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76 4 ▶ BREAKING THROUGH THE SCREEN 3D, Avatar, and the Future of Moviegoing At ShoWest 2005, one of the pre-eminent trade conventions for the motion picture industry, Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron, in cooperation with Texas Instruments, sought to promote the emerging format of digital projection in theaters. At the time, theater owners were reluctant to change over, given that conversion costs were estimated at $100,000 per screen. However, Cameron argued that digital projection could help to launch a transformation in film spectacle through the use of digital 3D, which would, in turn, bring audiences back to movie theaters by providing them with an unprecedented visual experience. In his typical visionary language, Cameron promised that with digital 3D projection, we will be entering a new age of cinema. Audiences will be seeing something which was never technically possible before the age of digital cinema—a stunning visual experience which “turbocharges” the viewing of the biggest, must-see movies. The biggest action, visual effects and fantasy movies will soon be shot in 3D. And all-CG animated films can easily be converted to 3D, without additional cost if it is done as they are made. Soon audiences will associate 3D with the highest level of visual content in the market, and seek out that premium experience.1 Cameron’s comments place emphasis almost exclusively on Hollywood’s role in producing blockbuster spectacles, the kind of “big” films that are promoted as being most enjoyable on the big screen. In fact, his metaphor of “turbocharged” entertainment treats moviegoing as a kind of thrill ride, a notion not inconsistent Breaking through the Screen 77 with Cameron’s reputation as a risk taker. This attempt to promote 3D positioned the format as an innovation on a par with the introduction of color and sound, making it appear to be a revolutionary change for audiences. Significantly, press releases at the time did not mention Cameron’s work on Titanic or The Terminator, but focused on an underwater documentary, Aliens of the Deep, which had required Cameron to develop new cameras capable of filming deep below the ocean’s surface. Although it would be easy to dismiss Cameron’s comments as mere hype, they offer a useful introduction toward thinking about how cinema has been redefined in the era of digital projection and provide a way in which to see Cameron as a kind of “technological auteur,” someone who not only makes movies with a distinct artistic signature but also builds the tools and technologies that shape future motion picture production. Cameron’s public comments, along with those of Martin Scorsese , Steven Spielberg, and Robert Zemeckis, helped to confer legitimacy on 3D, reframing it as consistent with Hollywood artistry. Further, Cameron, like other technological auteurs, presents a visionary discourse that attempts to define how audiences will watch movies, centered on the idea that 3D will offer an upgraded experience. Such imaginative language arguably has implications for the social role of movies and television shows within a wider media culture. Even as 3D was promoted as a technology that would provide audiences with new forms of visual pleasure, it also functioned as a kind of “Trojan horse” for digital delivery, providing theater owners, who were reluctant to invest in expensive new equipment, with an additional incentive to switch over from film projection.2 This chapter explores the marketing and promotion of 3D film exhibition, particularly through the lens of James Cameron’s Avatar, which was billed by studio marketing executives and entertainment journalists as a “reinvention of how movies are made.”3 These debates about the re-introduction of 3D revived questions not only about cinematic realism but also about the very nature of film as a medium and about audience expectations for the moviegoing experience . 3D productions also inspired new approaches to distribution that were designed to revive theatrical attendance, especially during the era of digital transition . These questions about digital delivery have the potential to lead to a radical transformation in how movies are distributed, providing studios with much greater control over how theaters are programmed. As David Bordwell notes, “the projector-as-computer inserts cinema into what has become an on-demand popular culture.”4 However, although 3D initially served as a means of increasing lagging theatrical revenue, it subsequently became a normal distribution practice rather than a novelty; many audiences in fact chose to watch films in 2D, suggesting that viewers were inclined to weigh factors other than image quality...

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