Digital Production in the 21^* Century
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Using the Texas Instruments digital projector, which ‘"creates a screen image by
bouncing light off 1.3 million microscopic mirrors squeezed onto a square-inch
chip” (Fleeman 50), Lucas’s four-theater presentation of The Phantom Menace in
fully digital format serves as the forerunner of Lucas’s plans to photograph and
produce the next two Star Wars films entirely with digital imaging, entirely
eliminating conventional 35mm film as part of the production, post-production,
and distribution process. Using a new camera co-developed by Sony and Panavision,
images will be shot digitally, processed digitally, and then “distributed from studio
to theaters by satellite, over fiber-optic cable or on special discs” (Fleeman 50).
While a number of differing digital imaging systems are being developed, most
feel that the Texas Instruments light valve has the edge on the competition, simply
because Lucas and his associates have already adopted it.
As Paul Breedlove, director of digital imaging systems at Texas
Instruments comments, “at this point, it’s not a technical issue. The technology is
ready. The industry Just has to make its business arrangements and figure out how
it will be put together. . . there’s a much smaller group of players within the movie
industry that can make a decision and go forward. Lucas, Spielberg . . . people like
that are going to decide the issue just by doing it” (Mathews 2). William Kartozian,
president o f NATO, the National Association of Theater Owners, echoed
Breedlove’s sentiments. “I wasn’t sure how inevitable [digital] was until Lucas
spoke up at ShoWest. Now . . . it’s just a matter of how we make the changeover,
and who pays for it” (Mathews 2). Adds Breedlove, “it’s the last frontier. They’ve
fixed everything else... seating, sound, comfort. The only thing that hasn’t changed
in the last 100 years is how you project the movies” (Mathews 2).
In recent months, this trend towards digital projection has accelerated.
Recent releases such as The Mummy (1999) have been digitally screened in a number
of theaters in Los Angeles and New York, and Robert Lehmer of Cinecomm Digital
Cinema, the company responsible for the Star Wars trial run, feels that “the [digital
projection] technology should start rolling into theaters in 12 to 24 months” (Willis
14). To further test digital projection, the distribution firm Miramax arranged a
digital screening of the 35mm originated An Ideal Husband (1999) to gauge
audience response to the new technology. According to Mark Gill of Miramax’s
Los Angeles office, the exit cards revealed that “91% [of the audience] thought
that digital was as good as or better than film. And this was a relief - everyone
walks in a skeptic, never believing that video can be as good as film, but for the
first time we’re finding out that’s not necessarily true” (Willis 15). Miramax picked
An Ideal Husband precisely because the film was very much “the antithesis of a
digital film,” as Gill put it, to demonstrate “ F