Digital Cinema, Savior of Independent Cinema?

On August 1 in Boston, SIGGRAPH premiered this year's Electronic Animation Theater (an anthology of the year's best digitally produced animation), which was projected digitally using Sony's 10,000-lumen SXRD 4K digital cinema projector. However, the content of the program had to be scaled up (or "uprezzed") for projection. At the end of the program, the audience was treated to a stunning demo of the projector showing a movie in its native resolution of 4096 x 2160. Back here in Montreal, approximately 48 hours later, the Cinema du Parc, pretty much the city's last great repertory cinema, showed its last film before closing down.

I'd have thought these events were unrelated until I read a story in the Daily Telegraph. It focuses on a 90-seat cinema in Kent -- one of 210 across England -- that will be equipped with digital projectors on the condition that they show rep fare like documentaries, independent movies, old movies, and foreign-language films as well as Hollywood product. Recognizing that there is a market for these kinds of films, the Film Council not only wants to cater to the existing fans but to broaden the audience by more than a third over the next five years. The linchpin to that plan is one simple fact: a disc used for digital projection is 5% the cost of a 35mm print. The cost and the format makes it easier to extend theatrical runs without the logistics required for more expensive and cumbersome films.

Given that the cost of striking prints is one of the major impediments to independent films getting wide release, the secondary effect of increased digital projection venues could also be a greater presence for films that would otherwise languish in obscurity.

Are we on the brink of a revolution in what's available on the big screen? I certainly hope so.