Spielberg Says ‘No’ to ‘Indy 4’ Digital Projection?
I don’t always believe many of the "rumors" circulating around the Internets. The web is a big place and people sometimes exaggerate, or perhaps even fabricate, in order to get some kind of "scoop" or exclusive "insight" for their websites.
That said, I am inclined to believe the following rumor which has recently surfaced, courtesy of tipster ‘Ohio Munson’ at JoBlo: Steven Spielberg won’t be allowing any theaters to show Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull using digital projection. It will only be available on film.
Think about that for a minute and then I’ll tell you why I’m inclined to believe this one. Spielberg is an old-school kind of filmmaker and has never really embraced his buddy George Lucas’ love for all-things digital. In fact, he vehemently resisted Lucas’ attempts to persuade him to shoot Indy 4 digitally.
Since he’s Steven Spielberg and is working with Lucas, a devout technophile, the director could have had the most advanced digital camera system in the world at his disposal for Indy 4 and yet, he still went with film.
He’s also, by his own admission, one of the few directors out there still cutting negative during post-production — something that, with digital post and non-linear editing systems like AVID and Final Cut Pro being the "standard’ these days, is almost never done.
Given his feelings regarding digital and his prior decisions, I feel he will stick with film for the theatrical release of Indy 4. Film is an aesthetic and creative choice he believes in, likes to works with, and, when playing at your local theater, will want his movie to be shown on. It’s really that simple.
If true, is this a bad decision on Spielberg’s part?
The film-purist aesthetic would remain valid — if the film-exhibition industry still nurtured talent capable of projecting a film accurately. But the bottom-liner multiplex operators have automated their racket to the extent that film-break and focus-lapse/audio-dropout incidents are routine, but correction is not.Then, too, the print-manufacturing process has been so cheapened that the labs might as well be printing on Saran Wrap. Couple a fragile print with the high-tension platter-projection process and the inattentive minimum-wage staffing favored by the cheapskate theater operators, and you've got a film-break waiting to happen.Show me a theatre where the film is shown from reels, not a platter, and where the projectionist lives in the projection booth and keeps the machinery up to snuff, and I'll show you where to watch Film for the Sake of Film. For the corporate multiplexes, however, digital projection is the only way to get around the pinch-penny operational tactics.