AS Media Studies

Study NotesUnit G322 Section B

Audiences and Institutions

The Film Industry

Part 9Film in the Digital Age

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Film in the Digital Age

The film industry has always used new technologies relating to the making and showing of films (although crucially, this has not always occurred as soon as the technologies have become available). A brief list of crucial technological moments in the history of cinema would include:

1. the projection of moving images to create the original silent movies in makeshift cinemas in the late 1890s;

2. the financially successful introduction of sound (the 'talkies') in the late 1920s/early 1930s which led to massive changes in the industry;

3. the widespread adoption of colour and widescreen in the 1950s in an effort to combat the competition from television caused by the mass production of TV sets, changing leisure patterns, and the movement of much of the population out to newly built suburbs following the Second World War;

4. the gimmicky, ultimately unsuccessful first efforts to offer the public three-dimensional film in the same period, again in an effort to offer the public something different from television;

5. the increasing use of television from the 1960s as a medium for showing films with the accompanying realization that in this way old films could effectively be recycled or resold;

6. the advent of VHS rental and recording from the 1970s opening up the possibility of again reselling old films but also effectively re-releasing relatively new films to a new 'window' after a period at the cinema;

7. the introduction of satellite and cable channels from the 1980s which again offered a further 'window' for both old and relatively recent films (main package channels, premium subscription channels and pay-to-view channels of course effectively further subdivided this 'window');

8. the increased marketing of the 'home cinema concept' from the 1990s so that with technology allowing larger screens and surround sound something approaching an analogous cinema experience becomes possible;

9. the move to DVD technology from the late 1990s which with the use of 'extras' and an enhanced experience encourages consumers to replace their old video film library with the latest disc format;

10. the increasing use of the Internet from the late 1990s, for marketing initially but also increasingly for downloading films;

11. the advent from around 2000 of digital filmmaking and digital projection facilities in cinemas;

12. the recent 'format war' between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc to become the successor generation format to DVD.

13. the revitalisation of blockbuster films through the use of improved HD 3-d.

Each of these moments of technological change for the industry are essentially concerned with the viewing experience, but it is also true that there has been a parallel series of technological changes in the making of films. For example, when sound is successfully integrated into film then the cameras have to become silent in order that their mechanical noises are not picked up and obviously sound technology has to develop quickly in order to enable voices to be picked up clearly; in fact a whole new field of production and creativity opens up. Perhaps we have currently reached a similar turning point because the big question now is what impact new digital possibilities for filmmaking and exhibition are going to have on the industry.

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New technologies and the consumer

New technologies might be said to offer consumers:1. an improved overall qualitative experience as a result of better sound and/or image

reproduction;2. enhanced spectacle perhaps through the sheer overpowering size of the screen or the

impact on the senses of a surrounding wall of sound;3. improved ease of access, or ease of use, for instance, through enabling people to own

their own film collections in various formats;4. new, easier and intensified ways of using film for pleasure, for example, IMAX

would seem to offer an intense 'fairground ride' for the senses; 5. an enhanced intellectual experience through the provision of increased knowledge or

understanding, for instance through the use of commentaries by directors on DVDs the chance to use new, ever cheaper and more compact devices to make films for themselves

New technologies and the film industry

New technologies offer the industry:1. the possibility of an improved opportunity to create profits (the costs or required

expenditure involved in bringing in the new technology will be carefully balanced against the projected additional income before any new technology is introduced);

2. the chance to repackage and resell old products, especially cult and 'classic' movies, thereby establishing a new audience base, or even fan base, for an old product (note that this is even true of an older technological change like the move to sound);

3. an opportunity to place products for sale in new 'windows', thereby lengthening the commercial life of each film (a film may now be sold to consumers via the cinema, satellite and cable TV, DVD and terrestrial TV);

4. the chance to encourage multiple purchases of essentially the same product (so any one consumer might pay to see a film in the cinema, then later pay to watch the same film on pay-to-view, before later still buying his or her own copy on DVD);

5. overall, enhanced production, distribution and exhibition possibilities

New technologies and the cinema experience

It could be argued that new technologies have always added to, rather than detracted from, the cinema experience. The size and/or quality of the spectacle have been enhanced by each new development adding to the unique nature of the cinematic 'event' (even the advent of television in a sense only highlights the difference and in particular the spectacle of the cinema experience).

The experience of the cinema itself cannot be easily replicated or replaced but the alternative experiences of pay-TV, or home cinema, have their own attractions particularly in terms of flexibility of viewing. The advent of TV and changed leisure patterns ended the social dominance of the cinema as a source of entertainment and information (remember this was once the only place you could see visual images of news events). The cinema experience has made something of a comeback, although attendance is never going to match the heights attained in 1946 in both the USA and Britain.

As with studying the content of the films themselves, what we find is that the industry and its technological base always have to be seen within social, economic, political and historical

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contexts. Towards the end of the Second World War and immediately after, cinema attendance peaked, as without the presence of television sets in the home people sought news images and perhaps some sort of collective, community-enhancing escape. The nature of cinema attendance at this moment was determined by the nature of the historical moment, and this is always the case. Our job is to try to understand how changes and developments within the film industry might be connected to the contexts of the period in which they take place.

Supporters of the Internet suggest that this form of communication marks a new era of democratization and freedom of choice empowering ordinary people to produce and receive information and entertainment from all over the world. Others such as some Marxist critics might suggest that this development, by isolating consumers from face-to-face human interaction, enables them to be more tightly controlled and manipulated. Other critics note the increased access to pornography and extreme right-wing propaganda available on the Internet, or point to an increasing gap between information-rich and information-poor populations (less than one in a thousand black South Africans, for example, own a phone).

'The future of film is coming into focus. Digital technology not only redefines movies, but also the very idea of the image. We were born in an analogue era, we shall die in a digital one. Film

is an analogue, that is, a physical copy of something else, it is "analogous" to what it photographs. A digital image is not a copy, it is an electronic and mathematical translation.'

(Schrader 1996)

'I love film, but it's a nineteenth century invention. The century of film has passed.' (George Lucas 2000)

With the development of digital and computer mediated communication technologies, the production, distribution, exhibition and reception of film have been – and continue to be – radically transformed. If one were to take a selective 'snap-shot' of the film-making process today one would find the following new media interventions at work.

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1. First is the increasing use of electronic, 'moving image' storyboards in both the pre-production and production stages of film-making (first pioneered by Francis Ford Coppolla during the making of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)). So, instead of hand-drawn, inanimate storyboards being used to 'pitch' a film, or organise and dynamise a day's shooting schedule, the director and cinematographers on a film utilise an electronic simulation of the story/scene that is to be made – a simulation which more accurately visualises what is to be shot.

2. Second is the increasing use of Digital Video (DV) cameras to shoot both documentary and full length feature films. DV has a number of advantages over celluloid film. Cameras are more mobile, and generally lighter to use; they are easier to operate; and reduce the costs of shooting and editing, particularly because they do not use the comparatively more expensive film stock, neither do they need their video formats processing in the same way. Shooting 'complex' scenes is easier to organise, especially in relation to the relative ease with which light source can be monitored (unlike the arduous lighting systems needed for shooting on celluloid).

Mike Figgis has utilised the flexibility of the digital format for the ground-breaking TimeCode (2000). The film was shot in 'real-time', with four (eventually) interconnecting stories being played out on a split screen at the same time. The length of the film is the length of the tape that Figgis had to shoot with. Events, actions, dramas, therefore, unfold on the screen as they (arguably) did during the shoot.

3. Third is the increasing use of digital special effects or Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) in the film-making processes. Increasingly almost all fiction films will have one or two different types of digital special effect: invisible special effects, which Buckland (1999) suggests `constitute up to 90 per cent of the work of the special effects industry' and 'are not meant to be noticed (as special effects) by film spectators'; and visible special effects, or those special effects which produce some wondrous, fantastic, out-of-this-world creation that produces the Wow! That can't be real reaction from spectators and audiences.

The digitally created dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) or the stop-motion action-spectacle sequences in The Matrix 0999) are two recent examples of this. However, Titanic (1997) is an excellent example of a film that is most remembered for its visible digital special effects, namely in the form of the good ship itself, but which is actually saturated in moments of invisible special effects, whether it be the seamless simulation of Southampton Docks, the waves the audience see crashing against the vessel, or computerised passengers walking on the decks as the ship sails away into the distance.

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Such is the growth in CGI that it constitutes a major division of the film-making industry, headed by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic company. It is also now of course, thanks to Pixar, a developing animated film form. The ground-breaking Toy Story (1995) was the first ever complete CGI movie and one that established the trend (continued most recently with Ice Age (2002)) for films to be generated solely from digital hardware and software. However, CGI is also a technology which has `trickled down' into domestic use: digital effect software packages are sold in electrical retailers and used to enhance everything from home videos to GCSE and A Level Media practical coursework in schools and colleges.

Digital Cinema Is for Reel - Since his first Star Wars film 23 years ago, George Lucas has been a leader in applying technology to the cinema. His most recent movie, Episode I: The Phantom

Menace, contains almost 2,000 digital-effects shots. Yet Lucas took the digitization of The Phantom Menace a step further. During its premiere in the summer of 1999, a few showings

were digitally projected. Audiences were amazed at the outstanding audio and the clarity and brightness of the pictures. The d-projectors performed well, but the technology must come

down in price before its improved audio and visual presentation reaches a mainstream audience. (Scientific American November 2000)

4. Fourth is the developing use of direct-to-theatre satellite and/or the Internet to distribute – or rather transmit – and exhibit new film releases. The cost of making prints, coordinating exhibition schedules and distributing them to individual theatres (across the globe) is extremely expensive. Copyright is also a problem with piracy a common feature of print distribution as it is, so the major studios are looking at ways to utilise telecommunications to reduce costs, negate piracy, but also, arguably, to increase the audio-visual experience for audiences – film prints can get heavily scratched in transit and during projection while the digital image remains picture perfect. As Miller (2001) reasons:

Digital distribution would shave over US $10 million dollars in domestic post-production print manufacturing costs for a Hollywood budget for a film like Godzilla (2000). If the 39,000 screens in North America were to switch to digital projection today, film studios would save US$800 million they spend annually on making, insuring and shipping film prints.

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However, it is the Internet where the most radical transformations are beginning to take place. Independent, Internet-based film companies (such as iBeam and CinemaNow) can use the Internet to by-pass the major studios' monopoly of distribution and exhibition, to stream film/video straight into the home. With broadband technology, as noted earlier, and with plasma screen/wide-screen PCs and TVs entering the market, increasingly reception 'at home' becomes as good as watching a movie at the cinema.

The Impact of Film Piracy

Any attempt to ignore the fast approaching world of legal film downloading is seen as 'swimming against the tide'. Piracy is a major concern of all film distributors, with Hollywood investigators claiming a 10 % increase each year in revenue lost to illegal distribution. In the UK the Film Council's report Film Theft in the UK (2004) claimed that only Austria and Germany have a higher degree of DVD piracy.

Based on the information collected in November 2007, it was estimated that the impact of Piracy on the film industry is:

• Cinema: £88m (£102m in 2006)• Retail (Film/TV): £258m (£300m in 2006)• Rental (Film/TV): £58m (£28m in 2006)• Download (Film): £53m (£15m in 2006)

Levels of piracy are relatively stable, although over the longer term there is clear evidence of a continued, gradual decline in physical piracy digital piracy levels appear to increase year-on-year and overall piracy levels are now at 32% of the population (vs. 29% in 2006).

A report published in March 2009 found that some straightforward steps to tackle film piracy would increase UK economic output by £614 million and protect the jobs of many thousands of people employed in the film industry, as well as creating some 7,900 jobs in the wider economy.

The audio-visual sector currently loses about £531m in the UK each year (up from £459m in 2006) from the direct impact of copyright theft, equating to a total economic loss to the economy of £1.222 billion. This is felt right through the industry, from cinema, video, television – including cable and satellite – and legal Internet services. At a time when the Government is working towards universal access to broadband services and is looking to the audio-visual sector to invest in the production of new and original content, Britain's creative community are seeking reassurance that their copyright will be properly protected, so that they can play their part in promoting demand for broadband through compelling content.

Another aspect of technological change that the UK Film Council is concerned with is digital filming and projection. The Digital Screen Network project is the UK Film Council's attempt to provide cinemas with digital projection facilities, and it is hoped (but by no means guaranteed) that more small-scale independent films will get seen this way. Digital technology has the potential to make life a lot better for low budget film makers and distributors. In the case of short films, it is now possible for these to reach a potentially wide audience via a range of hosts, from the UK Film Council to The UK Media Desk, BBC Film Network and Big Film Shorts, FUm London's Pulse and a host of short film festivals, all of whom have online submission.

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Digital distribution

As far as the major studios and distributors are concerned, digital technology offers great potential to increase profits and dangers in equal measure. Digital distribution will certainly transform the film industry more than any previous technological change since sound. Once it becomes the norm to download film via broadband, the potential for a new form of 'blanket distribution' is obvious—not only do you no longer need multiple prints, you can also bypass the cinemas (although the big screen offers a separate experience that is likely to remain attractive).

Digital film has the advantage of offering identical versions of the film to each viewer, and this will without doubt save billions of pounds at the distribution phase. Despite the 'hype' over piracy and the digital enabling of this illegal activity, industry commentators believe that one advantage of digital distribution will be control and security, as most piracy is the result of a cinema-goer with a hidden camera distributing a poor quality version of a film to parts of the world where it has not yet been released (because the prints are currently somewhere else). Simultaneous global distribution via the internet will put an end to this 'time gap' and thus its exploitation by pirates.

One issue for debate is about the quality of digital movies. Whereas some film makers and critics argue that the 'binary reduction' of images in the digital compression process reduces the complexity of image and light, it appears that just as music in MP3 comes without the parts that the human ear cannot hear, so digital films remove the degrees of texture that most viewers wouldn't notice anyway.

The movie we see at our local multiplex may have been shown many times over and the wear and tear on it will be considerable: scratches, dust and fading—as a result of having been

exposed regularly to bright light—all reduce the quality of the presentation. Even before wear and tear kicks in, what we are watching may well be a third generation copy—a process similar

to making a photocopy of a photocopy, where some of the original definition is inevitably lost. Some experts believe that Digital cinema will overtake the quality of the best conventional

cinema within the next year or two, and at the same time address age-old industry problems. Prints are bulky and their manufacture, distribution and exhibition are labour intensive and

therefore expensive. What's more, in a world increasingly concerned with the impact industry has on the environment, it is hard to justify the use of a technology (film manufacturing), which

involves a highly toxic process, when a cleaner alternative is available.(Randle & Culkin 2004)

Another interesting prediction that Randle and Culkin make is to speculate that film extras (another costly necessity for the film industry) may soon be replaced by digitally generated 'synthetic actors'— more on that later…

The digitalisation of film offers a range of new institutional practices. There are greater possibilities for the manipulation of the image itself, the editing process becoming more creative and composite images can be produced to incorporate digital animation. The current 'one way’

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process of film making and consuming is threatened by the interactive 'zeitgeist’ so that the generation of audience, you, who are immersed in online media and videogames are likely to require new forms of interactivity in the film medium.

Digital technology has reduced the costs of film making so much that DV can be seen as widening access to the 'means of production' for new creative talent. And the convergence of media through digital technology creates new opportunities for distributing and exhibiting.

The digital rejuvenation of film is not limited to the grand-scale strategies of a large industry. The digital has created new cultural economies. There is clearly a place for short film via the

internet. Through different websites, the digital version of film breaks down the limitations of exhibition that have controlled what it is possible for audiences to see. Digital cameras have

made it possible to have filmic qualities in the smallest of productions. Although this expansive development of film is still quite circumscribed, it demonstrates how 'film' has been more

accessible and is connected to the wider new media and cultural phenomenon of the will-to-produce.

(Marshall 2004)

Will cinema survive?

Cinema as an institution has survived several threats to its life. Most notably, it was predicted that television would make it extinct, but cinema survived by securing cinema releases prior to TV broadcast and because of its social, 'night out' context.

Later, the VCR seemed to have put a bigger nail in the coffin, but this time cinemas redefined themselves as multiplexes, offering a broader 'leisure experience' on an American model, together with the emergence of the 'blockbuster' and its associated expensive marketing.

Despite multi-channel television offering viewers the opportunity to download films to watch at their convenience, hard drive recording, specialist film channels that are now relatively cheap to subscribe to or free to air and online rentals making the visit to the local Blockbuster unnecessary, cinema still survives (as does Blockbuster).

So the question is—will cinema always survive technological change, or is the latest technology a bigger threat because it is at the exhibition end of the chain? Whereas the changes in accessibility given above are to do with distribution, the pleasure of the filmic experience is determined greatly by the size and quality of the screen.

Hollywood films in particular are still largely driven by spectacle and noise, as well as character and narrative (perhaps with an eye to the preservation of the cinema box office), and people still want to see these films on the biggest screen with the loudest sound.

5. Finally, digital technology is transforming the audio-visual experience at cinemas. On the most basic of levels, with digital Surround Sound, improved projection and screening facilities, or with the digital image itself being relayed from a mainframe computer terminal elsewhere, film watching becomes ever more virtual'. However, it is with the development of very large screen systems, of which IMAX is the market leader, that film viewing becomes an ever more sensory dependent experience. Cinema becomes spectacle and display.

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IMAX combines a horizontally run 70mm film with screen size as large as 100ft x 75ft. The screen itself is slightly curved and with seating arranged in closer proximity, the screen image washes over the audience. This sensory experience is extended through the development of hemispherical screens (OmnIMAX), 3D IMAX, where the `3D' glasses that are worn render the image (film) three-dimensional, and Showscan, which combines the large-screen format with synchronised, moving and tilting seats in the auditorium. Spectators no longer just watch a film, they live it, more able than ever before to 'enter' its imaginings.

In short, film in the digital age and the age of computer mediated communication technologies has metamorphosed into something touched by spectacle, by ease of use and ease of access. Digital film revolutionises the production, distribution and exhibition processes. Satellite and the Internet revolutionise not only the `public' distribution and exhibition of film but the 'private' sphere, as film/video increasingly starts or ends up on the Web and downloaded from or into the home.

The question then arises: what are the consequences or implications for film and cinema now and in the future from such radical transformations? Three potential scenarios emerge, each outlined below.

1. The End of Narrative Cinema?

It can be argued that the increasing use of digital special effects, across all generic types of film, establishes the dominance of spectacle and the spectacular as the 'new' structuring or linguistic device in the way 'film' tells its stories. In particular, visible special effects can be seen to come to displace narrative or three-dimensional characterisation, dramatic (human) encounter and plot development. In this conception, contemporary cinema is reduced to a purely – albeit spectacular – visual experience. In fact, it can be argued that visual effects cinema revisits early cinema's 'cinema of attractions' (Gunning, 1990), where what is shown (the 'wow' moment) is the 'main story', and the technology behind this vision the 'back story'.

Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000) is arguably an example of this: it is the digital reconstruction of Rome, the Colosseum, the roaring crowds, the

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spectacular fight sequences, and ultimately the digital 'reincarnation' of Oliver Reed (who died while making the film) that makes the film a visual rather than a narrative experience. (Ridley Scott is often criticised for being just a 'visual' film-maker, as a director who relies on the image to tell a story.) If one links this to the developments in screen projection UMAX, OmnIMAX, and Showscan) then vision or the visual-spectacular seems to be the tour de force of modem cinema. However, it is with the science fiction/fantasy genre where the argument seems to have most weight. Not only is it with science fiction/fantasy that state-of-the-art special effects are often first developed and used, but the genre provides the textual context for their use. Science fiction/fantasy films demand that everything from alien beings to future societies be visually, believably created. Given that science fiction/fantasy films have now dominated box office takings for over 20 years (unlike, for example, in the 1950s, where science fiction movies were low budget 'B' movies), it is clear that for audiences special effects cinema reigns supreme. Thomas Schatz makes this critical connection:

From The Godfather to Jaws to Star Wars, we see films that are increasingly plot-driven, increasingly visceral, kinetic, and fast-paced, increasingly reliant on special effects, increasingly 'fantastic' (and thus apolitical), and increasingly targeted at younger audiences. (1993)

There is one further inflection to the argument: digital effects-based cinema connects film to the theme park environment. It is argued that the digitally created special effect often simulates the theme park ride (as it does, for example during the harem-scarem pod race in Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace (1999)). In this conception, narrative is totally effaced as the cinema experience mutates into the theme park ride. The connection, of course, is maintained because many theme parks – Universal and Disney in particular – movie-theme their rides.

In summary, digital effects-based cinema supposedly sounds the death knell for narrative cinema, producing an aesthetic that relies on the visual, the spectacular and the theme park ride. Its visual aesthetic, then, ultimately ties it to the philosophical idea that the modern world is lived and experienced in a culture of sight.

2. The End of American Studio Domination?

It can be reasoned that digital and computer mediated communication technologies have the capability to democratise the processes of film-making and to challenge/change the way films are produced, distributed and exhibited, undermining American studio domination of the film-making processes. The argument runs as follows:

First, digital film-making technology enables a new generation of first-time film-makers to explore the potentialities of film without the need for (very) expensive equipment, or for highly specialised skills that take years of training to master. For example, the British director Shane Meadows' first two films (Where's the Money, Ronnie? and Smalltime, both 1996) came out of his exploration of the video/digital version of the medium, independent of film school training.

The spectrum of budgets for digital movies is very wide. The Star Wars prequels are being shot with high-definition cameras and cost more than $100 million. Lars von Trier's latest digital

feature, Dancer in the Dark, cost about $13 million. Other established directors have made digital features in the $2- to $8-million range, including Mike Figgis (Time Code), Spike Lee

(Bamboozled). Many novice filmmakers have directed first features for less than $10,000. Some have even been made for under $1,000. Shot with a consumer digital video camera on a $900

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budget, the thriller The Last Broadcast is in home video and television distribution in the U.S. and abroad. Scientific American November 2000

Second, computer mediated communication technologies such as the Internet have provided these new independent digital film-makers with a distribution/transmission space that requires little investment to use, and which circumvent the normal (public' distribution and exhibition sites for film (which are dominated by the American studios). A film made on a DV camera can then be edited at home, on a sophisticated domestic software package, and then sold, rented or given free to Internet distribution companies to stream on-line.

Third, digital technology opens up the way film texts are viewed and interacted with, since the digital image can be played around with again once it has left the 'author'. With digital technology, film endings can be re-written, agreed on 'communally', have multiple storylines, or simply appropriated by viewers who can reconfigure their structure and look. For example, the $6m interactive feature The Darkening (1997) was released on CD-ROM, enabling audiences to navigate their own way through a multi-layered and open-ended narrative. As Paul Schrader (1996) observes:

...digital images are manipulatable, not only by the artists but also by the viewer. Digital image and sounds can be altered. sounds and images can be added to a recording, digital images can be broken up, colorised, morphised.

In short, digital and telecommunications technology have the potential to pluralise and decentralise the way films transmitted, and are produced and financed, distributed/transn read' by interactive audiences.

3. The Death of Cinema?

The most apocalyptic answer to the question of the effect of digitalisation and computer mediated communication technologies on film has been to suggest that reel (celluloid) film is in a state of terminal decline and will in effect very quickly become an antiquated way to make films. The argument runs that because digital is cheaper, the image that it produces is more robust and yet more manipulative/flexible, and it is easier to use, film-makers will abandon celluloid altogether in the digital age. The sense of a potential loss here is great. It is argued that celluloid produces a particular type of moving image that represents action, drama, landscapes, etc. in particularly charged ways. With the death of celluloid comes the de-skilling of the industry as a range of professional roles are taken up by those who barely know (or need to know) how to hold a camera or measure light or frame a scene 'properly'. The very nature of the democracy implied by digital film-making is that anybody, no matter how inexperienced, can make a film.

Further, with the potential digitalisation of cinemas, and the increasing use of the Internet to stream videos, the theatres where reel film can be shown are likely to diminish in numbers until they become mere museum pieces. just as today preservation groups place into heritage old 'Picture Palaces', tomorrow they will put preservation orders on projection rooms where celluloid was once put on flatbed 'platters'. This is potentially then a double death: the death of film stock and the death of the cameras and the projection equipment used to showcase it. Film-makers such as Paul Schrader celebrate this terminal decline, and wish for its death to come quickly:

Technologically, film - at least as theatrically exhibited - is very antiquated. We still show moving pictures the way the Lumieres did, pumping electric light through semi-transparent

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cells, projecting shadows on a white screen. These techniques belong in a museum. A change is overdue. (1996)

Others would rather a future where old and new technologies existed side-by-side, plurahsing the form of the moving image in ways that a mono-technology could not achieve.

However, there is one further turn to make in the argument about digital effects. If digital becomes the preferred film-making technology, if CGI becomes the dominant mode of representation (so much so that, for example, computer generated characters replace human actors, such as in Final Fantasy (2001)), and if exhibition sites become more virtual as physical celluloid is replaced by the digital image, then the total cinematic experience becomes one based on simulation and artifice.

New Creative Options on the Digital Set - On a film set, the camera is rolling only a small percentage of the time because of the expense of stock and processing and the amount of time

required to light and set up each shot. On a digital set, the camera is recording a much greater percentage of the time. Directors often use two cameras, something that is unaffordable on

most conventional film sets. And because digital video production often necessitates a streamlined approach to crew and equipment, the resulting aesthetic choices frequently make lighting simpler and less time consuming. This lets filmmakers work with actors in ways that

would be impossible on film. Directors can shoot rehearsals, capturing inspired moments that would otherwise have been lost. (Scientific American November 2000)

Laggardly cinema at last starts to embrace digital

The silver screen is slowly changing from celluloid to digital printsFrom The Times - June 23, 2006

IN THE headlong rush to digital, cinema has lagged behind, at least until now. But a big push from film studios, distributors and the Film Council finally heralds the death of celluloid on the big screen and its replacement by digital technology. It took the US film studios three years to agree on a standard digital cinema model — so as not to find themselves in a VHS versus Betamax or HD DVD versus Blu-ray scenario. But a decision was finally reached in July last year and a 200-page document compiled that set out the plan.

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Cinemas have lagged behind other media, mainly because of the price of installing digital equipment. However, these costs have come down sharply, making a digital future more feasible than ever.

Howard Kiedaish, chief executive of Arts Alliance Media, a provider of film distribution services, says: “Not only is digital cinema visually better, but it is cheaper to produce and can be used time and time again without getting damaged, unlike the celluloid model.”

Mr Kiedaish has calculated that installing digital facilities at every UK screen, of which there are 3,486, would cost the industry about £60,000 per cinema, or £209.2 million in total. However, he says, it would take just five years for British cinemas to pay this off through the significant cost savings that would be achieved.

The average cost of a celluloid print is about £750, while a digital copy costs more like £125. Taking into account that there are 71,960 prints in Britain each year, Mr Kiedaish estimates the annual cost savings in this country alone to be almost £45 million.

However, more exciting to film-makers such as of George Lucas and Peter Jackson are the visual possibilities. No more will celluloid prints have to be passed from cinema to cinema, and get damaged on the way, ultimately affecting the clear, crisp picture necessary to give full visual impact.

“The quality of digital 3D cinema is far better than analogue. You don’t get sore eyes and it will be taken more seriously by film producers,” says Mr Kiedaish, adding that there is speculation that plans are being hatched to create 3D digital versions of Lord of The Rings and Star Wars in the next few years.

Digital could also change the day-to-day use of the cinema. Already the few digital cinemas that exist in the UK are showing live World Cup football because it is possible to plug a set-top box into a digital projector. But there are quirkier ideas on how the cinema could be used.

“A PlayStation 2, for example, could be plugged in to the digital projector, perhaps enabling mass competitions for children on a Saturday morning,” says Mr Kiedaish. “Belgian cinema chain Kinepolis has also used digital cinema to demonstrate an eye operation to trainee doctors.”

But it was one of these opportunities that provoked the Film Council to invest £11.5 million to convert 240 British cinemas to digital. The Film Council has different hopes of what it intends to achieve from its digital initiative.

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It has signed a contract with a number of mainstream cinemas and will fund their conversion to digital in exchange for access to specialist films. With the lower cost of digital prints, cinemas can more readily afford to take risks and buy more arthouse films.

Meanwhile, the large cinema chains, such as Odeon and Vue, are in talks with the American studios to invest themselves.

The question is how fast the cinemas can get the necessary funding. As televisions get bigger and cheaper and DVD and video-on-demand release dates get closer to cinema release dates, cinemas need to start promoting themselves as striking multimedia experiences if they are to remain as popular as they were in the past.

Avatar: changing the face of film for ever

The 3D movie, Avatar, is the 'game-changer' that insiders have been waiting for.

Forget the dialogue. Don't get too worked up about the plot. Caught in 3D at London's bfi IMAX – the largest cinema screen in the UK – James Cameron's Avatar is a gob-smacking sensory wow, setting an immediate new benchmark for the blockbuster. Cameron's aim with this long-in-gestation sci-fi epic is to show off what digital 3D can do. And anyone with half an interest in what the future of film might look like is going to want to see it.

This certainly explains why the IMAX at Waterloo – perhaps the only known answer to the question "When is a cinema also a roundabout? – is swamped with as much human traffic right now as Harrods on Christmas Eve. Advance bookings have broken global records for a single screen: at the IMAX alone, Avatar already had 47,487 ticket sales (a gross of more than £600,000) a day before it opened.

Demand for the film is such that this cinematic Mecca hardly shuts up shop. Even the screenings at 3.40am are proving to be a sell-out.

"It's mind-blowing," says Dennis Laws, the cinema's affable general manager, who has worked in the field of 3D projection for over 30 years. "I dress like a punter and listen to the comments as people come out. We've got five flights of stairs on the way down so I hear lots, and do it with several showings of each film.

"To date, I've not heard anyone who hasn't said, 'I want to see it again'. There's so much to look at, they want to rewind and enjoy that moment three or four more times. That's the secret – that's why Star Wars was so phenomenally successful."

It's no surprise that Cameron has the geek vote sewn up. His dedication to whizz-bang technical showmanship puts even Peter Jackson and George Lucas in the shade. Hardcore

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fans know what extra amplification IMAX can offer Avatar: there's no better place to gawp than on a screen the height of five double-decker buses.

The question is: how is it going to play everywhere else? Since it first entered production, the $300 million Avatar has been subject to the most intense industry scrutiny of any blockbuster in memory, or at least since The Phantom Menace and The Fellowship of the Ring. What had Cameron been keeping up his sleeve since Titanic? Was this really the "game-changer" we kept being told it was, and what might that even mean?

Advances in digital 3D had been a step-by-step business since Robert Zemeckis's The Polar Express in 2004, which still does healthy business at IMAXs each festive season. But Cameron was promising a huge leap forward: crystal-clear images without that halfway-to-a-cartoon look, and a new level of depth, detail and perspective. It's not just a movie the entire industry is eagerly anticipating, but one it has had to adapt to accommodate.

"The most important thing that Avatar has done," explains Laws, "is to force the exhibition industry to get off the fence and make a decision as to whether to install digital projection, and more importantly digital 3D. Over the past four or five months, all the companies that install these projectors have been going absolutely crazy."

At the end of 2008, only 69 screens in Britain could handle digital 3D. Now there are 375. This is in part thanks to help from the UK Film Council, which is continuing its drive to help both multiplexes and smaller cinemas switch to digital.

In turn, distributors have more than doubled the number of 3D releases on their calendar – 13 this year compared with six the year before. Next year, it will double again. One of these films, the forthcoming StreetDance 3D, will be the first made in the UK by a British production company.

Cameron's original hope for Avatar was that it could be a 3D-only proposition, but however quickly cinemas scurried to update their capabilities, it wasn't quite quickly enough. The film is being shown in several formats, including conventional 2D. Whether audiences favour the 3D (and IMAX 3D) versions is a significant factor in how far Avatar will spearhead the 3D-ification of effects blockbusters to come.

Avatar feels like an experience designed to convert the sceptics, because Cameron isn't just parading his third dimension as window-dressing but exploring it to the full, pushing the recesses of the screen back further than anyone has attempted before. The 3D application isn't just a gimmick here – the gimcrack, poke-you-in-the-face provocation beloved of 1950s creature-features – but a gateway to immersion in a strange new world.

Disney and Pixar have also pledged that all their animated features from now on will be in 3D. Still, Pixar's Up attempted it with a softly-softly approach: there was nothing coming out at us frontally, leading doubters to question whether it needed to be in 3D at all.

"It's about educating the audience," thinks Laws. "You know you can do it, but the question needs to be asked: should you do it? Will the enjoyment be enhanced by 3D, or is it simply there to add a couple more pounds to the ticket price?"

What does seem clear at this stage, and Avatar makes even clearer, is that 3D is no longer a passing whim. "Digital has made the change," says Laws. "Way back in the 1970s, I ran polarised 3D on 35mm. It was never any good. You had to go in person to every cinema that

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showed it. The projectionists weren't trained on how to set the lenses up, and it was crucial that it was set up correctly, otherwise it just didn't work. With digital, as long as no one fiddles with anything, it works."

What's particularly impressive about the Avatar experience at London's IMAX is how perfectly Cameron's showmanship marries with the venue. While I talk to Laws over the phone, there's a muffled roar, and he breaks off in mid-sentence. There's been a front-of-house announcement; a screening is about to start, and thunderous applause can be heard as he pushes his door ajar.

Laws and his staff love to cultivate this air of expectation – it's what really makes the fans feel they're getting a different experience from what they watch at home, however elaborate their living-room set-up.

This takes us right back to the 1950s, when 3D came in, along with CinemaScope and such instantly obsolete fads as Smell-O-Vision, to tempt viewers away from their tellies and back to the silver screen. Its souped-up re-emergence, in an age of Blu-ray and 100-inch plasma screens, is serving a similar purpose.

As the roar subsides, Law sounds like a satisfied ringmaster. "Those people now have adrenalin running through them like you can't believe. Half of the people in there will have never been in a cinema where everybody has clapped and cheered."

As it starts, they wind up the sound on that 20th Century Fox drumroll – "to really make it smack them in the stomach". Revolution may be too early to call, but the ticket barriers can consider themselves stormed.

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