Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Catching Up With Audience Demand

We're gonna need a bigger camera...

Ok, let's talk film. Well, I should not pat myself on the back too much for this. But, I am right again. I know I am right often in this blog. I have been saying for two months now that Michael Bay needs to start shooting Transformers 2 in IMAX. Well news from Variety.com yesterday says that Bay will indeed pick up an IMAX camera. Though I can't take all the credit for this. We all knew this. In fact I think myself and everyone was wondering why it was taking Bay so long to announce that he was going to film in IMAX.

Well he announced it yesterday. It is official. It will be interesting to see Bay's breakneck speed directing on such a large canvas, but hey, it's IMAX. It's the only way to go for this film. Someone at Paramount caught this in time and sent IMAX cameras to Bay. Or maybe they read this blog and knew how much I could not understand why they were neglecting something so painfully obvious. Well they fixed the error and all is well.

Well the IMAX and 3D revolution is here. I know. You still don't believe me. It is actually a far fetched thing to believe that a great portion of film will be in 3D, but it will. Hollywood has planned for it. They gave X number of dollars to help facilitate that and it will happen. I mean the sequel that we all knew we'd see, well not The Dark Knight Returns, but Kung Fu Panda will get a 3D sequel. Hollywood swears to us that this is not your mama's 3D and I am inclined to believe them. With the sweeping technology we have these days, I am confident that the audience will be demanding more 3D film.

Because as I always say, this is about getting people into the theater. I am a huge advocate of that. I believe that film will always be better on the big screen. We are coming to a crossroad where we will choose to view our film on Blu Ray and out God awful huge LCD's And why not? It's a good way to go. Yet, there will never be a substitute for watching a great film on a large screen with audience reaction. Sure, some audience members can steal theater experiences with loud popcorn chomping and talking even though the theater strongly forbids it. And everyone around you probably hates it.

The only thing Hollywood needs to remember with all this technology is to give us interesting film. That's the thing that Hollywood is and will always be incompetent in. They will always be incompetent in producing great film. They don't do that regularly. They do it once in a while. When it's just Lightning in a Bottle. They do it when it just happens. They don't know how to start from an idea and know from script page one, how to make great film. Pixar does it! It can be done. But mainstream Hollywood can't do it. Until later, let's talk film!