Digital Futures

I’ve just come back from a digital cinema Training Day run by the Independent Cinema Office and my head is swimming. I’ve worked at a venue that’s part of the UK Film Council’s Digital Screen Network so I thought I knew a thing or two about dear old digital. However, what’s put me in a spin is not the practicalities and costs of this wonderful new format – it’s the possible potentials it holds. The flexibility of digital means that all the old systems we’ve been working with for decades could start breaking down.

For example, the definition of a cinema. Digital allows a range of alternative content such as live shows and sporting events, gaming on screen. So where does being a cinema begin and end in a venue whose big screen experience could be anything from Gone With the Wind to live ballet to mass gaming? And why should venues be tied into block booking anymore, or long programmes when there are no physical prints to book or cart around the country? Are distributors still relevant in a system where expensive 35mm no longer have to be struck and directors/producers could go straight to bookers and venues with their films?

3D anyone? Well, for me the whole notion conjured up thoughts of bad 50s cheesy films or family friendly shows at Universal Studios. I was firmly entrenched in the frame of mind that the whole thing is a cheap gimmick with limited potential. All singing all dancing 3D titles maybe rolling out of the major studios, whether there’s the screens for them or not, but is it really the future of cinema? (If you want to find out more, check out this story in the New York Times a few days ago). Well some are saying big budget movies are the tip of the 3D iceberg (no bad James Cameron puns will be made at this point!) and that one day all films and all TV will be 3D. Meaning that this in your face format is the future and good old 2D will, like dear old black and white, be banished to the realms of nostalgia. Maybe - maybe not. 

One last thought to add to this blog entry. If/when Britain opens up and invests in digital and the day arrives when films can be downloaded into venues in the blink of an eye – what will this mean to the way we all, as exhibitors and programmers, work. Death of the programmer? Festivals curated through Facebook polling? And if a venue can upload as much content as it downloads, can it also embrace the roles of producer and distributor? And if we do, what happens to the industry when these three separate roles, which define the way we do business, start to disintegrate?