Three Histories: Hail the Oracle

A Brief History of Prediction

Twenty years ago I was one of the first people on line at thebrand-new State Theater, which had opened in the Pennsylvania townwhere I grew up. The first thing I noticed when I got inside was howtiny the screen was. I asked the manager why this was and heconfidently explained that he'd read some very reliable predictionsthat, “In a year or two all movies will be shown with videoprojectors, and the picture won't look good blown up toobig.”

In perusing the last 30 years of Millimeter magazine,including my own years at the magazine, I took a fascinating trip backin time. It's interesting to see people's vision of the future from theperspective of their future. It's like taking a look at an oldWorld's Fair exhibit and noting what facets of “the future”it got right and what it didn't.

As I leafed through many pounds of bound issues, it was certainlyclear that Millimeter has always been an excellent record ofwhat was being said and done in the film and TV industry at any giventime. Full of meaty articles from its 1973 issues onward, the weightypile of magazine pages was in fact a chronicle of the thoughts of topartistic and technical minds about what was going on at the time andpredictions about where things were going.

But it also became more apparent than usual how much more slowly theindustry really changes than some expect. Certainly, many of the toolsand techniques of production and post have evolved tremendously since1973. And a visit to three decades worth of Millimeter bears outthat the magazine was pretty good at predicting some of the changesthat were to come. It's just that these changes didn't really come withthe speed and force that some thought they would.

There are discussions from the late 1970s about the advantages ofcomputer-based, random access editing. Articles abound from the early'80s (well before Tron) about the concept of something called“computer generated imagery.” Would it put traditionalanimators out of business or usher in a whole new aesthetic that couldlive side-by-side with the old-fashioned style? And, of course, thereare the articles about electronic image capture replacing film emulsionas the preferred medium for motion pictures.

Nonlinear, computer-based editing, of course, did become thestandard way to edit. There came a point when it was newsworthy if aneditor used a Kem. But this was not until the early '90s. Also, it tookuntil the mid '90s for CGI to come into its own and play a role in ahuge number of features and TV shows — from sky replacements tocharacter generation. And yes, Disney did close its traditionalanimation shop — more than two decades after an article inMillimeter suggested the days of cell animation would grind to ahalt.

And, certainly, there are a growing number of theatrical featuresshooting on any number of electronic formats, as predicted more than aquarter century ago in Millimeter, and there will inevitably bemore in the future, but the rush to change to these new technologieshas not exactly moved at the speed of a tsunami.

In fact, on that score, Millimeter was neither the first, northe most forceful, predictor of an imminent change in motion pictureproduction. Almost 50 years ago, Variety, now infamously,proclaimed: “Film is dead.” The argument put forward then— and even in 1954 it wasn't the first time such a claim was made— was that electronic image capture was so much more immediateand potentially cheaper that it would soon replace film as the methodof choice for filmmakers. If that sounds familiar, it has been repeatedmany times, in many ways, over the ensuing five decades.

Millimeter picked up this subject in a 1977 article:“Feature Films on Video: Historical Observations on aControversial Marriage.” By this point, electronic cinematographyfor theatrical display was not the amorphous concept it was whenVariety hailed its imminent arrival; it already had a 15-yearhistory going back to a feature-length, black-and-white 1964 version ofHamlet starring Richard Burton.

Actor/producer Bill Sargent had a performance of the play covered bythree video cameras and switched live, and then filmed the video outputlive to create what was essentially a kinescope of the play. Sargenttouted his new “Electrovision” process as prints were shownin theaters nationwide. Sargent then used similar technique to createseveral now-forgotten concert films.

By 1969, it was clear that electronic capture would have to work incolor to have a future in theaters. Sargent and several other producersplanned films that would be shot using color videotape. Then a veryearly tape-to-film would be created. In 1969, Technicolor, always onthe vanguard, formed Vidtronics to service producers' colortape-to-film needs. Their process used an old kinescope-like techniqueto create three black-and-white kinescope separation masters, whichcould then be printed using the dye transfer technique they used forregular features. A few years later Vidtronics unceremoniously closeddown.

Sargent's last video-originated feature was Give 'em Hell,Harry, made in what was now being called“Theatrovision.” James Whitmore was nominated for Oscar forhis portrayal of Harry Truman, and the article eagerly speculates thatthe time has come for more projects like it. “In the first fourmonths of 1977,” it says, “videotape has participated (inpart) in the production for four major studio features. While videoproduction [of feature films] is definitely on the increase, we mustawait another technical breakthrough before video-tape can hope toequal 35mm motion picture film.”

Five years later another article posed the question: “Canvideo emulate the ‘film look?’” Twenty-six years andcounting, and many still argue forcefully that that breakthroughproduct is yet to ship.

Here's another interesting story. “VideoDisk: A New Dimensionin Home Television,” was an article that ran in the Spring of1975 in time for the Video Systems Exposition and Conference held thatJune in Chicago. The article outlines two very exciting developments inthe new, and controversial, concept of home video. The companiesinvolved — Philips-MCA and RCA — had each come out with adifferent format to distribute video content to homes. This waspre-Betamax, and way pre-VHS. The idea presented here was that peoplecould sit in their houses and play video programming the way they didrecords. The future of that industry might, said the piece, be centeredaround disk-shaped media.

The story notes that when the two companies had finished theirdemonstration at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, “a brandnew era had begun in the home entertainment market that has enormouslyfar reaching possibilities for every sector of the entertainment[industry].

“One would hope,” it goes on, “that by the timeFall 1976 rolls around (the announced release date for both systems),one company would have had the sense to join with the other tointroduce a single videodisk system, or two systems, that would bemutually compatible…”

Yes. One would hope. A different disk concept naturally did becomethe predominant delivery system for the home video market, but thatwouldn't happen for two more decades.

Then, of course, there are the trends that never were. “Super8: Alive and Professional in 1978” suggests that the new crop ofSuper 8 cameras, with their single-system sound apparatus that recordedaudio on a magnetic stripe, and the newly created 200ft. Ektachromemagazines would be important tools in production in the future. Theyweren't.

In August 1981, readers saw, “3-D Hopes to Rescue SaggingMovie Audience.” “3-D,” said the story, “hadnever lived up to its potential. Once again, this time in the 80s, withbox office returns continuing to decline, the question is: What can bedone to get people away from the tube and into the theaters? Again, theanswer may be 3-D.” Or maybe not.

Sure, sometimes Millimeter missed the mark. Or more likelyjumped the gun. Those virtual sets and virtual actors I wrote about inthe mid-90s haven't really had the impact I thought they might. But whogets it right every time?

Looking at all these old Millimeters does wonders to help putthings in perspective. Yes, the industry is constantly evolving, butthings might not be as different next quarter as the NAB demos suggest.Next time I hear someone tout how the industry is going to be doingeverything differently two years from now — and backs up theclaim with a tired invocation of the all-purpose Moore's Law —I'll think about the time I spent leafing through 30 years' worth ofsuch claims. The business is changing, but it's often doing so in itsown sweet time.

Last year I went back to my hometown for a visit and found the StateTheater all boarded up. The business had run its course and beenreplaced by a multiplex at the mall a few miles away.

I'm pretty certain those video projectors had never arrived.

Jon Silberg was an associate editor at Millimeter from1996 to 1998 and has continued to contribute to the magazine sincethen, as well as to other industry publications.