A revolution is taking place. Like all successful cultural overhauls it is hidden in plain sight, right under your nose; although there is a window where all is revealed. The above picture has already given away what I’m talking about (a big thank you to Peter Stephens for his superb image). Take a good look; it won’t look like this for much longer.
The projection room as we don’t know it, is changing. It’s the most important room in any cinema, containing all the technological doo-hickys and thingumajigs to make your visit to the pictures pan out as expected. Yet it remains a mystery to a large proportion of us.
Cinema is in a period of transformation as far-reaching as the introduction of sound and colour were. If you’ve stepped inside a multiplex anytime in the last 18 months you’d be hard pressed not to notice. Whether it is through an inflated ticket price or feeling at times that you’ve gone to a group eye exam rather than the flicks; digital 3D is moving the goalposts, towards you!
A surprising number of people already believe that the film they watch on the big screen these days comes on DVD, and the job of the projectionist is simply to huff on the disc, give it a wipe on their shirt and press play at the appropriate moment. The truth is far more technical and difficult; with good old 35mm film the chief medium, right up until the recent emergence of high definition digital projection and hard drives with enough space to carry the frankly eye-watering amount of data required to make pin-sharp images in both two and three dimensions.
To make all this work means expensive new kit which reduces the craft of projection to button presses and computer screens. The hypnotic clacking sound of motors and platters tirelessly pulling film through at 24 frames a second is being replaced by virtually silent solid state drives, powerful computer processors and self-focusing lenses.
If you’re a film executive or in charge of a major cinema outlet, the temptation to upgrade must be enormous. Since Avatar more films are being developed and shot in 3D (as well as introducing a rather nasty trend in retro-fitting 2D films). You can charge more to watch a 3D film, thus increasing takings. Disappointing productions can potentially be transformed into box office big hitters with virtually no extra effort.
Piracy can be more closely monitored with the use of timed electronic keys. Plus anyone who feels like videoing a film is going to have a hard time shifting a blurry pre-3D image to anyone.
While there is an initial investment needed by cinema chains, cost cutting is the name of the game from thereon in. Distribution and transportation for one, disk drives are considerably smaller and lighter than their film-can predecessors).
The most concerning dimension to this is the savings made by the reduction of projection staff. The new machines do a lot of the work themselves; meaning teams of up to 6 projectionists can be whittled down to just 2 or less.
If you’re detecting a mixture of dewy-eyed romanticism and techno admiration from me then I’m successfully wearing both right there on my sleeves where I like them. I don’t know whether to be in awe of, or appalled at the speed of these developments.
On one hand I love the improvements in picture and sound quality offered by digital; the 2D digital version I saw of Star Trek in 2009 blew my socks off all the way to the fleece of the sheep they were woven from.
On the other is my contempt of 3D; serving as little more than a new way of selling fridges to Eskimos in my opinion. More importantly though is the loss from the industry of people who genuinely care about film presentation, their skills and instincts cast aside in favour of this year’s model. The final product may look better than ever but sorely lacks a personal touch.
As always I suspect the solution lies somewhere between the magic and the science.
(image: from Exeter photographer Peter Stephens. See Peter’s 3-D trip around a projector room on his site)
