Streaming: Movies, Media, and Instant Access

2. The Lost Age of Classicism

31 2 The Lost Age of Classicism On June 30, 2011, Chuck Viane, then president of Walt Disney Studios’ Motion Pictures Division, wrote an open letter to exhibitors, shortly before his retirement. The point of the letter was simple and direct: 35mm is becoming obsolete; adapt to digital , or face obsolescence. As Viane wrote: At the end of this month I conclude 40 years in exhibition and distribution. I do not want to make this transition without sharing my deep concern with you. Some of you are among the dwindling number still playing only 35mm prints, apparently without plans to migrate to digital cinema . . . . The window of opportunity is closing for you to take advantage of our VPF [virtual print fee; more on this later] contributions to convert to digital cinema. At the same time, 35mm print costs are rising as suppliers grapple with falling volumes and soaring input costs such as silver and oil. (Film stock costs are up about 20% in just the past year.) I can’t predict when, but we may reach a point when it is no longer economic for us to supply film prints on the same terms we have in the past, or at all. Likewise, it may become uneconomic for our suppliers to remain in Streaming 32 the 35mm print business. Under these circumstances, if you intend to remain a long term player in the theatrical exhibition business, why take the risk of the eroding economics and questionable prospects for 35mm? The question is particularly timely and urgent when you can still take advantage of limited-time distributor-subsidized programs to convert to digital cinema. I urge you, as a friend in exhibition , not to miss the best opportunity you will ever have to upgrade. For the sake of your business and the moviegoers that we serve, I urge you make the move to digital, and do it now. Or, as John Fithian, head of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), has repeatedly said in numerous public addresses to theater owners and operators, “Convert or die.” Needless to say, Viane’s letter and Fithian’s exhortation aren’t suggestions: they’re ultimatums. Just as in 1927, when talkies wiped out silent film production, digital cinema has sounded the death knell for conventional 35mm film. Mike Hurley, who owns two theaters in Maine, knows precisely whereof he speaks: Many theaters that never thought they’d go digital are now adopting at a fast pace. One of my theaters, The Colonial Theatre, will be 100 years old in April. We’re in the midst of conversion; I accept and embrace that day. Every time I see platter scratches, or receive a scratched and dirty print, or deal with a particularly odd projectionist, I look forward to it more and more. But it hasn’t happened fast enough. At the end of 2011, Fox announced they’d no longer release product in 35mm “sometime in the next year or two.” Also ending soon: The VPF, or virtual print fee. Since 2009, film distributors have paid VPFs to exhibitors. Based on the dif- The Lost Age of Classicism 33 ference between the cost of a celluloid print and digital delivery , it’s designed to help theater owners offset the cost of a digital cinema retrofit, which costs about $65,000 at the low end. (A new projector, by comparison, was about $20,000— but that was before you’d pay people to take them away.) The VPF has helped some, but not all. As a result, NATO recently estimated that up to 20% of theaters in North America, representing up to 10,000 screens, would not convert and would probably close. “Convert or die,” indeed. And that’s from someone representing theater owners. But in reality, there is no choice. As Hurley notes, 35mm prints are going to cease to exist, and 35mm raw film stock is increasingly hard to come by; nearly everything today is shot in digital format. Theaters that don’t convert will simply have no product to run, except for older, archival films. That would be great, but most people simply stream these classic titles or buy or rent the DVDs. In the Los Angeles Times, Mark Olsen offered a fascinating glimpse into the differences between digital cinematography and working with conventional 35mm film, as discussed by some people who know what they’re talking about: the 2012...