV.

Netflix has developed its global market with a presence in 190 countries. 

Its popularity is achieved by providing high production content in several TV serial genres.  This includes complicated serial dramas (“House of Cards”), action series (“Daredevil”), horror series (“Hemlock Grove”).