*Ogden is Professor & Assistant Dean, College of Communication & Media Sciences, Zayed University (Dubai, United Arab Emirates).
Introduction
Storytelling is a universally human endeavor. In his book, Tell Me A Story: Narrative and Intelligence (1995), computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Roger Schank conjectures that not only do humans think in terms of stories; our very understanding of the world is in terms of stories we already understand. “We tell stories to describe ourselves not only so others can understand who we are but also so we can understand ourselves… . We interpret reality through our stories and open our realities up to others when we tell our stories” (Schank, 1995, p. 44). Stories touch all of us, reaching across cultures and generations.”
Robert Fulford, Canadian journalist and cultural critic, posits in his book, The Triumph of Narrative: Storytelling in the Age of Mass Culture (1999), that storytelling formed the core of civilized life and was as important to preliterate peoples as it is to us living in the information age. Indeed, with the advent of mass media—and, in particular, modern cinema—the role of storyteller in popular culture shifted from the individual to the “Culture Industry” (c.f. Horkheimer & Adorno, 1969; Adorno, 1975; Andrae 1979), or what Fulford calls the “industrial narrative” (1999)—an apparatus for the production of meanings and pleasures involving aesthetic strategies and psychological processes (Neale 1985) and bound by its own set of economic and political determinants and made possible by contemporary technical capabilities.
In other words, cinema functions as a social institution providing a form of social contact desired by citizens immersed in a world of “mass culture.” It also exists as a psychological institution whose purpose is to encourage the movie-going habit by providing the kind of entertainment desired by popular culture (Belton, 2013).
Simultaneously, cinema evolved as a technological institution, its existence premised upon the development of specific technologies, most of which originated during the course of industrialization in Europe and America in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries (e.g., film, the camera, the projector and sound recording). The whole concept and practice of filmmaking evolved into an art form dependent upon the mechanical reproduction and mass distribution of “the story”—refracted through the aesthetics of framing, light and shade, color, texture, sounds, movement, the shot/counter-shot, and the mise en scène of cinema.
“[T]here is something remarkable going on in the way our culture now creates and consumes entertainment and media,” observes Steven Poster, National President of the International Cinematographers Guild (2012, p. 6). Through movies, television, and the Internet, contemporary society can now absorb more stories than our ancestors could have ever imagined (Nagy, 1999). We live in the century of mass storytelling.
However, the name most associated with cinematic storytelling, Kodak, after 131 years in business as one of the largest producers of film stock in the world, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012 (De La Merced, 2012). The company was hit hard by the recession and the advent of the RED cameras (One, Epic & Scarlet), the Arri Alexa, and other high-end digital cinema cameras. In the digital world of bits and bytes, Kodak became just one more 20th Century giant to falter in the face of advancing technology.
Perhaps it was inevitable. The digitization of cinema began in the 1980s in the realm of special visual effects. By the early 1990s, digital sound was widely propagated in most theaters, and digital nonlinear editing began to supplant linear editing systems for post-production. “By the end of the 1990s, filmmakers such as George Lucas had begun using digital cameras for original photography and, with the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 1999, Lucas spearheaded the advent of digital projection in motion picture theatres” (Belton, 2013, p. 417).
As filmmakers grapple with the transition from film to digital image acquisition, another shift is in the works. Video capable digital single lens reflex (DSLR) cameras equipped with large image sensors; digital cinema cameras with increasing color depth and dynamic range; emerging standards in 2D, 3D, 2K, 4K, Ultra-high definition and high frame rate (HFR) Digital Cinema Packages (DCP) for theater distribution and projection; all promise to provide moviegoers a more immersive cinema experience. These developments hopefully, will re-energize moviegoers, lure them back into the movie theaters, and increase profits.
As Mark Zoradi, former President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Group stated, “The key to a good film has always been story, story, story; but in today’s environment, it’s story, story, story and blow me away” (cited in Kolesnikov-Jessop 2009).
Background
However, until recently “no matter how often the face of the cinema… changed, the underlying structure of the cinematic experience… remained more or less the same” (Belton, 2013, p. 6). Yet, even that which is most closely associated with cinema’s identity—sitting with others in a darkened theater watching “larger-than-life” images projected on a big screen—was not always the norm.
From Novelty to Narrative
The origins of cinema as an independent medium lie in the development of mass communication technologies evolved for other purposes (Cook, 2004). Specifically, photography (1826-1839), roll film (1880), the Kodak camera (1888), George Eastman’s motion picture film (1889), the motion picture camera (1891-1893), and the motion picture projector (1895-1896) each had to be invented in succession for cinema to be born.
Early experiments in series photography for capturing motion were an important precursor to cinema’s emergence. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge set up a battery of cameras triggered by a horse moving through a set of trip wires. Adapting a Zoëtrope (a parlor novelty of the era) for projecting the photographs, Muybridge arranged his photograph plates around the perimeter of a disc that was manually rotated. Light from a “Magic Lantern” projector was shown through each slide as it stopped momentarily in front of a lens. The image produced was then viewed on a large screen (Neale, 1985). If rotated rapidly enough, a phenomenon known as persistence of vision (an image appearing in front of the eye lingers a split second in the retina after removal of the image), allowed the viewer to experience smooth, realistic motion.
Muybridge called his apparatus the Zoopraxiscope, which was used to project photographic images in motion for the first time to the San Francisco Art Association in 1880 (Neale, 1985).
In 1882, French physiologist and specialist in animal locomotion, Étienne-Jules Marey, invented the Chronophotographic Gun in order to take series photographs of birds in flight (Cook, 2004). Shaped like a rifle, Marey’s camera took 12 instantaneous photographs of movement per second, imprinting them on a rotating glass plate coated with a light-sensitive emulsion. A year later, Marey switched from glass plates to paper roll film. But like Muybridge, “Marey was not interested in cinematography… . In his view, he had invented a machine for dissection of motion similar to Muybridge’s apparatus but more flexible, and he never intended to project his results” (Cook, 2004, p. 4).
In 1887, Hannibal Goodwin, an Episcopalian minister from New Jersey, first used celluloid roll film as a base for light-sensitive emulsions. George Eastman later appropriated Goodwin’s idea and in 1889, began to mass-produce and market celluloid roll film on what would eventually become a global scale (Cook, 2004). Neither Goodwin nor Eastman were initially interested in motion pictures. However, it was the introduction of this durable and flexible celluloid film, coupled with the technical breakthroughs of Muybridge and Marey, that inspired Thomas Edison to attempt to produce recorded moving images to accompany the recorded sounds of his newly-invented phonograph (Neale, 1985). It is interesting to note that, according to Edison’s own account (cited in Neale, 1985), the idea of making motion pictures was never divorced from the idea of recording sound. “The movies were intended to talk from their inception so that, in some sense, the silent cinema represents a thirty-year aberration from the medium’s natural tendency toward a total representation of reality” (Cook, 2004, p. 5).
Capitalizing on these innovations, W.K.L. Dickson, a research assistant at the Edison Laboratories, invented the first authentic motion picture camera, the Kinetograph—first constructed in 1890 with a patent granted in 1894. The basic technology of modern film cameras is still nearly identical to this early device. All film cameras, therefore, have the same five basic functions: a “light tight” body that holds the mechanism which advances the film and exposes it to light; a motor; a magazine containing the film; a lens that collects and focuses light on to the film; and a viewfinder that allows the cinematographer to properly see and frame what he or she is photographing (Freeman, 1998).
Thus, using Eastman’s new roll film, the Kinetograph advanced each frame at a precise rate through the camera, thanks to sprocket holes that allowed metal teeth to grab the film, advance it, and hold the frame motionless in front of the camera’s aperture at split-second intervals. A shutter opened, exposing the frame to light, then closed until the next frame was in place. The Kinetograph repeated this process 40 times per second. Throughout the silent era, other cameras operated at 16 frames per second; it wasn’t until sound was introduced that 24 frames per second became standard, in order to improve the quality of voices and music (Freeman, 1998). When the processed film is projected at the same frame rate, realistic movement is presented to the viewer.
However, for reasons of profitability alone, Edison was initially opposed to projecting films to groups of people. He reasoned (correctly, as it turned out) that if he made and sold projectors, exhibitors would purchase only one machine from him—a projector—instead of several Kinetoscopes (Belton, 2013) that allowed individual viewers to look at the films through a magnifying eyepiece. By 1894, Kinetographs were producing commercially viable films. Initially the first motion pictures (which cost between $10 and $15 each to make) were viewed individually through Edison’s Kinetoscope “peep-shows” for a nickel apiece in arcades (called Nickelodeons) modeled on the phonographic parlors that had proven so successful for Edison (Belton, 2013).
It was after viewing the Kinetoscope in Paris that the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, began thinking about the possibilities of projecting films on to a screen for an audience of paying customers. In 1894, they began working on their own apparatus, the Cinématograph. This machine differed from Edison’s machines by combining both photography and projection into one device at the much lower (and thus, more economical) film rate of 16 frames per second. It was also much lighter and more portable (Neale, 1985).
In 1895, the Lumière brothers demonstrated their Cinématograph to the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industries Nationale (Society for the Encouragement of National Industries) in Paris. The first film screened was a short actuality film of workers leaving the Lumière factory in Lyons (Cook, 2004). The actual engineering contributions of the Lumière brothers were quite modest when compared to that of W.K.L. Dickson—they merely synchronized the shutter movement of the camera with the movement of the photographic film strip. Their real contribution is in the establishment of cinema as an industry (Neale, 1985).
First Publicly Projected Film: Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon, 46 seconds, 1895
Source: Screen capture courtesy Lumière Institute
As pointed out by Jaques Deslandes in his 1966 book, Histoire Comparée du Cinéma (Comparative History of Cinema), “This is what explains the birth of the cinema show in France, in England, in Germany, in the United States… . Moving pictures were no longer just a laboratory experiment, a scientific curiosity, from now on they could be considered a commercially viable public spectacle” (cited in Neale, 1985, p. 48).
The early years of cinema were ones of invention and exploration. The tools of visual storytelling, though crude by today’s standards, were in hand, and the early films of Edison and the Lumiére brothers were fascinating audiences with actuality scenes—either live or staged—of everyday life. However, an important pioneer in developing film narrative was Alice Guy Blaché. Remarkable for her time, Guy Blaché was arguably the first director of either sex to bring a storyfilm to the screen with the 1896 release of her one-minute film, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) that preceded the story-films of Georges Méliès by several months.
If cameras and projectors are the hardware of cinematic storytelling, Guy Blaché was cinema’s first story “designer.” From 1896 to 1920 she wrote and directed hundreds of short films including over 100 synchronized sound films and 22 feature films and produced hundreds more (McMahan, 2003). In the first half of her career, as head of film production for the Gaumont Company (where she was first employed as a secretary), Guy Blaché almost single-handedly developed the art of cinematic narrative (McMahan, 2009) with an emphasis on storytelling to create meaning.
To pursue her career, Alice Guy Blaché had to overcome the confines of a rigid social structure that barely tolerated women in leadership roles, but she persevered to become the first—and so far only—woman to own and run her own film studio; The Solax Studio in Fort Lee, NJ from 1910 to 1914 (McMahan, 2003). In 1922, she divorced her philandering husband—who she had trained in directing—Herbert Blaché, the director of Buster Keaton’s first feature film, The Saphead (1920). After the divorce, she auctioned off her film studio, returned to France, and never made another film (McMahan, 2009).
By the turn of the century, film producers were beginning to assume greater editorial control over the narrative, making multi-shot films and allowing for greater specificity in the story line (Cook, 2004). Such developments are most clearly apparent in the work of Georges Méliès. A professional magician who owned and operated his own theater in Paris, Méliès was an important early filmmaker, developing cinematic narrative which demonstrated a created cause-and-effect reality. Méliès invented and employed a number of important narrative devices, such as the fade-in and fade-out, “lap” (overlapping) dissolve as well as impressive visual effects such as stop-motion photography (Parce qu’on est des geeks! 2013). Though he didn’t employ much editing within individual scenes, the scenes were connected in a way that supported a linear, narrative reality.
By 1902, with the premiere of his one-reel film Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon), Méliès was fully committed to narrative filmmaking. Unfortunately, Méliès became embroiled in two lawsuits with Edison concerning issues of compensation over piracy and plagiarism of his 1902 film. Although he remained committed to his desire of “capturing dreams through cinema” (Parce qu’on est des geeks! 2013) until the end of his filmmaking career—and produced several other ground-breaking films (Les Hallucinations Du Baron de Münchhausen, 1911, and A La Conquête Des Pôles, 1912)—his legal battles left him embittered and by 1913, Méliès abandoned filmmaking and returned to performing magic.
Méliès, Le Voyage Dans La Lune, 1902, 13 minutes
Source: Screen capture, M.R. Ogden.
Middle-class American audiences, who grew up with complicated plots and fascinating characters from such authors as Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë, began to demand more sophisticated film narratives. Directors like Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith began crafting innovative films in order to provide their more discerning audiences with the kinds of stories to which theatre and literature had made them accustomed (Belton, 2013).
Influenced by Méliès, American filmmaker Edwin S. Porter is credited with developing the “invisible technique” of continuity editing. By cutting to different angles of a simultaneous event in successive shots, the illusion of continuous action was maintained. Porter’s Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, both released in 1903, are the foremost examples of this new style of storytelling through crosscutting (or, intercutting) multiple shots depicting parallel action (Cook, 2004).
Taking this a step further, D.W. Griffith, who was an actor in some of Porter’s films, went on to become one of the most important filmmakers of all time, and truly the “father” of modern narrative form. Technologically and aesthetically, Griffith advanced the art form in ways heretofore unimagined. He altered camera angles, employed close-ups, and actively narrated events, thus shaping audience perceptions of them. Additionally, he employed “parallel editing”—cutting back and forth from two or more simultaneous events taking place in separate locations—to create suspense (Belton, 2013).
Porter, The Great Train Robbery, 1903, 11 minutes
Source: Screen capture, M.R. Ogden.
Even though Edison’s Kinetograph camera had produced more than 5,000 films (Freeman, 1998), by 1910, other camera manufacturers such as Bell and Howell, and Pathé (which acquired the Lumière patents in 1902) had invented simpler, lighter, more compact cameras that soon eclipsed the Kinetograph. In fact, “it has been estimated that, before 1918, 60% of all films were shot with a Pathé camera” (Cook, 2004, p. 42).
Nearly all of the cameras of the silent era were hand-cranked. Yet, camera operators were amazingly accurate in maintaining proper film speed (16 fps) and could easily change speeds to suit the story. Cinematographers could crank a little faster (over-crank) to produce slow, lyrical motion, or they could crank a little slower (under-crank) and when projected back at normal speed, they displayed the frenetic, sped-up motion apparent in the silent slapstick comedies of the Keystone Film Company (Cook, 2004).
By the mid-1920s, the Mitchell Camera Corporation began manufacturing large, precision cameras that produced steadier images than previously possible. These cameras became the industry standard for almost 30 years until overtaken by Panavision cameras in the 1950s (Freeman, 1998).
Mitchell Standard Model A 35mm camera, circa 1920s
Source: mitchellcamera.com.
In the United States, the early years of commercial cinema were tumultuous as Edison sued individuals and enterprises over patent disputes in an attempt to protect his monopoly and his profits (Neale, 1985). However, by 1908, the film industry was becoming more stabilized as the major film producers “banded together to form the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC) which sought to control all aspects of motion picture production, distribution and exhibition” (Belton, 2013, p. 12) through its control of basic motion picture patents.
In an attempt to become more respectable, and to court middle-class customers, the MPPC began a campaign to improve the content of motion pictures by engaging in self-censorship to control potentially offensive content (Belton, 2013). The group also provided half-price matinees for women and children and improved the physical conditions of theaters. Distribution licenses were granted to 116 exchanges that could distribute films only to licensed exhibitors who paid a projection license of two dollars per week.
Unlicensed producers and exchanges continued to be a problem, so in 1910 the MPPC created the General Film Company to distribute their films. This development proved to be highly profitable and “was… the first stage in the organized film industry where production, distribution, and exhibition were all integrated, and in the hands of a few large companies” (Jowett, 1976, p. 34) presaging the emergence of the studio system 10 years later.
The Studio System
For the first two decades of cinema, nearly all films were photographed outdoors. Many production facilities were like that of George Méliès, who constructed a glass-enclosed studio on the grounds of his home in a Paris suburb (Cook, 2004). However, Edison’s laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, dubbed the “Black Maria,” was probably the most famous film studio of its time. It is important to note that the “film technologies created in [such] laboratories and ateliers would come to offer a powerful system of world building, with the studio as their spatial locus” (Jacobson, 2011, p. 233). Eventually, the industry outgrew these small, improvised facilities and moved to California, where the weather was more conducive to outdoor productions. Large soundstages were also built in order to provide controlled staging and more control over lighting.
Edison’s Black Maria, World’s First Film Studio, circa 1890s
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
By the second decade of the 20th Century, dozens of movie studios were operating in the U.S. and across the world. A highly specialized industry grew in southern California, honing sophisticated techniques of cinematography, lighting, and editing. The Hollywood studios divided these activities into preproduction, production, and post-production. During preproduction, a film was written and planned. The production phase was technology intensive, involving the choreography of actors, cameras and lighting equipment. Post-production consisted of editing the films into coherent narratives and adding titles—in fact, film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema.
The heart of American cinema was now beating in Hollywood, and the institutional machinery of filmmaking evolved into a three-phase business structure of production, distribution, and exhibition to get their films from studios to theater audiences. Although the MPPC was formally dissolved in 1918 as a result of an antitrust suit initiated in 1912 (Cook, 2004), powerful new film companies, flush with capital, were emerging. With them came the advent of vertical integration.
Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, formerly independent production, distribution, and exhibition companies congealed into five major studios; Paramount, Metro-Goldwin-Mayer (MGM), Warner Bros, RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum), and Fox Pictures. “All of the major studios owned theater chains; the minors—Universal, Columbia, and United Artists—did not” (Belton, 2013, p. 68), but distributed their pictures by special arrangement to the theaters owned by the majors. The resulting economic system was quite efficient. “The major studios produced from 40 to 60 pictures a year… [but in 1945 only] owned 3,000 of the 18,000 theaters around the country… [yet] these theaters generated over 70% of all box-office receipts” (Belton, 2013, p. 69).
As films and their stars increased in popularity, and movies became more expensive to produce, studios began to consolidate their power, seeking to control each phase of a film’s life. However, since the earliest days of the Nickelodeons, moralists and reformers had agitated against the corrupting nature of the movies and their effects on American youth (Cook, 2004). A series of scandals involving popular movie stars in the late 1910s and early 1920s resulted in ministers, priests, women’s clubs, and reform groups across the nation encouraging their membership to boycott the movies.
Cinema History Highlights
Source: M.R. Ogden
In 1922, frightened Hollywood producers formed a self-regulatory trade organization—the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). By 1930, the MPPDA adopted the rather draconian Hayes Production Code. This “voluntary” code, intended to suppress immorality in film, proved mandatory if the film was to be screened in America (Mondello, 2008). Although the code aimed to establish high standards of performance for motion-picture producers, it “merely provided whitewash for overly enthusiastic manifestations of the ‘new morality’ and helped producers subvert the careers of stars whose personal lives might make them too controversial” (Cook, 2004, p. 186).
Sound, Color and Spectacle
Since the advent of cinema, filmmakers hoped for the chance to bring both pictures and sound to the screen. Although the period until the mid-1920s is considered the silent era, few films in major theaters actually were screened completely silent. Pianists or organists—sometimes full orchestras—performed musical accompaniment to the projected images. At times, actors would speak the lines of the characters and machines and performers created sound effects. “What these performances lacked was fully synchronized sound contained within the soundtrack on the film itself” (Freeman, 1998, p. 408).
By the late 1920s, experiments had demonstrated the viability of synchronizing sound with projected film. When Warner Bros Studios released The Jazz Singer in 1927, featuring synchronized dialog and music using their Vitaphone process, the first “talkie” was born. Vitaphone was a sound-on-disc process that issued the audio on a separate 16-inch phonographic disc. While the film was projected, the disc played on a turntable indirectly coupled to the projector motor (Bradley, 2005). Other systems were also under development during this time, and Warner Bros Vitaphone process had competition from Movietone, DeForest Phonofilm, and RCA’s Photophone.
Vitaphone Projection Setup, 1926 Demonstration
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Though audiences were excited by this new novelty, from an aesthetic standpoint, the advent of sound actually took the visual production value of films backward. Film cameras were loud and had to be housed in refrigerator-sized vaults to minimize the noise; as a result, the mobility of the camera was suddenly limited. Microphones had to be placed very near the actors, resulting in restricted blocking and the odd phenomenon of actors leaning close to a bouquet of flowers as they spoke their lines; the flowers, of course, hid the microphone. No question about it, though, sound was here to stay.
Once sound made its appearance, the established major film companies acted cautiously, signing an agreement to only act together. After sound had proved a commercial success, the signatories adopted Movietone as the standard system—a sound-on-film method that recorded sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that recorded the pictures (Neale, 1985). The advent of the “talkies” launched another round of mergers and expansions in the studio system. By the end of the 1920s, more than 40% of theaters were equipped for sound (Kindersley, 2006), and by 1931, “…virtually all films produced in the United States contained synchronized soundtracks” (Freeman, 1998, p. 408).
Movies were gradually moving closer to depicting “real life.” But life isn’t black and white, and experiments with color filmmaking had been conducted since the dawn of the art form. Finally, however, in 1932, Technicolor introduced a practical three-color dye-transfer process that slowly revolutionized moviemaking and dominated color film production in Hollywood until the 1950s (Higgins, 2000). Besides the early collaborations with Walt Disney (e.g., the 1932 Oscar-winning animated short, Flowers and Trees), the key live-action films that first illustrated the potential of the three-color production process were Pioneer Pictures’ La Cucaracha (1934) and Becky Sharp (1935) (Higgins, 2000). Though aesthetically beautiful the Technicolor process was extremely expensive, requiring three times the film stock, complicated lab processes, and strict oversight by the Technicolor Company who insisted on strict secrecy during every phase of production. As a result, most movies were still produced in black and white well into the 1950s; that is, until single-strip Eastman Color Negative Safety Film (5247) and Color Print Film (5281) were released, “revolutionizing the movie industry and forcing Technicolor strictly into the laboratory business” (Bankston, 2005a, p. 5).
By the late 1940s, the rising popularity of television and its competition with the movie industry helped drive more changes. The early impetus for widescreen technology, and its eventual adoption throughout the industry, was that films were losing money at the box office because of television. In the early years of film, the 4:3 aspect ratio set by Edison (4 units wide by 3 units high, also represented as 1.33:1) was assumed to be more aesthetically pleasing than a square box; it was the most common aspect ratio for most films until the 1960s (Freeman, 1998) and that adopted for broadcast by television. However, the studios’ response was characteristically cautious, initially choosing to release fewer but more expensive films still in the standard Academy aspect ratio) hoping to lure audiences back to theaters with quality product (Belton, 2013). However, “[it] was not so much the Hollywood establishment… as the independent producers who engineered a technological revolution that would draw audiences back” (Belton, 2013, p. 327) to the theaters.
It was through the efforts of independent filmmakers during the 1950s and early 1960s, that the most pervasive technological innovations in Hollywood since the introduction of sound were realized. “A series of processes changed the size of the screen, the shape of the image, the dimensions of the films, and the recording and reproduction of sound” (Bordwell, Staiger & Thompson, 1985, p. 358).
Cinerama (1952) launched a widescreen revolution that would permanently alter the shape of the motion picture screen. Cinerama was a widescreen process that required filming with a three-lens camera and projecting with synchronized projectors onto a deeply curved screen extending the full width of most movie theaters. This viewing (yielding a 146° by 55° angle of view) was meant to approximate that of human vision (160° by 60°) and fill a viewer’s entire peripheral vision. Mostly used in travelogue-adventures, such as This is Cinerama (1952) and Seven Wonders of the World (1956), the first two Cinerama fiction films—The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm and How the West Was Won—were released in 1962, to much fanfare and critical acclaim. However, three-camera productions and three-projector system theaters like Cinerama and CineMiracle (1957) were extremely expensive technologies and quickly fell into disuse.
Single-camera and single projector processes like MGM’s Arnoldscope (1953) and Paramount Picture’s VistaVision (1954) consisted of shooting—and, initially screening—the film on its horizontal axis (90° to the frame’s normal orientation on the film strip) to give a wider and less grainy image (Bordwell, Staiger & Thompson, 1985) were unconventional and fared no better.
Anamorphic processes used special lenses to shoot or print squeezed images onto the film as a wide field of view. In projection, the images were unsqueezed using the same lenses, to produce an aspect ratio of 2.55:1—almost twice as wide as the Academy Standard aspect ratio (Freeman, 1998). When Twentieth Century-Fox released The Robe in 1953 using the CinemaScope anamorphic system, it was a spectacular success and just the boost Hollywood needed. Soon, other companies began producing widescreen films using similar anamorphic processes such as Panascope and Super-scope. Nearly all these widescreen systems—including CinemaScope—incorporated stereophonic sound reproduction.
Film Aspect Ratios
Source: M.R. Ogden
If widescreen films were meant to engulf audiences, pulling them into the action, “3D assaulted audiences—hurling spears, shooting arrows, firing guns, and throwing knives at spectators sitting peacefully in their theatre seats” (Belton, 2013, p. 328).
The technology of 3D is rooted in the basic principles of binocular vision. Early attempts at reproducing monochromatic 3D used an anaglyphic system: two strips of film, one tinted red, the other cyan, were projected simultaneously for an audience wearing glasses with one red and one cyan filtered lens (Cook, 2004). When presented with slightly different angles for each eye, the brain processed the two images as a single 3D image. The earliest 3D film using the anaglyphic process was The Power of Love in 1922.
In the late 1930s, MGM released a series of anaglyphic shorts, but the development of polarized filters and lenses around the same time permitted the production of full-color 3D images. Experiments in anaglyphic films ceased in favor of the new method. In 1953, Milton Gunzberg released Bwana Devil, a “dreadful” film shot using a polarized 3D process called Natural Vision. It drew in audiences and surprisingly broke box office records, grossing over $5 million by the end of its run (Jowett, 1976). Natural Vision employed two interlocked cameras whose lenses were positioned to approximate the distance between the human eyes and record the scene on two separate negatives. In the theater, when projected simultaneously onto the screen, spectators wearing disposable glasses with polarized lenses perceived a single three-dimensional image (Cook, 2004). Warner Bros released the second Natural Vision feature, House of Wax (1953), which featured six-track stereophonic sound and was a critical and popular success, returning $5.5 million on an investment of $680,000 (Cook, 2004). “Within a matter of months after the initial release of Bwana Devil, more than 4,900 theaters were converted to 3D” (Belton, 2013, p. 329).
Although Hollywood produced 69 features in 3D between 1953 and 1954, most were cheaply made exploitation films. By late 1953, the stereoscopic 3D craze had peaked. Two large budget features shot in Natural Vision, MGM’s Kiss Me Kate (1953) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder (1954) were released “flat” because the popularity of 3D had fallen dramatically. Although 3D movies were still made decades later for special short films at Disney theme parks, 3D was no longer part of the feature-film production process (Freeman, 1998). One reason for 3D’s demise was that producers found it difficult to make serious narrative films in such a gimmicky process (Cook, 2004). Another problem was the fact that audiences disliked wearing the polarized glasses; many also complained of eyestrain, headaches and nausea.
But, perhaps, the biggest single factor in 3D’s rapid fall from grace was cinematographers’ and directors’ alternative use of deep-focus widescreen photography—especially anamorphic processes that exploited depth through peripheral vision—and compositional techniques that contributed to the feeling of depth without relying on costly, artificial means. Attempts to revive 3D, until most recently, met with varying degrees of success, seeing short runs of popularity in the 1980s with films like Friday the 13th, Part III and Jaws 3D (both 1983).
In 1995, with the release of the IMAX 3D film, Wings of Courage—and later, Space Station 3D in 2002—the use of active display LCD glasses synchronized with the shutters of dual-filmstrip projectors using infrared signals presaged the eventual rise of digital 3D films 10 years later.
Hollywood Becomes Independent
“The dismantling of the studio system began just before World War II when the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division filed suit against the [five] major [and three minor] studios, accusing them of monopolistic practices in their use of block booking, blind bidding, and runs, zones, and clearances” (Belton, 2013, p. 82).
In 1948, in the case of U.S. vs. Paramount, the Supreme Court ruled against the block booking system and recommended the breakup of the studio–theater monopolies. The major studios were forced to divorce their operations from one another, separate production and distribution from exhibition, and divest themselves of their theater chains (Belton, 2013). “RKO and other studios sold their film libraries to television stations to offset the losses from the Paramount case. The studios also released actors from contracts who became the new stars of the television world” (Bomboy, 2015). Other factors also contributed to the demise of the studio system, most notably changes in leisure-time entertainment, the aforementioned competition with television, and the rise of independent production (Cook, 2004). Combined with the extreme form of censorship Hollywood imposed upon itself through the Hayes Production Codes—and “after World War II, with competition from TV on the family front, and from foreign films with nudity on the racy front” (Mondello, 2008)—movie studios were unable (or unwilling) to rein in independent filmmakers who chafed under the antiquated Code.
In another landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1952 (the “Miracle decision”) that films constitute “a significant medium of communication of ideas” and were therefore protected by both the First and Fourteenth Amendments (Cook, 2004, p. 428). By the early 1960s, supported by subsequent court rulings, films were “guaranteed full freedom of expression” (Cook, 2004, p. 428). The influence of the Hayes Production Code had all but disappeared by the end of the 1960s, replaced by the MPAA ratings system (MPAA, 2011) instituted in 1968, revised in 1972, and now in its latest incarnation since 1984.
Although the major studios delayed the process as long as possible, the studio system’s previously rigid control over the assembly line of moviemaking was already disintegrating by the 1960s, while up-and-coming independent production companies and a more “free-wheeling” counterculture were poised to influence popular cinema.
Though the 1960s still featured big-budget, lavish movie spectacles, a parallel movement reflected the younger, more rebellious aesthetic of the “baby boomers.” Actors and directors went into business for themselves, forming their own production companies, and taking as payment lump-sum percentages of the film’s profits (Belton, 2013). The rise and success of independent filmmakers like Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde, 1967), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968), Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, 1969), Dennis Hopper (Easy Rider, 1969), and John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, 1969), demonstrated that filmmakers outside the studio system were freer to experiment with style and content. The writing was on the wall, the major studios would no longer dominate popular filmmaking as they had in the past.
In the early 1960s, an architectural innovation changed the way most people see movies—the move from single-screen theaters (and drive-ins) to multiscreen cineplexes. Although the first multi-screen house with two theaters was built in the 1930s, it was not until the late 1960s that film venues were built with four to six theaters. What these theaters lacked was the atmosphere of the early “movie palaces.” While some owners put effort into the appearance of the lobby and concessions area, in most cases the “actual theater was merely functional” (Haines, 2003, p. 91). The number of screens in one location continued to grow; 1984 marked the opening of the first 18-plex theater in Toronto (Haines, 2003).
The next step in this evolution was the addition of stadium seating—offering moviegoers a better experience by affording more comfortable seating with unobstructed views of the screen (EPS Geofoam, n.d.). Although the number of screens in a location seems to have reached the point of diminishing returns, many theaters are now working on improving the atmosphere they create for their patrons. From bars and restaurants to luxury theaters with a reserved $29 movie ticket, many theater owners are once again working to make the movie-going experience something different from what you can get at home (Gelt & Verrier, 2009).
Recent Developments
In August 1895, Kinetoscope audiences were shocked to see the head of the queen chopped off in Edison Studio’s historical dramatization, The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (1895). This simple, one-minute long depiction employed not only the first film edit, but “…ostensibly the first ‘visual effect’ in cinema [and] would, more than a century later, lead to an industry dominated by films with visual effects” (Rogers, 2014, p. 60).
Since the subsequent films of Georges Méliès thrilled audiences with even more inventive cinematic “tricks,” much has changed in the past century of moviemaking. According to Box Office Mojo, of the top ten highest worldwide grossing films of all time (not adjusted for inflation), all of them featured heavy use of visual effects (Box Office Mojo, 2016a) with James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) and Titanic (1997) occupying the top two positions (respectively) and the much anticipated 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens jumping on to the list at third place. When examining the US Domestic top ten highest grossing films—and adjusting for inflation (Box Office Mojo, 2016b)—the list is topped by Gone with the Wind (1939), a film that featured innovative matte shots as well as other “trickery.” The second film on the list is George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977), arguably the most iconic visual effects movie ever made (Bredow, 2014).
Such “trickery,” special effects, or more commonly referred to now as “visual effects” (VFX), are divided into mechanical, optical, and computer-generated imagery (CGI). “Mechanical effects include those devices used to make rain, wind, cobwebs, fog, snow, and explosions. Optical effects allow images to be combined… through creation of traveling mattes run through an optical printer” (Freeman, 1998, p. 409).
In the early sound era, miniatures and rear projection became popular along with traveling mattes (Martin, 2014), like those employed in the landmark VFX film of the 1930s, King Kong (1933).
This film inspired a young Ray Harryhausen to experiment with stop-motion animation and split-screen action in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and the invention of “Dynamation” (a technique of rear and front projecting footage one frame at a time, still used by stop-motion animators today) most famously employed in the skeleton sword fight scene in Jason and the Argonauts (1963), as well as in two additional Sinbad films (1973 & 1977), and the 1981 film, Clash of the Titans.
Four years in the making, the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, created a new standard for VFX credibility (Martin, 2014). Kubrick used sophisticated traveling mattes combined with “hero” miniatures of spacecraft (ranging from four to 60 feet in length) and live-action to stunning effect (Cook, 2004). The film’s “star gate” sequence dazzled audiences with controlled streak photography, macrophotography of liquids, and deliberate misuse of color-records, and throughout the opening “Dawn of Man” sequence, audiences witnessed the first major application of front projection (Martin, 2014).
Arguably the first movie ever to use computers to create a visual effect—a two-dimensional rotating structure on one level of the underground lab—was The Andromeda Strain in 1971. This work was considered extremely advanced for its time.
In 1976, American International Pictures released Futureworld, which featured the first use of 3D CGI—a brief view of a computer-generated face and hand. In 1994, this groundbreaking effect was awarded a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award. Since then, CGI technology has continued to progress rapidly.
“In the history of VFX, there is a before-and-after point demarcated by the year 1977—when Star Wars revolutionized the industry” (Martin, 2014, p. 71-72). VFX supervisor John Dykstra invented an electronic motion-controlled camera capable of repeating its movements (later called the “Dykstraflex”) and developed methodologies for zero-gravity explosions. Likewise, George Lucas’ visual effects company, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), took a big step forward for CGI with the rendering of a 3D wire-frame view of the Death Star trench depicted as a training aid for rebel pilots in Star Wars (1977).
Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn (1982) incorporated a one-minute sequence created by Pixar (a LucasFilm spin-off), that simulated the “Genesis Effect” (the birth and greening of a planet) and is cinema’s first totally computer-generated VFX shot. It also introduced a fractal-generated landscape and a particle-rendering system to achieve a fiery effect (Dirks, 2009).
Tron (1982) was the first live-action movie to use CGI for a noteworthy length of time (approximately 20 minutes) in the most innovative sequence of its 3D graphics world inside a video game and “showed studios that digitally created images were a viable option for motion pictures” (Bankston, 2005b, p. 1).
In Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), LucasFilm/Pixar created perhaps the first fully photorealistic CGI character in a full-length feature film with the sword-wielding medieval “stained-glass” knight who came to life when jumping out of a window frame.
Visual impresario James Cameron has always relied on VFX in his storytelling dating back to the impressive low-budget miniature work on The Terminator (1984), later expanded on for Aliens (1986). Cameron’s blockbuster action film, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) received a Best Visual Effects Oscar thanks to its depiction of Hollywood’s first CGI main character, the villainous liquid metal T-1000 cyborg (Martin, 2014).
Toy Story (1995), was the first successful animated feature film from Pixar, and was also the first all-CGI animated feature film (Vreeswijk, 2012).
In The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002 and 2003), a combination of motion-capture performance and key-frame techniques brought to life the main digital character Gollum (Dirks, 2009) by using a motion capture suit (with sensors) and recording the movements of actor Andy Serkis. In the 2004 animated film, The Polar Express, the same motion capture technique is used for all its actors (Vreeswijk, 2012).
CGI use has grown exponentially and hand-in-hand with the increasing size of the film’s budget it occupies. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) was the first big-budget feature to use only “virtual” CGI back lot sets. Actors Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie were filmed in front of blue screens; everything else was added in post-production (Dirks, 2009).
More an “event” than a movie, James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) ushered in a new era of CGI. Many believe that Avatar, a largely computer-generated, 3D film—and the top-grossing movie in history, earning nearly $3 billion worldwide—has changed the movie-going experience (Muñoz, 2010). New technologies used in the film included CGI Performance Capture techniques for facial expressions, the Fusion Camera System for 3D shooting, and the Simul-Cam for blending real-time shoots with CGI characters and environments (Jones, 2012).
One of the greatest obstacles to CGI has been effectively capturing facial expressions. In order to overcome this hurdle, Cameron built a technology he dreamed up in 1995, a tiny camera on the front of a helmet that was able to “track every facial movement, from darting eyes and twitching noses to furrowing eyebrows and the tricky interaction of jaw, lips, teeth and tongue” (Thompson, 2010).
The stunning VFX and game-changing use of 3D behind 2013’s Gravity, by director Alfonso Cuarón and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, garnered the film an Oscar for Best Cinematography. Yet, the DP physically lensed only 20 percent of the film. “Despite all the apparent photo-realism of shots of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney drifting in the void, 80 percent of the film was hand-animated on a computer, right down to the clear visors in front of the actors’ faces” (Giardina, 2013). To match the virtual lighting that had previously been programmed into the CGI shots, a specially designed, 20-by-10-foot “light box” lined with 4,096 separately controllable LED lights was used as a “set within the set” to project light on the actors’ faces and give them an idea of the environment they were in, while a specially developed 12-wire rig with carbon-fiber harness gave the filmmakers the ability to “completely puppeteer Sandra” (Giardina, 2013). It is obvious that Gravity built on VFX techniques pioneered in movies like Avatar, but it also pointed the way toward a future where actors could perform on more advanced virtual soundstages where the director and the cinematographer are in complete control of the storytelling environment.
Multichannel Sound
There’s no mistaking the chest-rumbling crescendo associated with THX sound in theaters. It’s nearly as recognizable as its patron’s famous Star Wars theme. Developed by Lucasfilms and named after THX1138 (George Lucas’ 1971 debut feature film), THX is not a cinema sound format, but rather a standardization system that strives to “reproduce the acoustics and ambience of the movie studio, allowing audiences to enjoy a movie’s sound effects, score, dialogue, and visual presentation with the clarity and detail of the final mastering session” (THX, 2016).
At the time of THX’s initial development in the early 1980s, most of the cinemas in the U.S. had not been updated since World War II. Projected images looked shoddy, and the sound was crackly and flat. “All the work and money that Hollywood poured into making movies look and sound amazing was being lost in these dilapidated theaters” (Denison, 2013).
Even if movies were not being screened in THX-certified theaters, the technical standards set by THX illustrated just how good the movie-going experience could be and drove up the quality of projected images and sound in all movie theaters. THX was introduced in 1983 with Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and quickly spread across the industry. To be a THX Certified Cinema, movie theaters must meet the standards of best practices for architectural design, acoustics, sound isolation and audio-visual equipment performance (THX, 2016). As of mid-2016, selfreported company data states that there are about 4,000 THX certified theaters worldwide (THX, 2016).
THX has also delved into home theater equipment certification and “…created a specification for performance and developed software for the postprocessing side that helped translate the cinema experience to the home experience through a modification of the actual movie track sound” (Denison, 2013). In early 2013, THX released THX Tune-Up, a free iOS app that lets consumers connect their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to their TV or projector and perform basic TV calibration tests using custom video test patterns, pictures, and tutorials as well as basic audio tests to check external speakers are working in phase and connected properly for 2-channel stereo or 5.1 sound systems.
While THX set the standards, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound is one of the leading audio delivery technologies in the cinema industry. In the 1970s, Dolby Laboratories introduced Dolby noise reduction (removing hiss from magnetic and optical tracks) and Dolby Stereo—a highly practical 35mm stereo optical release print format that fit the new multichannel soundtrack into the same space on the print occupied by the traditional mono track (Hull, 1999).
Dolby’s unique quadraphonic matrixed audio technique allows for the encoding of four channels of information (left, center, right and surround) on just two physical tracks on movie prints (Karagosian & Lochen, 2003). The Dolby stereo optical format proved so practical that today there are tens of thousands of cinemas worldwide equipped with Dolby processors, and more than 25,000 movies have been released using the Dolby Stereo format (Hull, 1999).
By the late 1980s, Dolby 5.1 was introduced as the cinematic audio configuration documented by various film industry groups as best satisfying the requirements for theatrical film presentation (Hull, 1999). Dolby 5.1 uses “five discrete full-range channels—left, center, right, left surround, and right surround—plus a… low-frequency [effects] channel” (Dolby, 2010a). Because this low-frequency effects (LFE) channel is felt more than heard, and because it needs only one-tenth the bandwidth of the other five channels, it is refered to as a “.1” channel (Hull, 1999).
Dolby also offers Dolby Digital Surround EX, a technology developed in partnership with Lucasfilm’s THX that places a speaker behind the audience to allow for a “fuller, more realistic sound for increased dramatic effect in the theatre” (Dolby, 2010b).
Dolby Surround 7.1 is the newest cinema audio format developed to provide more depth and realism to the cinema experience. By resurrecting the full range left extra, right extra speakers of the earlier Todd-AO 70mm magnetic format, but now calling them left center and right center, Dolby Surround 7.1 improves the spatial dimension of soundtracks and enhances audio definition thereby providing full-featured audio that better matches the visual impact on the screen.
Film’s Slow Fade to Digital
With the rise of CGI-intensive storylines and a desire to cut costs, celluloid film is quickly becoming an endangered medium for making movies as more filmmakers use digital cinema cameras capable of creating high-quality images without the time, expense, and chemicals required to shoot and process on film. “While the debate has raged over whether or not film is dead, ARRI, Panavision, and Aaton quietly ceased production of film cameras in 2011 to focus exclusively on design and manufacture of digital cameras” (Kaufman, 2011).
But, film is not dead—at least, not yet. There is compelling evidence that it is still alive and well among A-list filmmakers. Of the 12 Oscar nominees for either Best Picture or Best Cinematography in 2014, half were shot at least partially on film, four were shot exclusively in a digital format, and only two exclusively on film—Nebraska and 12 Years a Slave (both 2013). Separate from its ongoing viability as an exhibition format, 35mm film was also used in nearly 100 movies (in whole or in part) in 2015. Steve Bellamy, the president of Motion Picture and Entertainment for Kodak, wrote in an open letter, “There have been so many people instrumental in keeping film healthy and vibrant. Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams and … [generations] of filmmakers will owe a debt of gratitude to Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino for what they did with the studios. Again just a banner year for film!” (cited in Fleming Jr., 2016). Still, Tarantino’s recent venture into 70mm with his film The Hateful Eight (2015) notwithstanding, it seems that 35mm is “still the stock of choice for really huge productions that want to look good and have enough complications (and a big enough budget) that the cost of digital color correction vs. the expense of shooting film no longer becomes a factor” (Rizov, 2015).
“Of course, facts are funny things… . Digital cinema has a very short history—Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) was the first full-on 24p [high definition digital] release… and now [10 years later], more than one-third of the films [up for] the industry’s highest honors were shot digitally” (Frazer, 2012). In 2013, only four of the nine films nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards were shot on film, and The Wolf of Wall Street was the first to be distributed exclusively digitally (Stray Angel Films, 2014). And the trend toward increasing digital acquisition seems to be continuing. “Just like in 2015, as well in 2014, the Oscar-nominated films [for 2016] used primarily digital cameras, namely the ARRI Alexa” (Renée, 2016). It is interesting to note that every film nominated for Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards was shot digitally, and all but two of the five films nominated for Best Cinematography—director Todd Haynes’ Carol (Super-16mm) and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (65mm Panavision)—were shot using digital cinema cameras.
Digital production also presents a significant savings for low-budget and independent filmmakers. Production costs using digital cameras and non-linear editing are a fraction of the costs of film production; sometimes as little as a few thousand dollars, and lower negative costs mean a faster track to profitability.
Indeed, the 2009 horror film Paranormal Activity was shot using a Sony FX-1 camcorder and edited on a Dell PC using Sony Vegas. The film’s initial production budget was around $15,000 (Lally, 2009) and it generated close to $200 million worldwide, making it the number one most profitable movie based on return on investment (The Numbers, 2014).
High-end digital cinema cameras like the RED One, the RED Scarlet and the RED Epic have been used on over 800 feature films since 2008 (RED Digital Cinema, 2016); or the Arri Alexa, Alexa XT and the Alexa 65, have been used on over 100 notable features (Arri Group, 2016) since its U.S. debut in the 2011 Disney film Prom (Kadner, 2011). Other cameras, like the Sony CineAlta F65 and the Canon EOS C500, are also making serious inroads as a camera of choice.
Smaller high definition digital still cameras (DSLRs) with large sensors, interchangeable prime lenses, and video recording capabilities are also making inroads in the specialty and independent film markets. Whereas the 2013 Academy Award nominated films for best picture may have been dominated by the Arri Alexa (digital) and the Arriflex (film) cameras, the 2014 Sundance Film Festival winners employed quite an array of cinema cameras including, DSLRs, ARRI, Canon, Panasonic, and the RED Epic and RED Scarlet (Indiewire, 2014). However, just one year later, perhaps one of the most innovative films to come out of Sundance 2015, was Sean Baker’s feature film, Tangerine. The film was full of surprises. As a social realist film, the treatment of its subject matter (transgender prostitutes) raised a few eyebrows. But, perhaps most surprising of all was the fact that the entire film was shot in anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio (2.35:1) using the iPhone 5s (3, in fact), an $8 app (Filmic Pro), a handheld Steadicam Smoothee, and a set of prototype lenses from Moondog Labs (Newton, 2015). Although the decision to use the iPhone 5s was initially made as a matter of budget necessity, Baker, and his co-cinematographer Radium Cheung, observed that the mobile phones added considerably to their goal of realism (Thomson, 2015). Sometimes, the best technology for making a film is what you have in your hand!
It would thus appear that the changeover from film to digital is inevitable; it “offers many economic, environmental, and practical benefits. That’s why more than 80 percent of movie theaters in the United States no longer handle film… [they] use digital projectors and digital playback systems exclusively” (Maltz, 2014). For the most part, this transition has been a boon to filmmakers, but as “born digital” productions proliferate, a huge new headache emerges: preservation (Maltz, 2014). This is why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sounded a clarion call in 2007 over the issue of digital motion picture data longevity in the major Hollywood studios. In their report, titled The Digital Dilemma, the Academy concluded that, although digital technologies provide tremendous benefits, they do not guarantee long-term access to digital data compared to traditional filmmaking using motion picture film stock. Digital technologies make it easier to create motion pictures, but the resulting digital data is much harder to preserve (Science & Technology Council, 2007).
The Academy’s update to this initial examination of digital media archiving was published in 2012 as The Digital Dilemma 2 and focused on the new challenge of maintaining long-term archives of digitally originated features created by the burgeoning numbers of independent and documentary filmmakers. “Independent (‘indie’) filmmakers operating outside of the major Hollywood studios supply 75% of feature film titles screened in U.S. cinemas, despite facing substantial obstacles in doing so. As digital moviemaking technologies have lowered the barrier to entry for making films, competition among indie filmmakers seeking theatrical distribution has increased” (Science & Technology Council, 2012, p. 3-4).
New digital distribution platforms have emerged making it easier for independent filmmakers to connect their films with target audiences (through video-on-demand and pay-per-view) and revenue streams. However, these platforms have not yet proven themselves when it comes to archiving and preservation (Science & Technology Council, 2012). “Unless an independent film is picked up by a major studio’s distribution arm, its path to an audiovisual archive is uncertain. If a filmmaker’s digital work doesn’t make it to such a preservation environment, its lifespan will be limited—as will its revenue-generating potential and its ability to enjoy the full measure of U.S. copyright protection” (Science & Technology Council, 2012, p. 6). For now, at least, the “digital dilemma” seems far from over.
As physical film acquisition slowly yields to digital recording, so too has film editing made the digital shift. In 1989, Lightworks was introduced as the first and most advanced professional editing system on the market, and it had competition right out of the gate when Avid Technology began taking orders the same year for their prototype Avid/1 digital non-linear, computer-based editor.
By 1992, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention was rich with digital nonlinear editing systems—including a wide array of products from Avid Technology. As CGI and other VFX became an increasingly important part of cinematic storytelling, Avid was integrated into the “digital intermediate” workflow.
In 1999, Apple released Final Cut Pro 1.0 along with “a new generation of desktop high-quality editing, specifically designed to take advantage both of the new DV formats and FireWire-fitted Macs” (Rubin, 2000, p. 72). Adobe released their system, Adobe Premiere Pro in 2004.
With digital cinema cameras like the RED and Arri Alexa coming into more common use, and the new non-linear editing systems having the capability of working with the digital footage at full resolution; it is now possible to shoot, edit, and project a movie without ever having to leave the digital environment.
Digital 3D
The first digital 3D film released was Disney’s Chicken Little, shown on Disney Digital 3D (PR Newswire, 2005). Dolby Laboratories outfitted about 100 theaters in the 25 top markets with Dolby Digital Cinema systems in order to screen the film. The idea of actually shooting live-action movies in digital 3D did not become a reality until the creation of the Fusion Camera, a collaborative invention by director James Cameron and Vince Pace (Hollywood Reporter, 2005). The camera “fuses” two Sony HDC-F950 HD cameras “2½ inches apart to mimic the stereoscopic separation of human eyes” (Thompson, 2010). The camera was used to film 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth and 2010’s Tron Legacy.
Vince Pace and James Cameron with Fusion 3D Digital Cinema Camera
Source: CAMERON | PACE Group Photo credit: Marissa Roth
Cameron used a modified version of the Fusion Camera to shoot 2009’s blockbuster Avatar. The altered Fusion allows the “director to view actors within a computer-generated virtual environment, even as they are working on a ‘performance-capture’ set that may have little apparent relationship to what appears on the screen” (Cieply, 2010).
Another breakthrough technology born from Avatar is the swing camera. For a largely animated world such as the one portrayed in the film, the actors must perform through a process called motion capture which records 360 degrees of a performance, but with the added disadvantage that the actors do not know where the camera will be (Thompson, 2010). Likewise, in the past, the director had to choose the shots desired once the filming was completed. Cameron tasked virtual-production supervisor Glenn Derry with creating the swing camera, which “has no lens at all, only an LCD screen and markers that record its position and orientation within the volume [the physical set space] relative to the actors” (Thompson, 2010). An effects switcher feeds back low-resolution CG images of the virtual world to the swing camera allowing the director to move around shooting the actors photographically or even capturing other camera angles on the empty stage as the footage plays back
(Thompson, 2010).
When Hollywood studio executives saw the $2.8 billion worldwide gross receipts for Avatar (2009), they took notice of the film’s ground-breaking use of 3D technology; and when Tim Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland—originally shot in 2D—had box office receipts reach $1 billion thanks to 3D conversion and audiences willing to pay an extra $3.50 “premium” up-charge for a 3D experience, the film industry decided that 3D was going to be their savior. Fox, Paramount, Disney, and Universal collectively shelled out $700 million to help equip theaters with new projectors, and the number of 3D releases jumped from 20 in 2009 to 45 in 2011. However, there was a slight drop to 41 in 2012, that fell further to only 35 in 2013 (Movie Insider, 2014a & 2014b respectively), and 3D releases for 2014 topped out at only 39 films while 2015 saw a sharp decline with only 28 3D releases that year (Box Office Mojo, 2016c). The projected release calendar for 2016 anticipates 35 3D films to hit theaters with an estimate of 20 in 2017, 10 projected for 2019, and only two anticipated for 2020 with another 18 3D projects listed as “to be determined” (Box Office Mojo, 2016c).
What accounts for this up and down—but, mostly down—cycle in 3D film releases? Does the success of landmark 3D films like Avatar (2009), Hugo (2011), Gravity (2013), and more recently The Martian (2015), represent true innovations in cinematic storytelling, or has 3D been subsumed by moneymaking gimmickry? Perhaps, the answer draws from both perspectives. “Some movies use the technology to create more wonderfully immersive scenes, but others do little with the technology or even make a movie worse.” (Lubin, 2014). In part, it could also be that the novelty has worn off with film audiences tired of having their expectations go unfulfilled. Citing the analysis of 1,000 random moviegoers’ Tweets, Phillip Agnew, an analyst with Brandwatch (a social media monitoring and analytics company), observed that, “Before taking their seats, the majority of cinema goers [600 out of 1,000] were positive about 3D films” (Agnew, 2015). However, comments made after screening the 3D movie showed that viewers were mostly disappointed. “Positive mentions decreased by 50%, whilst the amount of negative mentions more than doubled. Consumers expecting to see the ‘future of cinema’ were instead paying more for a blurrier viewing experience, and in many cases, headaches” (Agnew, 2015). Likewise, moviegoers may have tired of paying the hefty surcharge for 3D films that failed to meet their expectations. The latter could be the result of studios rushing post-production conversions of 2D films into 3D resulting in inferior products.
Digital Theater Conversions
In 1999, Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace was the first feature film projected digitally in a commercial cinema—although there were very few theaters capable of doing so at the time.
January 2012, marked the film industry’s crossover point when digital theater projection surpassed 35mm. Nearly 90,000 movie theaters were converted to digital by the end of 2012, demonstrating a growth rate of 40 percent over the 63,825 digital movie theaters that existed just one year earlier (Hancock, 2014).
By 2014, Denmark, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands, Canada, and South Korea had achieved nearly full digital conversion. Meanwhile, Belgium, Finland, France, Indonesia, Switzerland, Taiwan, the U.K., and the U.S. are all well above 90 percent penetration for digital screens, while China accounted for over half of the 32,642 digital theater screens in the Asia-Pacific (Hancock, 2014). According to the Motion Picture Association of America’s Theatrical Market Statistics report (2014), the rapid growth in digital conversion was due in large measure to “double digit growth in the Asia Pacific region (+15%)” (MPAA, 2015). As a result, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia report have achieved near 100 percent digitization in 2015, leaving South America as the only region lagging behind (Sohail, 2015).
According to the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), by March 2015, of the nearly 40,000 screens in the U.S. estimated as yet to be converted, “38,719 screens… [were] converted to digital (15,643 of which are 3D capable), 3,007 screens in Canada [had] been converted (1,382 of which are 3D), and 93,147 screens internationally [were also] converted (59,350 of which are 3D)” (National Association of Theater Owners, 2016).
Global digital cinema conversion now stands at 89.8 percent (Hancock, 2015b). If “e-cinema” screens in India are included in the global screen total, the global digital screen conversion rate jumps to 93.4 percent (Hancock, 2015b). As India’s “homegrown solution to d-cinema [digital cinema], electronic cinema technology, or e-cinema, has been adopted by many developing countries as it is two to three times cheaper…” than d-cinema (BW Online Bureau, 2015). Most Indian theaters run on e-cinema even though it is considered to be lower quality than “true” digital cinema—defined by the Digital Cinema Initiative, or DCI, as a “voluntary set of specifications for an open architecture digital cinema system that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control” (Digital Cinema Initiative, 2016). Although e-cinema theaters use digital projection systems similar to their d-cinema counterparts, they utilize 1080p resolution (rather than 2K-4K resolutions), lower luminance levels and contrast ratio as well as color gamut that do not match strict DCI specifications (BW Online Bureau, 2015). Still, with such a high global conversion rate of analog (i.e., film) theaters to digital, movie production studios are now weighing carefully the cost of making and distributing film vs. the revenue recouped from the limited print runs.
Roger Frazee, Regal Theater’s Vice President of Technical Services, having observed the changes, stated, “Films are now 200-gigabyte hard drives, and projectors are those big electronic machines in the corridor capable of working at multiple frame rates, transmitting closed-captioned subtitles and being monitored remotely. The benefit of digital is, you don’t have damaged film. You don’t have scratched prints, and it looks as good in week six as it does on day one” (cited in Leopold, 2013).
As global digital theater conversion approaches the endgame, the attention of exhibitors and technology manufacturers has turned to the development of other technologies that can enhance the audience experience, drive innovation, and—hopefully—new revenues… the most visible (and audible) technologies being explored include laser projection and immersive audio (Hancock, 2015a).
Current Status
The latest statistics reported by the MPAA (2014) indicate that, “global box office [revenues] for all films released in each country around the world reached $36.4 billion in 2014, up 1 [percent] over 2013’s total, [and is] due to an increase in international box office [sales] ($26.0 billion). Growth was driven primarily by the Asia Pacific region [up 12 percent]. Chinese box office ($4.8 billion) increased 34 [percent] in 2014, becoming the first international market to exceed $4 billion in box office” (p. 2). However, Europe, the Middle East and Africa saw a decline of 3 percent ($10.6 billion) over 2013 revenues ($10.9 billion), while Latin America—the smallest sector of global box office returns at only $3 billion—saw a modest increase of 2 percent (MPAA, 2014). For the domestic U.S. and Canada market, 2014 was down 5 percent ($10.4 billion) from 2013 levels ($10.9 billion), while 3D reviews constituted only 14 percent of box office receipts ($1.4 billion), down two percent from the previous year (Box Office Mojo, 2016d). Domestic box office totals for 2015 improved substantially, growing by 7.4 percent to $11 billion (Box Office Mojo, 2016d). While a final international tally for 2015 has yet to be reported as of mid-2016, Rentrak (a transactional media measurement and analytical service) expects “global revenue [to] clock in between $38 billion and $40 billion, putting the international figure anywhere between $27 billion and $29 billion” (cited in McClintock, 2016). China accounts for a staggering portion of international box office with $6.8 billion in 2015 box office receipts representing an astonishing 49 percent growth over 2014 figures (McClintock, 2016).
In 2015, the average price of a movie ticket in the U.S. was $8.43 (12 percent increase over 2014 and outpacing inflation at) with just over 1.34 billion tickets sold for a total box office gross of $11.3 billion (The Numbers, 2016b). The top five grossing films of 2015 for the U.S. Domestic market were: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens ($742 million) which also had the biggest opening weekend ($248 million), Jurassic World ($652 million), The Avengers: Age of Ultron ($459 million), Inside Out ($356 million), and Furious 7 ($351 million) (The Numbers, 2016b). Of the top 10 films of 2015, the Walt Disney Company produced four, Universal produced three, and Warner Brothers, Lionsgate and 20th Century Fox each had one (The Numbers, 2016b).
The MPAA’s Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) issue ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) on the basis of graphic sex or violence, drug use and dark themes prior to a movie’s release in order to provide parents with guidelines for deciding what films their children are allowed to watch (CARA, 2013). The majority of the 2015 MPAA rated films in the top ten received a PG-13 rating (seven), three were rated PG, and out of the top 20 films, only three were rated R—The Revenant (13), Fifty Shades of Grey (17), and Straight Outta Compton (19) (Box Office Mojo, 2016e). Of the eight films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, half were rated PG-13 and half were rated R, including the winner, Spotlight (Box Office Mojo, 2016f). All of the top five films of 2015 were Action/Adventure films while Thriller/Suspense occupied two spots, as did Drama, and only one of the top ten films was a Comedy (The Numbers, 2016b). Writing for The Wrap, Todd Cunningham perhaps stated it best, “It’s not a coincidence that most films are rated PG-13. Not just because they’re the most lucrative, but because life is unrated… Try to find a Grated war movie, for example (Cunningham, 2015).
As part of the second phase of the digital cinema technology rollout, cinema operators are now turning their attention to the electronic distribution of movies. In 2013, the Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC) was formed by “AMC Theatres, Cinemark Theatres, Regal Entertainment Group, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. to provide the industry with theatrical digital delivery services across North America through a specially created network comprised of next-generation satellite and terrestrial distribution technologies. It is capable of supporting feature, promotional, pre-show and live content distribution into theaters” (DCDC, 2016). Randy Blotky, CEO of DCDC, described the movie distribution network as a “…‘smart pipe’ made up of sophisticated electronics, software and hardware, including satellites, highspeed terrestrial links, with hard drives used as backup” (Blotky, 2014). “DCDC pays for all of the equipment that goes in the theatres [sic], we maintain all of that equipment, and we install all of that equipment at no cost to exhibition “(Blotky, cited it Fuchs, 2016). To recover their costs, DCDC charges fees for delivery to both the theater and content providers that is “way less expensive than for delivering hard drives and physical media to the theatres [sic]. And also, we priced it below the normal return freight for exhibitors” (Blotky, cited it Fuchs, 2016). The total number of theater circuits under contract with DCDC presently sits at 73 across 2,300 theater locations and 28,000 screens delivering digital content to nearly 22,000 screens. As of early 2016, DCDC has made more than 360,000 successful deliveries over its network and anticipates that, by 2018, they will surpass 32,000 screens in more than 3000 theater locations by 2018 (DCDC, 2015). Electronic distribution is not only taking hold in the U.S., from Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, all are examining options and solutions. In India, “the old, celluloid prints that where physically ferried to cinema halls have disappeared from India’s 12,000 screens in recent years. Instead, the digital file of the film is downloaded by satellite or other means to those cinema theatres [sic] that have paid for it… . Also, [electronic] distribution of d-cinema is simpler, faster, cheaper and piracy can be better controlled” (BW Online Bureau, 2015).
Growth in digital 3D screens in 2014 continued for all regions, and the pace of global growth (22 percent) increased for the first time since 2007. The global portion of 3D digital screens increased to 51 percent from 47 percent in 2013. In 2014, the 3D digital proportion of total digital screens in the Asia Pacific region grew to exceed 70 percent of all digital cinema screens, and was higher than any other region (MPAA, 2014). The number of digital 3D screens in the U.S. and Canada increased by only 2 percent (14,783) in 2014 compared to 2013 (14,483) (MPAA, 2014).
It is not all doom and gloom for domestic 3D cinema, however. Writing for Wired, Jennifer Wood observed that, after wringing their hands and lamenting whether 3D was even viable any longer in the domestic movie marketplace, a film comes along to silence the naysayers (Wood, 2013). “In 2009 it was James Cameron’s Avatar. With 2011 came Martin Scorsese’s Hugo… [and in 2013], Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity became the most recent reminder of the genuine storytelling power that stereoscopic film-making holds” (Wood, 2013).
One of the things that made Gravity standout is that Cuarón embraced 3D as a full-fledged storytelling tool, and audiences validated that decision. In its opening weekend, 80 percent of all Gravity ticket-buyers chose to see the film in 3D. The following weekend, that number rose to 82 percent and remained steady through the third weekend (Wood, 2013). This is good news for the industry, but the take away should be that 3D must assume the role of supporting element and enabler of an otherwise outstanding story. If this is so, audiences will come and awards will follow—witness the 7 out of 10 Academy Awards given to Gravity—including Best Cinematography—at the 2014 Oscars as validation. As stated by Keith Simanton, managing editor of IMDb, “The perception of depth does not lead the perception of good taste astray” (cited in Wood, 2013).
Factors to Watch
Of all of the current trends in digital cinema camera designs, perhaps one of the most interesting is the shift toward larger sensors. Full-frame sensors (36mm × 24mm) have been used to shoot video in DSLR cameras since the Canon 5D Mark II was introduced in September 2008. Large format sensors, however, are a completely different matter. As Rich Lackey, writing for Digital Cinema Demystified observed, “It is clear that more is more when it comes to the latest high-end cinema camera technology. More pixels, more dynamic range, larger sensors, and more data. Enough will never be enough… however there are points at which the technology changes so significantly that a very definite generational evolution takes place” (Lackey, 2015b). Since the introduction of the full-frame sensor, the quest for higher resolution, higher dynamic range and better low light performance in digital cinema cameras inevitably resulted in a “devil’s choice” in sensor design trade-offs. “High dynamic range and sensitivity require larger photosites, and simple mathematics dictate that this places limits on overall resolution for a given size sensor… unless, of course, you increase the size of the sensor” (Lackey, 2015a). Answering the call for larger sensors that can provide more pixels as well as greater dynamic range, the Phantom 65 was introduced with a 4K (4096 × 2440) sensor (52.1mm × 30.5mm), while Arri Alexa 65 was tapped to shoot 2015’s The Revenant using a 54.12mm × 25.59mm sensor yielding 6.5K (6560 × 3100), while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be the first feature film shot using the 8K (8192 × 4320) RED Weapon using a 40.96mm × 21.6mm sensor. Of course, large frame sensors require optics that can cover the sensor and for this, the lens manufacturers will have to come to the table and join the discussion.
With the advent of cloud computing in the second decade of the 21st Century, the entertainment industry has taken advantage of solutions provided by working “in the cloud.” Whereas the music industry has used cloud storage to record, produce and distribute millions of tracks, the film industry has been a little late capitalizing on the benefits of cloud technology—but recent innovations have paved the way for present implementation of distributed post-production.
According to Steve Andujar, the CIO at Sony Pictures, cloud computing represents “[a] great opportunity to drive down costs and improve implementation of services” (Doperalski, 2012). Professor Norman Hollyn, Editing Track Head, and Michael Kahn, Endowed Chair at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, stated that the last three films he cut were done remotely; “I can work with people all over the world who I never would have had the opportunity to work with before” thanks to the technology of cloud computing and distributed post-production (Kaufman, 2014a). While the cloud offers anytime/anywhere access to studio content, others have caution that the potential of the cloud should be undertaken with caution.
Bringing consistency and stability to the entire digital workflow—from production to post-production—is one of the goals of the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES). Achieving this goal will positively impact cinematographers, VFX supervisors and content distributors, among others, (Kaufman, 2014a) and plug in seamlessly with a distributed post-production model. Such consistency and potential stability in the digital workflow is of paramount importance to filmmakers as 4K and HFR productions become the norm.
However, with Hollywood’s understandable concerns over digital piracy and the protection of the incredible investment in intellectual property each film represents, the film industry wants some assurances from the cloud computing community. For years, pirated movies, television shows, and music have been on the Internet, and, for just as long, Hollywood and the entertainment business have been trying—and failing—to stop it (The New York Times, 2012). If the results of a Google search for a film pops up a piracy site first (like The Pirate Bay or Megaupload), Hollywood is concerned.
If 4K-plus seems inevitable, then apparently, so are higher frame rates (HFR). Ever since the late 1920s and the introduction of synchronous sound in movies the standard frame rate has been 24 frames per second (fps). In the shift from the hand-cranked 16fps of the silent days to the new technical demands of the “talkies,” a constant playback speed was necessary to keep the audio synchronized with the visuals.
But, as Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002 & 2003), pointed out while speaking at CinemaCon in 2012 (via a videotaped message), “with digital, there’s ‘no reason’ to stay with 24 [fps]… higher frame rates can result in smoother, more lifelike pictures while producing fewer motion artifacts” (Giardina, 2012, April 16). Speaking to the same group one year earlier, James Cameron emphasized that, “if watching 3D in cinemas is like looking through a window—making the jump to 60 fps was removing that window” (Billington, 2011).
As a leading proponent of HFR, Jackson has justified the release of his film trilogy The Hobbit, “science tells us that the human eye stops seeing individual pictures at about 55 fps. Therefore, shooting at 48 fps gives you much more of an illusion of real life. The reduced motion blur on each frame increases sharpness and gives the movie the look of having been shot in 65mm or IMAX. One of the biggest advantages is the fact that your eye is seeing twice the number of images each second, giving the movie a wonderful immersive quality. It makes the 3D experience much more gentle and hugely reduces eyestrain. Much of what makes 3D viewing uncomfortable for some people is the fact that each eye is processing a lot of strobing, blur and flicker. This all but disappears in HFR 3D” (Jackson, 2014).
Filmmakers like Cameron and Jackson, who are advocating for higher frame rates in pursuit of sharper, more realistic images on the screen, contend that films shot and delivered in 24 fps have persistent visual problems. At 24 fps, fast panning and sweeping camera movements are severely limited by visual artifacts and motion-blur that result from such movement.
When a film is shot and shown in 3D, the flaws of 24 fps are even more obvious because of the technical challenges and the sheer volume of visual data being projected. According to Jackson, “shooting and projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues. It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3D” (Singer, 2011).
However, HFRs has its detractors who opine that 24 fps films deliver a depth, grain and tone that is unique to the aesthetic experience and not possible to recreate with digital video—this lack of “graininess” is often jarring and uncomfortable to first-time viewers of HFR 3D. “Such adjectives as “blurry,” “plastic-y” and “weirdly sped-up” were thrown around a lot,” in response to the screenings of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) projected in 48 fps 3D. Responding to critics of HFR, James Cameron observed earlier that the “filmic” style critics so love comes from the angle of the shutter and lighting in the scene, not necessarily from the frame rate (Billington, 2011).
Some think the complaints about HFR might be due to a matter of taste and that the 48 fps and other HFR formats being discussed are still in the early stages of development (Schaefer, 2014). Most digital cinemas are already using existing “Generation 2” projectors—those manufactured in 2010 or later—and all they would need is a software upgrade to be able to screen movies (2D or 3D) at 48 fps, 60 fps or 96 fps. These movie theaters are just waiting for the technology to be sorted out and standardized.
Another technology that remains a potential game-changer, if it ever gets beyond the “gimmicky” consumer still photography stage, is the introduction of light-field technology—also referred to as computational or plenoptic cameras. Whereas, ordinary cameras are capable of receiving 3D light and focusing this on an image sensor to create a 2D image, a plenoptic camera samples the 4D light field on its sensor by inserting a microlens array between the sensor and main lens (Ng, et al., 2005). Not only does this effectively yield 3D images with a single lens, but the creative opportunities of light-field technology will enable such typical production tasks as refocusing, virtual view rendering, shifting focal plains, and dolly zoom effects could all be accomplished during post-production. Companies like Raytrix and Lytro are just now starting to crack the markets for light field photography and videography. In fact, in late 2015, “Lytro announced a new product which takes the company into a new direction: The Lytro Immerge is a futuristic-looking sphere with five rings of light field cameras and sensors to capture the entire light field volume of a scene. The resulting video will be compatible with major virtual reality platforms and headsets such as the Oculus Rift, and allow viewers to look around anywhere from the Immerge’s fixed position, providing an immersive, 360 degree live-action experience” (Light-Field Forum, 2015). To be sure, though, light-field cameras will not be a breakthrough standard in cinematic storytelling for quite some time. Solving issues with sensor light sensitivity and how to process and store all the data is presently being worked on; researchers at the Nanoe-lectronics and Nanophotonics Lab, University of Michigan are developing a new sensor consisting of several transparent light detectors based on graphene. The expectation is that image reconstruction will be much easier, less resource-intensive, and therefore faster, allowing high-speed high-resolution light field video (Light-Field Forum, 2016). Technical barriers aside, the bigger issue may be resistance from directors and cine-matographers to changing industry standards of cinematography and the accepted conventions of visual storytelling.
Still, there is little doubt that emerging technologies will continue to have a profound impact on cinema’s future. This will also force the industry to look at an entirely new kind of numbers game that has nothing to do with weekend grosses, 3D, or 48 fps.
As Steven Poster, ASC and President of the International Cinematographers Guild stated, “Frankly I’m getting a little tired of saying we’re in transition. I think we’ve done the transition and we’re arriving at the place we’re going to want to be for a while. We’re finding out that software, hardware and computing power have gotten to the point where it’s no longer necessary to do the things we’ve always traditionally done… [a]nd as the tools get better, faster and less expensive… [what] it allows for is the image intent of the director and director of photography to be preserved in a way that we’ve never been able to control before” (Kaufman, 2014b).
Indeed, moviegoers of the future might look back on today’s finest films as quaint, just as silent movies produced a century ago seem laughably imperfect to moviegoers today (Hart, 2012). Cinematographer David Stump, ASC, noting the positive changes brought about by the transition from analog to digital, states that “[t]he really good thing that I didn’t expect to see… is that the industry has learned how to learn again… . We had the same workflow, the same conditions and the same parameters for making images for 100 years. Then we started getting all these digital cameras and workflows and… [now] we have accepted that learning new cameras and new ways of working are going to be a daily occurrence” (Kaufman, 2014a).
Getting a Job
University film programs can teach you a lot about the art and craft of visual storytelling. But, there is a big difference between an “academic” film/video set and a “professional” set. “Until you are on a professional set and experience the daily 12-hour plus grind of making movies… knowing the craft and practicing the craft can seem like the difference between knowing how a camera works and building one from parts in a box” (Ogden, 2014).
Few individuals walk out of a university film program and on to a professional production set—most get their start through an internship. Hollywood production companies like Disney/ABC or LucasFilms, and many others, have active (and competitive!) paid internship programs looking to place eager creative minds in to such areas as technology (e.g., IT operations, engineering, DIT, computer visual effects, etc.), to post-production and editorial, to camera, sound design, art and animation, to production management, as well as research and development or public relations and marketing and even accounting. Interns can find themselves working in all areas of the entertainment industry from films, to video games, to television programming, and even designing theme park ride experiences. Once you obtain an internship, you must demonstrate your willingness and ability to work and perform every reasonable task, however menial the task may seem at the beginning of your internship. “…[Being] a production intern is a ‘test’ with only one question; are you willing to become the best intern you can even though you know that you do not want to be an intern for long? If you have chosen your internship well and continue to display enthusiasm for your work, you may be given a bit more responsibility and an opportunity to gain experience with a greater variety of work areas, tasks, and duties as your internship progresses” (Musburger & Ogden, 2014, p. 242). The logic behind this is that those individuals who are above you paid their dues and proved their passion and they expect you to do the same.
It isn’t easy to “break in” to the business—even with a successful internship. But the great thing about the film industry is that once you have a good start in it, and have established yourself and built a reliable network, the possibilities for earnings and success are well within your grasp.
Projecting the Future
It’s 2031. You and your companion settle into your seats in the movie theater for the latest offering from Hollywood’s dream factory. You’re there for the experience, to sit in the dark with a group of intimate strangers and lose yourself in the story. Though the movie is simultaneously available at home, on your mobile device, or projected on your retina by the latest incarnation of Google Glass—it’s not the same. Here, the 4D motion seating engulfs you in comfort and responds according to the projected image (you’ve opted to forgo the extra sensory add-ons, like smell, however); the large, curved screen encompasses your full field of view (Hancock, 2015a; National Association of Theater Owners, 2016). The lights dim, the murmur of conversation dies down. Everyone is anticipating the immersive, experiential spectacle that is the “new cinema.” You reflect on how far cinema technology has come. Although film still exists, it’s only a niche market in art-house screening rooms. Today’s cinema experience is fully digital—from acquisition to intermediary, distribution to projection. Funny, what actually “saved film” isn’t its “organic” aesthetic or even hipster nostalgia; it was its longevity as an archive medium (Ainkow, 2015).
The first two decades of the 21st Century saw digital cinema camera manufactures push the envelope of image resolution beyond 8K (Frazer, 2014; Lackey, 2015a) while the dynamic range expanded, contrast ratios improved, and color depth increased; all allowing for the creation of images that “popped” off the screen with blacker blacks and richer colors than the human eye could even detect (Koll, 2013).
The early laser-illuminated projectors developed by Barco, Christie and IMAX have also improved substantially since 2015 (Hancock, 2015a). Today’s laser projectors yield images as sharp as sunlight and with more “organic” colors that result in the screen itself seeming to simply vanish (Collin, 2014). Likewise, laser projectors and faster frame-rates (up to 120fps) saved 3D. Film director Christopher Noland commented that, “Until we get rid of the glasses or until we really massively improve the process… I’m a little weary of [3D]” (De Semlyn, 2015). His words mirrored what you also thought at the time. However, today the uncomfortable glasses and post-screening headaches are gone and new generations of technology and cinematic storytellers have really advanced the art of 3D cinema.
The rumble of the immersive audio system snaps you from your reverie. Amazing how much audio influences your cinematic experience. Beginning with the 2011 Barco Auro-3D system and the roll-out of Dolby Atmos in 2015, as well as the DST:X systems soon after; immersive audio spread rapidly as audiences became enveloped in a spatial environment of three-dimensional sound (Boylan, 2015). Real advancements in “3D audio” actually came from virtual reality and gaming industries (now, basically the same) thanks to Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus in 2014 and a desire to expand the technology beyond VR gaming (Basnicki, 2015). You recall a quote from Varun Nair, founder of Two Big Ears, “All of a sudden immersive audio stopped being a technology that existed for [its own sake, and became something]… ultimately very crucial: you’ve got great 3D visuals creating a sense of realism, and the audio needs to match up to it” (cited it Basnicki, 2015).
It’s clear that technology has become a fundamental part of both cinematic storytelling and exhibition in a way that was at times fiercely resisted in the early part of the 21st Century. However, innovation in cinema technology has proven necessary and inexorable. For storytelling to maintain its rightful place at the head of pop-culture, it has to embrace the future of “new cinema” and use it to tell stories in new and unique ways. You steal a handful of popcorn from your companion and smile to yourself.
Bibliography
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (2015). Academy Museum. Retrieved from http://www.oscars.org/museum.
Adorno, T. (1975). Culture industry reconsidered. New German Critique, (6), Fall. Retrieved from http://libcom.org/library/culture-industry-reconsidered-theodor-adorno.
Agnew, P. (2015, May 19). Research: The rapid rise and even more rapid fall of 3D movies. Brandwatch Blog. Retrieved from https://www.brandwatch.com/2015/05/4-reasons-why-3d-films-have-failed/.
Ainkow, M. (2015, March 27). Film vs digital: The big debate. Light Iron. Retrieved from http://lightiron.com/about/news/film-vs-digital-th-e-big-debate/.
American Society of Cinematographers (2016). American Cinematographer Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/digital_edition.php.
Andrae, T. (1979). Adorno on film and mass culture: The culture industry reconsidered. Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, (20), 34-37. Retrieved from http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC20folder/AdornoMassCult.html.
Arri Group. (2016). Digital Camera Credits. Retrieved from http://www.arri.com/camera/digital_cameras/credits/.
Bailey, J. (2016). Blog: John’s bailiwick. American Society of Cinematographers. Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/site/blog/johns-bailiwick/.
Bankston, D. (2005a, January). The color space conundrum part one: Seeking standards. American Cinematographer, 86, (1). Retrieved from https://www.theasc.com/magazine/jan05/conundrum/index.html. American Cinematographer,
Bankston, D. 2005b, April). The color space conundrum part two: Digital workflow. American Cinematographer, 86, (4). Retrieved from https://www.theasc.com/magazine/april05/conundrum2/index.html.
Basnicki, E. (2015, June 1). Feature: The rise of immersive audio. Audio Media International. Retrieved from http://www.audiomediainternational.com/news/feature-the-rise-of-immersive-audio/04411.
B.B. (2016). Blog: The film book. American Society of Cinematographers. Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/site/blog/thefilmbook/.
Belton, J. (2013). American cinema/American culture (4th Edition). New York: McGraw Hill.
Bernstein, P. (2014, January 22). Here’s what Sundance cinematographers think of shooting film vs. digital. Indiewire. Retrieved from http://www.indiewire.com/article/heres-what-sundance-cinematographers-think-of-shooting-film-vs-digital.
Billington, A. (2011, April 4). CinemaCon: James Cameron demos the future of cinema at 60fps. FirstShowing.net. Retrieved from http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/cinemacon-james-cameron-demos-the-future-of-cinema-at-60-fps/.
Blotky, R. (2014 March 24). Special delivery: DCDC network promises to revolutionize cinema content distribution. Film Journal International. Retrieved from http://www.filmjournal.com/content/special-delivery-dcdc-network-promises-revolutionize-cinema-content-distribution.
Bomboy, S. (2015, May 4). The day the Supreme Court killed Hollywood’s studio system. Constitution Daily [Blog]. Retrieved from http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2015/05/the-day-the-supreme-court-killed-hollywoods-studio-system/
Bordwell, D., Staiger, J. & Thompson, K. (1985). The classical Hollywood cinema: Film style & mode of production to 1960. New York: Columbia University Press.
Box Office Mojo. (2016a). All Time Box Office Worldwide Grosses. Retrieved http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/.
Box Office Mojo. (2016b). All Time Box Office Domestic Grosses: Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation. Retrieved from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm.
Box Office Mojo. (2016c). Genres: 3D, 1980-Present. Retrieved from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=3d.htm.
Box Office Mojo. (2016d). Yearly Box Office. Retrieved from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/.
Box Office Mojo. (2016e). 2015 Domestic Grosses. Retrieved from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2015&p=.htm.
Box Office Mojo. (2016f). Academy Awards 2015: Picture Detail. Retrieved from http://www.boxofficemojo.com/oscar/chart/?yr=2015&p=.htm.
Boylan, C. (2015, January 24). What’s up with 3D immersive Sound: Dolby Atmos, DTS:X and AURO-3D? Big Picture, Big Sound. Retrieved from http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/What-s-Up-with-3D-Immersive-Sound.shtml.
Bradley, E.M. (2005). The first Hollywood sound shorts, 1926-1931. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
Bredow, R. (2014, March). Refraction: Sleight of hand. International Cinematographers Guild Magazine, 85(03), p. 24 & 26.
BW Online Bureau (2015, November 17). Battle of the box office. BW Businessworld. Retrieved from http://businessworld.in/article/Battle-Of-The-Box-Office/17-11-2015-82087/.
Chang, M. (2011). The camera that changed the world [Video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/50533709.
Cieply, M. (2010, January 13). For all its success, will “Avatar” change the industry? The New York Times, C1.
Cinema Technology Magazine. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.cinematechnologymagazine.com/index.html.
Classification and Rating Administration (CARA). (2013). How: Tips to be “screenwise.” Retrieved from http://filmratings.com/how.html.
Collin, R. (2014, October 5). Is ultra-real 3D the future of cinema? The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/11138563/Film-news.html.
Cook, D.A. (2004). A history of narrative film (4th ed.). New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Crow, J. (2014, March 18). The history of the movie camera in four minutes: From the Lumiere brothers to Google Glass. Open Culture. Retrieved from http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/the-history-of-the-movie-camera-in-four-minutes.html.
Cunningham, T. (2015, March 4). PG-13 vs. R movies: How each rating stacks up at the box office. The Wrap. Retrieved from http://www.thewrap.com/pg-13-vs-r-movies-how-each-rating-stacks-up-at-the-box-office/.
Cunningham, T. (2013, December 4). If PG-13 Is the Moneymaker, Why Is Hollywood Cranking Out So Many R-Rated Movies? The Wrap. Retrieved from http://www.thewrap.com/pg-13-movies-dominated-2013-box-office-r-rated-comedies-clicked/.
Curtis, S. (2014, March 3). The British technology behind Gravity’s Oscar-winning visual effects. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10667457/Gravitys-Oscar-winning-visual-effects.html.
De La Merced, M. (2012, January 19). Eastman Kodak files for bankruptcy. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/eastman-kodak-files-for-bankruptcy/.
De Semlyen, P. (2015, October 5). The future of film: Lasers will save 3D (if your cinema is big enough). I. Retrieved from http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/future-film-lasers/.
Denison, C. (2013, March 1). THX wants to help tune your home theater, not just slap stickers on it. Digital Trends. Retrieved from http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/thx-wants-to-help-tune-your-home-theater-not-just-slap-stickers-on-it/.
Dirks, T. (2009, May 29). Movie history—CGI’s evolution From Westworld to The Matrix to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. AMC Film Critic. Retrieved from http://www.filmcritic.com/features/2009/05/cgi-movie-milestones/.
Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC). (2016). About us. Retrieved from http://www.dcdcdistribution.com/about-us/.
Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC). (2015, August 6). Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (‘DCDC’) poised to surpass 32,000 screens in 2018 as its rollout of the DCDC Network accelerates. Retrieved from http://www.dcdcdistribution.com/2015/08/digital-cinema-distribution-coalition-dcdc-poised-to-surpass-32000-screens-in-2018-as-its-rollout-of-the-dcdc-network-accelerates/.
Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI). (2016). About DCI. Retrieved from http://www.dcimovies.com.
Dolby. (2010a). Dolby Digital Details. Retrieved from http://www.dolby.com/consumer/understand/playback/dolby-digital-details.html.
Dolby. (2010b). 5.1 Surround sound for home theaters, TV broadcasts, and cinemas. Retrieved from http://www.dolby.com/consumer/understand/playback/dolby-digital-details.html.
Doperalski, D. (2012, March 2). Studios maneuver into cloud technology. Variety. Retrieved from http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118051006?refcatid=1009.
EPS Geofoam raises Stockton theater experience to new heights. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.falcongeofoam.com/Documents/Case_Study_Nontransportation.pdf.
Epstein, E.J. (2005). How to finance a Hollywood blockbuster. Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_hollywood_economist/2005/04/how_to_finance_a_hollywood_blockbuster.html.
Feltman, R. (2012, December 13). Seeing double: How do 3-D movies really work? Scienceline.org. Retrieved from http://scienceline.org/2012/12/seeing-double-how-do-3-D-movies-really-work/.
Fleming Jr., M. (2016, January 7). Picture this: Hateful 8 caps strong year for movies for Kodak. Deadline Hollywood.Retrieved from http://deadline.com/2016/01/kodak-the-hateful-eight-star-wars-the-force-awakens-bridge-of-spies-1201678064/.
Frazer, B. (20114, April 24). So you think 4K and 8K look good? Behold this 18K camera platform. Studio Daily. Retrieved from http://www.studiodaily.com/2014/04/so-you-think-4k-and-8k-look-good-behold-this-18k-camera-platform/.
Frazer, B. (2012, February 24). Oscars favor film acquisition, but digital looms large. Studio Daily. Retrieved from http://www.studiodaily.com/2012/02/oscars-favor-film-acquisition-but-digital-looms-large/.
Freeman, J.P. (1998). Motion picture technology. In M.A. Blanchard (Ed.), History of the mass media in the United States: An encyclopedia, (pp. 405-410), Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn.
Fuchs, A. (2016, January 21). Delivering on the Promise: DCDC connects content and cinemas large and small. Film Journal International. Retrieved from http://www.filmjournal.com/features/delivering-promise-dcdc-connects-content-and-cinemas-large-and-small.
Fulford, R. (1999). The triumph of narrative: Storytelling in the age of mass culture. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press.
Gelt, J. and Verrier, R. (2009, December 28) “Luxurious views: Theater chain provides upscale movie-going experience.” The Missoulian. Retrieved from http://www.missoulian.com/business/article_934c08a8-f3c3-11de-9629-001cc4c03286.html.
Giardina, C. (2012, April 16). NAB 2012: James Cameron and Vince Pace aiming for 3-D profitability. The Hollywood Reporter.Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/james-cameron-nab-vince-pace-3-D-312312.
Giardina, C. (2013, October 9). 5 ways Gravity’s VFX wizards sent Sandra Bullock into space. The Hollywood Reporter.Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sandra-bullock-george-clooney-gravity-644538.
Haines, R. W. (2003). The Moviegoing Experience, 1968-2001. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Hancock, D. (2015a, April 17). Advancing the cinema: Theatres reinforce premium status to ensure their future. Film Journal International. Retrieved from http://www.filmjournal.com/features/advancing-cinema-theatres-reinforce-premium-status-ensure-their-future.
Hancock, D. (2015b, March 27). The final push to global digital cinema conversion. IHS Technology. Retrieved from https://technology.ihs.com/527960/the-final-push-to-global-digital-cinema-conversion.
Hancock, D. (2014, March 13). Digital Cinema approaches end game 15 years after launch. IHS Technology. Retrieved from https://technology.ihs.com/494707/digital-cinema-approaches-end-game-15-years-after-launch.
Hart, H. (2012, April 25). Fast-frame Hobbit dangles prospect of superior cinema, but sill theaters bite? Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/04/fast-frame-rate-movies/all/1.
Heuring, D. (2016). Blog: Parallax view. American Society of Cinematographers. Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/site/blog/parallax-view/.
Higgins, S. (2000). Demonstrating three-colour Technicolor: Early three-colour aesthetics and design. Film History, 12, (3), Pp. 358-383.
Hollywood Reporter. (2005, September 15). Future of Entertainment. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001096307.
Horkheimer, M. & Adorno, T. (1969). Dialectic of enlightenment. New York: Herder & Herder.
Hull, J. (1999). Surround sound: Past, present, and future. Dolby Laboratories Inc. Retrieved from http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/zz-_Shared_Assets/English_PDFs/Professional/2_Surround_Past.Present.pdf.
Indiewire. (2014, January 27). How’d They Shoot That? Here’s the Cameras Used By the 2014 Sundance Filmmakers. Retrieved from http://www.indiewire.com/article/how-they-shot-that-heres-what-this-years-sundance-filmmakers-shot-on.
Jackson, P. (2014). See It in HFR 3D: Peter Jackson HFR Q&A. Retrieved from http://www.thehobbit.com/hfr3d/qa.html.
Jacobson, B. (2011, June). The Black Maria: Film studio, film technology (cinema and the history of technology). History and Technology, 27, (2), 233-241.
Jones, B. (2012, May 30). New technology in AVATAR—Performance capture, fusion camera system, and simul-cam. AVATAR. Retrieved from http://avatarblog.typepad.com/avatar-blog/2010/05/new-technology-in-avatar-performance-capture-fusion-camera-system-and-simulcam.html.
Jowett, G. (1976). Film: The Democratic Art. United States: Little, Brown & Company.
Kadner, N. (2011, May). First Dance: Arri’s Alexa makes its U.S. feature debut on Prom, shot by Byron Shah. American Cinematographer. Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/May2011/Prom/page1.php.
Kaplan, D.A. & Duignan-Cabrera, A. (1991, July 22). Lights! Action! Disk Drives! Review of Terminator 2: Judgment Day by James Cameron. Newsweek. p. 54.
Karagosian, M. & Lochen, E. (2003). Multichannel film sound. MKPE Consulting, LLC. Retrieved from http://mkpe.com/publications/d-cinema/misc/multichannel.php.
Kaufman, D. (2014a). Technology 2014 | Production, Post & Beyond: Part ONE. Creative Cow Magazine. Retrieved from http://library.creativecow.net/kaufman_debra/4K_future-of-cinematography/1.
Kaufman, D. (2014b). Technology 2014 | Production, Post & Beyond: Part TWO. Creative Cow Magazine. Retrieved from http://library.creativecow.net/kaufman_debra/4K_future-of-cinematography-2/1.
Kaufman, D. (2011). Film fading to black. Creative Cow Magazine. Retrieved from http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/film-fading-to-black.
Kindersley, D. (2006). Cinema Year by Year 1894-2006. DK Publishing.
Kolesnikov-Jessop, S. (2009, January 9). Another dimension. The Daily Beast. Retrieved from http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/01/09/another-dimension.html.
Koll, N. (2013, November 19). Why dynamic range is more important than resolution for achieving a film look. Retrieved from http://noamkroll.com/why-dynamic-range-is-more-important-than-resolution-for-achieving-a-film-look/.
Koo, R. (2012, April 16). BlackMagic Design’s Cinema Camera is a 2.5K RAW shooter with built-in monitor and recorder for $3K. No Film School. Retrieved from http://nofilmschool.com/2012/04/blackmagic-designs-cinema-camera-2-5k/.
Lackey, R. (2015a, November 24). Full frame and beyond—Large sensor digital cinema. Cinema5D. Retrieved from https://www.cinema5d.com/full-frame-and-beyond-large-sensor-digital-cinema/.
Lackey, R. (2015b, September 9). More resolution, higher dynamic range, larger sensors. Digital Cinema Demystified. Retrieved from http://www.dcinema.me/2015/09/more-resolution-higher-dynamic-range-larger-sensors/.
Lally, K. (2009, September 24). Paranormal Activity—Film Review. The Hollywood Reporter, Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/paranormal-activity-film-review-93579.
Leitner, D. (2913, April 5). Back to the Future with 4K: Large-Sensor Motion Picture Cameras in 2013. Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved from http://filmmakermagazine.com/68031-back-to-the-future-with-4k-large-sensor-motion-picture-cameras-in-2013/#.Uy4ITFxQm0t.
Leopold, T. (2013, June 3). Film to digital: Seeing movies in a new light. CNN Tech. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/31/tech/innovation/digital-film-projection/.
Light-Field Forum (2016, March 15). New light field tech to use transparent sensor layers instead of microlenses. Retrieved from http://lightfield-forum.com/2016/03/new-light-field-tech-to-use-transparent-sensor-layers-instead-of-microlenses/.
Light-Field Forum (2015, November 7). Lytro Immerge: Company focuses on cinematic virtual reality creation. Retrieved from http://lightfield-forum.com/2015/11/lytro-immerge-company-focuses-on-cinematic-virtual-reality-creation/.
Lubin, G. (2014, July 3). Here’s when 3D movies work, when they don’t, and what the future holds. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/are-3d-movies-worth-it-2014-7.
Maltz, A. (2014, February 21). Will today’s digital movies exist in 100 years? IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved from http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/standards/will-todays-digital-movies-exist-in-100-years.
Martin, K. (2014, March). Kong to Lift-Off: A history of VFX cinematography before the digital era. International Cinematographers Guild Magazine, 85(03), p. 68-73.
McClintock, P. (2016, January 3). Global 2015 box office: Revenue hits record $38 billion-plus. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/global-2015-box-office-revenue-851749.
McKay, H.C. (1927). The Handbook of Motion Picture Photography. New York: Falk Publishing, Co. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/handbookofmotion00herb.
McMahan, A. (2009). Alice Guy Blaché: Inventing the Movies. Retrieved from http://www.aliceguyblache.com/inventing-the-movies/home.
McMahan, A. (2003). Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema. New York: Continuum 2003.
Mondello, B. (2008, August 12). Remembering Hollywood’s Hays Code, 40 years on. NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189.
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). (2015). Theatrical market statistics 2014. Retrieved from http://www.mpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/MPAA-Theatrical-Market-Statistics-2014.pdf
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). (2011). What each rating means. Retrieved from http://www.mpaa.org/ratings/what-each-rating-means.
Movie Insider. (2014a). 3-D Movies 2012. Retrieved from http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/3-D/2012/.
Movie Insider. (2014b). 3-D Movies 2013. Retrieved from http://www.movieinsider.com/movies/3-D/2013/.
Muñoz, L. (2010, August). James Cameron on the future of cinema. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/specialsections/40th-anniversary/James-Cameron-on-the-Future-of-Cinema.html.
Musburger, R. & Ogden, M. (2014). Single-camera video production, (6th Ed.). Boston, MA & Oxford, UK: Focal Press.
Museum of the Moving Image. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.movingimage.us.
Nagy, E. (1999). The triumph of narrative: Storytelling in the age of mass culture (Parts 1-5), Ideas with Paul Kennedy: Robert Fulford’s 1999 CBC Massey lectures [Radio lecture series]. Retrieved from http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/the-1999-cbc-massey-lectures-the-triumph-of-narrative-storytelling-in-an-age-of-mass-culture-1.2946862
National Association of Theater Owners (2016). Cinema Technologies. Initiatives. Retrieved from http://www.natoonline.org/initiatives/cinema-technologies/.
Neale, S. (1985). Cinema and technology: Image, sound, colour. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Newton, C. (2015, January 28). How one of the best films at Sundance was shot using an iPhone 5s. The Verge. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/7925023/sundance-film-festival-2015-tangerine-iphone-5s.
Ng, R., Levoy, M., Brüdif, M., Duval, G., Horowitz, M. & Hanrahan, P. (2005, April). Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera. Retrieved from http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/.
Ogden, M. (2014). Website: Single-camera video production, (6th Edition). Focal Press. Retrieved from http://routledgetext-books.com/textbooks/9780415822589/future.php.
Parce qu’on est des geeks! [Because we are geeks!]. (July 2, 2013). Pleins feux sur—Georges Méliès, le cinémagicien visionnaire [Spotlight—Georges Méliès, the visionary cinema magician]. Retrieved March 16, 2014 from http://parce-qu-on-est-des-geeks.com/pleins-feux-sur-georges-melies-le-cinemagicien-visionnaire/.
Poster, S. (2012, March). President’s letter. ICG: International Cinematographers Guild Magazine, 83(03), p. 6.
PR Newswire. (2005, June 27). The Walt Disney Studios and Dolby Bring Disney Digital 3-D(TM) to Selected Theaters Nationwide With CHICKEN LITTLE. Retrieved from http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=149089.
RED Digital Cinema. (2016). Shot on RED. Retrieved from http://www.red.com/shot-on-red?genre=All&sort=release_date_us:desc.
Reeves, K. & Szlasa, J. (Producers), & Kenneally, C. (Director). (2012). Side by side: The science, art, and impact of digital cinema [motion picture]. U.S.A.: Company Films, LLC. Official website: http://sidebysidethemovie.com.
Renée, V. (2016, January 15). Which cameras were used on the Oscar-nominated films of 2016? No Film School. Retrieved from http://nofilmschool.com/2016/01/which-cameras-were-used-oscar-nominated-films-2016.
Rizov, V. (2015, January 15). 39 movies released in 2014 shot on 35mm. Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved from http://filmmakermagazine.com/88971-39-movies-released-in-2014-shot-on-35mm/#.Vvu2-2P0gdc.
Rogers, P. (2014, March). Worlds Asunder. International Cinematographers Guild Magazine, 85(03), p. 58-67.
Rubin, M. (2000). Nonlinear (4th Edition). Gainesville, FL: Triad Publishing Company.
Schubin, M. (2910, April 30). The elephant in the room: 3-D at NAB 2010. Schubin Cafe. Retrieved from http://www.schubincafe.com/2010/04/30/the-elephant-in-the-room-3-D-at-nab-2010/.
Science & Technology Council. (2007). The Digital Dilemma. Hollywood, CA: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma/index.html.
Science & Technology Council. (2012). The Digital Dilemma 2. Hollywood, CA: Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Retrieved from http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/council/projects/digitaldilemma2/.
Schaefer, S. (2014, February 16). The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: Peter Jackson Addresses 48 FPS Controversy. Screen Rant. Retrieved from http://screenrant.com/peter-jackson-hobbit-48-fps-controversy/.
Schank, R. (1995). Tell me a story: Narrative and intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwest University Press.
Singer, M. (2011, April 12). Projecting the future of movies at 48 frames per second. IFC. Retrieved from http://www.ifc.com/fix/2011/04/will-the-future-of-movies-run.
Sohail, H. (2015, March 27). The state of cinema. Qube: Events & News. Retrieved from http://www.qubecinema.com/events/news/2015/state-cinema.
Stevens, M. (2013). 2013 NAB Show recap. Thunder: tech. Retrieved from http://chatter.thunder-tech.com/post/2013_NAB_Show_recap.aspx.
Stray Angel Films (2014, January 21). What cameras were the 2013 best picture Oscar nominees shot on? Cinematography. Retrieved from http://www.strayangel.com/blog/2014/01/21/what-cameras-were-the-2013-best-picture-oscar-nominees/.
The New York Times. (2012, February 8). Copyrights and Internet Piracy (SOPA and PIPA Legislation). Times Topics. Retrieved from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/copyrights/index.html.
The Numbers. (2016a). Domestic theatrical market summary for 2014. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2014/summary.
The Numbers. (2016b). Domestic theatrical market summary for 2015. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2015/summary.
The Numbers. (2016c). Box office history for PG-13 movies in 2014. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2014/mpaa-rating/PG-13-(US).
The Numbers. (2016d). Box office history for PG movies in 2014. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2014/mpaa-rating/PG-(US).
The Numbers. (2016e). Box office history for R-rated movies in 2014. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2014/mpaa-rating/R-(US).
The Numbers. (2016f). Box office history for not rated movies in 2014. Retrieved http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2014/mpaa-rating/Not-Rated-(US).
The Numbers. (2014). Movie Budget and Financial Performance Records. Retrieved from http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/budgets/.
Thomson, P. (2015, February). Sundance 2015: Inspiring indies—Tangerine. American Cinematographer, 96, (2). Retrieved from http://www.theasc.com/ac_magazine/February2015/Sundance2015/page5.php#
Thompson, A. (2010, January). How James Cameron’s innovative new 3-D tech created Avatar. Popular Mechanics Retrieved from http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/visual-effects/4339455.
THX. (2016). THX Certified Cinemas. Retrieved from http://www.thx.com/professional/cinema-certification/thx-certified-cinemas/.
Vreeswijk, S. (2012). A history of CGI in movies. Stikkymedia.com. Retrieved from http://www.stikkymedia.com/articles/a-history-of-cgi-in-movies.
Wood, J. (2013, October 22). What Gravity’s Box Office Triumph Means for the Future of 3-D Film. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/10/gravity-future-3d-movies/.
Wootten, A. (2003, April 13). James Cameron—part two. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/apr/13/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank1.