Answer to Comment about video/film projection.

This comment was left on a post. I'm not sure if anyone reads the comments on older posts so I thought I would repost my answer as I think some will find it interesting.

QUESTION: This is a naive question on my part, but why are movies still in film format and not digital? I am sure there is a reasonable explanation, but it seems cumbersome to have huge reels to take care of.Also, with all the CGI and digital enhancing that goes into a movie these days, do they have to transfer everything to traditional film in the end to make the reels?

ANSWER: Video projectors that can make an image even close to the quality of film are still about $100,000. More if you add 3-D. The problem is there's not any real difference between film and video presentation to the general public and so there's no real advantage to the theatres to make the investment in new projectors. 3-D is really the only driving factor there.The Studios will save hundreds of millions of dollars by not having to strike film prints and ship them around but so far have been dragging their feet on helping the theatres convert. This doesn't make much sense to me.The other issue is going to be all the small theatres that can't afford to convert. Most movies are shot on film, converted to digital for editing then put back on film to show in theatres. Some films are shot with digital cameras. Eventually it will all be digital but how long that will take varies widely depending on who you ask. I think in about 3-5 years it will be hard to run a theatre that hasn't converted.

The New Westmount theatres.

There's going to be another change in the theatrical landscape of London soon. The last one was the closing of the Huron Market Place last September.

Cineplex is building new theatres out at Westmount Mall which is in the south end of the city, quite aways from Western Film.

Currently there's a somewhat antiquated six-plex in the mall, the new theatres are in a separate building which I can't tell if is going to be connected to the mall or not.

According to the Cineplex website it will have 8 stadium seating screens, three of which are their VIP cinemas. The VIP cinemas cost extra but have extra comfy chairs, serve food at the seats and are licensed so they are 19+ only.

There's several questions and things I find interesting about the place.

They built it behind the mall where it's not visible from the street. I thought this seemed odd but I figure they probably got the land/lease for very little back there. The mall itself is dying so it doesn't need the parking.

What will the admission price be? The current theatre is $7.50 but I would be willing to bet the new ones will be about the same price as the Silver City which is $11.00. That would leave Western Film by far the cheapest theatre in London, the closest would be Rainbow downtown which is $7.50.
In Toronto the VIP cinemas are $4.00 more than the regular cinemas.

Currently they tend to play a lot of 'art' product there. Will they continue to do so or go more Hollywood? My feeling is they will put the art product in the VIP cinemas assuming the people who want to see those films will be willing to pay the extra. I'd certainly consider it just to get away from the damn teenagers and their cellphones.

I'm not sure when it's supposed to open. I would imagine they want to open ASAP to catch the summer business.

Will the VIP cinemas work in London? especially right now. Probably but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't charge as much extra as in Toronto.

It says some theatres will be 3-D. Will any of the VIP theatres be 3-D and will they then charge an extra fee on top for that as most 3-D theatres do? That would be getting close to $20.00 per ticket.

Will it change booking patterns at all? That kinda depends on what they do with the art product. If they go more Hollywood that would leave pretty much only Western Film and the Hyland playing anything non Hollywood. Currently at least a couple of the studios consider us to be far enough from each other to play the same film at the same time. That might change with their higher price.

I'm kinda surprised it's only 8 screens. I didn't think anyone built less than 10 or 12 these days.

I'll check them out as soon as they open and report back.

Response to comment about Canadian Films

I'm not sure if anyone goes back and reads answers I leave to comments so I thought I would post this separate. This comment was left on the post I did about most of the Canadian Box Office money going to American films.

The only reason I had heard of Passchendaele is due to Paul Gross - he was interviewed everywhere on Canadian media. If marketing is so expensive, can't something be done on a grass roots level? More local film festivals, have articles in the local free newspapers, get the word out on blogs like this? Also, where can I find these movies? I doubt the cinema chains will play Canadian movies, so is the London public on dependent on Hyland to bring in these movies? It is a shame that Canadian films do not get the spotlight as the American films - I guess it all comes down to the money that can generated.

I have a few things to say about this.

Canadian films are in a bit of a vicious circle, they don't make a lot of money so they don't have a lot of money to spend on making or marketing them. There is something a bit pathetic that a horrible movie like Bride Wars makes many many millions more than any Canadian film.

The theatres, including Western Film, are in a similar vicious circle, we would like to play Canadian films but we have bills to pay so we end up playing mostly American stuff because that's what people will pay to see. The Hyland plays more than most as most Canadian films are of the kind of quality film the Hyland specializes in. I play Canadian when I can but few Canadian films get to the level of awareness needed for enough people to show up. I think the last Canadian film I played before Passchendaele was Trailer Park Boys. In its' first night at Western Film Twilight almost grossed as much as Passchendaele did all week.

There is hope, of a sort. I noticed today that a sequel to Trailer Park Boys is slated for the fall. That means a Canadian film did well enough to make a sequel?!

As for the marketing aspect referenced above. Part of the problem there is a perception. If people haven't seen commercials on TV for a film it somehow doesn't register as legit. TV happens to be one of the most expensive forms of advertising...

I think the change to Digital Projectors will help a lot. Prints will be cheaper and easier, making distributing Canadian films easier and cheaper. One of the best advertising things for films are trailers in front of other films. Trailers on film are also relatively expensive, when the trailers are all digital they will be played in front of more films. There's lots of good films I ask for trailers for but never get on film.

This reminds me of a situation that happened at a theatre I worked at that's always stick with me. I was out in the lobby and a woman was looking at a movie poster for some film that was coming soon. She said in a dismissive tone 'never heard of it'. I almost went up to her and said that was what the posters were for, to let people know about upcoming films. There has to be a first time one 'hears' of a film.

A first and harbringer of things to come.

A couple weeks when I tried to book FLOW, a documentary about water use and privatization, it wasn't available. There was only one 35mm print for the entire country and it was out West. For the first time the studio offered a DVD or Digital print of the movie. A Digital print is one that can be played on the very expensive digital video projector all theatres will be converting to over the next few years. 35mm film is going to get scarcer.
We do have the ability to show DVDs fairly nicely in the theatre but nowhere near as nice as the film presentation and I don't believe in charging for a lesser presentation. For a movie like FLOW it wouldn't have made a big difference since it didn't exactly need a big sound system or have a lot of special effects.
I'll be doing some more posts on digital in the near future.

Digital Cinema deal done?

Below is a link to an article from the Hollywood Reporter about a major deal between 5 of the Studios and the three biggest cinema chains in the US. This should finally get the ball rolling on a major changeover to digital from 35mm film to digital projectors.

There are many reasons for conversion but the main one is the cost savings of not having to make and ship millions of feet of film. I read the studios may save up to $1 Billion a year, that seems a bit much but it will be significant.

The basic issue has been the fact that the studios would be the ones to save most of the money but the cinemas didn't want to pay for the cost of the equipment which won't really make a difference most of the time. 99% of the time the audience wouldn't know whether it's watching film or digital. Converting a theatre can cost upwards of $100,000, more if 3D is involved.

They have finally agreed on what is called a Virtual Print Fee which is so obvious it should have been agreed upon earlier. Basically each time a digital print is used the studio will pay the theatre the amount it saved by not having to make a film print. Once the equipment is paid for the payments stop. Makes a lot of sense to me.

One issue that's been looming over this whole debate is what to do about smaller chains and independent theatres. The situation could be especially difficult with second run theatres that use the 'leftover' prints from the first run theatres. The studios won't want to pay us a VPF since they didn't save any money by not making a print.

I'm sure something will be worked out. For example I went to see a movie at the Hyland tonight and all the trailers were for movies from a smaller company called Mongrel Media. Mongrel tends to specialize in smaller Art type releases that rarely play in the big multiplexes. They mostly play in places like the Hyland and Western Film.

To me it would be in Mongrel's and other smaller distribs interests to work out some sort of VPF with the theatres that plays their films. Otherwise most of those theatres will close because they can't afford to convert to digital without help.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i891ca34060aefcb3a74bc5b69a35f952

I have seen the future and it is Digital.

I saw about 15 films in England, about a third were projected digitally rather than on film. These were the first real digital presentations I had seen other than demonstrations.

The cinemas in England were much more expensive than here so they maybe could afford top of the line equipment but things are going to go the same way here sooner or later.

Anyone who thinks film is going to be around for more than a few years is wrong.

The best presentation I saw in England was at the Empire in Leicester Square. I saw Speed Racer there. It was a old movie palace that had been plexed but there was still one big theatre. The screen was huge, maybe 60 feet wide. The Digital image was amazing in it's clarity and color and there weren't any of the physical problems that can be associated with film such as scratches.

I will admit movies like Speed Racer were made to show on Digital screens like this, bright colors, high contrast and distinct elements. It's similar to animated CGI films on digital TVs. Ever notice when you go to a place that sells TV the films playing are almost always animated films like Shrek or Toy Story? They look way better than anything with live people on those kind of TVs.

I would be curious to know what a film like No Country for Old Men with it's more subdued colour palate and lower contrast would look like on the Empire's screen.

Some of the films I saw would only have been distributed digitally as film would be too expensive. I saw an Anime film called Vexille at the Institute for Contemporary Art in a Digital theatre. Here the film went straight to DVD. It was one of the most exciting films I've seen in a long time and deserved to be seen on the big screen.

I predict as soon as the Studios and Exhibitors get their acts together and come up with some agreements a complete transition to Digital projectors will be quite rapid. All that will be left on film will be small independents, hopefully Western Film won't be one of them.

Questions about 3-D.

A convention for movie theatres called Showest just ended in the US. There was a lot of talk about 3-D being the saviour of the theatre since it can't be duplicated at home. A few questions occurred to me.

Some of the films are supposed to be coming out exclusively in 3-D. The Hannah Montana film was like that and so is the upcoming Journey to the Center of the Earth. I wonder how long the exclusive part will last? There are still a lot of places that don't have a 3-D theatre. 3-D is expensive both to put in and maintain. For example the small city St. Thomas south of London isn't likely to have a 3-D screen any time soon. Are they willing to forsake all places like it in order to play exclusively in 3-D?

There's also the matter of second run and independent theatres. Western Film won't have 3-D any time soon either so does that mean we won't be able to play James Cameron's Avatar when it comes out next year?

The 3-D thing also messes up the normal pattern in a multiplex. Normally a film opens in one of the larger screens then gradually moves into smaller screens as the run progresses. Unless they all have 3-D this won't be able to happen.

For example,the Silver City at Masonville converted their largest screen (#2) to play digital and 3-D. They are playing the Hannah Montana film but since none of the other screens can play it they will have to drop it right off the big screen.

Hannah is a bit of a special case but imagine this. Let's say Shrek 4 opens in 3-D only on May 1, then Spiderman 4 opens May 7 in 3-D only. The Silver City would have to either drop Shrek completely after one week or not play Spider-man. Not a choice I would want to have to make.

I predict a similar situation to when Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace opened. Initially Lucas insisted it could only open on screens with digital sound. There was a huge uproar since so many places didn't have digital sound and that requirement fell by the wayside. The 3-D movies will all or at least most have 2-D versions available as well.