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TALKING ABOUT MOVIES »
The future of movies...
…is here. The digital age has changed the way movies are filmed and distributed. It's made new content possible. And it's made at least some actors obsolete.
The future of movies
May 13, 2008
One sign of a changes in the movie industry: this year, nearly one million people will head to the movie theater to watch high-definition simulcasts of live opera performances.
The future of cinema is here. Digital technology is changing more than cameras. "Synthetic" actors. New routes for distribution. The changes in movies today rival the shift from silents to talkies.
First off, there is the imminent conversion of theatrical presentations to digital projection. The digital projectors would help eliminate the cumbersome and costly process of shipping films in 35- and 70-mm cans; they even permit projection by satellite systems.
In March, four major studios (Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Twentieth Century Fox) announced that they were working on a financial deal to help theaters install digital projectors for 10,000 movie screens. Currently only 4,600 of the approximately 40,000 screens in US theaters are digital compatible.
Why the urgency? In large part it's due to an upcoming spate of new stereoscopic films that require digital projectors. Five 3-D films, mostly animation fantasies and action thrillers, are scheduled for release this year and a dozen or so for release in 2009. The success of the computer-generated fantasy "The Polar Express" in 2004 helped spur this trend back to 3-D stereoscopic production.
Another factor in the appeal of digital projection is the growing theatrical market for satellite simulcasts of musical and sporting events. In 2007, an estimated 325,000 people went to movie theaters to see Metropolitan Opera performances. That number is expected to triple this year. Nearly a million people going to the movies—for live opera! This type of alternative media event is welcome fare for theaters seeking to fill screens in down periods and reach out to different audiences.
Similarly, digital projectors can increase the distribution of films from around the world. There has been a global explosion in cinema production over the past decade, from Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, from China to South America. But based on the few films that make it out of their originating countries, you would hardly know it.
A single 35-mm celluloid print of a feature film costs around $1,200, a prohibitive figure for wide distribution of films that are often made on miniscule budgets. That's a shame, because recent films that did get distributed testify to the rich potential of international cinema offerings. "The Lives of Others"(Germany), "City of Men" (Brazil), "Caramel" (Lebanon), and "Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days" (Romania) are all brilliant films that deserved their international attention. But many equally worthy films never make it out of their home countries.
Will disks and digital projection make films like these more accessible? Why not? Nearly 70% of film tickets sold in the US are bought on weekends, meaning that theaters are virtually empty Monday through Thursday. That suggests all sorts of opportunity for innovative programming, including festivals of films organized around different countries. When such programs have been staged at sites like Ann Arbor's Michigan Theater, they have proved enormously popular.
Another interesting development is the boom in direct-to-DVD movies. Last year, 675 films went directly to DVD, with sales totaling nearly a billion dollars. That's a lot of money for movies whose budgets rarely top ten million dollars. Costs are kept down, producers say, because movies made for the small screen don't require lavish special effects, and the films can be made with lesser known, less costly actors. The direct-to-DVD approach has become popular with producers of sequels to youth-oriented movies such as "American Pie." All told there have been five sequels to the original "American Pie," the last three of which were direct-to-DVD. Though these built-for-the-home-market films lack big production values, they gain in sensation because of less stringent restrictions on sex, nudity and violence.
Finally, there is the issue of "synthespians." As the use of digital imaging for movies becomes more and more sophisticated, questions continually arise about just how far the computer will lead film art. Already, computer-generated settings have taken over some of the work of film craft artists. And $108-a-day extras are no longer needed for big crowd scenes like those in "Gladiator" and "Flags of Our Fathers," because the computer can generate supernumeraries by the thousands.
Television commercials are already substituting synthespians for paid actors. A computer company recreated a perfect likeness of Orville Redenbacher so that he could once again promote popcorn on TV with his homespun personality and quirky mannerisms. Redenbacher died in 1995, but now he lives on forever as a hardworking synthespian.
It's fun—but also a bit scary—thinking about the future of movies.
Film historian and critic Frank Beaver is professor of film and video studies and professor of communication.