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Siobhan Wagner
Chief reporter
The Engineer
The future of film
Few in Hollywood were surprised this week when it was announced that Avatar will be competing for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture at the Oscars in March.
James Cameron’s science epic film has been touted as a technological marvel with its use of 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking captured with specially-designed cameras.
What’s perhaps even more of a marvel is the film’s ability get people back in the cinemas. For a family of four, a night out a the cinema in London can cost anything above £30 and that’s excluding the popcorn, cokes and sweets. So it’s no wonder more of us credit crunch victims are opting for much cheaper home entertainment whether it be DVDs or the increasingly-popular illegal Internet downloads.
Before Avatar the future of cinema seemed bleak. Now filmmakers have realised the way to get people queuing for premiers again is providing experiences that cannot be recreated in the living room.
Cameron’s 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking techniques will probably have more lasting influence than previous sensory tricks. It’s unlikely any cinema today would again advertise Smell-O-Vision, a technique that wafted odours into auditoriums so viewers could smell what’s happening on screen, or ‘The Tingler,’ a 1959 horror movie that required film-goers to sit in specially-wired seats so they could be subjected to a mild electric shock at the most pivotal blood-curdling moment.
A colleague of mine suggested the future of cinema could be no experience at all. In a sort of Total Recall-like world we’d queue up at the “cinema” only to be given an injection that would implant false memories of a virtual experience of watching a film in our brains. I’d probably much prefer that then sitting through two hours and forty-seven minutes of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button again.
No matter what new filmmaking technology is deployed in the future, it’s good to see cinemas aren’t dying out. For many their first trip to the cinema is a fond memory and it’d be a shame for children in the future not to experience it.
Incidentally the same colleague that suggested the ‘film experience implant,’ took his three year old daughter on her first cinema trip last weekend to see Toy Story 2 in 3D. As it was her first experience, my colleague said she probably believes all films she sees at the cinema in the future will be in 3D. She may be right.
Readers' comments (8)
Anonymous | 5 Feb 2010 1:45 pm
Technology may be wonderful but movies should be about story and acting. Anyone care to remember Star Wars Episode 1? One of my favourite movies is '12 Angry Men' with Henry Fonda. It didn't need fancy CGI or 3D. You could feel the sweat and tension in that jury room even on a 14" portable.
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Anonymous | 5 Feb 2010 2:29 pm
I agree that movies should be about acting and the story. Too many films are resorting to even more fantastic and unbelievable / impossible stunts and situations. Having recently bought a Blu-Ray player, the HD experience makes some new films seem amateurish because the picture is so sharp you can see clearly that the stunts are fixed - the superimpositions of actor on backdrop stand out like a sore thumb. There's something to be said for leaving it to the imagination and for sticking to believable real-life situations. I think that children, exposed to the modern HD and surreal film world, will miss out on the great experience of proper film-making that showed life as it really is.
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Lyndon Davis | 5 Feb 2010 2:42 pm
Total recall - now that was a good film
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Anonymous | 5 Feb 2010 3:15 pm
The issue I have with the first comment, is that with science fiction of this kind you need additional techniques to show the story and make it believable, unlike some of the '50s creature features. I thoroughly enjoyed the film in 2D as it has a good storyline which matched with the new CGI made it believable.
Unfortunately with science fiction of this kind, there will always those who just "don't get it".
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T. Clifton | 5 Feb 2010 3:36 pm
The problem with 3D is where do the film makers go from here? Only some film scripts allow full advantage of 3D. If that means that we loose films like Brassed off or Calender girls (in 3D..lets not go there!) then cinema will be poorer for it.
Let's hope funding and viewing will still be available for films such as these.
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J Walls | 8 Feb 2010 9:04 am
I prefer a good film that really draws you into the plot rather than an all action calamity that has a weak storyline. I also prefer to watch films without having to wear sunglasses. I agree with all comments on this one, we don't want to lose the essence of what film making should be about - a good story.
If the price of a cinema ticket wasn't so expensive, more people would attend the cinemas and pro-rata the takings would probably increase. When will business come to realise this?
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Andrew | 8 Feb 2010 9:24 am
I can't help but wonder if this sort of technology will suffer from the same sort of abuse that CGI effects have suffered. It seems that the quantity of special effect focused films seems to increase, while the quality of said films is decreasing (My case in point - The film "2012", at 10,000 explosions a minute makes "The day after tomorrow" look like a documentary). 3D and visual effects should be an enabler, not a focus.
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Gareth | 11 Feb 2010 8:30 pm
I thought Casino Royale was really good, although to be honest that may have been due to the person I watched it with.
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