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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Topic: Sony about to release new cinema projector
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Chris Slycord
Film God
Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007
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posted 06-07-2007 02:24 PM
quote: Frank Angel
No studio ever scrapped a production because of the print costs. They spend more on food catering than on the cost of prints. Anyone think they sat around and said, "Do you think we can afford to put Spidey into production, what with that budget-breaking print cost?" My face laughs at you.
Print costs are a non-issue. Greed is what it's about, which wouldn't be so bad except they figured out how to keep more of that money at the exhibitor's expense and at the cost of lower presentation quality.
Saying it's a non-issue because they spend more on food isn't valid.
Unless they somehow invent a person who doesn't eat, the cost of food will always be an issue. They have to incur that cost to keep the people. If one studio will feed their cast/crew and another won't people will tend to work for the one that gives them the better deal.
So essentially, the food cost is one that pretty much can't go away. The cost of prints, on the other hand, clearly can go away.
Your argument would be like telling Ford to design a car that'll be made out of titanium, then someone else saying "um, titanium is pretty expensive" then you saying "well you'll spend more on the R&D anyway."
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-07-2007 05:56 PM
And my point is that the cost of prints is a non-issue in the sense that it was never an issue that stopped a picture from being made. In that sense it's a non-issue, not that eliminating it wouldn't be a savings for the studios.
On the other hand, it's a REAL $70m saving for the studios ONLY IF the exhibitor foots the bill for the $120,000 per projector per screen that makes printless exhibition possible. If the studio had to BUY the projector so that it didn't have to strike a print and if the cost of streaming the data and getting that datastream to the theatre could happen all for free, only then would it be a true $70m savings. But none of those things come free.
And the studios and the video projector hardware manufactures who are all gun-ho about eliminating the cost of prints can only realize that saving because for some unfathomable reason that defies logic, a number of exhibitors have bought into the idea that they should be the ones to pay for the video technology so it can save the studios print money....those same studios who are trying to release that printless title not only in 3000 theatres, but to DVD outlets as close as they can to day-and-date....their collective wet dream.
If enough exhibitors can actually be convinced of this illogical arrangement (studios get to make gobs of money while exhibitors get to spend gobs of it to buy the equipment that makes it possible), then sure, eliminating prints becomes a huge, multimillion dollar issue -- it's found profit off the top of the distribution budget on any given release. But that only work if that obviously contaminated bowtox which exhibitors are shooting into their foreheads, continues to leak into their brain pans making the usually stingy approach to booth upgrading for which theatre owners are famous, turn into some kind of orgy of spending on new technology that gives them nothing that will bring in more butts to their seats.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-08-2007 08:46 PM
quote: Lyle Romer
What exibitors have done this? As far as I can tell all of the massive (changing entire complexes or chains to digital) installations have been financed through the Christie/AIX program (or something similar) where the distributors pay a "virtual print fee" for a period of time to pay for the equipment.
Yes, I've heard that -- installations are "financed" thru virtual print fees. That sounds so civilized and benign. So why isn't this information up front and specific -- give us numbers. I am an independent exhibitor; I want to put in a Barco or hey, why stop there if as you say, the exhibitor isn't paying for it, then how about I just go full tilt and put in Sony 4K video projectors. What do I do, just go to my Cinema Supplier and say, "Hey, I want to install three of these babies in my three theatres; put it on the virtual print tab"?
I guess what I really want to know is, a video projector intallation is being paid for how and by whom, exactly? And if the exhibitor isn't paying for it, then who gets to own the projector?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-10-2007 07:12 AM
quote: Ramon Lamarca Marques
I honestly think cinemas do not have a unique product anymore. Cinemascope, Cinerama, Todd-AO were born as products that could not be shown on telly and they won the battle for a while, cinema needs another of these revolutions, something that looks gorgeous at the pictures and mediocre on telly.
All those unique-to-cinema formats were born at a time when the telly was seen by both exhibition and the studios as the common enemy. How times have changed! Today the studios are not interested in making sure cinemas have a unique product. All that has to happen for cinemas not to have to compete with the telly is for the studios NOT TO RELEASE FILMS TO THE TELLY until long after the theatrical run is over. But that's not going to happen.
The solution has always been in the hands of the studios and how fast they release to video. Fact is, they have no intention of protecting the theatrical release and certainly they are not interested in creating a format that cannot be sold to the home theatre consumer market. They are not going to create a format like Cinerama that would be difficult to convert to a home theatre screen; this is the antithesis of the studios' distribtuion model.
Even the idea that 3D digital is the savior of theatres because it can't be reproduced in the consumer market, as I have posted before, is merely a carrot held out to exhibitors to get them to invest in Dee-Cinema. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting (dare I say, gullible exhibitor) a viable, proven, working 3D video system has been around for over two decades which produces great 3D depth and is totally compatible with all video formats, VHS, DVD, HD &BlueRay DVD.
There is no doubt in my mind that just as soon as the studios think that their 3D carrot has sucked in enough of the exhibitors who will be inticed into converting to digital in the hopes that they will have that ellusive product that home video simply cannot reproduce, the studios will announce with great fanfar and hoopla that ALL their 3D animated cartoons will be available in field sequential 3D in both NTSC DVD and high def DVD, leaving the exhibitors who converted to digital specifically so as to have a format the could never be shown on home theatre screen, with their finger up their DLP projector.
What I want to know is, what mind-altering drugs have the studios been able to slip into the free drinks they were passing around at ShowWest and East that have made exhibitors believe that the studios are interested in protecting the theatrical release? These are the same studios who the exhibitors already know and loudly complain about that have been systematically and methodically shorting the video release window -- an action which directly and severely impacts theatrical exhibition. These are the studios that publicly state that their goal is to alter the release pattern to shorten the video release window even more and have bluntly said that the exhibitors may not like it, but it's a reality and they had just better deal with it (paraphrasing some Disney exec). Worse, we know of their intentions because they have actually spoken the wish for the DD word -- DAY&DATE.
3D releases will never be available in a 3D home video format? The studios could do this in a heartbeat and to hell with all those theatres who bought into Dee Cinema specifically because they thought it would give them their modern day Cinerama-like never-available-for-home-video protection. Wanna see how difficult it is to get 3D to the home-theatre market?
Clicky Then click on the Titles just to see that regular Hollywood releases are already readily available in 3D for the HOME.
When it comes to exhibitors being able to trust the studios to protect their business by shutting down the home video market until the theatrical run is exhaused, it's like the proverbial letting the fox guard the hen house. Or Neville Chamberlain before the invasion of Poland.
Silly, silly exhibitors.
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 06-10-2007 08:45 AM
quote: Frank Angel
There is no doubt in my mind that just as soon as the studios think that their 3D carrot has sucked in enough of the exhibitors who will be inticed into converting to digital in the hopes that they will have that ellusive product that home video simply cannot reproduce, the studios will announce with great fanfar and hoopla that ALL their 3D animated cartoons will be available in field sequential 3D in both NTSC DVD and high def DVD, leaving the exhibitors who converted to digital specifically so as to have a format the could never be shown on home theatre screen, with their finger up their DLP projector.
Moreover, they are looking at 3-D TV without glassess. When this TV system or another one with glassess is developed for mainstream use (and it will happen, if only to sell more hardware) all these 3-D contemporary films will be seen in 3-D at home, it would be crazy to show them flat when the rest of the programming is in 3-D.
A good option for theatres would be to shoot two versions of a film, like they did with Oklahoma. They should do one for cinemas only (in a system like a new digital cinerama) and another for TVs. Since digital does not use film they would not spend that much money by shooting two versions. It is more complicated, yes, but this would ensure that cinema still offers something unique.
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