ShoWest Underscores Digital Cinema Momentum
By Carolyn Giardina
Progress in the developing area of Digital Cinema, or digital projection and distribution, continued when stakeholders recently converged on Las Vegas for the annual motion picture industry convention ShoWest.
Notably, Texas Instruments (TI)–which makes the DLP Cinema technology found in many projection systems used in theaters and post houses–announced that 1,195 DLP Cinema projectors from customers Barco, Christie and NEC are now deployed worldwide, and up to 33,000 additional digital cinema systems are scheduled to deploy in North America in the next few years. It reported that this includes 579 projector systems in the Americas, 342 in Europe and 274 in Asia deployed in commercial theatres, screening rooms and postproduction houses (where they are widely used to view work in color correction and digital intermediate suites).
On the theatrical side, in recent months up to 32,000 digital cinema system conversions have been announced for North America, including those from Centennial, Colo.-headquartered National CineMedia, which TI reported is preparing a digital cinema plan for the volume purchase of 13,000 systems. National CineMedia–a venture of AMC Entertainment, Cinemark USA, and Regal Entertainment Group, three of the world’s leading theatrical exhibition companies–develops pre-feature entertainment; cinema and lobby advertising products; business communications and training services; and alternative forms of entertainment content.
TI also announced that 4,000 Christie CP2000 DLP Cinema projectors will be deployed in the U.S. and Canada through the Christie/AccessIT business plan; Carmike has signed on for 2,300. And, TI reported that UltraStar was the first theatre chain to convert entirely to digital through this model, with 102 DLP Cinema projectors now installed, and Technicolor has announced a deployment of up to 15,000 digital cinema systems over 10 years, with Century Theaters signed on as the first exhibitor.
The amount of available feature content for these screens has also been climbing. DLP Cinema technology was used at ShoWest to preview digital screenings of three upcoming summer releases, as well as project multiple digital product reel presentations, and a special presentation looking at the past, present and future of digital cinema.
The upcoming titles presented as digital screenings were Lions Gate Entertainment’s Akeelah and the Bee; Walt Disney Pictures’ Cars, a Pixar Animation Studios film; and DreamWorks Animation’s Over the Hedge.
Meanwhile, technology exhibitions included Sony’s digital cinema system, which included a newly developed media block and the Sony Screen Management System. These new technologies, when combined with Sony’s Silicon X-tal Reflective Display (SXRD) 4K projector and packaged in a FIPS 140 enclosure, are designed to provide a complete package for exhibitors for displaying both 2k and 4k content.
The new media block, model LMT-100, is a combined server and decoder that contains all the components required to ingest, decode and play digital content. The device can be controlled through either a local computer program using Sony’s Media Terminal Control (MTC), or through the Screen Management System.
The 4k projector is already on the market, and the LMT-100 and Screen Management System are expected to be available in May and June, respectively.
And Panasonic introduced its PT-DW5000 and its selectable lens (without lens) version PT-DW5000L, two widescreen one-chip mid-to-large venue projectors, designed to project interstitial materials including movie trailers and commercials.
Panasonic reported that the PT-DW5000 and PT-DW5000L are equipped with high-speed digital signal processing with 16-bit color, dynamic sharpness control, and progressive cinema scan (3/2 pull down) capabilities. The units are HD-ready, and can automatically synchronize to display 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480/576i video in 16:9 wide aspect ratio.
Both projectors are scheduled to be available in June.
SHOOT senior editor, technology and postproduction, Carolyn Giardina can be reached at 310-822-0211 or at cgiardina@shootonline.com.Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
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