THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL CINEMA:

LOOKING FOR THE SILVER SCREEN’S GOLDEN RULE

If it ain’t broken don’t fix it... (Hollywood proverb)

On the 29th of September we were dully dispatched to attend a seminar on the future of digital cinema. Hosting the event was the Metropolitan film school, a digital off-shot of the National Film and Television school. The aim of the report was to paint a qualitative picture of the present state of the UK digital film industry and to question its future direction. The research was made by a team of researchers interviewing filmmakers, producers, cinemas, exhibition spaces and a whole range of businesses of different sizes. Before you start yawning at the prospect of reading an academic recollection of the events, we decided to tackle the report and the panel of professionals with our favourite weapon of mass clarification: scepticism.

Armed with good will and sharp pens we tore into the report with the voracity of a Hoxtonite on the tiles tucking into his kebab on a Friday night - although we prefer the odd curry – and decided to enlighten you on what the golden rule of digital cinema is: No matter what they say, it will happen anyway.

To support the studious audience, a condensed 9-page report details the survey. The document stuffed with jargon like ‘shift of power to the consumer’ or ‘pre-eminence of the cinema may decline’ is definitively not for the outsider but requires a high degree of initiation. Even for the connoisseurs, it necessitated the well-rounded supporting panel to go into lengthy explanations. In a nutshell the document stops short of stating the obvious, which is that digital cinema with its almost limitless potential is about to take over and change film viewing and making forever. It is only a matter of when rather than if.

However, the document fails to really inform us what exactly could be done to tap fully into digital cinema’s potential or to tackle the obvious copyright and security issues that will no doubt arise once multiplexes turn their back on celluloid. From the panel the view was that, whatever the potential and advantages offered by the digital revolution, filmmaking was still a hit-driven industry and it is the scale and numbers of those box-office gems that will decide the pace of the digital revolution. As for the copyright issues, well, they are
working on it.

Genre can be a decider too. Drama, documentary and story-driven pieces rely less on technology progress but rather the human/ character element. Interesting also, was the admission that ethnic films will see their share of the market. But no mention of what exactly an ethnic film was. Is it a film with a predominantly ethnic minority cast and crew or an ethnic-led story produced by an ethnic producer or director?

Where the report strikes an interesting chord is in revealing that the progressive transformation of the film industry landscape is fully supported by the UK film council. It means that even the powers upstairs are pushing for inevitable change on the council’s proactive attitude being motivated by the high costs required to invest in anything digital not to mention training, maintenance and upgrades.
So now hopefully, after reading the report and listening to the articulate panel, you will be aware of the golden rule that will change the old silver screen forever.
HERMANN DJOUMESSI
hermann@cenuk.com

CEN FORUM
Concerned by the issues tackled by this article? You are a filmmaker,
distributor, cinemagoer or producer, download the full report on www. cenuk.com, make up your mind and get back to us.

FACT & FILES
www.metfilmschools.co.uk