Going to the movies

Do you remember the days when the 13-plex (or whatever quantity of screens) was popping up in every neighborhood, replacing the older, larger screens? I remember having a very small selection of 70mm screens to choose from (where the print was twice the size of 35mm... Well, more like quadruple the resolution) to see a sharp picture.

Well, last night, the wife and I went to see Prometheus (disappointing, but I digress) at one of those 10 screen cram in plexes. I have to say that it was the sharpest picture I have ever seen in a theater. It turns out that the cineplex upgraded to Sony digital projectors. When did this happen?

I have a friend who is a Hollywood movie company big wig and he told me that it has been an uphill battle for the movie companies to get the cinemas to upgrade. It turns out that film prints cost them about $1,500 per print and they need one for every screen that shows the movie. For a big release like Prometheus, they need several thousand prints on opening day. With digital theaters, it only costs about. $100-200 per print (basically a hard drive with the movie on it). Given the scale, you can imagine the savings.

I thought that going digital would be great. Small movie companies with low budgets that concentrate on story (think Blair Witch or Outsourced) would suddenly be able to afford to ship their movies without getting signed by a large distributor.

Did you ever wonder why 3 movie companies have their splash screen in the opening credits? The first is usually the big one like Sony, Paramount, or Universal... Then you'll see a smaller company like Walden or Revolution. The big company really just fronted the money to put out the prints. The smaller one is the company that actually financed and produced the movie. Then, usually a third one comes up (like Bad Robot, owned by JJ Abrams) which is the company that came up with the script and such... Usually the only creative people involved. This system was necessary because of the huge sums of money required to get a movie to the audience.  All of that is gone now.  This means more choice and more creative minds getting their ideas out to audiences.  The only thing standing in the way is that most cinemas are parts of huge chains, which means you have to get the corporation to allow their places to play your film.  This will come eventually.

Anyway, the whole point of this post was to talk about how great digital is.  In the short term, the thing is that, if you've stopped, you should head out to the theater again.  The pictures are more vibrant and sharper than ever before and there are no more hairs and scratches in the picture.  I love technology!