Digital Rocks

The News

By Ray Pride

March 28, 2022

Will Tavlin: ” Jason Kilar had not ushered in the film industry’s digital revolution. That revolution had long been underway, and it had little to do with streaming services. The story began in 2002, when executives from the largest Hollywood studios met to discuss their latest concern: digital prosumer technologies. Cheap digital cameras and home computers were everywhere, and the studios were worried. Their business model — which depended on maintaining a viselike grip on the distribution of their films — produced dizzying profits for their shareholders. Digital technologies could threaten all that. This was the year after Napster brought record companies to their knees. Who knew what chaos might unfold? The studios formed a little-known joint corporation, Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), to research the matter. Eventually DCI scrubbed celluloid film almost entirely from the film industry, ushering in the most significant technological shift since the introduction of sound. The digital revolution transformed nearly every aspect of filmmaking for Hollywood and independent filmmakers alike. Netflix’s rise from a fringe DVD rental service to dominant streamer — in whose steps studios like Warner Bros. are now desperate to follow — was just one of many outcomes that unfolded in DCI’s wake: archiving film assets became prohibitively expensive; independent theaters withered; thousands of projectionists lost their jobs. This revolution was invisible, and it was designed to be that way. Its success depended on audiences never noticing at all.”

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