The Ymagis Group announced today that it has signed a binding letter of intent with L’Image Retrouvée SAS, a subsidiary of the Italian company L’Immagine Ritrovata, with the purpose of successfully implementing a continuation plan for its French subsidiary Eclair Cinéma SAS, currently in receivership.
The competition for entertainment dollars is a constant challenge, especially for emerging theatre chains. Finding locations with a high discretionary income and offering a unique experience enables them to compete against larger, more established chains. Flix Brewhouse, for one, is not shy about letting customers boast about the good times they have at their theatres. To achieve its social media goals and grow its customer rewards program, The Circle, the exhibitor turned to Social Flash Media.
The Hollywood Professional Association has issued the call for proposals for the 2020 HPA Tech Retreat, which marks the 25th anniversary of this important event in media and entertainment technology. The annual gathering of professionals from around the world who work at the intersection of technology and creative media is a perennial sell out.
Arri announced today that it will begin shipping Alexa Mini LF cameras with final production software starting September 18. Owners of pre-production cameras can download the updated software and install it on their cameras.
Barco today entered the LED cinema screen market in a big way by purchasing a stake in Unilumin, a Chinese company that manufactures LED components on a major scale.
Randall Dark is one of the pioneers of making movies and television programs in large format digital video. I’ve known him for more than thirty years and known his wife, Kristen Cox for more than twenty. When Randall recently confided in me that he has Alzheimer’s disease, he encouraged me to think more about Kristen’s needs now than of his own. I reached out to her to offer my support and told her I wanted to write a profile of Randall to remind the industry of how important his contributions have been for the broader world of what we now call digital cinema. She agreed and here is part of that profile, told in their own words.
Randall Dark is a pioneer of making movies in large format digital video. Still developing projects today, he was arguably the industry’s most passionate advocate in the effort to convert the television industry to high definition. Since working on the world’s first HDTV production in the ‘80s – the CBC mini-series Chasing Rainbows – he has made countless feature films and documentaries that explore both the wonders of the world around us and the complexities and humanity within all of us. Recently Randall learned that he has Alzheimer’s disease. With his wife Kristen’s support, he is fighting the disease with all the creativity and humor and simple grace that those of us who are blessed to call him friend know so well.
Event Cinema Association executive director Grainne Peat will be celebrating her first year in that role when the association convenes in Amsterdam next month for its annual convention. It has been a busy year for the association and for Peat who has implemented many changes. I recently spoke with her to talk about all that has happened in the past eleven months. Peat says one of her key challenges going forward is to better define what event cinema actually is. But first, we discussed the association’s new website.
A new study from the European Audiovisual Observatory has found that the average release window in Germany, France, United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands is 19.4 weeks from the time of a film’s release and it’s availability to purchase via video on demand.
The Long Walk is the third feature film by director Mattie Do (Chanthaly, Dearest Sister), who was raised in Los Angeles but relocated to Laos to become the country’s first, and only, female filmmaker. In an interview in Women and Hollywood, Do described her genre-bending film as “an unconventional time-travel thriller set in a forgotten rural village in Laos, about the ethos of a man, plagued by regret and loneliness, and his downward spiral into becoming a serial killer. He also has a very complicit ghostly friend.” Cinematographer Matthew Macar shot the low-budget feature over 32 days in Vientiane, Laos with very little prep time.
