Category: media

New projectors to show movies in theatres cost about $100,000, about ten times what a standard film projector costs. But the payoff might be good – audiences grade the picture quality and film experience better. The cost might be prohibitive even though the longterm costs of getting the movies to theatres goes down. “We did a modest survey with audiences on previous digital runs and the numbers support the digital performances. They were just graded better.” – Los Angeles Times 05/29/00

It’s widely assumed that our TVs and computers will someday get married and everybody will live happily ever after. Now a highly-touted film called “Quantum Leap” is the “first major motion picture” to premiere on the Internet – downloadable for $3.95 for the standard version, $5.95 in hi-rez. Is it a soul-trembling experience? Not hardly. After you get all the technical specs squared away (and they are considerable), the movie just isn’t that good. So much for pioneers. – Chicago Tribune 05/28/00 

More and more Asian directors, producers and actors are making it big in Hollywood. This new presence has nothing to do with diversity, though. It’s about cashing in at the box office. – Boston Herald 05/28/00

If last year’s selections were absurd, this year’s choices of Bjork as best actress and “Dancer in the Dark” as best picture defy understanding. What is going on at Cannes? – The Observer (UK) 05/28/00

Hollywood’s on the hunt for new faces (the old ones are fading at the box office). “Yes, there’s a changing of the guard, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the days of the Brat Pack. Everywhere you look, producers and casting directors are scrambling for fresh new faces to plug into their prefabricated teen comedies and slasher films – each hoping to stumble onto the next Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt or Winona Ryder.” – National Post (Canada) 05/27/00

A former broadcaster tells colleagues that: “the video and audio streaming opportunity will undoubtedly change everything we know today about the business of broadcasting, both radio and television.” – CBC 05/26/00

Movie industry execs are worried that the usual line of sequels, remakes and event film blockbusters hasn’t materialized for this summer. Without them, what’s to drive the buzz about movies? – Boston Herald 05/26/00

Lavish soundtracks have become an increasingly integral part of movie-making and movie-promoting. Madonna, Metallica, and U2 have all contributed new songs to big-budget movies recently. “Soundtracks have been the sleeper album chart success story of the last decade. In 1996 US music buyers were snapping up four times as many soundtrack albums as they had been 10 years before.” – The Guardian 05/26/00

Huge amounts of lottery money have poured into the British film industry in recent years. So, “Why are British films so terrible? So stunningly, excruciatingly, exquisitely bad? The “high concept,” Cecil B DeMille once said, can be scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet. But most Brit-flicks have the entire script actually scribbled on the back of a cigarette packet, written in the time it took for someone to buy a drink at Soho House.” – The Guardian 05/26/00

Trials are being conducted with digital movie projection at 16 selected locations in the United States, Europe and Japan. Half-million movie-goers have already experienced digital cinema. “The prototype projector is called a DLP, or digital light processor. It’s basically a glorified DVD player that uses a new micro-mirror engine to interpret, then “throw” a video image on to the big screen. The result is comparable to, and in some cases better than, the way movies have been projected for more than 100 years, with a light shone through sequential, sprocketed celluloid frames pulled by a claw mechanism through a synchronized shutter.” – National Post (Canada) 05/26/00