Academic literature on the topic 'Multiplex cinema ; film exhibition ; digital cinema'

Throughout the 1990s, digital technology entered film production and rapidly altered both the production process and the audience's experience, as complex soundscapes and special effects became the hallmark of cinematic blockbusters. By 1999, the prospect of an end-to-end digital cinema, or cinema without celluloid, seemed to be in sight. Digital distribution and exhibition were extolled as particularly attractive prospects, and a number of test sites were established in the United States. However, the last four years have demonstrated that significant issues need to be resolved before there will be broader implementation of digital cinema. Working from a series of interviews with key industry practitioners in Australia and the United States, this article examines the struggles currently affecting the rollout of digital cinema, and assesses the likely impact on Australian exhibition practices.

The sudden and permeating rise of digital technologies has been widely investigated by film critics and scholars. However, most studies tend to focus on the impact of digital technologies on contemporary film production, distribution, exhibition and the finished products it brings forth, reserving too little attention to the massive digitization of born-analog films. The production of digital motion pictures marks an unprecedented breaking point in history, putting the very nature of “film” and “cinema” at stake, while the digitization of film prints risks having an irreversible feedback effect on cinema's technological history. Focusing on two case studies—the 1995 restoration of the 1949 color version of Jacques Tati's Jour de fête and the discovery of some 16mm reels on nitrate stock in a collection deposited with the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Torino, Italy—we illuminate the importance of technology for film historiography and reassert the need for a joint effort on the part of archives and academic institutions in the preservation of film memory for future generations.

It is widely acknowledged that the geography of film exhibition in the urban West has changed significantly as ‘traditional’ town centre and suburban cinemas have been supplemented, and in some cases supplanted, by multiplex cinemas in out-of-town locations. In this paper I explore the reasons for this shift, using case-study data from Leicester (United Kingdom) to explore the forms of sociality played out in different sites of film exhibition. These data suggest that multiplex cinemas are frequented predominantly by consumer groups seeking an ‘exopolitan’ leisure experience that is predictable and riskless. In contrast, it appears there are many who continue to frequent city-centre and suburban cinemas because they prefer the less predictable ambience of ‘urban’ leisure. The coexistence of these different forms of cinemagoing is discussed in relation to unfolding debates about the postmodern city—a city that accommodates consumers' predilection for ‘riskless risks’ by holding different forms of sociality apart.

Unlike the somewhat natural decay of other single screen theatres of Delhi, the demolition of the famous Chanakya cinema (1969–2008) was an iconoclastic event. When the theatre was demolished in 2008 to pave the way for a multiplex and shopping mall, a wide and intensifying wave of dissent reigned, as the city was rudely awakened to the realities of urban transformation. At a time when film theatres had started to decline in India with the emergence of home entertainment in the 1970s and 1980s, Chanakya theatre offered a distinctive culture of cinema and urban leisure to the middle-class residents of Delhi, foreshadowing the multiplex imagination decades before its arrival. This article attempts to understand the Chanakya story and its theatrical legacy as a prehistory of globalisation. It explores the phenomenon of Chanakya’s auratic presence in the city’s imagination as it maps the theatre’s biographical journey, starting from its precarious inception in one of the more remote areas of Delhi through to its prominent place in the city’s cultural life for almost 30 years, followed by its afterlife as a potent emblem symbolising the end of a bygone era in the city’s collective memory. The micro-analysis of the Chanakya story explores the complex circuits within which architecture, film text, urban materiality and public memory converge.

During the first five years of its development from the opening of The Point in Milton Keynes in 1985, multiplex cinemas radically changed the previous exhibition landscape, modernising the business of cinema exhibition and shifting the site of film consumption to new, out-of-town shopping and leisure centres. This article considers certain key developments in that initial period of the multiplex cinema's introduction into the UK, with particular emphasis on three aspects of its diffusion: the importance of regeneration and enterprise, the multiplex's role in stimulating associated leisure and commercial developments, and its relationship to out-of-town and regional shopping developments. In order to illustrate these themes, the article will consider the opening of four complexes: The Cannon in Salford Quays, and the AMC multiplexes in Telford in Shropshire, in Sheffield and in Dudley Merry Hill in the West Midlands.

Abstract Is there a way to ensure older adults can bridge the digital divide and engage with online cultural heritage? How can cinema-going memories encourage cross-generational engagement? This article proposes to address these issues by using the Italian Cinema Audiences research project as a case study, and specifically cinema-going memories as intangible cultural heritage (Ercole et al., 2016, Cinema heritage in Europe: preserving and sharing culture by engaging with film exhibition and audiences. Editorial. Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 11(Summer): 1–12. Web. ISSN: 2009-4078). It aims to tackle the difficulty of engaging the older generation with the digital world, by proposing and testing new ways to resolve it. Through a mixed-methods ethnographic approach, this article investigates different strategies: the use of social media platforms; a cross-generational activity involving Historypin, a digital, user-generated archive of crowdsourced historical material; an online dedicated archive built in collaboration with the older adults involved in the project. These different solutions aim not only at increasing digital engagement among older adults, but also at furthering younger generations’ involvement in shared cultural heritage in an online context. By focusing on the memories of cinema-going in 1950s Italy, the article explores the implications of the advantages and disadvantages of these different approaches. It also tests Anja K. Leist’s research findings (2013, Social media use of older adults: a mini-review. Gerontology, 59(4): 378–84) on the key role of moderators (the younger generation) to help novice users (the older generation) in the ‘continuous engagement’ in digital environments. We conclude that in order to bridge the digital divide two components are necessary simultaneously: the creation of digital platforms in which the older generations are both curators and users, and the support of and interaction with younger generations.

The Art House Convergence conference annually brings together hundreds of independent theater owners and supporters of arthouse cinema during the days preceding the Sundance Film Festival. When the organizers invited James Schamus to deliver the keynote address at their 2016 gathering, it was a commission he did not relish. The expected argument of such speeches is pretty much set in stone these days: cinema, understood primarily as feature films meant initially for theatrical exhibition, is under attack, and the keynote speaker's task is to rally the troops in its defense, soliciting applause for recent victories on the battlefield, and railing against the encroachments of the enemies of film, in particular the digital streaming services whose assaults on the sanctity of the theatrical viewing experience, and thus on the aesthetic object known as the theatrical film, grow ever more ferocious with each passing year. Schamus took on the task of delivering that speech, and then transforming it into this article for FQ. He concludes with a rousing plea to all regarding what he terms, “This vicious spiral of longer movies, higher costs and higher ticket prices,” that can only spell disaster for the supporter of truly independent American cinema. Schamus urges readers to stand with him (and all who love the genuine American film experience), to advocate for vibrant, varied, open-ended, hybrid, serial and ongoing open storytelling and entertainment.

Abstract The story of Black women in British mainstream cinema is certainly one of invisibility and misrepresentations, and Black women filmmakers have historically been placed at the margins of British film history. Up until the mid-1980s, there were no Black female directors in Britain. Pioneers like Maureen Blackwood, Martina Attille and Ngozi Onwurah have actively challenged stereotypical representations of Black womanhood, whilst asserting their presence in Black British cinema, often viewed as a male territory. In the 2010s, it seems that the British film industry remains mostly white and masculine. But the new millennium has brought a digital revolution that has enabled a new generation of Black women filmmakers to work within alternative circuits of production and distribution. New strategies of production have emerged through the use of online crowdfunding, social media and video-sharing websites. These shifts have opened new opportunities for Black women filmmakers who were until then often excluded from traditional means of exhibition and distribution. I will examine these strategies through the work of Moyin Saka, Jaha Browne and Cecile Emeke, whose films have primarily contributed to the re-presentation of Black womanhood in popular culture.

The work offered for this PhD by Published Works charts the history of cinema exhibition in Britain from the late 1950s to the present. At the start of this period, cinemagoing as a form of public entertainment entered a long period of decline that was only arrested with the development and growth of multiplex cinemas in the 1980s and 1990s. Despite these changes, the feature film itself remained a culturally and commercially valuable artefact, though increasingly this meant the Hollywood film. Whilst due consideration is afforded to the technological changes in cinemas and the cinema apparatus, my work places the development of cinemagoing in a broad social, economic, cultural and political context, and explains how these issues impact upon on-going developments. In the late 1950s, cinemagoing declined partly in response to changing leisure habits, demographic shifts, the growth of consumer culture, television, and the widespread adoption of new broadcast technologies like home video and satellite. The multiplex returned feature films to cinemas, but was a definitively American commercial form closely associated with new forms of leisure and out-of-town retailing. There are also parallels between the context for development of the multiplex in the USA – suburbanisation, shopping malls and reliance on the motorcar – and developments in Britain in the last 30 years. To this end there is a specific emphasis on the development of the multiplex cinema as part of a wider narrative about the re-positioning of cinemagoing as a collective, public form of visual entertainment, in the period from the mid-1980s, in the context of some dramatic changes in the transient nature of capitalism and urban planning. From the early 1990s onwards there was a growing anxiety about the impact of out-of-town developments on Britain’s urban centres, and a concomitant and renewed emphasis on the importance of the urban core rather than the edge. Thus, the key to understanding the evolution of cinema exhibition today is to pay particular attention to urban planning as inherently ideological, shifting and changing in line with broader political, economic and social considerations.

This thesis analyzes the current transition to digital cinema projection technologies within the film exhibition business. I begin by discussing two historical cases of technological change in film exhibition technology, and I identify the corporations that successfully controlled periods of technological change in order to solidify their position atop the film industry. In drawing from these historical case studies, I examine the current transition to digital cinema projection technologies by discussing the structure of the film exhibition business and identifying those exhibitors that are controlling the transition to digital cinema. I find that the top three exhibitors - Regal Cinemas, AMC Entertainment, and Cinemark - are controlling digital cinema through two joint ventures: Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP), and National CineMedia (NCM).

This thesis investigates the historically composed political and economic contexts that contributed to the late 1990s commercial renaissance of Korean national cinema and that have sustained the popularity of Korean films among local and regional audiences ever since. Unlike existing approaches to the topic, which emphasise the textual characteristics of national film production, this thesis considers relations between film production, distribution, exhibition, and ancillary markets, as well as Korean cinema’s engagement with international cinemas such as Hollywood, Hong Kong, China and Japan. I argue that following the relaxation of restrictive film policy towards the importation and distribution of foreign films between 1986 and 1988, the subsequent failure of the domestic film industry to compete against international competition precipitated a remarkable shift in consensus regarding the industry’s structure and functions. Due to the loss of distribution rights to foreign films and the rapid decline in ticket sales for Korean films, the continued economic viability of local film companies was under enormous threat by the early 1990s. The government reacted by permitting conglomerates to seize control of the industry and pursue vertical and horizontal integration. During the rest of the decade, Korean cinema was transformed from an art cinema to a commercial entertainment cinema. The 1997/98 economic crisis led to the exit of conglomerate finance, but streamlined film companies were able to withstand the monetary meltdown, continue the domestic revitalisation, and, since the late 1990s, build media empires based on the expansion of Korean cinema throughout the Asian region.

El procés de digitalització de la indústria cinematogràfica ha afectat de forma profunda les dinàmiques professionals dels àmbits de la producció, la distribució i l’exhibició. La investigació analitza els orígens del cinema digital i la implementació de la reconversió digital en el sector de l’exhibició. Es fa un recorregut per les diverses fases d’implementació de la tecnologia digital als cinemes: des de la definició d’uns protocols tècnics universals, fins a les vies de finançament que han fet possible portar a terme el procés. També s’analitza com s’han transformat els mecanismes de la distribució i l’exhibició cinematogràfica en aquest nou context de convergència digital. Es posa un èmfasi especial en les polítiques públiques de suport a la digitalització i en la implicació i responsabilitat de les administracions per fomentar i finançar aquests canvis en el sector cinematogràfic. A més s’analitza la rellevància que les projeccions en 3D i els continguts alternatius tenen en el futur de l’exhibició, i com aquests canvis afecten els cinemes independents, especialment en el context europeu. L’estudi fa una anàlisi de l’evolució de l’exhibició cinematogràfica a Catalunya entre els anys 2000 i 2013. A partir de dades oficials de l’Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals de la Generalitat de Catalunya (ICEC), s’analitzen tots els aspectes essencials que permeten fer una radiografia del sector de l’exhibició durant el segle XXI. Així, s’estudia l’evolució del número de cinemes i pantalles, el model de sala i la seva capacitat, les oscil·lacions en el volum d’espectadors de cinema o l’evolució dels preus i les recaptacions. A més, es fa una anàlisi del cinema en versió original, de la distribució territorial de les sales, de la presència de les diverses llengues al cinema així com de les projeccions en 3D i de la situació del procés de digitalització a Catalunya. L’última part de la investigació es centra en un estudi de cas, el Cinema Truffaut de Girona. Es fa una síntesi de la seva evolució històrica i la seva singularitat de ser l’única sala d’exhibició cinematogràfica en versió original que hi ha a Catalunya fora de Barcelona i la seva àrea metropolitana. S’analitza el model d’exhibició alternativa amb suport públic que suposa el Cinema Truffaut i es fa un anàlisi de dades per valorar els seus resultats, viabilitat i impacte en el panorama cinematogràfic de la ciutat de Girona.
El proceso de digitalización de la industria cinematográfica ha afectado de forma profunda las dinámicas profesionales de los ámbitos de la producción, la distribución y la exhibición. La investigación analiza los orígenes y evolución del cine digital así como la implantación de la reconversión digital en el sector de la exhibición. Se realiza un recorrido por las diversas fases de desarrollo de la tecnología digital en los cines: desde la definición de unos protocolos técnicos universales, hasta las vías de financiación que han hecho posible el proceso. También se analiza como se han transformado los mecanismos de la distribución y la exhibición cinematográfica en este nuevo contexto de convergencia digital. La investigación se focaliza especialmente en las políticas públicas de apoyo a la digitalización y en la implicación y responsabilidad de las administraciones en fomentar y financiar estos cambios en el sector cinematográfico. Además, se estudia la relevancia que las proyecciones en 3D y los llamados contenidos alternativos tienen en el futuro de la exhibición, y de qué forma estos cambios afectan a los cines independientes, sobretodo en el contexto europeo. El estudio analiza la evolución de la exhibición cinematográfica en Cataluña entre los años 2000 y 2013. A partir de datos oficiales del Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals de la Generalitat de Catalunya (ICEC), se recogen sistemáticamente todos los aspectos esenciales que permiten realizar una radiografía del sector de la exhibición durante el s.XXI. De esta forma, se estudia la evolución del número de cines y pantallas, el modelo de sala cinematográfica y su capacidad, las oscilaciones en el volumen de espectadores de cine o la evolución de los precios y las recaudaciones. Además, se analiza el cine en versión original, la distribución territorial de las salas, la presencia de las distintas lenguas oficiales en el cine así como las proyecciones tridimensionales y la situación del proceso de digitalización en Cataluña. La última parte de la investigación se centra en un estudio de caso, el Cine Truffaut de Girona. Se realiza una síntesis de su evolución histórica y su singularidad al ser la única sala de exhibición cinematográfica en versión original que hay en Cataluña fuera de Barcelona y su área metropolitana. Se estudia el modelo de exhibición alternativa con apoyo público que supone el Cine Truffaut y se realiza un análisis de datos para valorar sus resultados, viabilidad e impacto en el panorama cinematográfico de la ciudad de Girona.
The process of digitization of film industry has deeply affected professional dynamics in the areas of production, distribution and exhibition. The research analyzes the origins and evolution of the digital cinema as well as the implementation of the digital conversion in the exhibition sector. It explains the different phases of the development of digital technology in cinemas: from the definition of universal technical protocols, to avenues of funding that made possible the process. And it also analyzes how the mechanisms of distribution and the film exhibition are transformed in this new context of digital convergence. The research focuses especially on public policies to support digitization and the involvement and responsibility of the authorities to promote and finance these changes in the film industry. In addition, explores the relevance that projections in 3D and alternative content will have in the future of the exhibition, and in what form these changes affect the independent cinemas, especially in the European context. The study analyzes the evolution of the film exhibition in Catalonia between 2000 and 2013. Based on official data from the Institut Català de les Empreses Culturals of the Generalitat de Catalunya (ICEC), systematically collects all the essential aspects that allow to perform an accurate display of the sector during the 21st century. In this way, it explores the evolution of the number of cinemas and screens, movie theatre models and capacity fluctuations in the volume of viewers of film or the evolution of prices and revenues. In addition, discusses cinemas in original version, the territorial distribution of the screens, the presence of the different official languages as well as three-dimensional projections and the situation of the process of digitization in Catalonia. The last part of the investigation focuses on a case study, the Cinema Truffaut of Girona. It explains a synthesis of his historical evolution and its uniqueness as the only cinema with exhibition in original version that exists in Catalonia outside Barcelona and its metropolitan area. The research focuses in the model of alternative exhibition with public support that Cinema Truffaut means. A data analysis is carried out to assess their results, feasibility and impact on the cinematic panorama of the city of Girona.

This is the first English-language study of internationally acclaimed Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa, examining the cultural, production and exhibition contexts of his feature films, shorts and video installations. It situates Costa’s filmmaking within the contexts of Portuguese, European and global art film, looking into his working practices alongside the impact of digital video, forms of collaborative authorship, and the intricate dialogue between modes of production and aesthetics. Considering the exhibition, circulation and reception of Costa’s creative output in settings such as film festivals, the art gallery circuit and the home video market, ReFocus: The Films of Pedro Costa provides an essential critical analysis of this major filmmaker – as well as of the multifaceted production and consumption practices that surround contemporary art cinema.

Cinema’s 1990s centenary brought declarations of its demise amid the internet and digital filmmaking and viewing. Throughout this period Douglas Gordon embarked on a reconsideration—part autopsy, part archaeological dig—of film as a medium and social practice. Projecting images appropriated from amateur films and Hollywood classics, Gordon created exhibition environments that emphasized the screen as an active component by positioning it as a sometimes fragile, sometimes monumental object of presentation. This chapter considers multiple works by Gordon, culminating with close examination of 5 Year Drive-By, an installation situated like an abandoned drive-in in the California desert in 2001. By revisiting the drive-in as commercial cinema’s attempt to bring film and car culture together with political and historical narratives of landscape and conquest, the chapter argues that 5 Year Drive-By can function as both geological medium and archaeological ruin. As such, it aligns popular modes of cinema with discussions of the twentieth-first-century legacy of modernity.

This chapter examines how the growth of specialised Asian film festivals (e.g. Busan, Hong Kong, Udine) participates in the development of a regional Asian cinema. It also considers the rise of digital distribution and exhibition of Asian cinema through online streaming models such as Viddsee. The chapter explores how alternative circuits of distribution respond to and in turn precipitate different audience consumption practices as filmmakers continue to seek ways of making films that will cross national markets.

Chapter 5 examines works of expanded cinema that emphasize another, somewhat different “sculptural” property—cinema’s spatial dimension. Such works heighten awareness of cinema’s spatial dimension, blurring the line between temporal and spatial arts in a way similar to minimalist sculpture. The major form here is film installation, which, rather than exploding the cinematic apparatus as the object-based works of chapter 4 do, brings that apparatus out of the dark, presenting it for contemplation and analysis in a way that conventional film exhibition intentionally thwarts. The sculptural characteristics of such works often requires that they be exhibited in gallery spaces, which suggests that they are “intermedial” hybrids of cinema and sculpture. But this hybridity is only apparent; in fact, these works were asserted and understood within the context of avant-garde film culture as “cinematic.” In examining these types of expanded work, this chapter considers key historical factors during both the early-to-mid ’70s and the last two decades. During the 1960s and ’70s, the attention given to cinema’s physical properties, including the space of exhibition, was related to the anti-illusionist aims of avant-garde filmmakers for whom “materiality” included the space of cinematic exhibition and the ideological ramifications of that space. More recently, the impending obsolescence of analog film and the presumed ephemerality of digital media have resulted in the former’s physical “object”–properties taking on new meaning and importance.

The distribution and exhibition of motion pictures are at a crossroads. Ever since the medium was invented in the 1890s the “picture” has been brought to the spectator in the form of photochemical images stored on strips of celluloid film passed in intermittent motion through a projector. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, an entirely new method has emerged, using digitally stored data in place of film and barely needing any physical support other than a computerised file. This opens an intriguing portfolio of revenue-generating opportunities for the movie exhibitor. This chapter will give an overview of current developments in digital cinema (d-cinema). It will examine potential new business models in an industry wedded to the analogue process. The authors will consider the strategies of companies at the forefront of the technology; implications associated with the change; and how different territories might adapt in order to accommodate this transition.

The distribution and exhibition of motion pictures are at a crossroads. Ever since the medium was invented in the 1890s the “picture” has been brought to the spectator in the form of photochemical images stored on strips of celluloid film passed in intermittent motion through a projector. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, an entirely new method has emerged, using digitally stored data in place of film and barely needing any physical support other than a computerised file. This opens an intriguing portfolio of revenue-generating opportunities for the movie exhibitor. This chapter will give an overview of current developments in digital cinema (d-cinema). It will examine potential new business models in an industry wedded to the analogue process. The authors will consider the strategies of companies at the forefront of the technology; implications associated with the change; and how different territories might adapt in order to accommodate this transition.

This chapter explores issues of archiving and digital preservation in light of changing exhibition strategies, with a focus on the important roles played by the South East Asia Pacific Audio Visual Archive Association (SEAPAVAA) and the Asian Film Archive (AFA) in the creation and maintenance of a regional Asian cinema. The chapter also considers the issue of archiving broadly, to encompass not only the physical preservation of films from Asia but also journals, societies, and other forums that have sought to preserve scholarly interpretations of those films.

Chapter 2 addresses a third wave of expanded cinema, running from the mid-1990s to the present. Though in dialogue with art world developments, particularly the prevalence of moving images in that world, this wave again rose out of the theory and practice of avant-garde cinema. Hence, it reflects that film culture’s skepticism about digital technology, media convergence, and the “death” of cinema. Chapter 2 considers two major factors in the resurgence of expanded cinema. The first is the spread of digital technology and the implications of this for filmmaking and the theorization of cinema’s ontology. In the wake of “new media’s” ascendency in the “digital age,” experimental filmmakers and critics took up a renewed investigation of the nature of cinema and the role that specific physical media (e.g., celluloid film) play in our conception it. Prominent theorists of new media have argued against such specificity positions, employing concepts like “remediation” and “media convergence,” which speak to a merging of media and art forms quite contrary to the broadly modernist notions of avant-garde filmmakers—including those who produced expanded cinema during its “second wave.” The second major factor for expanded cinema’s new life is the microcinema, a form of film exhibition specific to experimental cinema that appeared across the United States, Canada, and Europe beginning the mid-1990s. Microcinemas are characterized by a highly participatory social environment, wherein film screenings blend into other kinds of social activity. Microcinemas are thus models for expanded cinema, each showcasing cinema’s adaptability to varying spaces and formal heterogeneity.

This chapter discusses depictions of pain in the cinema, and at the same time attempts to demonstrate how the graphic exhibition of bodies in pain wields the potential to elicit an affective response in the spectator. The films discussed in this chapter include films from the American torture porn genre (e.g., Saw, and Hostel), as well as Martyrs, and A Serbian Film. Describing torture porn’s depiction of violence, along with its obsession with rust and ruin, the chapter argues that the genre mourns the loss of an industrial past to a world of digital technologies—and calls for a violent return to the body. This violent return to the body is also taken up by European films that depict explicit violence, blood, and gore. Pain is used in these films to show the human body taken to its absolute limit: at the threshold between human and animal, and between flesh and meat.

This chapter will examine some of the possibilities that digital projection technologies have opened up with regard to the spaces of cinema exhibition. The authors argue that the process of projecting moving images—whether from a film print, a digital file, or another medium—has been significantly altered in the digital age due to the portability and affordability of digital projectors, which have permitted the widespread exhibition of projected moving images beyond the cinema auditorium. By outlining a tentative topography of three trends in digital cinema exhibition—‘forest cinema’, Bring Your Own Beamer events, and VJing—they argue that the current moment of digital cinema exhibition has much in common with the earliest years of cinema exhibition in the period before institutionalization. In this respect the current moment of variety in digital cinema exhibition offers a return to cinema’s ‘Wild West’.