CinemaTech [ Digital cinema, democratization, and other trends remaking the movies ]
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Invite Only: NFL's 3-D Demo This Week
Too bad that sports fans can't buy tickets to see Thursday's game between the Raiders and the Chargers in 3-D. It's for invited guests only.
From the Wall Street Journal:
The several hundred guests at the three participating theaters Dec. 4 will include representatives from the NFL's broadcasting partners and from consumer-electronics companies. The event will be closed to the general public. Burbank, Calif.-based 3ality Digital LLC will shoot the game with special cameras and transmit it to a satellite. Thomson SA's Technicolor Digital Cinema is providing the satellite services and digital downlink to each theater, and Real D 3D Inc. will power the display in the theaters.
This isn't the first time the NFL has participated in a 3-D experiment. In 2004, a predecessor company to 3ality filmed the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. When Sandy Climan, 3ality's chief executive officer, shows the footage, "people crouch down to catch the ball," he says. "It's as if the ball is coming into your arms."
The test will serve as a proof of concept for the possiblities of 3-D televised sports in the home because several consumer 3-D ready displays will be used.
"This broadcast will be an exciting test of how 3-D could affect fans' experience in the future," said Howard Katz, the NFL's senior vp broadcasting and media operations.
Hollywood: The Slowest Industry to Grasp Tech Changes?
When I was at Disney last week, tech SVP Bob Lambert shared a great quote with me. It's from an article several years ago in Broadcasting magazine... an interview with Amos Hostetter Jr., who at the time was chairman of Continental Cablevision.
"I have been told that the movie industry is probably the slowest industry to grasp technological changes of any industry in American society. They had the ability to do talking pictures before they did it, they had the ability to do Technicolor before they did it; they are just techniphobic."
While I agree with the general sentiment, what's most interesting to me about the way Hollywood responds to new technologies is that it delays and delays and delays -- and then embraces them just in time to save the business. It's like someone about to fall into a chasm who grabs that wonderfully well-placed vine at the last possible moment.
Here's some video taken at an event in Cambridge, MA last month called "Tech @ The Movies." It focused on the role that Massachusetts companies are playing (and have played in the past) in the technological evolution of the movie industry. Description and cast of characters below.
Massachusetts companies have played a pivotal role in the evolution of Hollywood. Movies might still be in black-and-white -- and we might never have had "The Wizard of Oz" -- if not for Technicolor, founded by Massachusetts entrepreneurs. And Avid Technology won an Oscar in the 1990s for introducing computers to the movie editing process. You'll hear from a panel of technology innovators who're changing the way movies get made in the 21st century -- helping directors create special effects or helping movie fans buy their favorite pics in digital form. Journalist Scott Kirsner will introduce the panel with a short, illustrated overview of his new book Inventing the Movies, which tells the heretofore untold technological history of Hollywood -- including the stories of Avid and Technicolor.
Technicolor Digital Cinema is installing digital cinema systems at Hollywood's top-notch ArcLight complex (including the Cinerama Dome), according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Looking back at the history of the Academy Awards, there were five Oscar wins that were central to the evolution of the motion picture industry, changing the way movies are made by directors and experienced by audiences.
Technological innovation, in my opinion, not only created the movies, but insured that the art form would remain an important part of American culture over more than a century.
So, in chronological order.
1. At the very first Academy Awards ceremony, held in 1929, Warner Bros. received a special award for producing 'The Jazz Singer,' "which has revolutionized the industry." 'The Jazz Singer' wasn't the first time anyone tried to add sound to motion pictures (see Phonofilm and the Kinetophone, for instance), and the movie still relied on title cards. But its success convinced Hollywood that audiences wanted to hear actors talk -- and sing.
(Video: Al Jolson singing 'Blue Skies' to his Mammy.)
2. A decade later, in 1939, 'Gone with the Wind' won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Art Direction. While it wasn't the first movie made in Technicolor (Disney had first used the three-strip Technicolor process for an earlier Oscar winner, the animated short 'Flowers and Trees') it represented the "tipping point," when mainstream Hollywood was finally convinced that shifting to color production made sense.
(Video: Rhett puts the moves on Scarlett.)
3. Movie soundtracks were recorded in mono for most of the 20th century. Walt Disney tried to bring more depth and nuance to the theatrical experience with 'Fantasia' in 1940, using multi-channel sound for the first time in a commercial release. (As many as 54 speakers were installed in some theaters, with the soundtrack recorded optically onto a second strip of film that ran in sync with the picture.) While Disney won an honorary Academy Award certificate for "outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia" in 1942, it was another 35 years before stereo sound at the movies became truly widespread, with the introduction of Dolby Stereo soundtracks in the late 1970s.
(Video: Part of the 'Rite of Spring' dinosaur sequence.)
4. Here's a movie few people remember: 1953's 'The Robe,' starring Richard Burton. It won two minor Oscars, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Cinematography. 'The Robe' was the first feature released in Fox's CinemaScope widescreen format. While other widescreen movies also won Oscars (like the Cinerama release 'Around the World in Eighty Days', in 1957), it was the CinemaScope format the persuaded most theater owners to leave behind the square old Academy ratio and start showing widescreen releases (in part because CinemaScope was a less-expensive system than others, and in part because of Fox's salesmanship). The transition to majestic widescreen in the 50s and 60s also helped Hollywood remain relevant as Americans were installing televisions in their living rooms.
(Video: A fanfare for Caligula.)
5. 'Star Wars: Episode IV' wasn't the very first movie to incorporate a computer-generated visual effects shot (a wire-frame animation of the Death Star's architecture), but it was the first to win an Oscar: Best Visual Effects, along with five others. The 1977 blockbuster heralded the arrival of digital tools for crafting objects, characters, and environments that look real (but aren't quite.) George Lucas' and Richard Edlund's pioneering use of computers in 'Star Wars' led to not just 'Tron,' 'Titanic,' and 'Lord of the Rings,' but also 'Toy Story' and 'Shrek.'
(Video: Original 'Star Wars' trailer.)
I know I've left out plenty of other significant wins (such as 'Lawrence of Arabia,' which used an innovative, custom-built lens from Panavision; 'The English Patient,' the first movie edited digitally to win the Best Editing Oscar; and dozens of important Science and Technology Oscars), but these are my votes for the milestone Oscars, from a CinemaTech point-of-view.
One of the things that movie editors love about PC-based software for editing is that they can work on a laptop while they're on the road -- just like all the rest of us.
The Wall Street Journal has a story today headlined 'Editing on Big Films is Now Being Done on Small Computers.' That's only news to folks outside the industry, and the piece doesn't capture the sea change that I think is happening right now -- big-name editors shifting from Avid's software to Apple's Final Cut Pro. (Am I wrong? Walter Murch edited 'Cold Mountain' on Final Cut back in 2003, and I've only been hearing more about Final Cut since then.)
Lee Gomes writes:
...[E]ven relatively low-end personal computers, laptops included, are now so powerful that Hollywood pros have joined student filmmakers and indies in taking advantage of them.
It's one more example -- along with music recording and graphic design -- of the way cheap computers are blurring the distinction between professional and amateur tools. Not that just having software makes you good at something, as a quick trip around the Web makes clear.
...[T]he typical Hollywood feature film these days is an analog-digital hybrid. Reels of film might be developed at a lab such as Technicolor, but then $1.5 million scanners digitize them and put them on a $100 generic USB hard drive. From there, it's on to the editors.
Editing on computers is so much easier than editing physical film that it's how nearly all movies are now cut. USC's film school once had 50 editing consoles; now it has only two. Indeed, editing may have become too easy. "You can easily recut your movie 10 times a day," says Matt Furie, who teaches editing at USC. "Some students go off the deep end and cut, cut, cut. We tell them they need to discipline themselves to push away from the desk, drop the mouse and just think."
Lotsa Tuesday Links: Mark Cuban + Video...Unbox + TiVo...Technicolor + Satellites...Warner + Total HD...Spielberg + EA...And More
- Mark Cuban has some hypotheses about the value of video. Number 5 is especially interesting, and one thing I've been focusing on in my presentations and panel discussions lately:
5. The greater the number of content alternatives at any given point in time, the more expensive it is for any given piece of content to acquire an incremental viewer. The cost may come in the form of investment into the production of the content, advertising, promotion or placement. It may come in the form of sweat equity from hustling to promote the content.
- TiVo users can now order Amazon Unbox movies directly from their television set, rather than from a Web-connected computer.
- Technicolor Digital Cinema says 'Transformers' is the first movie sent by satellite to theaters in the US and Europe.
- Warner's Total HD discs, which offer a movie in Blu-ray format on one side and HD DVD on the other, have been delayed until 2008. Is that the same thing as dead in the water?
- The Wall Street Journal reports on what Spielberg has been working on in his partnership with videogame developer Electronic Arts.
- A fun story about copyright squabbles on YouTube; in the case of Uri Geller, the site may actually have been too quick in removing a video from its library.
Monday News: Slow Going for Biggest Digital Cinema Group ... United Artists Reborn ... YouTube's Second Silent Era ... More
- The organization responsible for deploying digital cinema equipment to the biggest group of US theaters -- those owned by Regal Entertainment, AMC, and Cinemark -- has adopted a new name and announced a timeframe for conversion. The new name is Digital Cinema Implementation Partners, according to Variety, and thep plan is to start converting theaters in 2008. Ben Fritz writes, "That will put it two years behind competitors Christie/AIX and Technicolor, which already have started deploying d-cinema systems, primarily in smaller and independent exhib chains."
DCIP is now independent from National CineMedia, the public company that it was once part of. It's jointly owned by Regal, AMC, and Cinemark. Seems like a big focus for DCIP will be finding a way to allow studios to deliver movies to a theater via a number of different channels: hard drive, satellite, secure land-line, etc.
On YouTube, one user has rescored the 1902 French film "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" by Georges Méliès -- considered by many to be the first science-fiction film -- with an electronica soundtrack. A synthesized, thumping beat and keyboards accompany the story of a fantastical trip to the moon. The contemporary techno music -- which seems particularly well suited for a century-old film that imagines the future -- gives the work the feel of an abstract art piece or music video.
"Nosferatu," the 1922 Muranu vampire classic, is one of the most frequently re-scored by professionals and amateurs alike. The most interesting amateur "Nosferatu" rescoring on YouTube is a series that adds sound effects -- footfalls, a creaking coffin lid -- and a modern-classical score that includes synthesizers and the occasional electric-guitar chord. The result prompts viewers to watch the clips as they would a modern horror movie.
CinemaTech focuses on how new technologies are changing cinema - the way movies get made, discovered, marketed, distributed, shown, and seen. (With occasional forays into other parts of the entertainment economy.) You can also follow CinemaTech on Twitter (@ctechblog).
For about the last ten years, I've been writing about innovation for publications like the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Wired, Variety, Fast Company, the Hollywood Reporter, Salon.com, BusinessWeek, and Newsweek.
I helped start (and continue to help run) three conferences: Future Forward, the Nantucket Conference on Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Convergence: The Life Sciences Leaders Forum. I also often speak and moderate at other people's conferences, and serve as a commentator on TV and radio. (Which beats actual work.)
You can reach me by e-mailing kirsner - at- pobox.com. My personal site is www.scottkirsner.com.
