The inaugural Anaheim International Film Festival will debut this October marking the addition of a world-class cultural event to Orange County and the international film festival circuit. As the first major film festival ever to be held in the city of Anaheim the AIFF will showcase the latest independent feature and student films documentaries live action shorts and animation from across America and the world.
Arthouse Marketing Group has become the newest member of the Cinema Advertising Council. Based in Marina Del Rey California the company represents a mix of art house theatres film institutes and nonprofit organizations that manage some of the most beloved cinemas in the country bringing local regional and national advertisers access to an influential educated and affluent community of independent film aficionados. Arthouse Marketing represents 238 screens in key markets in the U.S.
For years now people involved in exhibition have been gathering at various industry events expecting to hear that the Digital Cinema Implementation Partners finally have their funding and will finally begin to convert the three largest movie chains in the world to digital cinema. And for years at every event the word has been that the funding is just around the corner. Now comes ShoWest 2010 which is being held later this month in Las Vegas and the chances are good that the news from DCIP will again be some variation of just around the corner.
According to research from Harris Interactive and media house Digital Cinema Media 16-24-year-olds are twice as likely to go to the movies as the rest of the UK population. The study estimated that moviegoers in this age group were twice as likely as the rest of the UK population to see a film on Valentine’s Day and 51 percent would go with their girlfriend or boyfriend. A romantic night at the pictures was not just the preserve of the young however. Overall one in five adults planned to see a movie and of those 65 percent were going with a partner or spouse.
The winner of Digital Cinema Report’s first Catalyst Award will be named at ShoWest 2010. As the motion picture exhibition industry enters the second decade of adopting digital technology the award was created to honor the independent exhibitor that best demonstrates the full promise and potential of digital cinema.
ContentFilm International has acquired worldwide rights to Gabriel Range’s new film which also reunites Jeremy Brock and Andrea Calderwood writer and producer of The Last King of Scotland. The currently untitled project inspired by extraordinary real life events is a controversial thriller about London’s outrageous slave trade and one woman’s fight for freedom. This film is shocking to the core and simultaneously one of the most inspiring stories of our time.
Digital Vision has partnered with CineForm as a key element of its forthcoming Nucoda 2009.1 release. The new software which was unveiled in London will include native support for the CineForm RAW format used by Silicon Imaging’s SI-2K camera. “Following a popular industry trend and feedback from our customers we have introduced native support for SI-2K material. This is a highly attractive proposition for film makers who were impressed by the success of the camera’s use on Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire ” says Bruno Munger Digital Vision product manager.
By Michael Karagosian Eleven years have passed since the first public introduction of digital cinema at ShoWest. The industry has since come a long way…and it has still a long way to go. With nearly 100 percent worldwide digital screen growth in 2009 and with the three major circuits in the US set to rollout in 2010 one might get the sense that digital cinema is on a roll. While the US is on track to convert approximately 50 percent of its screens there is still the remaining 50 percent to think about as well as the rest of the world.
In its first alliance with a theme park RealD and LegoLand California have partnered to present the LegoLand 4D presentations Spellbreaker 4D and Lego Racers 4D at the theme park’s Show Place Theater. “It is exciting for LegoLand California to be working with RealD Pro – the single projector technology is outstanding. It has improved the audience experience and reduced time and expense related to dual projector maintenance ” says Andy Morrison entertainment supervisor for LegoLand California Resort.
Central London post facility Mytherapy D-Cinelab has appointed David Wilson to head up its digital cinema mastering department. Our aim is nothing less than to change the way the DCM process works says Wilson. Because it is so new distributors often have to deal with inflexible workflows such as having to provide edited material in specific formats dealing with more than one facility to handle different tasks or more annoyingly having to wait a considerable amount of time for the process to be carried out.
Omnibus Press has published The Independent Film Producer’s Survival Guide: A Business And Legal Sourcebook third edition by Gunnar Erickson Mark Halloran and Harris Tulchin. The new book provides information about how to produce and market an independent film—from the development process to deal making financing setting up the production hiring directors and actors securing location rights acquiring music calculating profits digital movie making distribution and marketing your film.
With a seating capacity for 1 050 people CineMec XL has a 20-meter by 8.10-meter silver screen and two Christie digital projectors and has established itself as one of the leading digital 3D cinemas in Holland. It is also proving to be an important venue for hosting key conferences for national corporations — offering facilities ranging from live satellite transmissions in high definition format on the big screen to infinite digital sound and image potential for audio-visual presentations. Part of the International Cinema Technology Association seminar took place there last summer.
In what has become the opening UK and Irish cinema awards show the 2010 RAAM Awards honored director Danny Boyle; distributor Stewart Till of Icon Films independent cinema operator David Williams of WTW cinemas and John Kelleher the recently retired director of the Irish Film Certification Board. Based on public voting through the Box Office these awards are presented annually to the individuals and companies working the UK and Irish film distribution and cinema industry.
Severin Films has acquired all worldwide rights to Birdemic: Shock and Terror a feature from writer/producer/director James Nguyen. Described by Nguyen as a romantic thriller the film is a horror/action/special-effects-driven love story about a young couple trapped in a small Northern California town under siege by homicidal birds. Birdemic also tackles topical issues of global warming avian flu world peace organic living sexual promiscuity and lavatory access.
When writer/director Gareth Maxwell Rogers decided to shoot the psychological thriller The Mortician in 3D cinematographer Michael McDonough didn’t want the tight budget to limit his choices of shots. “Because we were operating at a $2 million budget we needed to be extremely conservative in our choice of equipment ” says McDonough no stranger to indie and low-budget production. “I’d heard of this new rig from Element Technica and although at the time we were prepping it was one of the first models available I found that it was the most solidly constructed rig I’d come across.
Obhi Chatterjee’s widescreen feature film Shyama brings Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s classic Bengali dance musical to a global audience for the first time with its pioneering digital distribution strategy. The film its soundtrack album and related books are all released by Inner Eye under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence allowing personal copying and sharing. Shyama is also free online using the Java-based technology of Forbidden Technologies plc.
SmartJog a digital delivery service provider and Ymagis a digital cinema deployment company have signed a non-exclusive partnership agreement to integrate their technologies to offer a full digital cinema solution to Ymagis cinema operator clients. In the first phase operators will be able to equip their cinema with a SmartJog Gateway integrated with their Ymagis Central Server. In the next phase Ymagis and SmartJog plan to install the SmartJog software solutions directly onto the Ymagis Cinema Central Server so that the latter can also serve as a reception Gateway.
Sony Corporation has announced that it will open the Sony 3D Technology Center at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City California to train and nurture a community of experts in the rapidly growing market of 3D entertainment. The announcement was made by Sir Howard Stringer chairman CEO and president of Sony Corporation. The new center will offer professionals from across the industry a hands-on opportunity to learn more about the techniques and equipment used to create top-quality 3D productions of all kinds - including sports movies television and games.
Paradise FX Post Republic and Vertigo Films have formed Paradise FX Europe. The new company says it is Europe’s first one-stop shop for 3D production and is working in live action 3D films television program and advertisements. PFXE says it will offer filmmakers a complete 3D digital workflow – from conception through to post-production and can provide producers and directors with experienced crews and 3D technology which has been developed over the past 18 years.
CBS Outdoor and N4D have teamed up to launch Grand Central Station's first 3D digital signage campaign. The centerpiece of the campaign is a 14-foot screen displaying commercials in 3D throughout February. The physiologically correct 3D content created by N4D is a first in digital outdoor advertising and is expected to lead the way for this type of application.
