Digital technology is edging into the celluloid frontier - and just may change the movie biz entirely.
Digital photography isn’t the future of Hollywood, according to director Robert Rodriguez. “It’s already here,” says Rodriguez, who shot Spy Kids 2 and Once Upon a Time in Mexico using high-definition video cameras. He swears he’s done with film. “It would be like going back to the Dark Ages,” he says.
Rodriguez, George Lucas, Stephen Soderbergh, and a few other prominent directors have scrapped the 35mm film cameras that Hollywood has relied upon for decades. Instead, they’re using all-digital Sony video cameras not unlike the camcorders used to capture birthday parties and graduations. Advantages include instant screening of takes using high-definition monitors on the set, no film processing costs, longer takes (digital cartridges hold an hour of tape, film reels just 10 minutes) and — crucial for special effects nuts like Rodriguez and Lucas, whose Star Wars: Episode II The Attack of the Clones was the first all-digital major film released — electronic images that feed directly into digital editing systems.
Speed is the biggest edge. Rodriguez spent only seven weeks shooting Once Upon a Time in Mexico, a Johnny Depp-centered sequel to his famously low-budget directorial debut, El Mariachi. When a director can instantly see what the camera captured, shooting requires fewer takes — and much less time. “It’s like movie-making with the lights on,” Rodriguez says. “You can finally see what you’re shooting.”
But there’s another potential payoff for the entire film industry: the possibility of shooting digitally, editing digitally, and distributing digitally to theaters. Audiences could see digital originals, and the big studios could cut up to $1 billion in annual distribution costs.
Today, most films are shot on 35mm film, converted to a digital format for editing, and then back to film. That process, plus the making of hundreds or thousands of copies for distribution to theaters, is expensive, time-consuming, troublesome, and reduces the quality of the images on theater screens.
Converting 35,000 U.S. cinemas to digital distribution will cost several billion dollars, however, says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. Theaters want studios to foot the bill, but no plan for that is expected before March 2004. Still, he says, “On the projection end, we believe it isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”
On the production end, some directors are likely to convert to digital shooting slowly, if they convert at all, and some experts disagree about the quality of digital video. UCLA film school professor William McDonald says electronic images still aren’t as good as chemical ones. “The digital cameras that are being used now are getting very close,” he says. “But there are still limitations.” Action movies with lots of special effects may quickly embrace digital photography, McDonald predicts, but most movies will be shot on 35mm for years to come.
For Rodriguez, there’s no if, no when, and no doubt. He’s already planning to shoot Spy Kids 3D: Game Over digitally and raving that extra-long takes and instant feedback improved even the acting in his newest film. “Wait till you see Johnny Depp in this movie,” he says. “It’s the best he’s ever been.”