India's Bollywood Opts for Low-Cost Digital Cinema 191
Makarand writes "While Hollywood is yet to figure out who will pay for the costly
$100,000 digital projectors required for the digital roll-out of
films, the Mumbai (India) based film Industry (called Bollywood)
is settling for cheaper projectors of a bit lesser quality
available at one-third the price, to proceed with their digital roll-out.
Industry officials call this cheaper version of the digital cinema the 'E-Cinema',
in contrast to the 'D-Cinema' which Hollywood is waiting for. Over
1000 films are made each year in India and just 1 film in 12 makes a
profit. Transporting conventional celluloid prints to remote towns
gives video pirates plenty of time to copy and make prints. Digital
cinema will cut down on piracy and help the industry to increase
its profits."
Decrease Piracy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Last time I checked it was 100x easier to pirate a digital format by simply copying it as oppose to the usual digital-camera-at-screen method or even more difficult and costly telecine process.
Re:And? (Score:1, Insightful)
*shrug*
Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit? (Score:5, Insightful)
And relative to Hollywood, the amount invested in Indian movies is far lesser, so that's another reason.
Finally, the Bollywood has a lot of families which have been in the industry for a long time, so money isn't really a problem for a lot of them - they'd rather waste a lot of money making absolutely crappy movies just to launch a new actor or an actress from their family.
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, all those call center reps need a night out once in a while
Excuses, excuses. (Score:2, Insightful)
"But, but, it doesn't hurt anyone"
"It's free advertising"
"I never would have spent the money on it anyway"
Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're kidding, right? One in twelve movies making a profit is stellar performance. Compare to Hollywood, where no movie has ever made a profit. See: "Hollywood accounting".
Re:They're where Hollywood was in the 1950s. (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, this really isn't true.
The music industry and the film industry rarely have people crossing over.
They work together very closely, as music is a very important part of the scene, but singers rarely become actors and vice versa.
However, every Ms India / Ms India who became Ms World / Universe / Foo automatically has a long acting career ahead of her
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they're adopting a different technology strategy than companies in the US are. In particular, they're opting for better than we have now (if not better than we hope to have), and sooner to market, and cheaper. This is something that should make people
It's not as if these guys couldn't be selling us this technology in the near future, while our "better" technology is still trying to get off the dime.
I'm sure it's an aquired taste
Well, it's more of a cultural difference, the way that Hong Kong audiences love an incredily corny tear jerker. You probably don't realize how ridiculous the movies your countrymen like until you live someplace else. I kid an Indian friend of mine whenever he's going to piss his wife off by working late that she's going to make him climb to the top of a grassy knoll and dance around a tree. He hasn't thought of it yet, but I suppose he could tell me to check for a bomb strapped to the bottom of my car when I'm in the same situation.
Re:I've seen several. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm American born, of Bangladeshi descent and here's the deal. Most Indian movies suck. I would not watch them until very recently. And I learned something: there are some good ones. Most of them are crap.
But most American movies suck too (Stealth, anyone? The Island? Right before I left the country there was not one good movie coming out in theatres).
Until you've seen Lagaan or Monsoon Wedding or Earth (with, like Lagaan, features Aamir Khan, India's Mifune Toshiro, and is based on Bapsi Sidwa's excellent Icecandy Man/Cracking India novel) you've got no real right to malign the entire Indian movie industry.
That's not even mentioning Sajity Roy whose Apu trilogy is a classic of world cinema, of whom my favorite director, Kurosawa Akira said:
"The quiet but deep observation, understanding and love of the human race which are characteristic of all his films, have impressed me greatly... They can be described as flowing composedly, like a big river. Mr Ray is a wonderful and respectful man. I feel that he is a 'giant' of the movie industry."
"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."
Let's not forget the work of Indian disporia: Bend it Like Beckham, the Sixth Sense, and other films which to varying degrees benefitted from Bollywood influence.
Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit? (Score:1, Insightful)
And it's not too far off from what happens in Hollywood, book publishing, and the music industry. Surely you don't think a majority of the albums you see at the record store are profitable? In all media, they throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, and the "Top Ten" are so successful that the profits end up subsidizing the next round of stuff thrown at the wall.
Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of market research shows that younger generations are not really star-centric. Celebrity is disposable, so no long term relationships are made with actors/directors, etc.
So to address your statement, the story is actually far more likely to sell a story in the US film market. More accurately, HIGH CONCEPT. This is what hollywood terms a film that can be summarized succinctly, usually in the title. For example: Titanic... or The Perfect Storm, Anaconda, et al. High concept films focus on the simple catchy idea that is easily conveyed. This reduces costs because a name cast is not necessary; the film sells itself. The title is a marketing phrase. The way hollywood hedges bets is that they tie a name cast to a high concept film and assume that all bases are covered. Tom Cruise in American Samurai, or Tom Hanks in Castaway. These are sure moneymakers and everyone wants to bankroll those.
The star system is more effective for the older crowd. 45-64s make up about 25% of the moviegoing pop in the US, the second biggest chunk behind the 12-24s. Stars matter to them; they establish relationships with their artists and nurture those relationships.
That's why your summer blockbuster is packed with your rapper/pop star du jour and suitably MTVed dialogue. Serious films with stars are more likely distributed during the rest of the year on non-holiday weekends but most likely during Oscar season, typically considered to be the fall and winter.
Re: Bollywood. Bollywood movies won't cross over here for two reasons. Americans on a whole tend to be very culturally arrogant. If Bollywood films don't already fit the existing view Americans have of Indians, they will not be embraced. Americans watch films to affirm themselves, for the most part... and this attitude transcends racial, gender, and age lines. Americans for the most part, feel themselves superior.
Also, Bollywood movies are bound by cultural restraints that will make them less than viable here.
The other side of that, is that a Bollywood star who tries to cross over here risks alienating his bollywood audience, to the point where he/she might not be viable over there any more.
So much of the world has become acclimated to consuming our product, it is more likely that they'll come towards the US style of filmmaking as opposed to the other way around.
Re:only 1 in 12 makes a profit? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not DRM that they're relying on (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I've read the article, I don't think that DRM has anything to do with their reasoning as to why this will cut down on piracy. For all we know from the article, they might not even be incorporating DRM in their digital copies.
The main problem seems to be that it simply takes so long to get celluloid copies rolled out to everywhere at the same time, and a large part of this is because the expense makes it difficult for smaller theatres to get movies quickly. People then buy from the pirates because the genuine copies aren't available.
It's similar to what happens in developed countries outside the US when the industry tries to hold up a movie or TV show's international release for anything from months to years until whatever overseas seasons they think will be most profitable. People ignore the industry and simply pirate copies from the US. (Hence the regionised DVD players, which have been an attempt by the MPAA to make it difficult or illegal for people to import and export movies between countries independently from the industry.)
The main difference seems to be that Bollywood isn't withholding movies intentionally --- it simply can't get them around everywhere quickly enough. Lower cost digital systems mean that Bollywood distributors can distribute more widely and more quickly to the much smaller population centres, meaning that people will have less incentive to pirate the movies.
What's the difference? (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this different from Hollywoood?
Really Dumb statement... (Score:3, Insightful)
In absolutely all cases i can think of going to digital has actually made piracy not only easier but faster. Gone are the days where someone from the cutting room or the projector room would have to go through the lengthy process of transferring to a digicam or whatever. Now that the films will come pre-digitised, its just a matter of moving bits from one format to another.
Re:Major stars? Try Amitabh Bachchan (Score:3, Insightful)
India's movies are typically boiler-plate, and most are based upon the same recurring theme.
Religion and social norms drastically influence the movies. The whole act of dating / courting would be considered extremely backwards and controlled here in the USA. It would be the type of thing we would attribute to the Amish, or the way things were 100 years ago here.
Most of the movies are very surrealistic. The characters will suddenly break into song and dance - a literal music video within the movie. The characters will change costumes and locations many times during the song, and then the song ends and suddenly it's back to a "normal" movie again.
The movies are a source of escapism to a mainly impoverished society. Many movies are shown in tents and other ramshackle theaters that look very seedy at best. Their target audience doesn't want to see realism, or even something down to earth. They want to see love stories where a poor person is escalated into another caste because their lover (not in the literal sense) is wealthy. They want to see 20 exotic locations that they will never get to physically visit, all compressed into a single movie, even though there is no reason whatsoever within the plot or storyline to visit 20 different locations.
The simple fact is that these type of movies would not go over well here in the US. In the vast bulk of films the production levels are so low they simply wouldn't be taken seriously. Indian movie goers simply don't demand much of their movies, so Bollywood keeps churning out the same thing over and over.
In my opinion it is similar to soap operas here in the US. Many people (myself included) look down on soap operas. They seem to be more about quantity than quality, and have a certain cheesy aura to them. However there are those that love them and can't get enough of them. What Bollywood produces is similar, except the cheesy factor is greatly amplified.
Dan East