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Topic: The First Commercial Digital Presentations

Geoff Newitt
Film Handler

Posts: 49
From: FARINGDON, OXFORDSHIRE, UK
Registered: Dec 2011

posted 06-06-2013 01:22 PM

Bob Hoskins directed, Freddie Francis DoP'd (I hesitate to say photographed), 'Rainbow' for release in 1995.

This is claimed to be the first live action feature originated in HD Video for 35mm distribution and exhibition. They used the Sony HDC-500 camera system, later developed with Panavision into the HDW-F900 used for Star Wars: Ep II, apparently.

It was a rather minor family film - not well received - but I remember showing it. It had a very distinct 'look', quite different to film.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 06-06-2013 03:47 PM

If Video is the criteria...I really think F. F. Coppola's "One from the Heart" is the grand daddy of the modern digital release though it was just video. It had video assist and it was shot video. It was even shown in 1.33 in theatres.

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Carsten Kurz
Film God

Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009

posted 06-06-2013 04:36 PM

http://www.tech-notes.tv/Dig-Cine/Digitalcinema.html

'...
1992 The first public demonstration of digital cinema. Pacific Bell and Sony Pictures Entertainment sent the movie Bugsy from the lot in Culver City to the Anaheim Convention Center where a theater had been setup...100s attended and it recieved more news coverage than any other single event in telephone history.
...
1995 Toy Story is released, the first completely computer-generated feature film.
...
1999 Digital cinema demonstrations to the public begin. On June 19th in four theatres, two on the West coast and two on the East coast. Lucas Films and 20th Century Fox debuted "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace" as the first major motion picture theatrically exhibited as digital cinema using a Pluto digital storage system in the D-5 compression format.
The Ideal Husband is shown at Infocomm in digital cinema. This was one of the last demonstartion using the Hughes/JVC ILA projector.

Tarzan, Toy Story 2 and Bicentennial Man are released by Disney in the new digital cinema format using the QuVIS wavelet based compression algorithms.

2000 February, digital cinema demonstrations go international with two theaters equipped in London, England, one Manchester, England, one in Brussels, Belgium, one in Paris, France and one in Tokyo, Japan for all digital showings of Toy Story 2.
March 6th, Christie Systems, Inc. announced today that it has been selected as the first OEM to manufacture digital cinema projectors using Texas Instruments DLP Cinema technology. The agreement will allow Christie to develop the Christie DigiPro series of digital projectors using DLP Cinema projection technology.

Mission to Mars (March), Dinosaur (May) and Fantasia 2000 (June) are released by Disney in the digital cinema format.

June 6th, 20th Century Fox, Qwest, Cisco, Texas Instruments, QuVis, Barco Projection Systems, Eastern Acoustic Works, and Sigma Design Group demonstrate the world's first digital cinema network distribution and exhibition system. The movie was "Titan AE"
...'

+ the very valuable MKPE has a nice history page with interesting details:

http://www.mkpe.com/digital_cinema/history/

- Carsten

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 06-07-2013 06:28 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Some earlier movies with significant CG use could show obvious shifts in color, contrast, grain structure, etc. when the live action traditional color timed plate changed to the CG plate. Look at the scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex chases Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum's "Malcolm" character is waving a flare. Right when the T-Rex roars at Malcolm you'll see a big color shift as the live action plate changes to the CG plate. The now-animated T-Rex chases after Malcolm. Had they made JP today the shot would have looked far more seamless

I might be totally wrong here, but as far as I remember, all of the T-Rex shots in this scene were actually done with almost life-size animatronics and props. There might be a few green/blue screen effects in there. The T-Rex appears as CGI rendering when attacking the Gallimimus herd and in the last scene in the lobby of the visitor center.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-07-2013 07:45 PM

The scene in Jurassic Park where the T-Rex attacks the vehicles is a mix of CG and live action with a huge T-Rex model built on a flight simulator chassis.

The shot of T-Rex biting through the fence cables, stepping out between the vehicles and roaring was CG. The shot of T-Rex grabbing Gennaro off the toilet and eating him was CG. The shot I mentioned earlier where it chased Jeff Goldblum was a mix of live action and CG. The CG part is edited into the shot when the T-Rex roars and starts chasing Jeff Goldblum.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-08-2013 09:57 PM

quote: Steve Guttag
If Video is the criteria...I really think F. F. Coppola's "One from the Heart" is the grand daddy of the modern digital release though it was just video. It had video assist and it was shot video. It was even shown in 1.33 in theatres.

Video was used as a form of "pre-viz" and for video assist to speed up the post-production process. The final release version of "One From The Heart," however, was shot on 35mm film.

I think many if not most theaters projected "One From The Heart" at 1.85:1 despite the intent of the filmmakers. I think this is why they ultimately did a 70mm blow-up with a pillar-boxed Academy image so that the framing couldn't be fiddled with during presentation.

The Vancouver Sun, 11.12.1982

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-10-2013 10:15 AM

They did the same thing with Fantasia in 1990. 70mm with thick pillar-box bars to preserve the 1.33:1 ratio. IIRC, the 35mm prints of Fantasia in 1990 were window-boxed to force those theaters applying a 1.85:1 crop to show it in 1.33:1 anyway. Kind of sad to have to idiot-proof a 35mm print like that when it should have been printed and shown full frame.

Incidentally (and sort of getting it back on topic), wasn't Fantasia the first movie shown in theaters with a digital audio track?

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-10-2013 12:47 PM

Yes, I believe "Fantasia" had the first digital-sound presentation for a feature film. Its first such engagement was in early 1985 in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza. It was an interlock presentation. (I believe the first digital sound-on-print presentation was "Dick Tracy" in 1990. ) The Laurie Anderson concert film "Home of the Brave" was another early digital sound title.

I'm told there was a Japanese production shown with digital sound sometime in 1980s, but I've not been able to confirm. ("Akira," perhaps?)

By the way, Carr & Hayes' "Wide Screen Movies" book erroneously claims the Dolby Stereo SR format was digital.

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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 06-10-2013 07:54 PM

I wonder if something like "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" would fit into this conversation.

IIRC it was notable for being entirely CGI except for the actors. Exactly how true that claim was, and whether it was the first to do so, I don't know.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-10-2013 10:34 PM

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) was the first feature length movie to be produced using what some call the "digital backlot" technique. The actors perform mostly in front of green screens. The sets were mostly computer generated. The movie was shot electronically (or shot on video as I typically say) rather than on film.

Sin City (2005) used the digital backlot technique with a greater degree of technical and artistic sophistication. It, too, was shot on video. 300 was notable for using digital backlot techniques, yet the live action elements were shot on film.

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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 06-19-2013 03:42 AM

Didn't know about "One From The Heart" being shot on video, will have to check it out- it was one of the less than 100 titles available on the hi-def D-VHS format, but hasn't been on Blu-Ray.

In the 80s I had read about the movie "Julia and Julia" (starring Kathleen Turner" being the first movie shot in hi-def video, and I rented the VHS just because of that, which looked just like ordinary video (as opposed to film.)

Have there yet been any feature movies NOT released to theaters on 35mm?

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-19-2013 11:10 AM

quote: Jesse Skeen
Have there yet been any feature movies NOT released to theaters on 35mm?

In the art film part of the biz the answer is a resounding YES. I've missed out on several features this year because we haven't added digital yet. I thought the small, art distribs would be the last holdouts, but the exact opposite happened. Since they have to service the big chains that show the occasional art film, these distribs had to go DCP. They can't afford a dual inventory, so more and more of there product is digital only.

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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-19-2013 11:41 AM

quote: Jesse Skeen
In the 80s I had read about the movie "Julia and Julia" (starring Kathleen Turner" being the first movie shot in hi-def video, and I rented the VHS just because of that, which looked just like ordinary video (as opposed to film.)

Julia and Julia was shot on the very short lived Ikegami EC-35, a conventional SD Plumbicon based camera that supposedly had its gamma response and detail contours tweaked to more closely resemble film. The output was recorded on a Sony open-reel 1" HD videotape machine. As far as I know, that was the only feature to actually use the system.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-19-2013 01:50 PM

quote: Jesse Skeen
Didn't know about "One From The Heart" being shot on video

Apparently you didn't see my comment from June 8th.

quote: Michael Coate
Video was used as a form of "pre-viz" and for video assist to speed up the post-production process. The final release version of "One From The Heart," however, was shot on 35mm film.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-19-2013 02:00 PM

quote: Martin McCaffery
I've missed out on several features this year because we haven't added digital yet. I thought the small, art distribs would be the last holdouts, but the exact opposite happened. Since they have to service the big chains that show the occasional art film, these distribs had to go DCP. They can't afford a dual inventory, so more and more of there product is digital only.

In one respect that might be for the best considering so much art house/indie fare is shot with video cameras. The movies might end up looking better if they're staying within the digital realm from camera to post to video projector even if the movie itself looks like video. Obviously the move to DCP-only sucks for theaters only showing 35mm film.

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