Big Picture
Cinema’s Next Step
Submitted by Nick Dager on Fri, 11/30/2012 - 16:13.
During a panel discussion at the first CinemaCon in 2011 director George Lucas, one of digital cinema’s true pioneers, made the observation that the completion of the worldwide transition from 35mm film projection to digital will mark not only the end of one era but also the start of a newer, more exciting one. He argued that once most of the world’s theatres are equipped with digital technology, new and exciting advances can and will happen and they will happen rather quickly. I was reminded of his remarks this week when the industry took another significant – if controversial – step forward with the high frame rate premiere of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.Single-Minded ShowEast
Submitted by Nick Dager on Wed, 11/14/2012 - 17:57.
These are stressful times for the owners of small, independent movie theatres around the world, especially those whose theatres have only one screen. The situation is even more pronounced in North America where hardly a day passes without another news story about an urban art house owner or an exhibitor in a small rural town who faces the grim choice of finding some way to invest in digital cinema technology or closing the doors. While government subsidies are sometimes a possibility for international exhibitors, they are out of the question in North America. And with a small theatre’s limited margins, banks are increasingly reluctant to offer loans on new technology that may need to be upgraded in a matter of years. According to John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, 31,135 of the 39,908 movie auditoriums in North America, or about 78 percent, have made the transition to digital projectors. That leaves 8,773 film-only screens left. No one knows precisely how many of the remaining screens are single-screen movie theatres but they must number in the hundreds and probably in the thousands. Add to all this the fact that, with one current exception, virtual print fee financing deals are no longer a viable option and it comes as no surprise that smaller independent theatres got a lot of attention at ShowEast 2012, which wrapped up earlier this month in Miami.Creating a Holiday Classic
Submitted by Nick Dager on Wed, 10/31/2012 - 14:38.
One of the basic assumptions of media of all kinds – books, television and movies – is that creating a holiday classic can result in both short-term and long-term success. One that I’m personally familiar with is the fact that among the joys of living in the New York metropolitan area is the opportunity, every December, to see the New York City Ballet’s annual performance of The Nutcracker. This holiday season an even larger audience will have the chance to experience the joy of seeing a new and sumptuous production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet brought to life on the big screen for the first time in 3D. This production was made all the richer because the performance was filmed at the historic Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, the original home to the ballet when it made its worldwide debut in 1892. NCM Fathom and alternative content specialist, More2Screen, supported by Sony Digital Cinema, are distributing the film to digital cinemas worldwide. A production of EuroArts Music International and Mariinsky Theatre in co-production with Ovation, Samsung Electronics and Digital Images, it was made under the direction of EuroArts producer Bernd Hellthaler and Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky’s artistic director and conductor.
The Big Squeeze
Submitted by Nick Dager on Sat, 10/13/2012 - 15:49.
Peter Jackson’s highly anticipated first Hobbit movie – set to be released by Warner Bros. in December – is suddenly at the center of a growing dispute over the technical issues involved with shooting and distributing movies in frame rates higher than the long-standing industry norm of 24 frames per second. The Hobbit is the first studio release of a 4K 3D feature film shot at a higher frame rate, in this case 48 frames per second. And, as is widely known, director James Cameron has been lobbying hard to shoot all of his upcoming Avatar films at as much as 60 fps. This dispute gained momentum last month between the studios and many people in the technical and creative communities over the whole idea of how to handle higher frame rates through the entire production through exhibition process. This dispute will impact anyone who shoots, edits, distributes or exhibits a digital movie. Technically, the heart of the issue is the level of the compression rate needed for high quality movies shot and projected at higher frame rates. Realistically, the issue is, as always, money. The studios are always reluctant to spend any more money than they absolutely have to and shooting at 48 fps is more expensive than shooting 24 fps; 60 fps costs still more. 3D adds to the equation. There are also serious concerns that this dispute will confuse filmmakers and, worse, stall the transition of the thousands of exhibitors around the world who could be driven out of business very soon. In more ways than one, the big squeeze is on.
Boat Anchors
Submitted by Nick Dager on Sat, 09/29/2012 - 16:37.
As Hollywood studio executives have steadily worked their way through the obvious comic book icons to mine for stories some considered the huge success of the Transformers series and reached the conclusion that board games could provide the next Mother lode. The end result was the boat anchor Battleship. Now, following a summer of dismal box office numbers at least some those same executives have concluded that the solution to their problems is not for them to make better movies but, rather, for them to own movie theatres. Claude Brodesser-Akner, the west coast correspondent for New York Magazine raised this subject in a recent article. If this idea had emerged as a way for the studios to save at least some of the independent theatres now threatened by extinction by the studio-mandated digital cinema transition it might have some merit. Rather, these studio executives seem to see it as a way to rescue them from themselves. Exhibition veterans can forgive themselves for having a strong feeling of déjà vu.