Cinema: Digital Technologies - Essay Example

?Cinema: Digital Technologies Various people have given the term cinema different meanings for example using it to refer to a movie theatre. In this paper, the term cinema is used to refer to the art of producing and presenting motion pictures. The history of cinema dates back to 1860s when people demonstrated the production of two-dimensional drawings in motion using praxinoscope, zoetrope and mutoscope. In 1878, the first motion picture was produced by Eadweard Muybridge using 24 cameras. Further developments led to the emergence of the first motion camera in 1880. Other major achievements in cinema include the introduction of sound and color. Development of color component allowed color to be photographically recorded directly from nature instead of artificial/manual addition of black and white colors to prints (Ceram, 1965). Digital cinema is defined as the use of digital technology to project and distribute motion pictures.  The process of doing this is called digital cinematography. Therefore cinematography is defined as the use of digital technologies to capture motion pictures in the form of digital images instead of capturing them on a film. The images are captured on hard disks, tapes, flash memory and other media capable of recording digital data. Examples of such digital film-making technologies are Phantom HD High Speed camera, Thomson Viper, Red Digital camera, Genesis, Arrflex D-20 and noX 2K d-cinema and digital projectors. The introduction of such technologies has ushered in yet another new era of digital cinematography (Barda, 2002).  Digital imagery existed as from 1980s as evidenced by Disney’s Tron produced in 1982. This was the first movie to contain high-resolution. However, the first film in digital format was marketed in 1997. From that time henceforth, cinema has experienced technical and social changes as a result of digital technology. The visual components of digital cinema are an important source of its worldwide attraction.  Some of the effects of digital technologies on cinema are positive while others are negative. For example, the new technology has diluted the real meaning of cinema by creating increasing levels of artificialism. Even as we consider the effects of digital technology on cinema, we cannot ignore the persistent relevance that pre-digital filming methods and practices still hold for the current digital cinema (Kotian, 2005). The effects of digital technologies on cinema Positive effects The arrival of the digital technologies brought a sharp division between the old and new media. From experience, film-makers confess that the entrance of digital technologies in the movie making industry has enabled them to ‘tell stories that were not possible to tell before’ and achieve higher levels of realism in their movies. They have also been enabled to impress the cinema audience with effects that were previously unseen. For example, using the digital technologies, movie makers have been able to make shots that are more impressive than those that could have been produced using the pre-digital technologies. Therefore, we can say that the entry of digital technology has created new, great possibilities for cinema. Each of the positive impacts of digital technology on cinema is explained in the following paragraphs. Digital technologies allows film-makers to focus more on actor actions because digital video equipment enables them to be closer to the actors and even being inside the action as it unfolds. This gives them a chance of conducting a more legitimate filmic approach leading to the inclusion of minor details in the movie, something that could not be easily achieved with pre-digital technologies. A legitimate filmic approach helps to reduce unnecessary levels of suspense created by failure to bring out some parts of the movie that need close range shots (Ganz and Khathib, 2006). According to Kotian (2005), digitalization of cinema has led to production of movies that have high abilities of attracting and retaining audience attention due to the special effects on them. The use of these digital technologies has allowed some fascinating, interesting and interesting effects to be included in movies. These effects are applied in characters, events, situations and scenes that do not exist in the real world or if they exist, they cannot be photographed yet they are useful or entertaining. These effects are not real but artificially created through the digital technology. For example the movie ‘Deham’ which was produced by Govind Nihalani has special effects that run over 23 minutes in total. Examples include the whole city of Mumbai, cars and hospital sets that were super imposed. The digital technologies have also enabled some natural phenomena beyond the force of man to be depicted as controllable in cinema, for example in the movie ‘Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam’by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. This movie was credited for its special effects for example the kite flying scene. The movie presents kites flying in different directions which denote the wind direction at that time. However, it is not possible for a movie director to have control over wind direction. Therefore, an artificially created scene is the best remedy. The technology also saves on some expenses because the movie-maker can create some features instead of depending entirely on actual acting. For example the movie had four real kites yet it showed many of them (Rickitt, 2000). Special effects on cinema are of two categories. The first are physical effects which are produced in front of the camera and the second are optical effects which are done after the negative has been exposed. The use of special effects is stimulated by costs yet the same factor is also constraining in its use. For example it cost $50 million to produce special effects in the movie Titanic (Jeremy, 2006). These costs vary from country to country and movie-producers who cannot afford the high cost will opt not to include the special effects in their movies. Other motivators are for the utilization of special effects are time factor and increasing capacity of computer processes. Despite criticisms from the press and individuals concerning the use of special effects in Titanic and other movies, movie-producers still use them to attract attention. Digital technologies are used to produce special features that can be used by film technologies as well. This has helped producers of film-produced movies to incorporate special features in their production hence improving cinema in general. According to Brinkmann (1999), digitalization has led to a direct generation of film-like scenes in a computer instead of filming the physical reality. This process needs the help of a 3-D computer animation. A computer does not distinguish image synthesized in 3-D graphics, one obtained through photographic lenses and one created from a paint program. This has resulted to the production of most thrilling movies and digital fantasies through the merging of real and created images. The thrilling movies and digital fantasies mainly encompass scenes and events too dangerous for real acting by man. A good example is Hollywood’s movie Titanic which is the first movie in the world to be made almost entirely digital. In this movie, the water and people falling into it, the background scene of people running and the tilting ship are all digitalized. The trick behind the use of special effects is the creation of a virtual reality that will not be recognized easily by those who watch them. This means that the whole fantasy in Titanic was actually digitalized. Such a movie scenario would have been impossible in real life due to the risks and dangers it could involve. Therefore it is true to say that special effects produced by digital technology have increased the aesthetics of cinema hence making it more attractive. Generally, the use of special effects to has led to an exiting and attention capturing cinema production. This means more entertainment in the movie theatres and homes because people are tired and bored with simple family dramas. Instead of this, they want to be entertained by designer cinema. There has been a widespread acceptance of digital cinematography leading to an expansion in its market share. Movie-producers are now investing in more sophisticated special effects to compete in the current market. Currently, digital cinematography accounts for a larger percentage of movies shot annually. This has caused manufacturers of cinema cameras to switch to digital cameras while all new entrants are specializing only in digital cameras. Digital technology has lowered the cost producing movies. Digital cinema utilizes digital technologies like FireWire connections, DVSs and software like Apple’s MS Windows Movie Maker, Sony Vegas and Adobe premier Pro. These technologies and software make movie-making relatively cheap hence it has reduced the technology barrier to cinema. Comparing the cost of production and post-production, the cost incurred when using digital technology is lower than when using pre-digital technology. Today, post-production software and hardware can be installed in a commodity-based PC (Rebo, 2003). The availability of cheap materials presents much freedom to film-makers and actors. For example they can improvise a theme in the movie they are producing instead of being restricted to the utilization of tightly scripted shots that were being used in the pre-digital era. Digital acquisition presents important advantages for high-budget shots for example they enable them to work faster and do an immediate check on important shots. This enables the film-makers avoid costly reshoots (Brinkmann, 1999). According to Rickitt (2000), digital technologies have facilitated the making of live projections which are real time in nature. If a live actor is located at another performance space, shots of the actor acting as a virtual character are taken during the performance. During the staging of the theatre production, digital data cables are used to stream the footage and project it into the multimedia portal which is located in the theatre. This gives room for unique performance by the virtual actor during every staging of the play. A digital video camera takes a real time recording of stage actions and streams them back to an actor who is off stage through a monitor. The recording and streaming of actions enables the offstage actor to watch and listen to stage actions so that they can perform their part in time as it corresponds to stage elements and performance. This means that a live actor can be filmed anywhere the digital technology can capture the image since the shooting of film is not limited by distance. This includes interstate or overseas image capturing. The actions of a character playing the role of a virtual actor are usually filmed before the production stage. After this, editing of the film into scenes is done (Jeremy, 2006). The edited films are then displayed in the multimedia portals during the play’s live performance. Therefore, it is right to conclude that digitalization has removed space restrictions to cinema. This is because it is no longer mandatory for all narratives to occur in specific spaces. This has helped to ensure that film-production runs smoothly despite the big geographical distance between actors through the creation of an illusion of presence. Such convenience is not possible with the pre-digital technologies. Pre-digital techniques on their part can only allow for single location shots to be taken. According to Barda (2002), digitalization in movie production does not require the movie-producers to make expensive prints compared to when using pre-digital techniques. In any case, digital delivery is used hence there is generally no need to make any printing. This makes the method economical as it saves on time, money and processing. Digitalization also allows for new world collaboration through file sharing, e-mail and teleconferencing as compared to the old system in which collaboration could only be achieved through fax and mail. The use of digital technology has made cinema more accessible because it has made the making of a movie cheaper as compared to renting one. Working with these technologies is faster compared to pre-digital technologies hence the creation of time efficiency in cinema. The images they produce are fantastic especially using the latest models of digital cameras which use sophisticated compression systems. A good example is the new generation of video camcorders.  Digitalization allows for film-makers to make changes to images after thy have be recorded due to the high level of artificial effects achievable when using the technologies. This has made the editing of movies more flexible hence good cinema products. A digital video tape enables allows film-maker to make continuous shots for about 60-120 minutes as compared to a 10-minite film roll. This allows film-makers to produce films that require little or no changes. This is called Real Time Cinema. This facilitates quick final film production within periods of few months, weeks days and even hours. Digital technologies have also led to the development of wide-screen cinema. Systems used in digital cinema are capable of recording color data that is of full resolution (Ganz and Khathib, 2006).   Some digital cameras are more compact than film-cameras, and allow their camera heads to be separated from the rest of the camera. This allows the use of extremely compact package in the capturing of high quality images. Digital technology has also led to the realization of potential portability advantages in Cinema. This is because the flash memory magazines, tapes and hard drives upon which the images are captured are also compact. Digital technologies allow film-makers to make their most suitable chroma sub-sampling for the movie. This allows for the production of movies with good luminance hence appealing and satisfying to the human visual system There is a widespread popularity of digital intermediate workflow because it gives film-makers a greater artistic control. In this technique, movies are digitally color graded instead of using the traditional/old photochemical finishing techniques. In order to achieve this, the camera negative is processed after which it is scanned to digital format. This high quality film scanning is very costly. However, this scanning of the camera negative is not necessary for digitally acquired images. In most of the digital cinematography, the footage passes as digital data directly into a digital intermediate pipeline. This makes digital cinema cheaper leading to cost effectiveness in cinema. Digitalization has made production of sound and picture in cinema an automatic process as compared to the traditional methods in which sound and picture were captured through a dual recording system. In the dual recording system, picture and sound would be synced up during the post-production stage. In digital cinema, this is done automatically by the timecode that is placed on digital slipper slates. Most of the cameras used in digital cinematography are able to capture sound internally. The sound recording is done by specialist operators and it is already in sync with the picture. The result achieved from this at the end of the processing is better quality sound. . These sound-picture syncing attributes by digital cinema makes cinema cheap, fast and more accurate (Faden, 2001) According to Barda (2002), digital technologies have also led to democratization in cinema. Not all movies produced are produced from digital or pre-digital technologies. Film makers are able to select from the available choices depending on their tastes, cost and desired effects. This has also presented a more convenient way of film-making for example movie-producers can conceivably shoot a movie, edit it, create and edit music or sound for it and finally mix the final segments on a PC. When using digital technologies in cinema production, a movie-maker is in a position to evaluate and edit the footage without having to wait for the film stock to be processed. The type of film stock chosen determines the response to light when shooting videos using pre-digital techniques. On the other hand, CMOS or CCD determines the response to light when using digital technologies. This allows for movies produced by digital technologies to have a good light response. On-set monitoring in digital cinematography has enabled film-makers to observe the actual images being captured by the digital devices immediately. Such a scenario is impossible with films. Data displays for example RGB parades, histograms, wave forms and different types of focus assist coupled with on-set monitoring can give produce a more accurate picture of whatever is being captured. This is achievable if the film-maker has a high-definition that is properly calibrated. However, it is not possible to achieve such an effect when using a film. The use of digital technology leads to the production of better image qualities in low-light conditions as compared to when using film. This allows for less lighting to be used and in some cases, practical or completely natural lighting can be used for shooting. Another advantage of this is that the low-light sensitivity of the digital technologies tends to bring out shadow details. Such special attribute cannot be achieved using film cameras because they work better under high light conditions and poorly under high low light conditions. Digitalization of movie production has led to compression of film into of digital data. This means that movie studios will be in a position to send movie releases to theatres through the satellite, cheap optic media like DVD and fibre-opitic (Sabin, 1999).  There is increased portability and steadiness in movie production while allowing for the mix of virtual or digital domains with live actions. This is because digital technologies used in cinema are able to heighten virtual domains in live acting, intermix digital, convey scale and minimize labor requirements when constructing action and setting up difficult shots. This reduces the cost of movie production. It also allows for movie-producers to include scenes which allow for active audience participation. Cinema is equated as story telling by many viewers hence digitalization has presented a new way of story telling. According to Rebo (2003), digitalization has facilitated parallel production in cinema. Parallel production refers to a situation where many scenes, sequences or even entire films are shot simultaneously using camera technology that is multiple video in nature. The work is piped to the central workplace through wireless communication. This means that it has created a new workplace setting where computer screens or remote sensors for displaying visual information captured by the remote cameras have been installed. Digital cameras utilize lossless and lossy compression systems. These compression systems are able to reduce/compress the size of data to a smaller one so that it can be stored. This is achieved through the deletion of redundant information from a signal. These cameras use both types of compression systems because greater data compression ratios are achievable using the lossy system as compared to the lossless system.  This has led to the reduction of data loss in cinema because the two systems facilitate the recovery of data, byte by byte. Such a loss of data could have required a repeated acting hence an increase the cost of production due to the incurrence of extra expenses. According to Ganz and Khathib, 2006), cinema production has increased due to improving levels of digital technologies. This has allowed movie-producers to produce movie which much more ease than before. As part of the UK film council initiative, 300 cinema screens have undergone conversion to digital projectors. Movies that are shot digitally are usually released theatrically on a high definition format like a Blu-Ray or low definition format like DVD.  Negative effects Having looked at the positive effects of digital technologies on cinema, we must also accept that digital technologies applied to movie production have their weaknesses. First, reality check has resulted from over-dependence on big budget film-making that are meant to achieve lavish effects. This makes cinema to loose meaning because it is suppose to present as much level of reality as possible instead of producing conversions that can be interpreted as being too artificial. The loss of reality in cinema has resulted from the fact that digital technologies make a break with analogue imagery. This technology is just but abstract information. Movie-producers who support DV realism are simply avoiding the development of special effects and other post-production procedures. Brinkmann (1999) explains that sensors in digital technology have lower dynamic range/exposure latitude as compared to modern picture film stocks. They tend to ‘blow out’ highlights and this makes them to loose details in parts of the image that are bright. Recapturing of such detail in post production is impossible. The use of special effects in digital movies in order to achieve attraction at times tends to dominate over the narrative perspective of the cinema. This is because it makes people to develop some psychological reality while keeping them awake just because of the amazement of the trick and not because of following the narrative. The production of special effects subordinates the narrative demands of the project during movie development. This affects cinema because film-makers are so engrossed in successfully bringing out their crafty creation of objects, creatures and locations that have distinctive personalities instead of focusing more on the flow of events. Some of the movie lovers feel that cinema has started loosing meaning to them due to the high levels of artifiatiality. As much as audience participation may make movie watching more exiting, such an idea has negative impacts on the flow of the narrative of the story. Narrative is the main bottom line of cinema and if it does not come out clearly, then cinema will have as well lost its meaning. Creating room for audience participation is only possible using digital technology. This means that if the digital technology is over used well, it will threaten the narrative part of cinema (Prince, 1996). Digitally acquired footages sometimes produce electrical noise. This is especially true of the dark places of the footages acquired. This can threaten the quality of production in cinema. Cox (2002) reveals that there are also criticism by some people that digitalisation will cause cinema to loose its projectionists. Due to reduced workforce needed, movie companies that have gone digital are forced to sack their workforce. They also feel that the technology dictates to the audience what, when and how to see it. This has caused such people to stage a campaign to ‘Attack the Clones. According to Steve Buscemi who is an actor and a director, low costs incurred when using digital cameras can allow them to leave their cameras running as they have some informal session with the actors instead of cutting them. However, he says that such informal sessions puts some directors off (Tayfung, 2005). The extent that pre-digital filmmaking methods and filmmaking practices still relevant to digital cinema Pre-digital film making methods and practices are still relevant to digital cinema. No matter the complex innovations in digital cinema, production is based on sterility and bluntness as deposits of reality. Digitalized film-making has to depend on the use of pre-digital techniques to some extend for the production of films with high levels of reality. This is because cinema is basically the attempt to make art out of a footprint yet digital technologies tend to dilute the realness of a movie. This means that if pre-digital techniques are not incorporated in digital cinema, then cinema will finally loose its meaning and its place replaced by artificial production. Pre-digital techniques maintain some unique level of realism as compared to digital techniques. Pre-digital techniques should be used to supplement digital techniques especially for data security purposes. This is because digital data lost can never be recovered whereas information recorded on films can always be retrieved at any time. Digital cinematography involves the capturing of data in digital form. However, film cinematography seems un-divorceable because theatrical exhibition of the produced digital movie is usually done using film prints. This could lead to the loss of the clean outlook of digital movies. Such an issue is an indication that pre-digital filmmaking methods and practices still very relevant to digital cinema. Conclusion  Revolution in cinema results from the combination of wireless technologies, internet-based collaboration and internet-based technologies. This leads to production of computer-generated imagery (CGI) with added special effects that are complex but realistic to movies while remaining cost-effective. Though the traditional technologies and production techniques may persist in their presence, digital technology gives us a better chance to re-think and re-focus on cinema. This is because of the many advantages it has presented to cinema and the resultant effects on entertainment. Continued and improved digitalization will also widen our aesthetic choices in film-making while sustaining a democratic film distribution environment. Such an environment will allow for greater range of freedom and choice for the artists and customers.           References Barda, D. (2002). “The Inevitability of Digital Cinema”. Inside Film Magazine. Features: Behind the Camera, Inside the Scene. Online: http://www.scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=76. Retrieved 4th April, 2011 Brinkmann, R. (1999). The Art and Science of Digital Compositing. San Diego. Morgan Ceram, W. (1965). Archaeology of the Cinema. New York. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Cox, A. (20th May, 2002). “Why we should join in an attack on the digital clones?” The Guardian – Film. Features: Debate.  Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/may/27/film. Retrieved 4th April, 2011. Faden, E. (2001). “Crowd Control: Early Cinema, Sound, and Digital Images”.  Journal of Film and Video, (53) pp 93-106. Ganz, A. and Khathib, L. (2006). “Digital cinema: The transformation of film practice and aesthetics”.  New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, (1) pp21-36.  Jeremy, B. (2006). Digital Lighting and Rendering. Indianapolis. New Kaufmann. Kotian, A. (2005). “Digital cinema – technology will change the way movies are watched”. Screen India: Films. Friday, December 23, 2005 Prince, S. (1996). True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Theory. Film Publications Quarterly, (3) pp35. Rebo, B. (2003). “Art House Digital Cinema Is Here”. Film and Video Magazine. (30) Online: http://www.emergingpictures.com/. Retrieved on: 4th April, 2011. Rickitt, R. (2000). Special Effects: The History and Technique. New York: Watson-Guptill Riders. Sabin, R. (5th Sept, 1999).  Digital Movies: Taking Film Out of Films. New York. New York Times.  Tayfung, K. (20th May, 2005). “Movie Makers Go Digital”, BBC World News. Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4565771.stm. Retrieved on: 4th April, 2011.     Read More