Thoughts on DLP (spoilers ok here)

Having just seen AOTC on the DLP at the Pavillions, my main feeling would be that other than seeing a little more detail in the visuals that are mostly computer generated, you don't see much of a difference. I think what I was really wowed by at the Celebration 8 minute reel was the fact that all 8 minutes were of mostly cgi images.

Understand, the fact that you can't tell the difference between this and a showing of projected film is the real acheivement.

Up until now there was no ability of an image generated by computer or analog video to have the resolution and clarity of little bits of photoreactive chemicals tightly packed onto a piece of plastic. The fact that you can't tell the difference is huge in terms of production and distribution costs, the cost of using tape to shoot is 100s of dollars, versus 1000s to shoot on film.

Even larger is the fact that to send the film out on tape to theaters costs 1000s in tape versus millions in film prints. A film print currently costs about $1500 dollars, multiply that by the 3300 screens showing AOTC, and you see the difference sending out a $100 tape makes.

This is gonna change everything about the movie business down the line.

 

The quality was about the same as a film print, and I agree that the real achievement is there. Film distribution will benefit more than anyone else from this -- as you say, hundreds of dollars vs. thousands to print and ship out movies on film. I imagine that they'll eventually get to a point where they can just transmit the movies directly to the theatres and do away with the need for a physical print or tape at all.

As a photographer I can tell you that the main advantage of digital over film has always been (and still is) convenience. Until fairly recently, film still won out for quaility of image, but the technology is finally catching up, and now not only are there digital cameras out there whose quality is just as good as film, but they're starting to get affordable as well. You can already get an excellent photo-quality computer printer for less than $200.

Hopefully Hollywood will keep in mind that it's not the tools you use that really matter, but what you do with them. All the digital technology in the world still won't make a lousy movie good.

 

Lucas even said that the real benefit was that it was easier to physically make the most exotic scenes come to life......

 

IT KICKED MAJOR BOOTY !!!!!!!

THINGS WERE MORE CRISP TO ME . ITS ALOT DIFFERENT TO ME . THE CG DIDNT LOOK CARTOONIE TO ME AT ALL . ONE OR TWO PARTS THE FIRST TWO TIMES I SAW IT DID .

THE DETAIL WAS AMAZING , AND I THOUGHT YODA LOOKED MORE BAD @$$ !!!!