Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Can Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and Company Save Kodak and 35 mm Cinema?


Kodak's new chief executive, Jeff Clarke, said the pact will allow his company to forestall the closure of its Rochester, N.Y., film manufacturing plant, a move that had been under serious consideration. Kodak's motion-picture film sales have plummeted 96% since 2006, from 12.4 billion linear feet to an estimated 449 million this year. With the exit of competitor Fujifilm Corp. last year, Kodak is the only major company left producing motion-picture film.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/kodak-movie-film-at-deaths-door-gets-a-reprieve-1406674752#


The trajectory of Digital cinema is going to bring the glorious history of 35 mm projection to an end and this is the worst nightmare of Quentin Tarantino. 

Yeah as far as I’m concerned, digital projection and DCPs is the death of cinema as I know it. It’s not even about shooting your film on film  or shooting your film on digital, the fact that most films now are not presented in 35 mm means that the war is lost and digital projections — that’s just television in public. Apparently the whole world is okay with television in public but what I knew as cinema is dead.
The Simple Solution To Save Kodak and 35 mm Cinema 

We can still save 35 mm cinema as a popular art form and public entertainment by allowing traditional cinema to co-exist with digital cinema instead of phasing out celluloid totally as the expensive conversion to digital cinema has cost each movie theater about $100,000. And I am among those who donated to save the 89 years old Blue Mouse Theater in Proctor District, Tacoma from closure.

Let movie lovers have the choice to see movies in either of the two formats and let Quentin Tarantino and company continue to make fantastic films for millions of their fans and they can still make digital cinema copies of their films for digital projection. And save Kodak from closure.

Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, Judd Apatow, and J.J. Abrams can insist on making their films for 35 mm cinemas alone and the exhibitors cannot ignore them, because they have millions of fans who must see their films.

All that matters most to movie lovers is to see a great movie on the silver screen at the movie theater and whatever projection you are using for the screening of the movie is your business.


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, Publisher/Editor of Nigerians Report Online, theNOLLYWOOD MIRROR® SERIES, Nollywood Digital, and other publications online and offline.



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