Prior to the annual ShoWest cinema trade show a small group of Europeans make a tour of Hollywood studios, companies and places of interest in a two day event put together by the European Digital Cinema Forum (EDCF). This year turned out to be the best yet, thanks to stellar organising and planning by John Graham (EDCF), Thomas MacCalla (VisionInMotion) and Dave Monk (EDCF).
The first stop was perhaps the most important one as it was an informal summit between the various studio representatives (only Universal and WB were missing but sent their regards) hosted by Twentieth Century Fox, and a delegation of 30=odd Europeans. One nation dominated above all. I counted no less than 13 Norwegians at the first meeting, to which you could add three to four 'honorary Norwegians', people who work in, with or for Norwegians (myself included, given my Unique Digital consultancy clients). What was amazing was not the sheer numbers but that spread of interests they represented, including as they did exhibitors/cinemas, film distributors, public bodies, trade organisations, education and research institutions, cinema advertising providers, film archives, cinema installation and service companies and others.
Norway is serious about becoming the first country in the world to switch over all of its cinemas to digital and this gathering amply demonstrated that commitment to the Hollywood studios. Contrast it with Italy and France, who sent no representatives, or Spain and Germany who only had one small delegation each, both of them smaller than the Swedish delegation, which together with the British one was the second largest.
I won't go into detail of the discussion that was held as it Chatham House Rules applied. Sufficient to say that there remain plenty of digital cinema issues still to be resolved.
Lunch was held at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science (AMPAS). While best known for handing out the Oscars, AMPAS is true to the 'Science' in its title and Andy Maltz (the man with the greatest job in Hollywood - though not the easiest) gave an overview of efforts to preserve the past while also helping future developments of image capture.
The day finished in Chatsworth, home to the television series '24', the US porn industry and (the purpose of our trip) the up-link facility of AccessIT. It not only beams films to cinemas all over te Us but also handles television feeds. It impressed us all, not because it was slick and glitzy - it isn't - but because of its GTD (get things done) approach that had made it the world's largest digital cinema operation.
Next day started at an old United Artists multiplex on the outskirts of LA (La Canada Flintridge, anyone?), where we got to see National CineMedia's FirstLook cinema advertising programme. It has improved significantly since I saw it a year ago, when it was known as The 2wenty, but re-christened as people got the idea that it was 20 minuted of pre-show. It was now 720p resolution and slicker look. But as Dave Spilde from Unique pointed out, the good adverts are what caught the European audiences' attention, while the brief making-of proto-trailers left them cold. Maybe it's just a culture difference, or maybe it is the reason that US audiences don't like pre-show where most European don't seem to mind or even like cinema advertising.
No lunch from Technicolor, only coffee, so instead I got acquainted with the culinary delights of Panda Express in Burbank before heading to the digital cinema testing lab that Technicolor has created out of the old Disney animation screening rooms. The projectors and server testing was very impressive and the chief tester was surprisingly frank in his admissions about some of the technologies and systems, so I definitely won't be repeating that here. Technicolor is doing the industry a great service. My only worry for them is that they are losing track of their core business of film serives (last year they ranked third, behind Deluxe and AccessIT in mastering and distributing digital cinema copies!), while not rolling out fast in the US and struggling to get the Hollywood studios to sign on to the European plans that they announced prematurely last June.
The last stop of the second day was DTS Digital Cinema, which is being spun off from the consumer/audio bit of DTS. Everyone was very impressed with the image restoration business that is done by what was formerly done by Lowry Digital. I'm not sure what their plans are for the digital cinema server side, following the acquisition of Avica. Apparently they distributed a JPEG2000 version of 'Dirty Dancing' recently in Ireland and will also show Disney's 'Meet the Robinsons'. The reason they are able to do that is because they have swapped out the Avica MPEG servers for JPEG2000-enabled servers from Doremi. Watch this space for more announcements from them as we get into the review of ShoWest itself next week.
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