Ian Grey writes: >After writing this, and after all the research the piece necessitated, it >seems clear that narrative film has about 5 to 9 years left before its >complete integration into the media chain as a digital element of >transnational information/advertising processing/synergy. I haven't been able to look at the article, because I got an error message when following your link. So to a certain extent I'm guessing at the issues it raises, but nevertheless would make the following comments. Cinema exhibition is more than the hardware used to project the picture. Whilst I broadly agree that a 5 to 10 year timescale is probably about right for 35mm polyester being replaced by a form of projection based on digital data being rendered as pixels and then projected somehow (though I'd put money on it not being any of the technologies for doing this which are in current use, i.e. CRTs, LCDs and DLP), it does not necessarily follow that 'narrative film' will go with it. There are lots of other issues involved, most of them cultural. Cinemas are physical buildings designed for large gatherings of people to view moving images in a very specific way (e.g. in silence and in a darkened space). They exist within (usually urban) communities and promote the films they show among those communities. Studios produce films specifically to be shown in these buildings and consumed by audiences in that way. The buildings will still be there when 'film' in a literal sense is not - in fact, the technologies being developed to replace film projection are being intentionally designed to be compatible with existing cinema infrastructure, both physical and cultural. Just because the technology now exists to subvert the narrative processes involved in a two-hour feature film (e.g. click here for an alternative ending, click here to have the f-words removed, that sort of thing), that doesn't mean to say that it will be accepted. Video projectors have been around since the Eidophor was first marketed in 1947. In the UK, the Rank Organisation put them in several London cinemas and tried to promote live sports coverage (mainly as a way of reducing film rental costs). It failed miserably - people associated cinemas with fictional feature films. For watching a sports match, they wanted a light environment, to be able to drink and smoke and to discuss the game with other people, all of which (with the exception of smoking) cannot be done in a cinema. So I agree that we're approaching the end of film in a literal sense, but not necessarily in any other. Leo Dr. Leo Enticknap Director, Northern Region Film and Television Archive School of Arts and Media University of Teesside Middlesbrough TS1 3BA United Kingdom Tel. +44-(0)1642 384022 Fax. +44-(0)1642 384099 Brainfryer: +44-(0)7710 417383 ---- For past messages, visit the Screen-L Archives: http://bama.ua.edu/archives/screen-l.html