Looking back on the year past - and ahead

Much like the Japanese man who survived 24 days in a mountain forest, Deluxe goes into a state of semi-hibernation over the holidays. Cinemas will still be showing Deluxe mastered and distributed digital films, not just in US but across the world, throughout Christmas and New Year. A small dedicated team of Santa's Little Helpers will still be manning their posts at Deluxe's Hollywood HQ. The call-centre will still be operating 24/7. But there will be well deserved rest too for my colleagues who have worked so hard this year.

Modesty prevents me from crowing about the achievements of my US colleagues. But having started from practically nothing in March, they have now surpassed everyone else in the
digital cinema mastering and distribution field. Hopefully the statistics will be published next year to show by just how much, but hats off to them for now anyway. This had little to do with technology and everything to do with all the terrific people that Deluxe has assembled. All of them deserve a special mention, but I will just single out Jim Whittlesey, the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of digital cinema.

Our achievements in UK/Europe have been more modest by comparison, but achievements they are nonetheless. We distributed the first Hollywood feature in JPEG2000 i Europe (Ice Age 2 in Denmark in April) and the DCP of 'Casino Royale' playing in Japan right now was made here in London, in the very room that I'm typing this from. We have even distributed films to the UK Film Council's DSN ('Life & Lyrics'). But for most of the year we have been gearing up for the big launch next year, when we expect the DSN to open up and for significant digital cinema installations to appear all over Europe.

I look forward to seeing you all and working together with many of you in 2007. Digital cinema is and remains a team effort, not just within Deluxe but for all of us.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday and a Great New Year to all of you.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - European consultants roll out D-Cinema proposals

I was unable to attend the recent Europa Cinemas conference in Paris, where I was due to talk about the NORDIC project, due to family reasons. This is a shame, as it turned out to be a very interesting conference with a lot of important things said. Mike Gubbins did a terrific job of summarising the even in Screen International's November 24th issue, though sadly, Screen Daily does not appear to have that article available in electronic format. For one thing, the conference seems to have decided once and for all that different European digital cinema standards would not be a good idea and that the DCI specs/SMPTE standards are our best hope of having a unifying standard.

As the UK Film Council's Peter Buckingham was quoted in the article:

"For the smaller players [multiple standards] would be a nightmare and I cannot see how on God's earth that would benefit diversity."

Well put. Sadly, not everything else that got said and presented there was equally well informed or level headed. Two consultants reports dominated discussions; the previosuly published Daniel Goudineau's "FAREWELL TO FILM? What is at Stake in Digital Projection? and a specially commissioned report by Thomas Pintzke and Kim Ludolf Koch of Rinke Medien Consult. From what I can tell these overshadowed a presentation from the European Investment Bank by Patrick van Houdt.

The first of these (Goudineau) accepts DCI/SMPTE but wants additional capabilities for digital cinema systems (i.e. MPEG-2) and proposes that vulnerable cinemas be helped by nationalising the KDM (security key) handling, making it the responsibility (nay, exclusive legal obligation) of a government body, at least in France. If these are the 'ugly' years for digital cinema, then this proposal would in my personal opinion make it the downright unwatchable digital cinema years. Litterally. Because the screen would all too often be black.

The second is written in very bad English and I'm not convinced by the thinking behind it. On page 18 it assumes a fixed VPF of €800 per DCP. That's just over $1,047 at today's exchange rate. The author's are obviously assuming that the Hollywood distributors are goin to be exceptionally generous when it comes to help fund digital cinema in Europe. I'm also not convinced about their thinkingg about how digital cinema equipment will wear out.

This just leaves the EIB report. Whoever works it out (and it's not rocket science) has the best chance of dominating digital cinema deployment in Europe. It won't be Deluxe, because we've always said that we will not get involved in deployment. It makes life easier for us and means that we have no hidden agenda or gate keeper aspirations. Lastly, David Hancock of Screen Digesr did his usual brilliant job of providing the best overview of the digital cinema situation out there in the market today. Why didn't they hire him to write a report, I wonder. Though like I said, I wasn't there, so all I have is the Screen Adrticle and the reports on-line.

Is Australia copying UK Film Council's DSN?

While I have some big news about the UK Film Council's Digital Screen Network (DSN), I cannot reveal them just yet to protect my sources. So instead I'll share with you some news that has reached me from the other side of the world. From Australia, to be precise.

The Australians are setting up something called the Regional Digital Screen Network (RDSN), where digita projectors around the country (continenet?) will be used to promote the greater access to and distribution of Australian films. Here is a snippet from the article I heard about it from (thewest.com.au - Albany to get digital movies):

Albany will be one of eight towns around Australia to get a digital cinema in a bid to bring more Australian content to country audiences.

Among other benefits, the Regional Digital Screen Network will allow country audiences to watch films they would have previously had to wait several months to see.

The Australian Film Commission will oversee Australian programming for the network, including first-release movies, festival programs, documentaries, shorts, programs for schools and other local works from a digital content database.

The scheme will install digital cinema systems by early next year in eight independent venues in Albany, Port Augusta in South Australia, Yarram in Victoria, Katherine in the Northern Territory, Devonport in Tasmania, Hervey Bay in Queensland and Wagga Wagga and Singleton in New South Wales.

Does this remind you of something? It's a lot like the UK Film Council's Digital Screen Network, isn't it? Here is the original press release setting out the project: AFC’s Regional Digital Screen Network takes Australian films to more Australians. No word on whether this is set at a DCI level or even 2K (if you have insights - leave comment, or even crack a joke about Crocodile Dundee in digital).

Had I still been at Screen Digest, I would most likely have spotted this months ago, as indeed my colleagues have done already: Australia establishes regional digital centres, where they also note the "echoes" of the UKFC's DSN. Well done Charlotte and David.

Hollywood d-cinema titles for China dry up

There was great hope for digital cinema in China for many years. The country topped the Asia-Pacific league of digital installations; digital cinema was seen as a way of both beating piracy and showing more Hollywood films than the foreign film quote would otherwise allow and rolling out digital is always easier when you can write it into a Five Year Plan, as I joked. But based on the first day of CineAsia, things are apparently no longer going so well.

At least, that seems to be the message of this article from Screen Daily (China’s digital loop stymied by lack of US product):

The Chinese government started to develop the country’s first digital cinema circuit in 2002 with an initial investment of $25m. Local cinema owners then began to lease equipment - mostly from state-owned China Film Digital - which has been sourced from global digital cinema service suppliers such as Barco, Christie and Panasonic.
...
However, few digital cinemas in China are compliant with the Digital Cinema Initiative’s 2K technical standard announced in July 2005. Therefore the US studios have stopped distributing digital versions of their films in China even though such films bypass the country’s import quotas.
...
Barco and GDC Technology are business partners with Guangdong Dadi Cinemas and have supplied its six cinemas and 14 screens with 2K - 4K resolution equipment.

But as the US studios say there are not enough screens to make it worthwhile releasing any digital versions.

It appears that no major Hollywood film has been released since Dreamwork's Shark Tale in April 2005. That's over a year without a digital titles from Hollywood! And that's not the only bad news:

Separately from d-cinema expansion in China’s major cities, China’s Film Bureau is rolling out cheaper, lower-resolution e-cinema in smaller cities and rural villages.

Good news for small villages, as long as they don't want to watch Eragon or Bond, but not good if you want a global digital market based on one standard.

CineAsia 2007 moving to City of Sin and Vice

I did not make it to CineAsia this year, nor have I ever been to one, but if ever there was a time to go it, it will be next year. It was nothing to do with cinema or digital and everything to do with the location. Of the three major Sunshine conventions, spot the odd one out for locations: Las Vegas, Amsterdam and Beijing. That's right, Las Vegas has gambling and prostitution (though latter only outside Clarke County city limits), Amsterdam has drugs and prostitution, while in Beijing, such things are verboten even in the Forbidden City.

But as of next year CineAsia is moving to Macau, according to this article in the Hollywood Reporter ( CineAsia could move to South China resort ). Macau is well known for gambling, there might be prostitution, though I doubt that they are the sort of 'coffee shops' that you would find in Amsterdam. The official reason is that it will make travel for exhibitors from Taiwan easier, as well as impose less restrictions on the organisers than holding it in Beijing does. This year, apparently, a digital trailer that was supposed to be shown on the opening night was held up. But a contact also told me that mainland Chinese exhibitors aren't interested in going to Beijing, but want to get away from home for this type of convention. To quote from the article,

"For networking, we must go where the exhibitors want to go and I would bet that when they're making their December plans in October, they'd rather go to Macau than Beijing. It's more fun," said Rieder, CineAsia's Distributor of the Year."

Not that any of us at Deluxe go to ShoWest or CinemaExpo for 'fun'. It's hard work and lots of it, I will have you know. And before someone leaves a comment about ShowEast disproving my theory that these conferences are only located in areas of major vices, I have one word for you: golf.

In another article about shooting Chinese films in digital, we are told that:

Digital shoots may be increasingly, popular but digital distribution is still underperforming. The country's rush to a digital cinema future has slowed over the past year or so; there are fewer than 200 digital screens, and compliance with international standards is still a major issue.

Don't expect China's two-tier system of having a digital equivalent of 16mm projectors to go away any time soon.