digital cinema

Screenvision and Verizon Wireless are getting together later this month to test an audience survey technology together, in 10 US cities. The idea is to encourage movie-goers to text message votes about their favorite music to the screen, where they'll see the results tallied (amidst the rolling series of pre-show advertisements.)News of the deal is here and here.If you're at a theater that's showing pre-show ads, I suppose it can't hurt to have more to do than just sitting there passively...though I do worry that this will make it seem OK to be text-messaging *during* the movie.

- Sony Pictures is creating a new business unit to send live performances (pre-recorded live performances, that is) to digital cinemas, according to the NY Times, Variety, and Wall Street Journal. They're starting with a Cirque du Soleil show, 'Delirium,' and then moving on to the final Broadway performance of 'Rent.' The Times observes: "Sony is the first big studio to dip its toe into the arena, which until now has been left to niche players like Colorado-based Fathom Events, which simulcasts from the Metropolitan Opera." Some events will be offered in 4K digital projection...which should look super-sharp.- Tech reviewer David Pogue

...but he hopes it isn't soon.From some Chicago Tribune Cannes coverage:"Making a film on celluloid," [Spielberg] said, is a threatened mode of expression."Digital cinema is inevitable. It's right around the corner. And someday," said Spielberg, "even I will have to convert."The official Cannes site has a slightly longer Spielberg quote that offers some more nuance:"The film is being released digitally on a lot of screens, about 300. Making a film digitally and releasing a film in the same digital process gives a beautiful image. It creates an extraordinarily clean, sharp image, but making a film on celluloid - as I’d like to do with all of my pictures –then transferring, releasing it, and projecting it digitally is a very inferior image.

Variety's Pamela McClintock writes today about the continuing spat over whether the digital 3-D roll-out is proceeding quickly enough. But there's an interesting aside in it about the plain old 2-D digital release of the new 'Indiana Jones' movie.McClintock writes:There was an outcry among theater owners earlier this year when Par suggested it wouldn't supply digital prints of Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," because Spielberg wanted the movie played only as film on 35mm screens. Filmmakers including Spielberg sometimes balk at having their movies shown in digital when they were shot on film.Not providing a film like "Crystal Skull" on digital would slight theater owners who have made the conversion, according to exhibs.

In the early 2000s, it was director George Lucas who was persistently peeved at how slow theater-owners were to install digital cinema equipment; he wanted more screens to show 'Attack of the Clones' and 'Revenge of the Sith.' ('Phantom Menace' was shown on just four digital screens as a test, in 1999.)Now, in the latter part of the decade, it's DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg who is frustrated at how slow big multiplex operators have been to install 3-D digital projection gear. From Variety:"In the last 30 days, things have not progressed as well as I had hoped, expected and, quite frankly, been committed to, by all the parties involved," Katzenberg said in response to an analyst's question.

- The NY Times has an interesting piece today that suggests that piracy is moving from NYC street corners to the Internet. (This may be in part due to a big enforcement initiative by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.) Eric Taub writes:Since December 2003, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg started an initiative to stem the trade in bootlegged and counterfeit goods, [NYC enforcement agent Shari] Hyman has “seen a huge decrease in illegal DVDs being sold in buildings.” In a February sweep, the organization checked out three buildings and 32 storefronts for bootlegged DVDs, and found none.But New York may not be the best barometer of piracy. Worldwide and on the Internet, video piracy remains rampant.

Reuters says that with the exception of this summer's 'Wall*E' and next Christmas' hand-drawn 'The Princess and the Frog,' everything on Disney's animated slate will have a digital 3-D release. From the report:The first Disney digital 3-D movie for release is "Bolt," the story of a dog of the same name who thinks he has superhero powers. John Travolta gives voice to Bolt while hit teen singer/actress Miley Cyrus is voicing Bolt's owner Penny in the movie, due to open on November 26.

The Cinema Buying Group, which represents 600 independent theater operators (and 8000 screens) in the US and Canada, has chosen AccessIT to handle its digital cinema needs, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Carolyn Giardina writes:The majority of the CBG's 8,000 screens are expected to fit into AccessIT's recently launched Phase 2 digital-cinema transition program, targeted for completion within three years. The Phase 2 program incorporates virtual print fee deals that already have been established with Disney, Fox, Paramount and Universal, which have committed to provide movies to as many as 10,000 digital-cinema systems in the U.S. and Canada in conformance with the Digital Cinema Initiatives specification.Some insiders have sensed caution on the part of some studios and have had some concern that not all would participate in new virtual print fee deals.

- Tomorrow night's Mavs/Clippers game will be broadcast live in 3-D to one Landmark Theater in Dallas. They're using the Fusion 3-D camera system developed by Sony, James Cameron, and Vince Pace.

- The NY Times wrote yesterday about non-movie content in movie theaters. There's apparently a boomlet happening. From the story:

Chains in Tennessee and New Jersey sell $25 tickets to performances of La Scala operas. AMC and Regal, two of North America’s biggest chains, have promoted concerts (Celine Dion), marathons of classic TV shows (“Star Trek”) and seasonal events (the St. Olaf Christmas Festival). On April 24, hundreds of theaters are scheduled to show highlights from the Drum Corps International World Championships.

Just finished having a late lunch in San Jose with bicycle-riding auteur/sage/animator M dot Strange.

One of the topics we touched on was artists (whether they're musicians, filmmakers, writers, photographers, whatever) who've been pioneers, in terms of cultivating an audience online. (If you have thoughts, post them in the comments here -- this is for my current writing project.)

He pointed me to the video of this talk he gave in Berlin recently, "Adventures in Self-Distribution." (In his usual humble way, of course.)

Then Jarod Neece of SXSW e-mailed to let me know they've just posted a mess of podcasts from this year's panels, including "Video Production for the Web and Mobile Devices," "Quit Your Day Job and Vlog," and two I moderated, "Digital Cinema for Indies" and "Animation and Digital Effects on a Budget."

- YouTube and TiVo have gotten together to deliver YouTube videos to about 800,000 TiVo users who have the right box and the necessary broadband connection. TiVo has never shared any stats on how many of their users are getting content from the Internet this way (and likely won't, anytime soon). TiVo did an earlier deal with Brightcove; the new YouTube link won't be active until later this year, says the Wall Street Journal.

- Could video kill the Internet star? Here's a NY Times piece worth reading. Steve Lohr writes:

The big challenge of today's 'Digital Cinema for Indies' panel at SXSW was explaining both the technical intricacies and the business parameters of digital cinema. But we tried.

The big challenge right now is that most of the 4000 or so digital screens in the US show studio content, delivered by AccessIT. Those screens aren't very accessible to independent filmmakers and small distributors. And the cost of mastering completed movies to the DCI standard, a file format designed by the major studios, is still quite high. Right now, panelist Russ Wintner said, "there are four labs in LA -- a virtual monopoly -- that can turn out a DCP." (The DCP, or digital cinema package, is the term for the final DCI file that's sent out to theaters, whether via satellite or hard drive.)

Technicolor Digital Cinema is installing digital cinema systems at Hollywood's top-notch ArcLight complex (including the Cinerama Dome), according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Seems important to note that this isn't the first time d cinema gear has been installed there, by companies like NEC, Sony, and some earlier equipment.

- Low-budget blockbusters like 'Once' never happen ... until they do. (Movie industry insiders say it's always safer to bet on big budget releases with well-known stars.) Portfolio.com has an analysis of the economics of 'Once,' made for $150,000 and released in the US by Fox Searchlight. The financial returns thus far, Portfolio says, have hit about 10,000 percent. From the story:

After the film opened in the U.S., it grew slowly and steadily. Fox Searchlight had the best marketing that money can’t buy: word-of-mouth buzz and critical acclaim. While summer’s blockbusters came and went, Once stuck around theaters for an amazing 219 days—most of 2007—whereas Spider-Man and Pirates played for 112 and 133 days, respectively.

The Wall Street Journal writes about two digital 3-D releases that are suddenly competing head-to-head for the roughly 700 3-D capable screens in the US.

From Sarah McBride's article:

..."U23D" has run into another 3-D concert movie: "Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour." The world of 3-D film exhibition, it turns out, isn't big enough for both Hannah and Bono. Originally scheduled to run for just one week, the "tween"-oriented Hannah Montana film was extended by theater owners because of overwhelming popularity -- sidelining Bono & Co. until Feb. 22 in most markets. For now, "U23D" remains largely at a few dozen Imax theaters.

- TVTechnology.com offers an advance look at what'll be happening later this month at the annual Hollywood Post Alliance Tech Retreat: new cameras, new displays, new microphones.

- Variety's David Cohen reports on a talk given on Wednesday by visual effects pioneer Richard Edlund:

[Edlund] noted that George Lucas had upstaged at least one of his own best scenes by adding CG characters to the background in his "Star Wars" re-release and observed that ILM in general tends to get "carried away" and put to much in the frame.
- A 4K digital cinema in your home? CNET fills you in.