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Author
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Topic: Digital Cinema = The death of theaters?
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-13-2010 11:02 PM
One thing I have found not to be true (yet) is the supposed unlimited availability of digital prints, that has been touted as one of the big features of digital.
Actually in some cases the opposite has been true.
Toy Story 3 - they wouldn't give us a 3D digital print unless we agreed to 4 weeks. Every other Disney/Pixar movie on 35mm has been 2 weeks on the break.
Inception - Even opening it 3 weeks after the break, we had to commit to 2 weeks to get a digital print. Most 35mm movies can be played for one week when played off the break. (To be fair, Inception is so far the only digital movie we've had that trouble with.)
And just as with film, there is still a question every week of whether a digital print will be available, which often can't be answered until Monday morning when the distributor checks holdovers.
I was picturing a world where the film depot would have a bank of servers, and a guy would say "Oh, Mike in Forsyth needs Inception? OK, run one off and ship it out!" It's not that way at all. At least not yet.
I'm still wondering what will happen with Christmas matinees. I was envisioning being able to book a pristine digital copy of "Shrek 1" for example, but now I'm wondering whether that will be possible. Will they want a full week just because it's a digital print?
All this sounds like I'm unhappy for switching. Nothing could be further from the truth; at this point I would never go back to 35mm. Like others I'm worried about the cost of upgrades and repairs, but we have a service agreement for the near term, and prices WILL come down on a lot of this stuff as it becomes more prevalent in the marketplace.
On the other side of the coin, there are a few other advantages that haven't been mentioned here yet:
1. Trailers. You never have to worry about missing a trailer again. This is great for the small exhibitor -- previously there would be at least 25% of movies we'd play that we never had trailers for. This alone will help increase our grosses. And it's so nice to be able to change your trailer reel on a moment's notice. A lot of little kids showed up for that PG-13 movie unexpectedly? Lose that Resident Evil trailer and put it back in for the next show.
2. Shipping is cheaper. With film, it cost us about $35 to $45 to ship in a Deluxe print via ground, and about $25 to $35 to ship it out for a total of about $60 to $70 per film. Technicolor was $25 each way regardless of weight, for a $50 total. With digital, Deluxe has a flat $39.95 charge covering all shipping. Technicolor has about the same fee. (A few cents higher.) So a savings of $10 to $30 per print. We run about 65 prints a year, so the savings on that alone will almost pay for a new bulb every year. So I figure that will cut our bulb costs in half.
3. Free stuff. In another thread, Cinetize.com was mentioned. It is a source for coming-attractions, turn-off-your-cell-phone, visit-the-concession-stand and welcome-to-the-movies clips which are free for the downloading. We are using a bunch of these and we get lots of compliments on them. This kind of thing costs at least $30 to $50 per print from the usual 35mm sources.
The whole argument of "home equipment keeps getting better" is irrelevant, as usual. If you're running a good film OR digital system and have a good sound system, and practice good housekeeping and crowd control, you have something the home theatre can never deliver.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 09-14-2010 11:38 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
Sorry Stephen...you don't have that one either.
Take the CRU drive that the DCPs ship on...slide it into the server...select and hit "play" and you are on the screen without an ingest. How do you think screening rooms work?
Do all digital systems offer that option? It always seemed obvious that you should be able to, but the documentation I read didn't mention it. I've been totally out of projection for some time now, probably about 18 months to two years, so I can't try it. I never did much digital, probably ran about thirty shows or so, and I think I only ever 'ingested' (I really hate that stupid word) about three or four films.
quote: Steve Guttag
As for trailers/rewinding after issues....being a 2-projector guy...those were non-issues to begin with that DCinema didn't help.
Steve
Agree totally, but it's a problem for people who only have single projector installations. I'd say about 95% of the film projection I've done has been on two machines, and the other 5% single machine with tower; I've never run a platter, they're not very common in single-screen independant type places over here, at least not the ones I've seen. I lot of them wouldn't have room in the box to install a platter, even if they wanted to. 1x16 mm + 1x35 mm + tower was quite common at one time, quite often the 16mm is now replaced by a digital.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-14-2010 12:18 PM
I've had this discussion with a number of people.
My random comments:
- People go to the movies for (primarily) three reasons: to see something that cannot be seen elsewhere, to have a social experience outside the home, and to benefit from the picture and sound quality that a good theatre can offer. Unless cinemas can provide at least one of these three reasons to patronize them, people will choose other entertainment options.
- If the above happens, the exhibition format will not matter. If the industry fails, it will be because of some other factor, not film or ![[dlp]](graemlins/dlp.gif)
- If and when distributors stop providing new release titles in 35mm, some theatres will close, either because the cost of conversion is too high, or because there are physical limitations of the building that make conversion either impossible or cost prohibitive.
- I am not a big believer in the value of "alternative content," but I do think that it has potential for certain markets and demographics. This needs to be explored further by adventurous exhibitors.
- Over the long term, I expect that we will end up with fewer screens, and that those that remain will be of the better and classier variety. Eventually, cinemas will become what live theater is today--the sort of thing that would require advance tickets and which people might attend once or twice a year due to rarity and cost, rather than something that they would attend more regularly. I am not yet sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it will be a much different industry in fifty years than it is now.
- For the film distributors: we need fewer films released, and they need to be better than the films that are currently being produced. They need to be given a longer shelf life, and treated less like disposable commodities and more like something with lasting value. This means (among other things) that prices for consumer formats (Blu-Ray, DVD, Pay-Per-View, etc.) need to go up, in order to provide an indication of increased value for the product. When a movie ticket and a DVD of the same film have the same price, consumers perceive the ticket as a rip-off. If the DVD cost $100, the movie ticket would be seen as a bargain.
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