A big blow to film production at Kodak and Fuji

[MaximusM3]

Well said and 100% correct lxdude. I, for one, trust and take what Ron has to say as informed truth and I certainly appeciate his knowledge and contribution the the forum.

[M.A.Longmore]

CGW;

I think that you can see that if I divulge exact figures and names, I will not only lose sources, but sources might have problems with EK ...

My posts are not always 100% accurate, but I try the best I can to be as accurate as possible. I hope that my past history speaks for itself ...

It seems to me you would rather keep questioning me than look at some of that reference material ...

Why?

PE

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It's probably so much easier to do nothing.
Than to actually make an effort to do something ...


Ron,
The Other Ron ...
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[Policar]

In terms of actual cost of film and processing, an average 35mm film print costs a couple-few thousand dollars. By agreement between Technicolor and United Parcel Service, a movie costs about $60.00 to ship one way. ($120.00 round trip.) The cost of the film print is built in to the first run rental agreement. The theater pays for the prints as part of the price of getting the film. The cost of the film prints is already made up for when the movie hits the screen for the first time.

Do you realize that most of the price of a movie ticket goes to back to the movie studios? If the average price of a ticket costs $10.00, the studio gets about $8.00 or $9.00. The theater gets $1.00 or $2.00. That's why popcorn costs so damn much. A movie theater is little more than a popcorn stand that just happens to show movies in order to entice people in.

You're mostly right, but a few thousand dollars times a few thousand theaters is still pretty substantial: around $10 million. This isn't a huge amount of money compared with a $200 million production budget or $100 million ad campaign, but it contributes to the "blockbuster only" mindset of Hollywood studios and makes mid-budget or "unusual" movies (already generally unprofitable) a trickier proposition. Plus, it's still a fair amount of money, which doubles for 3D releases.

Studios claim 90% of profits for the first weekend, but it's on a per-movie basis so it varies. By the fourth or fifth week, the studios are making 50-60% of profits, but most movies make the majority of their profits in the first few weeks so the studios do see the vast majority of ticket sales. Of course it's greed that motivates the studios, but profit margins are so poor in the entertainment industry and the cost of product so high that "greed" and "staying in business" can be interchangeable. Just look at MGM.

Lastly, most megaplexes project on spools rather than single reels, and the pressure exerted on film by the spools damages film prints. My college had a film series that played movies after their first run and while the image quality was variable, it was often downright awful. Film does degrade.

The best film prints I've seen (70mm and a movie premier in NYC) have exceeded the best digital projection I've seen, not in terms of resolution necessarily but certainly in terms of tonality and black levels. But as a business proposition, beyond the initial high investment in digital projectors (and the argument over who pays: studios or theaters), digital wins.

[Photo Engineer]

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It's probably so much easier to do nothing.
Than to actually make an effort to do something ...


Ron,
The Other Ron ...
.

I debate this constantly with myself!

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here on APUG.

PE

[M.A.Longmore]

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You are here to offer help and advice to APUGii Vulgaris.


Ron
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[Photo Engineer]

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You are here to offer help and advice to APUGii Vulgaris.


Ron
.

The guy who asked for a Martinus in Rome was asked in return "don't you mean Martini?". He replied, "If I want more than one, I'll ask for them."

I think APUG Vulgaris is enough for me! APUGii is more than I need.

PE

[M.A.Longmore]

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PE, You Can Be Compared To Kodachrome.
And don't it always seem to go, That we don't know what we've got till it's gone ...

I'm Just Saying ...


Ron
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[fotch]

I debate this constantly with myself!

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing here on APUG.

PE

Feeding the Trolls

[Worker 11811]

Policar,

Most multiplexes run film from platters which can play as much as 4 hours of film in one continuous loop. Properly maintained and operated, film can be make hundreds and hundreds of passes through a platter/projector system with virtually no damage but for minimal wear and tear at the edges. (The non-projected part of the film.)

After seeing how poorly most people treat film and after occasionally treating film poorly, myself, I steadfastly insist that more than 90% of what people attribute to "natural" degradation of film is really human error. I do not believe that the other 10% can be made up for with digital projection alone. Hard drive failures, other random system failures and general inattention to detail by theater employees will still exist, regardless of the medium used.

I believe that, in many cases, the superior visual quality of film presented by a competent, caring operator can surpass anything digital can produce. Therefore, the cost of scrapping your already paid for film equipment and going into debt by buying even more expensive digital equipment makes the conversion a false economy.

I like digital media. I think it is useful in many cases. Satellite broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera would not be possible without it. But, I think the wholesale switchover from film to digital is not a good thing. Movie theaters are in enough trouble as it is. I don't think digital projection will save them if they don't mind the reason why they are in business to begin with.

I think the extinction of movie theaters, digital or film-based, is more of a threat to the demand/production of film than a switchover to digital projection.

[Ross Chambers]

Ah Randy,

If only your skill and care could be applied by all projectionists (whoops, sorry candy bar button pressers who now "run the show")

As one who worked most of my life in motion picture production I was delighted to see a spotlessly clean, unscratched, in rack (or frame) image when I saw my first digitally projected theatrical film.

It fell to me on one occasion to double check the Sydney premiere print of Oscar winning "The Piano". Some way into the print the leading lady zipped across the screen several feet. The projectionist explained to me that he had damaged the print, but it was OK because he had removed that section and spliced it neatly. It wasn't fun ransacking Sydney for a replacement print at short notice.

I spent many long hours at one time checking used release prints of one of our productions that were intended for secondary rural cinemas. All had varying degrees of damage from previous runs.

Randy explains the fairly universal platter system, this makes flexibility of programming hard, it takes several hours to make up and break down a show, not very handy for a repertory style cinema.

However all of this is much less important that the whole chain of production/post production which presently finds material being transferred back and forth between digital and analogue media: film master transferred to digital for picture and sound editing, digital final cut matched back to film master negative, digital CGI (which becomes more and more used in every genre of film, not just the obvious SFX ones) converted to film (losing quality in the process) so as to be integrated into the matched film master neg. There are feature films being shot digitally BTW. It is apparent to me that the technical trend must be to a wholly integrated digital production, post and distribution regime.

I must agree very much with Randy's other point:

<<But, I think the wholesale switchover from film to digital is not a good thing. Movie theaters are in enough trouble as it is. I don't think digital projection will save them if they don't mind the reason why they are in business to begin with.

I think the extinction of movie theaters, digital or film-based, is more of a threat to the demand/production of film than a switchover to digital projection.>>

Regards - Ross