Subsidies and 3-D May Spur Transition to Digital
Digital Cinema Initiatives is a consortium formed in 2002 by Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros. Studios to establish technical standards to help smooth and encourage the transition from film to digital projection.
Studios like digital projection because the ability to stream copies of their films through the airwaves to be downloaded by individual theaters eliminates the huge cost of striking and shipping prints. It’s also ostensibly a benefit to audiences because it ensures the same undegraded quality from one screening to the next and from one theater to the next.
The benefit to theater owners isn’t so clear, however, and I remember theater chains grousing that the cost to outfit their auditoriums with the necessary equipment was prohibitively expensive.
Though all 10 of the highest grossing films in 2007 were released digitally as well as in the traditional way, digital projection has seemed slow to become a widespread reality. That’s all beginning to change and the transition seems poised to kick into high gear.
One of the side benefits of digital projection is that it’s easier to achieve high quality 3-D. A number of films have semi-quietly been coming out in 3-D versions lately, but the recent Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert really got everyone’s attention when it opened on 683 screens to $31 million in the first weekend. Theater owners are seeing dollar signs as people line up for the new technology and are willing to pay extra for it.
3-D has an extra benefit for studios and distributors because, at the moment, the technology isn’t easily recreatable by home theaters. That day will probably come, but for now, 3-D is an incentive to draw audiences into movie theaters and this makes everyone happy.
Now studios are finally agreeing to help theaters with the transition. According to the NY Times, four of the six consortium members, Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal announced at ShoWest on Tuesday that they would pay theaters an undisclosed amount for each movie they distribute digitally, essentially subsidizing the cost to updgrade equipment. That would seem to be the final piece of the puzzle ensuring that the transition to digital is inevitable and possibly speedier.
There are those who insist that digital projection in its current state isn’t as good as film projection, though I’m guessing the average person can’t tell the difference. Either way, the technology is sure to continue improving and anything that keeps the continued theatrical presentation of movies viable is a plus in my book. Yes, as home theater systems improve and the public theater experience degrades, it’s increasingly tempting to just stay home, but there’s still something to be said for the communal experience of watching a movie with a large group of strangers in a darkened auditorium. When it’s done right, there’s nothing quite like it and it will be a shame if and when it finally goes away. If digital takes off, the end may be pushed farther down the road.
Additional information for this post lifted from Variety. All traces of Varietese removed for your sanity.
Lasy year we had one terrific 3 D experience with BEOWULF (simply stunning!) and one very poor one with NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, which was more two-dimensional. The jury is still out on the entire process of course.
what video format does a studio send movies sent to a theatre via download ?????
and how large(size wise) a download is this ?????
Using the Hannah Montana film as a yardstick is like saying the excitement for the new Indiana Jones movie proves audiences are excited about AARP members starring in action movies. They could have shown the Hannah Montana concert movie as a Powerpoint slide show and it still would have had a good opening weekend.
I’ve only seen one 3D movie, Beowulf, and while I was mildly impressed by the technology I’m still underwhelmed by the opportunity it presents for movie-going. It’s a technology that only seems to benefit animation and genre pictures really, as its such a massive gimmick that the technology sort of gets in the way of the storytelling for me.
As for digital projection, I agree that when done well there’s no noticable difference between it and analog projection for the vast majority of filmgoers. The problem is that the technology has just as much potential for inept, undertrained projectionists and mishandled equipment as the analog systems in any understaffed multiplex of today.
I’ve seen a number of awful digital projections, where the color and contrast were so off that the movie looked muddy and/or psychedelic in sections. I do think the idiot factor is being countered better by the newer systems however, as my recent experiences with digital projection have been better. My point is that this technology doesn’t necessarily equate a better experience for anyone, it’s just potentially better for the studios and theoretically better for theater owners.
We’ll see if this saves the movies. Since there’s only one theater in Portland that’s entirely digital now and it happens to be attached to the biggest Mall in the area, I’ll be happy to stick to the analog old-school tech for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, the Hannah Montana test seems a little bit skewed to me too, but what do I know?
“It’s a technology that only seems to benefit animation and genre pictures really,” which is increasingly what the big studios seem to concern themselves with. Can you picture a scenario where most movies are watched in the home but a smaller number of spectacle-type films are still watched in theaters, probably in 3-D?
Neither No Country for Old Men nor There Will Be Blood would benefit from 3-D, that’s for sure.
Yes, I’ve been expecting the multiplexes will go that way eventually. The older ones will die off, the newer ones will convert over and only show mainstream comedies, genre, and animation, or the big star-studded Oscar bait during the holidays.
Hopefully the rest of us can keep some of the smaller theaters going with foreign, indies, and reissues.
I’m a manager at a 3 screen independent movie theater. It’s really sad to think of everything going completely digital in the years to come. We have just started thinking about whether or not we should get a digital projector. Our only real reason would be to be ahead of the curve.
I’ve seen digital screenings and for the most part, they don’t compare to traditional film. I agree with Joel, 3-D is more of a gimmick than anything else. And for that to be a deciding factor in deciding to go all digital is terrible. Sadly, though, my guess would be that in the future, multiplexes will eventually completely switch over to digital projectors.
There are still specialty photo labs that process B&W 35mm film for their customers, and as much as digital photography is taking over the industry, I don’t think it will completely destroy film. There are enough people out there who would rather take the time and effort to shoot and process film. There are also people who would much rather travel the extra miles to a theater that still runs 35mm prints of movies, new and old. Maybe I’m just stubborn, but I think it’s a tragedy to even imagine movie theaters never showing 35mm prints again.
I don’t think you’re alone in that sadness Justin.
I would regret the loss of 35mm and I only balance it against the loss of the whole theatrical experience.
Unfortunately, most people don’t seem to care either way.
Hopefully there will always be independent theaters that cater to the old fashioned types.
Funny enough, both the theaters here in smallish-town Arkansas were well ahead of the curve in converting to digital. Personally, I love it because by the time the film prints get here, they’re usually scratched all to hell, faded, or what have you. The digital films are just so much crisper, cleaner, sharper. It’s great. About 85% of the films shown locally are digital now. Sometimes whether or not a film is in digital is the deciding factor for whether we go see it.
We’ve seen several 3-D films this past year, and I agree, that’s a great idea for theater owners. It’s a bigger boon to some films (Beowulf) than others (U23D, though that one rocked in any dimension), but we really enjoy that option. The only complaint is that we keep having to pay extra for those dang 3D glasses and my husband won’t stop collecting them at home in the hopes we will be able to just bring in our old ones.
I’d be curious to see 3D prints, just for the hell of it, of No Country and TWBB. That big bazooka thing Chigurh uses on Harellson pointing right at me? Yowzas. And some of those mine shaft/oil well scenes might be nifty in TWBB. And to see Juno’s stripey belly jutting out of the screen? Who wouldn’t pay extra?
:)
Seriously, though, at the U23D showing I was surprised how many 3D trailers we saw. Coraline, Journey to the Center of the Earth or something like it, an animated flies-in-spacesuits movie, and I think at least one other.
With my home theatre setup back in New Zealand visitors had the choice of watching a DVD in a visually crisp digital mode or one that approximated film projection. After flicking back and forth between the two they always chose the latter.
Although I generally prefer traditional film projection I have no problem with digital projection when the cinematography was composed to look its best through its use. Like jennybee I can feel irritated by the scratches and other artefacts that appear on prints from an early stage.
Justin, the one potential big upside to theaters going digital is if it allows smaller films to be more easily and widely shown. One of the biggest issues for me with indie and foreign films is that I often have to wait so long for a print to finally arrive here (Portland, OR). Those smaller releases literally travel one print from city to city. With digital, that would no longer be necessary.
Of course, this assumes that the smaller specialty theaters and their distributors can afford to convert over to digital projection technology.
And this won’t change the Hollywood distribution system regardless, because Hollywood still staggers releases on “artier” fare in order to build momentum and/or test audience response. I’m sure a movie like There Will Be Blood would probably be released under the same long, tedious schedule as a digital release as it was as an analog release.
As for comparing to the two film formats, I agree film stock projected on a screen has a certain lushness to it that digital hasn’t completely captured (that grain, the softer focus) but I think digital does have pluses that film can’t compete with (no reel changes, undegraded picture quality over a print’s lifetime).
Even if he is shooting in DV now, David Lynch’s films wouldn’t be the same digitally projected.
(perk) Coraline in 3-D?
Based on the number of articles I’ve been reading since this ShoWest business kicked off about 3-D, I’m not shocked there are already a bunch of trailers up and running.
I read something just yesterday about Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D and the studio is basically crossing its fingers that there will be enough 3-D enabled theaters out there for them to open wide enough. According to the same NY Times article they’re anticipating as many as 10 3-D releases in 2009.
I’d add Joel, that digital might increase the chances that people in smaller towns might get exposed to more stuff than they would otherwise since it would eliminate the prohibitive distribution cost for the small movies and make it more worth their while economically.
Theoretically, of course.