Star Wars Digital Presentation

It's well known that George Lucas has a pretty bad taste for the Hollywood method of making movies. It's why he took the money he made from Star Wars and built Skywalker Ranch far outside the confines of the Hollywood establishment, so that he and his friends could have a place to work creatively outside of Hollywood's input and "wisdom". Also, he has bankrolled Phantom Menace completely by himself--the entire $125 Million dollar budget--so as to be able to hold true to his vision and plan for the overall tale as he laid it out long before the original Star Wars was a gleam in any 70MM projector's glass eye.

However, even though he has complete financial and creative control over his current movies, Lucas must still deal with Hollywood in the end as the Hollywood studios have the network in place for distributing finished films to theaters. Thus, he still has a minimal deal with 20th Century Fox, who is distributing Phantom Menace.

However, in June of 1999, Lucas' dream of a completely Hollywood independent alternative for filmmakers became a reality when Phantom Menace became the first film ever to be electronically distributed directly to commercial theaters for playback to audiences. Only a few theaters in test cities near New York and in California had the necessary prototype equipment installed to host this technological experiment, which in the future, may change forever the way we see movies.

Lucas has been talking about driving the creation of the technology necessary to make such a thing practical for many years; I first heard him discussing it sometime in the midst of the original trilogy production. But back then, it seemed like the concept was totally science fiction, sprung from the imagination of a dreamer. Now, the technology exists to make this a reality. On Friday, June 20, 1999, I was able to attend a nearby theater that was one of only four in the country to host this promotional digital presentation. One week later, I attended the other theater in my area which was showing the film digitally. The second theater, The Loews Meadows 6 in Secaucus, NJ, had a much better sound system--one of the best I have ever heard, in fact--making the overall experience one of total perfection. One trip back there before the end of the digital run was necessary to satiate my appetite for what the future of cinema just might hold in store for everyone.

June 20, 1999:  I have seen the future... And it is AWESOME!

On Friday, June 18th, 4 theaters in the United States presented "Star Wars: Episode 1" in a digitally projected, completely filmless, high resolution format. The screenings ran for one month in two theaters in California, and two in New Jersey. George Lucas has, for many years, been speaking of a future where films would be distributed in electronic format over satellite directly to movie theaters, eliminating the need for film distribution and the associated distribution channels (i.e. Hollywood). This "experiment", set up by Texas Instruments and CineCom, is a large step in bringing such a system to reality.

On Friday, June 20, I went to the Route 4 Paramus Tenplex Screening to see this historic event. What an experience! I've been completely blown away by the possibilities of this new format. For comparison, I saw the film the next day in the beautiful, almost (grin) state-of-the-art Ziegfeld Theater in Manhattan.

Going in, I had really expected the movie to look a bit harsher than film, more "video" like. Possibly some digitization artifacts, depending on what type of compression was used to store the data. I thought the picture might have an artificially "sharpened" look, depending on how the projector was set up, and that the "sharpness" of the video system would expose some of the flaws in the special effects, making them disappointing compared to a film-based viewing. Possibly even "hot-spots" in the projected image.

WRONG ON ALL COUNTS!

The image was much sharper than film, yet it retained a BEAUTIFUL film-like quality.

Rock steady (no film jitter, which is now very evident when I compare it to a regular film viewing) , very bright (no hotspots), no dirt, no film splices, NO ANNOYING "reel change" indicators (how many of you notice those and are annoyed by them?)  This is especially noticeable now that the film-theater copies of the film have been broken and spliced in many places... yet even compared to a fresh new film, this image is remarkably free of dirt and distractions.

A few of the scenes had a bit more of a video-quality than others... not really a bad quality, but they stood out from the other scenes and made the viewing not-quite-seamless. This was minor, though, and is something I would not expect to be a problem when movies are made with digital projection in mind. It was only in one or two scenes that I noticed this. And that was my only minor complaint! I also did notice what seemed to be some sort of edge-enhancement (sharpening) but didn't get to ask about it afterward... but I only saw this during titles and credits... not on any of the actual images in the movie.

The special effects were more beautiful than I had ever seen them. It was like a whole new experience... like seeing Star Wars in 1977 for the very first time. Subtle nuances in artistry were noticed... in cinematography, textures, lens flares...

Surprisingly (to me), most noticeable was an IMPROVEMENT in the photorealism of the CGI characters. Although I have been quite impressed with how far Lucas Digital has come in creating realistic creatures blending perfectly into scenes, during standard (film) viewing of Phantom Menace I have felt Jar-Jar to be just a tiny hair short of the mark in the "photorealism" department (I find Watto and the other Gungans to be much more believable, better integrated into the lighting and shadows of the scenes they are in)... but in the digital theater, Jar-Jar existed as a flesh and blood actor as solid and as real as Obi-Wan and Qui Gon on that screen. I was amazed!

In every aspect: actors, costumes, sets, space... colors and textures were more real, more beautiful, more expressive. Small nuances in colors and texture were exposed. I felt, while watching, that I was seeing much more of the artists' sweat-equity surviving the transition from inspiration to dancing lights in the theater. Yet not at all in a distracting way; this was like cleaning a window through which I had been viewing this film, enveloping me more completely into the visuals, the effects, and the story. THIS IS THE WAY STAR WARS WAS MEANT TO BE SEEN.

The theater manager let us into the projection booth afterward. The movie is on hard drive (not on punch cards, as I had speculated) on a RAID system... actually two copies of it running in tandem; in case one goes south it can instantly switch to the other. It is compressed in a "frame-by-frame" format (I assume that meant that there was no compression of frames based on previous frames as is the case on DVD) in some type of format similar to JPEG (i.e. lossy, but it certainly didn't look compromised at all... I didn't pick out any digital artifacts while I was viewing). I missed some of the specs, but I think they said it was 60 Gigabytes AFTER compression! Care to download a bootleg off the internet, anyone?

The sound system and the acoustics in the Paramus auditorium pretty much sucked (I would LOVE to see a presentation like this at the Ziegfeld!) but it didn't detract too much from my awe of the visual. For the complete experience, however, the sound must match the video quality... as agog as I was at the digital presentation, I still enjoyed the movie more overall the next day at the Zig with the great ambiance, the great sound, and the great fans. Next I plan to try out the Secaucus, NJ theater (the other theater on the east coast showing the film digitally), to see how that compares. Maybe it will provide a better overall presentation... or maybe I will start to notice some flaws once I can view this without worrying about my dropping jaw hitting the gooey, sticky, theater floor. Gotta see this again!

Overall, I can't wait 'til this becomes the norm in theatrical movie presentation. Anyone with access to one of these theaters should definitely check this thing out. Hey, Clearview (the new owners of the Ziegfeld theater)... do you plan to install a digital projection system before "Episode II" hits us in 2002?

More info on the digital projection system (I believe they are using TI "DLP" video chips), as well as on the theaters displaying it, can be found at www.starwars.com

Thanks, George!