This page is dedicated to a reactionary defense against the new DIGITAL PROJECTION technology which threatens to destroy, defile, and publicly humiliate our shared cinematic heritage.

I am not a purist or a hippie. I believe in technology. I don't hold onto 8-tracks, vinyl or cassettes, and if I had ever bought laser discs I would be the first to pile them up in the backyard, pee on them and set them on fire. I love the dvd format, would buy an HDTV if I was a rich dude and when I heard about digital projection I was as excited as the next individual. Here is a format (goes the official press kit line) that cannot be scratched, does not have splices, will not wear out - the first time you watch it is the same as the 10,000th time!

But there's only one problem: that first time doesn't look all that hot anyway, so the 10,000th time is nothing to brag about.

 

PIXELATION

I first discovered this when I saw YODA VS. DRACULA at Seattle's best theater, the Cinerama. It was the second show of opening day and they were showing it on a brand new Boeing Digital projector purchased specifically for the release of this movie. The audience cheered wildly when the Boeing Digital logo was unveiled (even though it looked like a giant screensaver. And I am not talking about the flying toasters or any popular screensavers, just a generic boring one).

But the picture was not the miraculous, vivid image of heaven we have been conditioned to expect from digital projection. Not that it looked terrible, it just looked like a giant tv. There was noticeable pixelation, especially during bright scenes or anything with writing (credits, subtitles, etc.) If this whole setup was in some dude's house, maybe I'd be wetting my pants like everybody else. But for a movie theater it is just plain shoddy presentation. Watching a giant dvd doesn't ruin the movie but it's not worth the money since it JUST DOESN'T LOOK AS GOOD AS FILM. Why should the theater chains go broke again just to save the studios some money and make the audience suffer? I'll take back all the scratches, the dust, the splices, for just some good old fashioned smooth lines.

It has been suggested that anyone who doesn't like the inferior look of digital projection is in the minority, and therefore must've seen a faulty presentation. I think this is a load of horseshit. I'm sure some day they will be able to vastly improve digital projection and make it presentable, just as they have done with digital video (which admittedly looked fine in the Yoda picture). But it will never be as good, because of the way the technology works. Let's take a look:

REAL FILM = a bright light shining through photographs

DIGITAL PROJECTION = photographs broken up into squares and projected onto a screen

No matter how small those squares are, they're always gonna be squares. And the human eye is no pushover. It may fall for the illusion of movement but it ain't fallin for this little squares making up a giant picture bullshit. It will always know they are there.

 

THEN SIT FURTHER BACK

When I saw this inferior digital projection which must be destroyed, I was sitting in the middle of the fifth row. This is where I had seenTHE LORD OF THE RINGS PART 1 and is in my opinion the best place to sit. But I have been told that in order to make digital projection look good, you are required to sit in the not as good seats further back, in order to trick your eyes into thinking the projection actually looks good.

This, in two words, is fuckin bullshit.

But I tried to go along. I went back to give the digital projection one last chance, and I sat clear back in the last third of the theater. Unfortunately for the experiment, the projector must've broke, because the Cinerama had already ditched the digital projector and gone to real film. I'm not sure if the thing broke already or if they agreed with my stance on it but either way, it was projected on film. It had splices, there was a bit of dust, and it looked much better. The lines were smooth, the cinematography was more pleasing and the computerized effects (having been transferred to film) looked more realistic.

Now, months later, I was able to see it projected digitally again, taking advantage of AMC's exciting new $7 matinees, which will probaly seem cheap after all the chains start switching over to digital. This time I sat in the back row of the first section of the theater, which I was told was the best place to see it from. Sitting in the same row were two guys in who had also seen the movie yesterday, so they must know the place where you're supposed to sit.

But it looked the same. Still a giant dvd, with pixelation on letters and bright lights, and the whole picture made up of a grid that is clearly visible in the brightly lit scenes. It only starts to look okay after your eyes glaze over and you try not to look as closely.

So let's assume that the middle of the theater is not far back enough. Let's assume if I went again I would want to sit in the very back row. Some people like to sit in the back of a theater. Those people, in my opinion, are fuckin nuts. When you're near the front, the movie consumes you. There is nothing else in your vision. The further you sit back, the smaller the picture is to you, the more of the walls and ceiling and exit lights and people's heads you have in your vision, and the more removed you become psychologically from the movie. Also, and this goes more for the short individuals, if you have some 7' tall dude in front of you and you're in the front of the theater, it blocks a little bit of the screen. If you're in the back, he blocks half of it. And no, he won't take off his hat, he has hat hair.

So here's a built in problem with digital projection: the closer you sit, the shittier it looks. The further back you sit, the more you are removed from the movie. So it's a projection system fighting against its own presentation. It's like having a CD that only sounds good if you play it really, really quiet.

And besides, with real projectors, you only worry about sitting in the front because it might hurt your neck. No matter where you sit, the picture quality is gonna look the same. What's the logic of a projector that looks really great in part of the theater and really terrible in the rest?

 

CONCLUSION

Until the computer wizards can prove otherwise, digital projection is not a technology worth pursuing. It is a scam perpetrated by electronics companies on already bankrupt theater chains, with us as the bait and as the victims.

If you have seen digital projection, and you agree that it looks bad, please spread the word. If you have a cinema-related web sight feel free to use my "just say no to digital projection" logo. And let your all-consuming theater chains know that you do not like the digital look and will never again buy popcorn or sour patch kids if they switch over.

 

8/4/02 UPDATE: I saw SIGNS at the Cinerama and god damn it, they projected that digitally too. (The guy behind me was disappointed too. He saw the Boeing Digital logo and groaned, "Oh no! Digital projection sucks!") But in the interest of fairness, I must admit that outside of the credits and the very opening, I was not very distracted. It still didn't look better than real projection, but it didn't look nearly as bad as WAR OF THE YODAS. I would be interested to find out if it is the darker cinematography that works better, or the fact that it was shot on real film (YODA ATTACK was shot on the god damn high definition digital video).