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In a tiny private theater in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, filmmaker Douglas Trumbull is screening one of his latest creations. At first, the movie looks familiar: it's footage of astronaut Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in a clip that went viral on YouTube a couple of years ago. But halfway through the song, the film shifts from Hadfield strumming his guitar in the International Space Station to 3-D shots of planets and stars so detailed that I feel as though I'm on the ISS itself, looking through its cupola windows. A huge image of Earth fills my field of view and begins rotating. I'm wearing 3-D glasses, but the picture is far brighter and sharper than is typical in 3-D movies. Next to me, people mumble things like "Completely unreal" and "Awesome."
This is Magi, a system that captures images in 3-D and "4K" ultrahigh resolution and displays the resulting frames at five times the usual rate. Trumbull developed the technology as a way to create movie experiences more immersive than regular 3-D or giant-screen IMAX—and restore the joy of going out to the movies.
[...] The movie industry could use some magic. North American box office receipts have been relatively flat for years. Many consumers prefer the convenience and affordability of watching movies on their TVs and mobile devices, especially since manufacturers keep developing sharper, brighter, more color-accurate screens.
To develop something far better, Trumbull built a studio on his sprawling Berkshires property; hired a multitasking crew that ranges from four to 50 people, depending on the project; and produced a series of demos that tested new cinematic techniques, such as how to combine different frame rates and resolution levels in one movie. On top of all that, he has created a new type of movie theater optimized for showing Magi films.
Presumably, not showing 45 minutes of TV commercials before the feature is not on the list of things that could bring some magic back to the movie industry...
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday October 07 2016, @04:49PM
There are some engaging stories.
But more and more I find movies to be predictable. Same formulas used for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of years.
Sci Fi used to have novel ideas. Or novel retellings of old ideas. But even sci fi is getting boring -- mostly. There are still a few that are fresh, entertaining, even uplifting, and not boring. But they are few. And even fewer that actually have any science. Some novel movies are not even quite sci fi, but simply deal with an extrapolation of a modern idea whose story never previously existed. Or never could have existed.
3D was never anything but a gimmick. Maybe there will be a novel story or two that can be told using 3D or VR. But they will be few.
A thing about a novel on TV. Babylon 5 spoiled me. It had an actual ending, that left possibilities of what could spin off from it. But a satisfying ending where in the last few episodes all the characters nicely moved off the chessboard in very satisfying ways. It gave the whole thing a sense of climax. Long form TV has never done that. It just goes on, and on, and on, sometimes even promising an ending, like Battlestar Galactica did, or Lost, but not actually delivering a real, planned, ending. They just make it up as they go along. Or you get a new show with a great 1st season, where the whole story arc was conceived by one person. But then in season 2, the grand plan is gone, and it gradually just goes off the rails. What new outrageous character twist can we introduce to outdo what we did previously? And the characters no longer can be believed.
The producers of TV shows need to figure this out. Make a planned single or multi season story. With an ending. It will initially sell just like the one that goes on and on. But the ending will give it value that makes people want to watch it again, and again. Like a good book. For years. Even next generations of viewers.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 07 2016, @06:08PM
Or somebody starts a show with a five-season plan then gets cancelled halfway through the first season :P
(No, I'm not just referring to Firefly. Try searching up a list of all the shows Fox has cancelled in the last decade.)
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday October 07 2016, @07:33PM
Fortunately Netflix is investing in more and more episodic productions, and sometimes not even requiring a pilot episode first. A very good novel could be told in a single season, or mini series. But not with the detailed richness that B5 had. Who knows we may yet see a great multi season novel that is well planned and doesn't get cancelled. Netflix likes to put the whole production online at once. They don't get to look at the ratings halfway through the first season. Netflix likes people binge viewing.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 07 2016, @07:46PM
It cannot be done.
Sometimes, you get lucky, like with Game of Thrones, where it's both really popular so it doesn't get cancelled early, and the people running it have enough integrity to end it when it needs to be ended instead of letting it jump the shark.
But most of the time, this doesn't happen. It's because of the way TV shows are financed. The network/broadcaster (CBS, NBC, HBO, etc.) orders (and pays for) a certain number of episodes, usually a whole season at a time, and shows it. If the ratings aren't good enough, it gets cancelled, like they did to Firefly (after doing a miserable job with airing it, including airing the episodes out-of-order). It may or may not get renewed for the next season. And the one after that. There's no way at all to know how many seasons the show will be renewed, so the producers can't plan in advance how long it should be, and then the writers can't plan for this and write the episodes in a consistent way with the ending planned out. So you end up having to just make up the story as you go along, being given an unplanned new season again and again until suddenly it's stopped.
Given the production costs of TV, I just don't see a way of changing this. IMO, the only thing you can really do to deal with it is give up on the whole "story arc" thing (where you need to watch everything in order because every episode is integral to the story), and just go back to the way things were in, for instance, ST:TNG, where every episode stands alone and only occasionally do they even refer to events in past episodes, and having seen them isn't required to follow the story of this episode.
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Saturday October 08 2016, @12:49AM
The ONE sequel I'd LOVE to see is a sequel to Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind.. I recall the first time I saw that movie in 1977, I walked out of the theater (the old Valley Circle Theater in San Diego California) and my jaw drug along the ground.. That movie blew my 27 year old mind.. I'd LOVE to see, not a remake of it, but an actual sequel.. Where the mothership returns, but instead of hiding in far northwest Wyoming, it arrives right smack dab over greater Los Angeles, and watch the government *try* to pass it off as swamp gas... Would DEFINITELY be a movie i"d pay to see in a theater.. As it is now, the last time I was in a movie theater, was to see The Martian, before that, two or three previous James Bond installments.. Nowadays, we wait for a movie we want to see to arrive on Redbox, I rent it overnight, rip it to my Plex media server and watch it on our 42" TV with a Roku box...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday October 09 2016, @12:03PM
But even sci fi is getting boring -- mostly.
Even sci fi books have gone that way a bit - I'm really fed up with the industry standard space opera trilogy plot arc (basically variations on Babylon 5 - humanity venturing out into space awakes ancient alien menace which our heroes must fight both the alien menace and the human black hats trying to exploit it for commercial/political ends) - lost count of the number of times I've read that, although there's sometimes enough imagination in the details to make the read worthwhile. The Expanse (book & TV) being the latest example (silly really: there's huge potential in the political and military shenanigans of a colonised solar system without an alien maguffin)
like Battlestar Galactica did, or Lost,
Yup, those are the poster children for how not to do it. I think it was obvious from the start with Lost, but BSG really had promise - hell, they told us that they had a plan. They lied.
Trouble is, the X Files did that, but, because it was a show about conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theories always change to avoid resolution, it kinda worked.
However, there are exceptions: Breaking Bad (OK, not really sci-fi) hard-wired the ending in: we new from episode 1 that the main protagonist was going to die. Lots of UK shows have short seasons and short runs with planned endings, for example the original Life on Mars, the original House of Cards - and I think these are starting to influence thinking, especially now we're starting to see made-for-streaming shows.
The producers of TV shows need to figure this out. Make a planned single or multi season story. With an ending.
Oh, and have a satisfying mid-season climax so the show is worth watching even if it gets canned. Otherwise, people won't start watching until you've got 2 seasons in the can.