Digital Cinema's First Decade

http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/node/1431

 

The case could be made that digital cinema has been around much longer than just the past ten years. For example, I wrote an article for Variety in 1990 about electronic cinema’s potential to transform the movie industry. The consensus at that time was that any serious implementation was a decade away. However, cut to May 1999. That was when Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace opened with a handful of digital screenings in movie theatres in and around New York and Los Angeles. Admittedly major developments were decidedly slow for many years after that, but that movie gave the idea of digital cinema serious momentum and the transformation had begun: digital cinema’s first decade was underway.

 

To be sure there were serious efforts prior to 1999. JVC with their D-ILA technology can make a legitimate claim for the first digital cinema demonstration. On March 19, 1998, they collaborated on a digital presentation at a cinema in London. Another early effort was the movie The Last Broadcast, which may have made cinematic history on October 23, 1998 when it became the first feature to be theatrically released digitally, via satellite download, to theatres across the United States. Wavelength Releasing, Texas Instruments, Digital Projection and Loral Space headed that effort. In 1999, it was repeated across Europe using QuVIS technology and The Last Broadcast became the first feature to be screened digitally at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2000, Disney, Texas Instruments and Technicolor worked with several U.S. and international exhibitors to deploy prototype digital cinema systems in commercial theatres. Technicolor assembled and installed the systems using the TI mark V prototype projector, a special Christie lamp house and QuVIS’s QuBit server with custom designed automation interfaces.

 

But the Phantom Menace digital screenings generated widespread visibility and publicity and developments began to occur on a more regular basis. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers began work on standards for digital cinema in 2001. The Digital Cinema Initiatives formed in March 2002 as a joint effort by Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.  The serious technical groundwork was being laid. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

 

End of year recaps usually include projections about where we go from here. Predicting the future is always problematic but, while digital cinema development has focused on the United States in general and Hollywood in particular in its first decade, it seems clear to me that the coming years will be increasingly dominated by developments around the world – in Europe, Asia, India and Africa – and by the widespread growth of alternative content of all kinds. By the end of the next decade 3D will be mainstream in movie theatres and glassless 3D will have begun to make serious inroads.

 

I confess my last prediction is actually more of a hope but it is this: Surely by the end of the next decade a business model will be found to enable more independent movies to find a home in a significant number of movie theatres, at the very least on a regional basis.

 

One thing is absolutely certain: over the course of the next ten years there will be a long list and setbacks, advancements and surprises. For now, here, in chronological order, are the highlights of digital cinema’s first decade.

 

1. The ASC Embraces Digital Cinema – 2003

 

Importantly, in my mind, the DCI almost immediately opened its doors to the American Society of Cinematographers, which tops my personal list of the highlights of digital cinema’s first decade.

 

At the time, Curtis Clark who chaired ASC’s technology committee said, "Our purpose is to help assure that standards recommended for digital cinema enhance the movie-going experience and maintain the integrity of the art form. The test material we are producing will provide a standard way to evaluate the capabilities of digital projectors and compare them to film.”

 

"DCI is excited about working with ASC and it's Technology Committee on this project that will enable us to perform various testing using standardized evaluation material to generate consistent and objective results," said Walt Ordway, DCI's chief technology officer. "We are also pleased to make this test material available to other companies and organizations for use in their various testing programs."

 

Clark said that members of DCI and the ASC Technology Committee had an in-depth dialogue before reaching a consensus regarding the original footage needed to adequately "stress test" digital projectors for technical performance and also to compare the emotional impact of digital and 35mm film. The film sequences they produced were used as a standard test for evaluating current and future digital projectors.

 

Daryn Okada, now the ASC president, helped design the test. "Up until now, projector manufacturers have selected scenes from existing films to demonstrate products," he said.  "There was no way of telling whether the source material was negative, interpositive or internegative film, and that makes a big difference. We believe the same source material should be used for all demonstrations and for side-by-side comparisons. Our plan was to scan the negative at 4K now and at higher resolutions in the future, presuming that continuing advances are made in projectors."

 

Their plan succeeded and their efforts were critical. Many, if not most ASC members still prefer to shoot film and have serious reservations about digital cinema, but a growing number embrace it, at least as another tool in their tool kit. Without some sort of buy-in by the top cinematographers in the world, digital cinema would not be where it is today.

 

2. Collateral shows that a Good Movie could be Shot Digitally – 2004

 

Michael Mann’s 2004 thriller starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox was, as far as I’m aware, the first movie to be widely praised not despite the fact that it was shot digitally but rather, because it was shot digitally. Many critics around the world praised the use of digital technology and the look of the movie.

 

In her very favorable review Manohla Dargis, chief film critic for the New York Times wrote, “Collateral is very much the product of a distinct vision, one as eager to push technological limits (the film was shot with the most advanced video cameras) as to upend the usual studio white-hero/black-villain formula.

 

Variety critic Todd McCarthy seemed to sum up the feeling inside the Hollywood film community.

“Mann's creative leap that led him to shoot most of the picture on high-definition digital video, evinces an enormous sense of artistic concentration that translates into complete audience absorption in matters at hand,” he wrote. “Mann's decision to shoot about 80 percent of the film in high definition (a modified Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream and the Sony CineAlta were both used) came from his conviction that the format more closely represents, and exceeds, what the human eye sees at night than does celluloid. Compared with the rich, intense color palettes Mann has employed in his previous work, Collateral has a more monochrome look that, paradoxically, combines a sense of deep darkness with a certain washed-out thinness and lack of visual weight. Punctuating this at all times, though, are the pervasive lights of the sprawling city, the appearance of which justifies the use of the new technology; to be sure, the sight of a succession of planes lined up in the air to land at LAX at night, or the spooky yellow glare in coyotes' eyes, have never been so strikingly or realistically rendered as they are here.”

 

Thanks to Michael Mann and Collateral, digital cinematography was on the map.

 

3. Texas Instruments and Christie Debut the First 2K Projector – March 2005

 

Texas Instruments had been working on a chip for a digital cinema projector for more than a decade by the time the breakthrough Christie CP2000X 2K projector debuted at the annual exhibitor’s convention ShoWest in March 2005. One highlight of the convention each year is the opening day session that always features clips from the previous year’s movies that generated $100 million or more at the box office. We will probably never know the names of all the Texas Instrument people who for years traveled around the world for countless meetings and conversations to gather input about what Hollywood and exhibitors required in a digital projector. There was resistance at almost every turn because, quite honestly, what the people at Texas Instrument were proposing was to completely transform an industry that was working well and had been doing so for a century.

 

The Hollywood production community had already rejected the hundreds of so-called electronic cinema systems that were already in place in many theatres showing pre-show advertising and programs. They felt those systems could not properly show their work and were not shy about making their case. The studios supported them. Texas Instruments’ 2K chip changed that.

 

At ShoWest the Million Dollar Reel, as that presentation is called, always generates great applause because, in effect, it’s an industry congratulating itself on its own success. But that particular morning – and I know I have a built-in bias – I would swear the response was louder and more enthusiastic than in previous years. One thing is certain: that projector and that event was a critical turning point in legitimizing the idea of digital cinema in the minds of exhibitors.

 

4. The DCI Specifications are released – July 2005

 

Developments began to take place at a more rapid pace after that. The Digital Cinema Initiative announced late the following July that it had completed the final overall system requirements and specifications for digital cinema. No matter what happens in the next several years as the world makes the transition to digital cinema the people who made this happen (and, in particular Walt Ordway) deserve a tremendous amount of praise. The job they faced on behalf of the seven major Hollywood movie studios was formidable if only because it represented a group of extremely competitive companies somehow working together in a common cause.

 

Then there were the equally formidable technology challenges. But there was a negative aspect to the announcement because there was no mention of when a business model would be approved. Without it the technical standards, as important as they were, could have limited impact. It was as if the blueprints for a great building had been approved but the funding wasn’t yet in place to start construction.

 

5. AccessIT Jumps the Gun – July 2005

 

The free market is rarely an orderly place. Competition and the demands of capital usually dictate that a monumental transition like digital cinema will have many twists and turns. In the vacuum created by the absence of a business model a company came along to create its own. That same summer AccessIT, which has since changed its name to Cinedigm, announced that it would fund theatres making the move to digital.

 

Depending on whom you talked to at the time, the announcement that AccessIT and Christie Digital Systems had created a framework to fund the rollout of digital cinema technology represented either the starting line for the industry’s future or a desperate move by two companies that had crossed the line. One insider even suggested that at best it was a waste of time and at worst that it could undermine the years of work by the Digital Cinema Initiative.

 

Under the terms of the agreement, AccessIT formed a subsidiary, Christie/AIX, to act as a funding vehicle and administrator. The new entity provided funding for a turnkey digital cinema solution that includes the latest generation 2K resolution digital cinema projectors and all related hardware systems.

 

The companies insisted that the plan would satisfy the diverse concerns of movie studios and exhibitors by standardizing content format, delivery and presentation. They said further that it minimized financial risks for studios and exhibitors by establishing an innovative template that allowed private investment in the burgeoning Digital Cinema industry.

 

We can never know how things would have developed had Cinedigm and Christie not been so aggressive. But the world is currently moving at a steady pace toward 15,000 digital screens and the pace should pick up dramatically next year. Even their most ardent critics must give credit to those two companies for helping to jumpstart the process.

 

6. Chicken Little 3D Leads the Way – 2005

 

The industry seems to still be divided on the issue of 3D. Some insist that it’s still nothing more than a fad: Been there, done that, they say. Others – and I’m one – believe it will transform motion pictures in a way comparable only to the change from silent to talking pictures.

 

Time will tell who’s right, but for now – and for the last three years or more – audiences have been voting in a big way with their dollars. Disney’s Chicken Little 3D was an early bellwether of this.

 

An important point to make is that, with all due respect, Chicken Little is not a great movie. While it’s certainly not a bad film – critics generally rated it average or a bit above average and audience ratings online suggested they only rated it a bit higher than that – but it is no Citizen Kane; it’s not even Toy Story. And yet it went on to gross almost $300 million dollars worldwide.

 

The novelty of good quality 3D was certainly a big part of that story and all the anecdotal evidence suggested that in places where Chicken Little played in 3D, audiences turned it into a genuine hit. Digital cinema was in its early days and there were only a limited number of screens but in the end those screens, which represented about 15 percent of the total number, generated almost 85 percent of the revenue.

 

Thanks to Disney’s Chicken Little, audiences around the world were suddenly aware of the idea of digital cinema and 3D.

 

 7. The Metropolitan Opera Demonstrates the Value of Alternative Content – 2006

 

From the very start, proponents of digital cinema promoted the idea that the real benefit of the technology is that it could expand the kind of content that movie theatres could present. Almost from the earliest days of the movie business, theatres have made the majority of their revenue during the weekends.

 

Now there are other possibilities. Early on Hollywood dismissed this kind of content as “alternative,” implying that anything other than a Hollywood feature film had less value. Regardless of what these different content choices are called, exhibitors are discovering that there are new streams of revenue available to them and they are beginning to take advantage.

 

Regal Cinemas had one of the early alternative content success stories when it partnered with New York’s Metropolitan Opera to present performances live in, at that time, a handful of movie theatres around the world.

 

The Met: Live in HD series has featured a total of 24 live operas and one live Gala during its three-season run. The 2008-09 season was the biggest yet with 11 live, high-definition opera transmissions including the Met’s Opening Night Gala starring Renée Fleming, Lucia Di Lammermoor and Madama Butterfly. The first Met: Live in HD opera, The Magic Flute, was seen in 56 theatres in December 2006.

 

Regal has since become a part of National CineMedia and the company’s alternative content division is called Fathom. Since that humble beginning the program has expanded its participating theatre footprint and now reaches nearly 500 movie theatres in the United States and shows no signs of slowing down.

 

8. The NBA All Star Game Live in 3D Sells Out – 2007

 

If alternative content and 3D represent the future of digital cinema, sports live in 3D represents the successful marriage of the two.

 

The 2007 National Association of Basketball All-Star Game was shot in 3D and projected live at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. The game was being played at the Thomas & Mack Center a few blocks away. It was the first time ever that a live event was shown in 3D. Vince Pace Technology provided the five 3D HD cameras for the event and supervised the production. 

 

“This is an exciting time for sports entertainment,” Pace, who most recently worked on Avatar, said at the time. “The technology, innovation and creativity of 3D HD are the perfect fit to capture the excitement of the NBA and allow viewers to experience NBA All-Star like never before.”

 

Naysayers would argue that the novelty factor prompted the people to make the trek the night before the big game so that they could watch the annual Slam Dunk contest in 3D. Fair enough. But on the following night a significant number of people traded their tickets to the actual game and paid a premium to instead watch it live in 3D.

 

9. Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button Validate Digital Cinematography – 2008

 

The two movies widely considered the frontrunners for last year’s Academy Award for Best Picture – Slumdog Millionaire shot by Anthony Dod Mantle and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button shot by Claudio Miranda – had several things in common. Both could loosely be described as urban fairy tales, in which the hero ultimately wins the lifelong girl of his dreams. Both were also in contention for the Oscar for Best Cinematography. And both were shot, at least in part with digital cameras, which the filmmakers of both movies said were the right creative tool to use each time they did. Clearly, digital cinematography had finally arrived.

 

For the record the two films together were nominated for a rather incredible 23 Oscars: 10 for Slumdog and 13 for Benjamin Button. In terms of percentage of screen time the digital cinematography played a smaller role in Slumdog than it did in Benjamin Button but even so it was a vital creative tool.

 

Slumdog was shot with a range of Arriflex film cameras, a prototype Silicon Imaging SI-2K digital camera and a Canon EOS-ID Mark III, which is essentially a digital still camera. The scenes in the narrow crowded streets of the slums of Mumbai were shot with the two digital cameras.

 

Mantle and director Danny Boyle said they chose those particular digital cameras for the street scenes because they were able to shoot without attracting attention. “People tend to ignore digital still cameras these days,” Boyle told one interviewer. And, as one blogger reported, Mantle used the SI-2K, because it’s a tiny digital camera that allowed him to hold the lens in the palm of one hand and a minuscule monitor in the other; wires went up his sleeve and into a backpack carrying a hard drive.

 

Once director David Fincher selected him to shoot The Curious Case of Benjamin Button cinematographer Claudio Miranda said the decision to use the Thomson Grass Valley Viper FilmStream digital camera for the bulk of the production was an easy one. “We were testing other cameras but it came down to the fact that I knew [the Viper] very well,” he said. “I shot some of David’s first commercials with a Viper.” The World War II battles scenes and the idyllic Caribbean interlude were shot with an Arriflex 435 film camera and a few additional shots used Sony’s CineAlta F23 digital cinema camera. But, says Miranda, “95 percent of the movie was shot digitally with Viper.”

 

Slumdog Millionaire, of course, won a total of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Cinematography. And it’s fair to say that no one will ever second-guess shooting digitally again.

 

10. Galaxy Theatres puts on a Show that’s Out of This World – 2009

 

For me the single most exciting moment in the development of digital cinema took place last January when a group of school children gathered at their local movie theatre for an experience that was, quite literally, out of this world. On Wednesday morning, January 21st students from several nearby schools took their seats at Galaxy Theatres in Gig Harbor, Washington and participated in a live twenty-minute question-and-answer session with Expedition 18 astronauts Mike Fincke and Sandra Magnus from the International Space Station.

 

Students from Key Peninsula Middle School in Lakebay, Washington, one of two NASA Explorer Schools in Washington State, were there, as were students from Peninsula School District's Vaughn Elementary School, Harbor Ridge Middle School, and Peninsula High School.

 

Galaxy Theatres CEO Frank Rimkus said the event drew more than 1000 students and more than 1000 adults, including teachers, parents and government representatives. Galaxy showed the Q&A on multiple screens and offered the venue for free.

To prepare for the downlink, Key Peninsula students studied the history and mission of the space station and mission control, rocket fabrication, astronaut selection and training, and mission control and station operations. "I would not be surprised if KPMS students are the first to walk on Mars, discover life on another planet, become instrumental in science education, or develop new technology to improve life here on Earth," Terry Bouck, Peninsula School district superintendent said.

“We are proud to be a part of this unique event,” Rimkus said at the time. He said he never considered charging admission for the event and is convinced that the good will that will be generated for his business will pay long-term dividends. In any case, he said, “Galaxy Theatres is committed to providing use of our state-of-the-art theatres to support the educational needs of the communities we serve.”

 

Rimkus thought of the idea of the event himself. He said digital cinema technology is changing exhibition in profound ways. He believes that Hollywood movies will always serve as the backbone of the local theatre experience but that, given all the possibilities that digital technology allows, the concept of what a movie theatre can be will expand.

 

Before digital cinema, Galaxy’s programming library was limited to movies – in particular Hollywood movies – and other programs on film. “Now our library has grown to infinite proportions,” Rimkus said. Galaxy Theatres, a very early digital cinema pioneer operates 100-plus screens in California and Washington and is now an all-digital chain.

 

“We have the opportunity to be a social center,” he said. “One of the things we focused on was education.” He points out that this era in digital cinema is similar to the earliest days of movie exhibition when local theatres were centers of social events. People often gathered in theatres for events other than movies in part because the theatres themselves were so affordable, comfortable and inviting. “It’s a little bit of an old fashioned idea,” Rimkus said. His goal is to recreate that concept with Galaxy Theatres. “We have multiple screens, stadium seating, clean bathrooms and free parking. Interactive education is on the rise. With all that in mind, we’re offering our facilities for educational purposes.”