

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Hollywood Digital Ecology

Hollywood can and will save energy and money one day by providing movies to theaters via filmless digital cameras and digital projection in theaters. Currently, movies are made on 35-millimeter celluloid negatives from which reels of film are printed, sent to film exchanges, trucked to theaters, and projected on the screen with the aid of a powerful lamp. These 35-millimeter prints are expensive to make and cumbersome to distribute. In 2003 the average cost to make prints for distribution of a studio film in America was $4.2 million. The six major studios had a print bill of more than $1 billion in 2003.

Digital delivery from studio to theater via satellite or cable eliminates physical truck delivery, which will save money and energy. One of the current hold ups is who will pay for and control the $80,000 digital cameras? In 2004 there were 36,012 movie screens in the U.S. (Source: Edward Jay Epstein, The NEW LOGIC of MONEY and POWER in HOLLYWOOD)
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