When Theatres go Digital

Now that alot of theatres are setting up for new Digital Data movies, I wonder if there will be some sort of section for Indie Films. If it will be the future of theatres or if the Big Corporations will force the Theatres into some kind of agreement that only a Union Film will be permitted or not be granted rights to lease movies for showing by the Big movie companies.

I wonder if there is already an agreement like that.
 
It's likely to stay the way it is - megaplexes owned by corporations will play Hollywood flicks and the occasionally Indie that generates buzz, and art houses will continue to play the low budget, artistic indies.

One thing that might come to pass is that with the implementation of Digital Projection, it will be easier for a DV movie to gain a larger audience because it won't have to be tranfered to film, it can be made to look like film and still look good on screen when projected digitally.

Poke
 
I agree, the distribution companies and cinema chains will remain in the same hands, so I'd be surprised if there was increased access.

The only thing factor that might change that, is that with no print costs, distribution companies may push harder to get their indie product out into the cinemas. It's difficult to tell at this point. The pressure that would make that change, needs to come from two different directions, down on the cinemas from the distributors and at the same time up on the cinemas from the consumer. You only need one chain of cinemas to see it as commercially exploitable and it could happen.

What is more likely is that digital distribution will allow a distribution company to buy in an indie film on a per download deal and then they'd offer a selection of films from their catalogue. This would open up possibilities for more indies getting a market, because the cost for the distributor would be next to nothing, just space on the server.

This could be both a good and bad thing. Good in that it will give more access, bad in that there will be no incentive for the distributor to market the indie films, because that will represent a real cost to them and therefore a risk. This would mean that, once more indies would have to self market the product and the distributor would be the main beneficiary.
 
Yeah, about the whole digital film thing. Is anyone else familiar with the advanced AAC audio codec developed at Fraunhofer Institut in Germany? Ready for this? It's 5.1 surround sound under 50kbps. . . so we're talking 5.1 streaming over the internet. So now the possibilities are quite amazing. So the possibility of distribution of [legal] movies on the internet might not be too far off, cost-wise it's a good way to go. . . like the iTunes music store, but for movies!
 
It can only get better...

King Goldfish said:
Now that alot of theatres are setting up for new Digital Data movies, I wonder if there will be some sort of section for Indie Films. If it will be the future of theatres or if the Big Corporations will force the Theatres into some kind of agreement that only a Union Film will be permitted or not be granted rights to lease movies for showing by the Big movie companies.

I wonder if there is already an agreement like that.

It can only get better for Indie filmmakers but the real problem will once again be the onslaught of bad films...

I have a distributor friend who tells me all the time that maybe... If he's lucky, one Indie film out of 300 is worth a shit... Meaning worth it to them to distribute with the possibility of making any money on it...

And...

The number ONE problem he says the majority of these films has is STORY, plain and simple... i.e., the story sucks. He tells me everything else... Format, names, etc., is secondary.

So I would imagine since the invention of MiniDV cameras brought all kinds of wannabe filmmakers out of the closet, so will digital projection. And, the implementation is happening faster than you thing... There's at least 2 companies I know of who are approaching theaters with financing options so that the theater owner will be able to pay for the system within 2 to 5 years i.e., for a small take of the box office...

filmy
 
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