TWENTY-EIGHT in Software

Paint QR-Code in Software TWENTY-EIGHT

were all kinds of reasons about why it wouldn t work Well, it does work You can argue it to death, but it works and it s better, and eventually people will use it because why would you work with a push mower when you can have a power mower It just doesn t make sense CDC: Let s talk about digital delivery; there s been talk that you re hoping a good number of theatres are ready to do digital projection Lucas: Well, we re hoping When we released Phantom Menace we were able to release it in four theatres digitally Then our other San Francisco company, Pixar, pushed it to almost 20 theatres on Toy Story 2 CDC: To what end; what s better about digital projection Lucas: The quality is so much better I ve spent a lot of my time and energy trying to get the presentation [of movies] in the theatre up to the quality that we have here at the Ranch or what you see in private screening rooms That s why THX was invented and that s why the TAP Program was invented We ve worked very hard to try and improve the quality of presentation at the level of the audience actually seeing the movie It s a rather thankless job, but it s something that does need to be done And we ve been pushing digital projection for years and years now, and working with all the vendors to try to improve it and try to get it working in the marketplace And now the business models are coming together to try to actually take the next step, which is How do you pay to get the thing into the theatres And THX is very active in that whole area Digital far and away improves that presentation You don t get weave, you don t get scratchy prints, you don t get faded prints, you don t get tears a lot of the things that really destroy the experience for people in the movie theatre are eliminated CDC: Is digital cinema projection technology there Lucas: I think the technology is definitely there and we projected it I think it is very hard to tell a film that is projected digitally from a film that is projected on film If you have brand-new prints, after a few weeks, it s very easy to tell which is which

CDC: Do you foresee your content being repurposed repeatedly for other-than-large screens Lucas: I think ultimately, when broadband comes, that there s going to be a lot of entertainment that will be run through the Internet, and I think that s going to be a big factor in the near future CDC: Do you have that in mind when you re creating films, or are you still producing for the big screen Lucas: I m producing for the big screen Whether broadband Internet actually happens is still up in the air We haven t gotten that far yet I think content that will be produced for the Internet will have to be of a different caliber, because the kind of a revenue stream that s going to be involved is still up in the air There could be Napsters out there, and if so it s going to be very hard to create for the Internet because you re going to have to do it for ten cents You ll be basically giving your content away because there s no revenue stream coming in, and all you can do is hope to sell t-shirts or something to make money So, you might be able to charge a little bit, but that whole issue of how you finance the product on the Internet is still completely unknown CDC: Are you investigating that Lucas: We have a Web site We have documentaries on the Web site We manage to make it work economically because we have a very few people who work for us CDC: Earlier you mentioned that the transition to digital creation of motion-picture content is comparable to the transition of silent to sound films Is there an overall digital distribution revolution going on If we came back here in 10 years, would we be talking about an entirely different world of entertainment Lucas: I think what s going to happen is that the invention of digital, in terms of distribution, is going to open up the marketplace to a lot more people It s going to be much more like painting or writing books, and it will take cinema in that direction, which means it s accessible to anybody That will