The Hindu Business Line : A new angle

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 was made on it. Paerazhagan was screened on it. Star Wars - the final episode used it to the hilt. P.C. Sriram's latest film is also full of it.

We are talking digital here! From Chennai to Los Angeles, everyone seems to be using it. eWorld takes a look at digital film-making.

V. Natarajan, Chief Academic Officer, Image College of Arts, Animation and Technology, dwells on the various stages that comprise digital film-making. Let's begin with the merits. "The most expensive thing in film making is the film roll cost. As 1 metre of film costs around Rs 100, up to Rs 10 lakh is spent for a low-budget film. This puts pressure on the director to limit costs. Thus he can't experiment or go for too many retakes.

But in digital films, the medium is a rewritable CD/DVD, which makes it easy for the director to retake as many shots as possible and experiment."

In post-production today, the editing is on computers. So one has to digitise the film shot on celluoid.

"The cost of converting celluloid to digital is about Rs 10 lakh. This can be avoided if a film is shot digitally," he says. Anand Kumar, an editor from Pune, is working on a Kannada film. He finds editing on the digital system very easy.

Ranjeet Bahadur edited the film Chameli in 15 days before starting work on another film. He too found the medium fast and useful, especially when it came to adding effects.

"Eighty per cent of films today have effects in them which are digital in nature. It is easy to work on a digital medium to implement them.

Thirty per cent of time and money is saved. This is important for any film-maker. Because faster completion means faster release and faster revenue," says Natarajan.

In India, medium-budget films are made for around Rs 1 crore and they appear mediocre due to the constraints of celluloid.

The same money spent on digital medium can give great results.

But how will it affect the distribution of films to theatres? "It takes between Rs 75,000-80,000 to make one print of the film and transportation charges are extra. But a digital copy is about Rs 8,000 only.

The film is sent through satellite transfer, which take about 6-8 hours depending on the duration of the film. This also means no piracy.

The film is encrypted and sent to a decoder that is installed in a server at the theatre. This will decode the film and screen it for viewers," he says.

With the cost of storage plummeting, why not transport the copies on DVDs or CDs itself?

B.M.A. Prabhu from Real Image, a digital projection systems maker, says, "Every movie takes about 67-80 CDs or 20 single layer DVDs.

These can't be transported easily without risk of piracy. That is why satellite communication via an external USB is used to store the films on a server.

Three films of two-and-a-half hours duration can be stored at a time.

After a lot of research, we found that most theatres do not screen more than three films a day. In the future, if more films are made digitally, we may increase the server space in theatres."

But projection systems for theatres cost around Rs 10-15 lakh. Will owners be willing to invest so much?

Ramanathan of Abirami theatres says there is no return for the theatre owner in this. "In the long term, it may benefit to make theatres digital but most owners look at the short term. Considering that digital films will not enrich the experience of the audience in any way, why invest so much?

When DTS was introduced, we were all willing to upgrade to it because the viewer was getting better sound in return, and willing to pay more for the tickets.

In digital film, the viewers cannot differentiate it from an ordinary film. So they will not pay more," he says.

There is also the question of quality.

Natarajan says, "Digital films can be screened any number of times without losing resolution or quality. But in celluloid, with every run of the film, scratches are made on the film roll.

At the end of 100 days, the film has lost its audio, and the picture quality has also degraded."

But all digital films are compressed and stored. So there is a loss of resolution when they are expanded to be projected. He says, "That is not very noticeable. In the future, systems will evolve to minimise this loss."

Natarajan says contrast may be an issue. "In the digital medium, it is denoted by a number that can take values ranging from 0 -255.

So darker areas may not be very clear. But this is hardly visible to viewers. But celluoid film is light-based and will record contrast better."

Interestingly, says Prabhu, "The digital medium is more sensitive to light and one can reduce up to 50 per cent of lighting normally used in a scene."

And then, there is the Censor Board.One had to make a copy of a film on tape to play it and have it graded. This means a cost of around Rs 20 lakh if one has to convert from digital to tape.

This issue too has been addressed by the screening of films like Mumbai Express made completely on digital medium.

If digital seems too good to be true, why is the industry hesitant to step into the future?

For one thing, the standards or formats for these films vary all over the world. This makes it difficult for projection systems to screen them. (Every projection system is compatible only with certain formats).

But things are changing. "Film makers around the globe have formed a consortium called the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) that will lay down rules regarding formats.

So any film made any where in the world can be screened in any theatre," says B.M.A. Prabhu.

India makes the largest number of films every year and has the best talent pool in the world. Could this technology reap benefits for the nation?

For starters, we could become the biggest offshore hub for outsourced films! Natarajan says, "We have good editors in India.

So one can easily transmit the unedited film to India. We could work on it and send it back to them." And this is just one area. There are others like effects, packaging, sound and music, where the Indian talent pool can contribute.

Incidentally, Lord Of The Rings was made in a similar fashion where director Peter Jackson was in the UK, the shooting was in New Zealand and the music director was in Prague. There is no longer any physical constraint on people when it comes to digital film-making. This also means we can look forward to more global collaborations in films.

Film festivals accept DVD formats. This will inspire independent film-makers to experiment. (Read more entries at Cannes and other festivals). Film-making will also get more organised with corporates entering the scene.

Natarajan concludes, "Cost has deterred many people from taking to films. Hopefully this will change in the future."

So what are you waiting for? Start experimenting...

Facts and figures

The machines: Ranging between £150 and £900 and even beyond, the brands offering digital camcorders are Sony, JVC, Panasonic ( preferred by the Tamil film industry), Canon, Delta, Sharp and Samsung. For those who wish to graduate from celluloid, here's good news. All controls are similar to that of a motion picture camera. Even the lens system need not be replaced!

(information compiled from www.dealtime.co.uk )

The players: In India, we have two manufacturers of projection systems: Adlabs (Mumbai) and Real Image (Chennai). They follow different formats. The most common format is MPEG2 that is used for news broadcasts.

The Power: Today you can make a film with Rs 5 lakh.

The latest: Recently, the Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd announced plans to install 1500 theatre projectors, 3000 video parlour projectors and 50 high-end projectors by the end of 2006. It has tied up with the Taipei-based Delta Electronics for providing digital projectors.

Picture by S. Siva Saravanan

eworld@thehindu.co.in

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