Downtown London cinemas are taking a journey into the digital world. Over the course of the past couple weeks, both Rainbow Cinemas and Hyland Cinema have been upgrading their theatres in order to screen digital movies. These upgrades have been motivated by a change in industry standards, which are gradually pushing out the use of film stock in favour of digital technology. “I think the transition to digital is a done deal— it’s just a question of how long,” says Michael Raine, a film studies professor at Western. “It’s also happening on the production side—Fujifilm Canada recently announced it will stop making 35mm stock.” The Hyland finished their transition to digital projection during the final week of October. However, they are still fundraising to get enough money to finance the $100,000 transition. Thus far, the London community has only raised $10,000. “[Changing to digital] was more like a deadline,” Dan Meidinger, assistant manager at Hyland Cinema says. “We had no choice in the matter. It was either switch to digital, or eventually [we’re] not able to get movies—more of an ultimatum than a choice.” “The demand for 35mm prints is now very low, so the cost is going up and soon the studios will just stop making new prints available,” Victor Liorentas, projectionist for the Hyland, adds. “The last couple of years have seen film depots—where 35mm prints are stored—close down because the studios who rent these facilities are junking their inventories of classic titles to avoid paying storage costs. They go to the dump—it’s a sad time for film.” While digital film, in general, has a better image than film stock, Liorentas notes the quality of the image is more dependent on the skill of the projectionist, rather than the format of the film. “When good film is done right, projection quality is far superior to current digital. Since most multiplex cinemas were doing film very wrong, digital cinema out of the box is an improvement, but that will fall apart in time,” Liorentas comments. For Rainbow, the transition is just finishing this week and came with the added announcement the theatre will no longer be screening 3D movies, which they have been doing since the release of Avatar, and the following flurry of post-converted 3D nearly three years ago. “There is certainly an added expense to adding the 3D feature to your programming, and we’ve had so much feedback from our customers in terms of not wanting to see 3D movies,” Katrina Chapman, manager at Rainbow Cinemas London, says. “People are generally perfectly happy with 2D, and are very happy when we are showing something in that format versus the 3D format.” Chapman cites negative responses from moviegoers as the primary reason for saying no to 3D. “We get a lot of feedback from the distributors and the film companies saying how wonderful 3D is, and I certainly believe that there is a time and a place for it, but not every film needs to be converted into 3D.” 3D movies have often been criticized for the rush of post-production conversion with the darker image, the increased price and its lack of a notice-
able effect overall. However, many also recognize the quality of 3D when it’s done well. “Most 3D movies that are shot in 2D and then post-converted to 3D are rush jobs, and it shows,” Liorentas comments. “On the other hand, when done properly it can be very good, such as the $18 million James Cameron spent converting Titanic.” “[It is] hard to say what will happen with 3D because new laserpowered light sources with high frame rate projection is coming and will improve the dark-soft 3D problems we have now,” he continues. Rainbow’s decision is not without its critics. Paul Coates, professor and graduate chair at Western, observes 3D will likely be the way of the future, with many acclaimed directors taking the time to create works of art in the third dimension. “3D has just begun to be used imaginatively by several of the kind of highprofile directors usually described as auteurs, in such valuable films as Wim Wenders’ Pina, Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo,” Coates comments. “It will be a shame if downtown audiences, without easy access to malls and multiplexes, lose out on seeing just how powerfully 3D can be put to use in serious works.” London residents are still able to catch 3D movies at larger cineplexes like Silver City at Masonville Place, which made the upgrade to digital projection much earlier and has had great success with the new opportunities digital has offered. “Digital has been great,” Mike Langdon, director of communications at Cineplex Entertainment, says. “There’s two important things about it—one is that, from an operational standpoint, it makes the theatres easier to operate. It’s also been a big win from the standpoint that it opens the door to a whole world of new content that we wouldn’t have been able to show previously.” The digital revolution marks changing times for more independent movie theatres. While the larger cineplexes have had an easier time transitioning to digital, for theatres like the Hyland that do not have as much financial support, it means they may have to shut down. The current widespread upgrade to digital has also been criticized for being too early. Newer, upcoming digital technologies have been called an even more substantial improvement—however, these technologies will now have an even harder time gaining
widespread implementation. “The next generation of digital projection has massive improvements, and is what everyone should have waited for to convert away from film,” Liorentas observes. “Now, the whole industry is tapped out of cash replacing film with a cheap copycat when the good stuff is coming.” For now, London residents and Western students can enjoy the increase in image quality that comes with digital projection, and still have a choice between 2D and 3D showings. But for the industry at large, the future of cinema is always moving faster than 24 frames per second.
Mike Laine Gazette