USEDCARSALESMAN

Forest Lawn It Is

Usedcarsalesman exited the 134W freeway today at the Forest Lawn Dr Exit because he was trying to reach a commercial destination in Toluca Lake. 

He then proceeded up Forest Lawn Drive past the entrance to Griffith Park on his left and further along past the entrance of Mt. Sinai Memorial Park.  Then he rounded the bend and suddenly he saw TV media trucks -- not one or two, but probably enough to fill the lot of a large truck dealership in Southern California.   And all were seemingly in operation with their roof-top dishes pointed south-ward.  

At first Usedcarsalesman thought maybe the backside of the Hollywood Hills had experienced a heavy- duty forest fire.  But he didn't see helicopters dropping flame retardant chemicals or otherwise see any evidence of firemen, fire-trucks or hoses.

Though It took a couple of seconds, Usedcarsalesman finally deduced what all this media activity was probably about.  He was near a cemetery, "Forest Lawn Cemetery."  And who, of course was the very famous American Pop Artist who died so recently?

As Usedcarsalesman confirmed later that day,it was in fact Michael Jackson who was being laid to rest at Forest Lawn, apparently on July 7.  So all the media hardware was apparently there in anticipation of this event.   

Still, Usedcarsalesman was somewhat alarmed by what he was gazing upon.  And it wasn't because of the media trucks or the legions of people sitting outside the gate.  It was because Jackson's burial was at Forest Lawn itself.  

Now Usedcarsalesman isn't knocking Forest Lawn, but he is knocking its neighbor in the immediate vicinity:  a giant 4-6 square mile "armpit" of mud-bog real-estate presumably owned by Warner Bros (Correction, July 27:  Usedcarsalesman found out that this land is in development as part of a public works project) 

Usedcarsalesman, unfortunately had to witness as said "armpit" sat mostly muddy and treeless for the past 5 years! 

Now sure Forest Lawn Cemetery itself is probably very nice and Usedcarsalesman will have to visit the grounds sometime.  But he also has reason to suspect that when he gets up on its nice grassy, tomb-stone studded hills, he'll turn to face north and the view of the Warner Bros mud-bog/armpit will be magnificently G&d Awful!

If he could have, Usedcarsalesman would have said to Michael Jackson: "Mike, why not get buried at Neverland?  We could probably tweak the zoning for you if we passed a little cash around to the pols running in Santa Barbara's local elections... Or heck Mike, why not just go "old-school" and take the "dirt nap" at Hollywood Forever Cemetery?  That place is class and it has no bad views plus lots of nice things -- trees and so forth -- growing to obscure the main roadway.  And, hey  plenty of Hollywood celebs are buried there, too!"  

But Jackson went with Forest Lawn.  And maybe he was right.  After all he is kicking it there with Rick James which is pretty cool 

 

-The Landlord- Might Kick Off a New Trend in Hollywood

Usedcarsalesman was impressed with the Will Farrell video, The Landlord, that came out on You Tube and other free web video venues the other day. In the modern vernacular, this video has become a “viral” hit and has had drawn millions of viewers.

Yes, to most people, watching this piece on-line was simply a new way to see a performer they like (Farrell), get some fresh laughs, and have something cute to message their friends about. Not a big deal for them. But to Hollywood, the Farrell short potentially indicated a seismic shift between the entertainment business and the web.

Sure, Farrell’s Landlord piece is not the first newsworthy venture Hollywood has made in to the world of broadband video. Last year, we saw the NBC TV pilot, Nobody's Watching canceled, but replayed on-line and now, like Frankenstein, brought back to life (in development) thanks to viewer interest on You Tube (Usedcarsalesman thinks it would not be surprising to see the majority of canceled pilot shows now air on the Web, their producers allowed to “appeal” their show to see if it finds traction with people in numbers which might merit its return to television.

We also saw the LonelyGirl15 videos on You Tube starting last year. These were notable for the views they drew and also notable for their deception: people were misled in to thinking that the woman was not an actress, but simply an unusually “magnetic” young woman using the web to express herself on camera. The details of how these Lonely Girl videos were produced are not abundantly clear, but it appears the renowned talent agency Creative Artists Agency had something to do with it. Ultimately, the creative talents behind the videos signed a contract to have the concept made in to a show (And, perhaps the viewer success of LonelyGirl indirectly made it the “mother” of the Will Farrell The Landlord short).

With the recent advent of the The Landlord, an unwritten rule in the entertainment industry appeared to get broken: Hollywood never gives away for free what people are willing to pay for. And The Landlord was a definite give-away. Farrell usually makes 20 million plus a picture and his films make big money: Blades of Glory still going strong in Theaters and probably this year’s top grossing comedy. He’s probably the hottest comedian currently on the scene. Why put something of his on-line where no revenue will be generated (And, neither was The Landlord a trailer for an upcoming film, a commercial, or even an advertiser sponsored piece on network television. This was short entertainment with no "strings" for viewers - no commercials to watch or skip around and no purchases to make)?

When you add the fact that SAG franchised Agency-signed talent don’t allow actors to perform without the agency’s say so, you start to see the “shift”: Ferrell likely got a formal go ahead from his agency to have the landlord short aired on-line in full recognition that no fees for his service would be involved. His agency concluded, “That was a funny piece Will did. Lets use the free video hosting sites and maybe generate some extra publicity for Will with it." The follow-on conclusion was: “Wow, this piece got a lot of attention from the public…it may be a safe bet to develop this 'Landlord concept in to a feature since the public appears overwhelmingly receptive, thus meaning it’s likely to make money at the box-office.”

Thus, with The Landlord, we may have inadvertently seen the birth of Hollywood use of the web as a way to gage the success or failure of film and TV concepts prior to their production. It may also signal a change in how film concepts are developed - Actors now quit waiting for parts and, in pro-active fashion, shoot their own shorts (with their agent's auspices) and air them on You Tube/Google Video to gage viewer interest rather than just waiting for suitable scripts to come their way.

George Lucas Turns Movie-Making in to Dentistry?

When Usedcarsalesman was in the 8th grade, he did a book report for a social studies class at Junior High School in the DC metro area. The book in question was Skywalking, a George Lucas biography written by author, Dale Pollock. Given that the last of the first trio of "Star Wars" films had come out many years prior, Usedcarsalesman's peer audience was kind of wondering, understandably, "why is this kid talking about the guy who did those Star War's flicks, now?"  Reality, at that time, was that Usedcarsalesman seemed to be one of the few youngsters in the DC area with an interest in film and TV production - George Lucas was simply one of his heroes at the time, whether there was a Star Wars film out or not.

Well, here we are, years later, and 'Used' is in Hollywood and still pays attention to the activities of childhood heroes like George Lucas. Heck, in recent years, 'Used' has even acted as the lead in films and TV productions that he had auditioned for at the "Lucas" building on the grounds of the director's alma mater, The University of Southern California ("USC"). So, it was with some interest that Usedcarsalesman reviewed the news made by George Lucas, recently, regarding the purpose of his 175 million dollar gift to USC. At Wednesday's groundbreaking for a new Cinema Arts building, The "Star Wars" creator spoke, calling his gift a signal to the rest of academia that movies are "an important discipline and should be taken seriously." The Los Angeles Times said Lucas believes movie-making schools should be thought of on the same level as medical and law schools as well as schools of architecture and even journalism.

Hmm, Usedcarsalesman thinks, with all due respect, that Lucas may have a hang-up or two with academia's views on movie-making. Maybe, while at a Marin County cocktail-party, Lucas got the cold-shoulder from other rich-types who had contributed to the hard-science departments at Berkeley or Stanford ("...not some movie-making school!"). Maybe, the director's Mom always wanted him to be Chief of Surgery at Palms of Pasadena Hospital. Who knows?

But, speaking - rather presumptuously - for the younger folks in the entertainment industry, 'Used' doesn't think that he and they have any latent need for academia to consider "movie-making" an "important discipline" or on the same level as "medical, law or architecture schools." 'Used' thinks it's the architects, medical doctors and lawyers who should rightly have that elevated status in academia - to compensate for, perhaps, the constrained creativity necessitated by their highly-valued disciplines (or their need for state exam and license... God forbid, one ever needs a state license to make a movie!?)

For young movie-makers, if what they've made causes people to watch, that's more than good enough and evidence of the power of what they do. Furthermore, "bright kids"-are-"bright kids"-are-"bright kids" - young movie-makers won't benefit from academia according their schools the status of medical or architecture schools. It's not going to raise or lower movie-maker IQ's and it's not going to improve their product (If anything, there should probably be no movie-making schools, just guilds, apprenticeships etc).  And, the movie-making schools - in general, USC, UCLA, AFI - seem to exist only to bring some efficiency to learning Hollywood's "movie machine," [the system, people and tools] involved in making a quality film or TV product). Usedcarsalesman doesn't think these schools are looking to make any changes.

Nevertheless, Usedcarsalesman thinks that Lucas is alright donating big money to improve facilities at USC's School of Cinema and Television. And, the more money that he and others channel in that direction, the better. But, Lucas should avoid trying to wield a "tight grip" on academia's views about movie-making. Usedcarsalesman may be wrong, but he doesn't see the current or coming generations of movie-makers demanding any change in academic perception regarding their field.

Don't Just Watch The New Breed of Hollywood Entertainment, Sponsor It Too!

Background

Usedcarsalesman wrote posts, November 2004’s "Enhancing the Success of Hollywood Studios in the Early 21st Century" and March 2005’s 2nd post, The “Passion” Involved with Entertainment Production Financing which, in part, discussed the business potential of film and TV productions born of the new breed of low cost, high-quality equipment and changes in the traditional model of financing such productions.               

         

These “post” ideas were reinforced recently when Usedcarsalesman participated in an actor’s work group, The Metro Theatre Group in North Hollywood, and viewed the video of group’s Showcase weeks later. ‘Used’ was struck by the entertainment value of the video and how for a small sum and using just a couple of cameras and cheap editing gear, the organizers of the Metro Theatre Group had effectively created an hour’s worth of video entertainment that was better than anything that had been shown on Saturday Night Live in the last 15 years. And "SNL" cost millions to produce each episode! Obviously, Usedcarsalesman’s belief that low- budget productions could potentially be outstanding business was renewed, especially when such productions were coupled with modern marketing and distribution methods – broadband Internet, Google Video, Lulu.com – that bypassed traditional, respected methods of film/TV distribution.

So what happened next?

Now it just so happens that, recently, Usedcarsalesman was approached by two Director friends of his about joining up with them and forming a production company that would produce, at first, shorts, then longer commercial endeavors and low budget features. ‘Used’ recognized that the directors had big initiative -- one in co-founding the growing Metro Theatre Group and the other in initiating the idea of forming the TV / film production company in question. And, he enjoyed watching and participating in work the two directors had done previously. So he agreed to join the new company, humorously named “Three Wise Guys Productions” or “3WG Productions,” as Executive Producer.

What’s the first thing going on with ‘Used’ and the “3WG” production agenda?

We’re getting warmed up and have planned and budgeted for 60 minutes of shorts -- 6, 10 minute shorts. These shorts are going to be set in L.A./ Hollywood locations and have characters in relationships that involve comedic, humorous elements; think generally, perhaps, the film, -Clerks-, but in Hollywood(vs. a New Jersey convenience store). Basically, we are doing this run in preparation for more commercial projects in the near future.

                        

Our budget for the this first run of shorts is $10,000 -- the directors, executive producer (yours truly) and actors are not going to be paid, some key crew members will likely be paid, and issues of catering and tape stock consume the rest of the budget; audio/video gear and lighting equipment is already available to us. So basically, for the cast and crew, it’s a labor of love and an investment in the future of entertainment born within a new technological framework. The end production will likely be shown on Google Video.

What you can do?

3WG is looking for people and businesses to help sponsor their first run; the good news is that we’ve already invested several thousand of our own and are now just looking to raise the remaining $5000 in a kind of "coalition" effort of friends and other cool people. Though we’re not looking for a single working individual to fork over $5,000+, we’d greatly benefit from smaller $100 U.S. contributions from 50 individuals or businesses. In return, we would provide each with a receipt, list you as “sponsors” of the program, if you wished, in the credits, and provide you with a DVD copy. After all, ‘Used’ says, “Once you've tipped your bartender, $100 is barely enough to buy you 6 cocktails at a Sunset Strip club, not to mention venues in NYC, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Paris, Hong Kong, etc… Why not take $100 and put it in to people like us who are working to make things that may likely still be making thousands or millions of people laugh 20 years from now, and will have your name on it, versus spending it on laughs for “one night out?” Good point, huh? ‘Used’ thinks so too.

Sponsor our first project, whether you are in L.A. or nice places that have less traffic :). If you have a Paypal account, email a $100 U.S. sponsorship to "threewiseguysproductions@gmail.com;" please provide details as to whether you wish to have your name or that of another listed in the sponsorship credits, your address to where we will mail a receipt and DVD copy of the production; and also contact us with any additional questions that you may have. On behalf of Three Wise Guys Productions, Usedcarsalesman thanks you, in advance, for your sponsorship and leadership in supporting us!

I'll Have Some of What Fox is Having, Please

Usedcarsalesman was in a territorial mood last night. So he decided to look at real estate using a map of North America. Focusing on California, he realized, again, that there is this giant peninsula called "Baja" hanging at its bottom. Actually, it's called "Baja California" and it's in Mexico.

Well, Usedcarsalesman doesn't directly own any real estate in Los Angeles or anywhere else in Southern California so he was kind of looking around to get a feel for prices in the area; of course, the prices in LA were higher than Rick James partying in a U2 Spy-plane (actually, higher than that :). So, Usedcarsalesman looked further, searched on this World Wide Web-thing and saw there were actually listings for real estate in Baja California. Heck, they were even listed by familiar sounding real estate companies like Re-max, Sotheby's, and so forth.

So Usedcarsalesman checked out the prices and pictures. Here's one example: "Beach-front cottage, 35 minutes south of San Diego, gated community, new appliances, $89,000!" Usedcarsalesman was impressed. Obviously he doesn't always judge books by their covers, but such a place on a beach-front in LA, OC, SD would probably run 10-20x as much, minimum. $89,000 was right in Usedcarsalesman's price range (vs. Baja, $89,000 in LA just means you get to live out of a nicer car, "used" of course :).

But, Usedcarsalesman was still a little cautious, thinking, "Its in Mexico, man... don't you want to have a place around familiar things and in a growth area?" Then, Usedcarsalesman read a really interesting thing in the real estate listing: "it's (the beach-front cottage) just minutes away from Fox's Baja Studio..." Yeah, as in 20th Century Fox. So, I'm like, "Fox has a studio in Baja?" (Usedcarsalesman currently lives right up the street from Warner Bros. Studios and gazes down on acres of studio lots that are some of the most valuable real estate in Los Angeles).

Usedcarsalesman investigated further and found that Fox established a studio on 40 acres of beach-front in Baja to save money/capitalize on favorable exchange rates when shooting the top grossing film of all time, Titanic, in 1996-7. Needless to say, Fox kept the production in California as the Unions demanded, just that it was in Baja California (grumble, grumble :)

Well Usedcarsalesman has a lot of respect for the historical real estate investments made by studio founders in Los Angeles. These guys bought acres of real estate in Los Angeles when it had the population of Pig's Knuckle, Arkansas and was in a state just a few decades old. But, they did it for concrete, defensible reasons:

• a) its warm and generally nice here, which means they could produce their films outside more consistently than elsewhere
• b) despite a few things that were not as convenient or safe as in Chicago or "Back East" they could still get the job done
• c) Dude, it was frigging cheap, man!
• d) Not like NYC with those pesky Kodak patent lawyers. Needless to say, Fox's Baja Studio was probably established along those same lines (except for the part about the patent lawyers). The added benefit was that it was on the water, making it less likely that Fox would take a bath shooting a risky Water-flick.

What does this mean for me and you in terms of real-estate, today? Well, I gotta admit, the prices in Baja are low and the beaches looks like Malibu. And, as we all know, Fox and the other Studios helped build Los Angeles, pulling people to it for work and a new life. Will they do the same for Baja? Based on their investment history, if Fox likes Baja and has operated a studio there successfully for 10 years, one that's just 30 minutes South-of-the-Border, then maybe they are on to something (just like they were when they established themselves in Los Angeles in 1913).

传输SHDTV需要巨大的

High Definition Television has been around for a while in Japan. In the 1980s HDTV was already commonplace in Tokyo, but its establishment in the west was still a good 15-20 years off. Now, it's 2005 and the US and other western nations are finally getting up to speed, using public policy to encourage the growth of the HDTV format. Japan, however, never one to wait around, is once again upping the technology ante with "NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratory's" development of the Super-High-Definition-Television-Format or "SHDTV."

From reports that Usedcarsalesman has read, SHDTV (aka, "Ultra High Definition Television" or "UHDTV") is not, say, a mere 50% higher resolution-version of HDTV. Instead, SHDTV provides a resolution that is 400%(!) that of the highest, existing quality TV picture -- 1080i HDTV; more specifically, an SHDTV displays over 4000 lines of resolution for all you tech-heads out there.

What is the effect of all that resolution? An interesting quote from a recent SHDTV viewer describing the sensation of watching SHDTV: "...now I think the most appropriate term to describe this (SHDTV) sensation is a "feeling of immersion" that cannot be adequately described by calling it a feeling of "being there." .

NHK wanted to show the new SHDTV format to many Japanese consumers, so they set up a special monitor in a store window on a street and played a specially-created SHDTV video of 18 minutes long. This video was created merely by fixing a SHDTV camera to the hood of a Tokyo Taxi cab and driving the streets of the city for 18 minutes. Well, crazy thing was that people on the sidewalk who stopped to watch this SHDTV video began to experience vertigo -- literally a sense of moving, though they were actually standing still. The picture was so sharp that it literally confused one's senses and caused "motion sickness."

Now, here's one of the downsides to SHDTV: video-file storage-space. To show the aforementioned 18 minute video took up something like 3.5 Tera-bytes of data-space. If you are familiar with DVD file storage, then you know that 3.5 Tera-bytes is about 750 full DVDs worth of data, and that's just for an 18 minute SHDTV feature. Create a 2 hour feature-film in SHDTV and you are looking at storage equivalent to 4500 DVDs! So, you are going to need more than a 56k modem to download something like this! :)

We are probably looking at mass-market, consumer-use of this kind of SHDTV technology in maybe 30-40 years or so. But, in the nearer term, say 10-20 years, you may see such SHDTV technology incorporated in to Movie Theaters and other venues that can manage the storage and display needs of the format. Usedcarsalesman is guessing that SHDTV or UHDTV may be another technology beyond current Digital projectors, 3D- without-glasses and IMAX that struggling movie theater chains use to juice-up ticket sales down the road.

(modifications to this post were made on 8:30am, Sept 11, 2005, to correct certain previously misstated facts)

A Brush With "Reality"

Voice Mail From Reality Show

(The aforementioned is an edited voice mail message that Usedcarsalesman received and he is simply using it to kick-off this post).

Usedcarsalesman gets a call from "X-woman" from the Blind Date show. Apparently, they are starting to shoot something called Julie Gets Married, which he was told was supposed to be like The Bachelorette.

          

How did this happen?  Usedcarsalesman had been using one of these on-line dating services and apparently a woman who is the female protagonist in the show used the profiles listed in the service to select he and a few others to round out her "harem" of potential suitors.  Well, little did they know they were dealing with a guy (Usedcarsalesman) who has never, ever watched Reality Television since it has been on for the last, what, 6 or 7 years.

                     

Now, this is not because Usedcarsalesman is some kind of elitist dude who doesn't like reality television. It's that, other than maybe the Larry Sanders show from the 1990s and a few of the more recent HBO shows and some of the shows on History and Discovery channels and maybe ESPN, he didn't really watch a Television monitor, save to catch a DVD. In fact, Usedcarsalesman wouldn't even know about this Reality TV business except that it had caught so much news and there are so many people apparently running around pitching Reality concepts.

So, after Usedcarsalesman gets this call, he decides to go ahead and investigate what this new show is all about. Julie Gets Married obviously isn't airing yet, so he decide to look at some of the producer's other work that is on: namely, Blind Date. He checks his local TV listings and he sees that Blind Date is on at 1AM (Prime-time! :) on LA's KCOP.

      

Usedcarsalesman stays up to watch and sure enough, 1AM rolls around and here came the Blind Date show. And, at first glance, Usedcarsalesman thought it was probably the most horrendous bit of television that he had ever watched!

In the early-morning episode he was watching, they matched up some poor schmo with an ex-Playmate and "pressed record." Wasn't pretty. But, after a few minutes, Usedcarsalesman did start to laugh his ass off. And he'll admit, he did suddenly develop respect for reality television and its entertainment value. It was kind of "twisted" like that kid who's interested in using a magnifying glass to smoke ants with the sun's rays.

So, did Usedcarsalesman ever interview for that show? Hey, he digs watching train wrecks too, but it doesn't mean he'd want to be in one :)

Oh, So This Is What Home Theater Supposed To Look Like?!

Usedcarsalesman met up with a small group of people to celebrate a friend's birthday at the Cat and Fiddle on Sunset Blvd. His friend having the birthday plays lead guitar in a band (with several very "download-able" singles) named "Gualberto," which is the name of its lead singer and lyricist. When the birthday dinner thing was done, he tagged along with his friend and his band-mates to a warehouse which has been converted to loft apartments near downtown LA.

We arrived at one of the apartments currently occupied by one of the friends of the band and his girlfriend. The apartment is one of these places with ceilings that are about 20 feet high and the only apparent room, apart from the main area serving as bedroom, living room and kitchen, is a bathroom. Very trendy, artsy, cool place.

Anyway, it's a Friday night and people including me are sitting around in the main area doing whatever. The band's friend hits a switch on one of the concrete pillars that supports the high ceiling. Down from one of the walls slowly unrolls this gigantic Projection screen, a screen which seemed like it was about 20 feet across diagonally. Usedcarsalesman was impressed with the size of the screen; it seemed like it was about twice the size of any roll-type projection screen that he'd ever seen, say in elementary school, that kind of thing.

But as he thought about the last time he'd seen a roll-down-type projection screen (like he said, elementary school), Usedcarsalesman was made to recall the dirty, grainy films he'd have to watch on them. These were not particularly appealing.

Sure, Usedcarsalesman saw projection-TV screens in bars that were showing sporting events, etc. And, the video resolution on those was OK, or at least better than the aforementioned elementary school fare. But, still nothing that made Usedcarsalesman think, "...AM SEEING STATE OF THE ART...MUST FIND A WAY TO BUY, EVEN IF HAVE TO SELL EITHER SOUL OR FIRST BORN(!)" like he did when he saw this one.

The owner popped a DVD in to a player connected to the video projector, a projector which was about 25 or so feet from the screen. The room darkened and then the video hit the screen. As emphasized before, Usedcarsalesman couldn't take his eyes off the screen! It had resolution better than any big-screen multiplex movie theater he'd ever paid 30 bucks to take a date to, whether digital projector, 70mm film, whatever -- Literally a 20 foot diagonal window in to another world!

Usedcarsalesman's respect for video projectors had instantaneously spiked upward like the Washington Monument! The crazy thing was, he didn't even think this projector was one of the expensive, $30,000 Runco projectors he'd vaguely heard of. He thought that what he was looking at was a garden-variety product from a nice, big-name Japanese company.

Needless to say, Usedcarsalesman was awestruck by this 20-foot-screen and the glorious resolution of the video displayed upon it. At the night's end, he sincerely felt that he owed the screen's owner $11.50 for the time spent viewing.

So, Usedcarsalesman is a definite new devotee of the modern video projector; if you have the living space, you can definitely use one of these projectors to literally own your own movie theater.

IMAX Helps Movie Theatres Do More Than Just "Survive"

In the post 8 days ago, Survivor: Movie Theaters, Usedcarsalesman gave his reasons why he did not exactly see an end to movie theaters in sight.

A couple of days later, he saw a Washington Post article detailing the growing popularity of IMAX theaters. In the article titled, The Next Big Thing, Richard Gelfond, co-chairman and co-CEO of IMAX, which is headquartered in Toronto and New York said, "Consumers are saying, in order to get me out of the home, you need to wow me, you need to give me something special.'" 

Usedcarsalesman wholeheartedly agrees with Mr. Gelfond's statement. And, as a matter of fact, so does the public it seems. IMAX Theater attendance is apparently up by 37% over the last fiscal year.

For those who aren't familiar with it, Usedcarsalesman will fill you in on his own experience with IMAX. In 1976, The Air and Space Museum opened in Washington D.C. along with its Samuel P. Langley IMAX theater (today known as the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater). As a kid and young-adult growing up in and around D.C., Usedcarsalesman's first exposure to a giant-screen IMAX projection system was in this theater IMAX was in the theater.

The "Langley" (now Lockheed) IMAX screen measured 75-feet wide and 50-feet high; by comparison, your basic theater screen was and is about 30-by-20.  IMAX, as the world's largest film format, used and still uses a frame three times larger than the wide-screen 70mm format and 10 times larger than the basic 35mm format used in most movie theaters then and today. So as a little kid, Usedcarsalesman was understandably, especially impressed by the large, IMAX experience; and, this was in around 1977-1978 when people were looking to have their first go at that hip new arcade game, Space Invaders.

The first movie Usedcarsalesman saw on the 5-story Air and Space IMAX screen was called To Fly. This film fit that IMAX theater like a Saville Row suit, the content seemingly tailor-made for the awesome size of the screen. In one segment of the film, a camera facing downward from a plane's belly shows the audience an overhead view of the ground and continues with this vantage as the plane flies over a cliff. Usedcarsalesman still recalls the feeling of nauseating vertigo he had the first time he saw the ground fall away in to a steep canyon! That's the kind of impact that the screen has induced upon its viewers. Usedcarsalesman saw To Fly again in the late 1990's at the Air and Space on the same IMAX screen and it was still just as fun to watch as in the 1970s.

Obviously, IMAX has been around for a while -- the technology is 40 years old.  And it can have a big, powerful effect on an audience. However, most modern multiplex theaters are simply not equipped to accommodate the 5-story tall screen used to show the IMAX feature.  Usedcarsalesman doesn't know if this means that theater-goers are going to see U.S. theater chains ripping the roofs off their current houses to accommodate vertigo-inducing IMAX screens. It might, since IMAX screens are seemingly a growth attraction for an otherwise stagnant industry

However, Usedcarsalesman thinks that you're probably more likely to see IMAX just in newly contructed private theater complexes. But, the fact that IMAX viewer-ship is up while regular movie-theater attendance is down shows that, hey, at least in some venue-type is drawing more people to buy tickets. Theater operators just need to give the public more of this kind of reason -- IMAX (or maybe 3D without glasses) -- to go out to a movie theater

Survivor: Movie Theatres (With a Little Help From Digital Projectors)

(This post is 21 hours late according to my "Every 4 days" Time-line! Usedcarsalesman will adopt a "news-type" schedule so that he will always have something ready every 4 days regardless of outside intrusions.)

Usedcarsalesman read a post the other day made by Cory Doctorow (a post which was apparently pulled from a blog called MarginalRevolution.com) in BoingBoing.net called "What's Killing Hollywood? (And, Its Not Piracy!)"

Usedcarsalesman believes it was posted there on July 13, 2005. In the post were listed a lot of reasons for the on-going "murder" of Hollywood's theatrical releases: high-quality TV programming making people avoid theaters, High Definition plasma-screened televisions becoming more affordable and keeping people at home, movie-executives who are understandably risk averse and box office expectations that are higher than in the past (so the variety of theatrical releases is suffering).

The BoingBoing post suggested to Usedcarsalesman that, pretty soon, when the viewing public seeks visual entertainment we are all going to avoid movie theaters and basically just stay home and turn on the HD plasma screen. Well, it "suggested" this to him, yes, but "convinced" him, no.

Why? Let's face the following facts: going out to a movie theater has the "going out" and "social" elements going for it. "Let's go out to the movies," "let's go see the latest Speilberg flick," "it's going to be a full house," are all thoughts that most people have entertained. Often people -- Usedcarsalesman, too -- settle on going to a movie because it's a relatively easy co-ed social event to organize and because there's little socially to do with your friends in the evenings (besides getting bombed at a party, that is :).

Sure, movies aren't the only thing you go out and do that have a social element. You also have live-theater and music, religious services, professional sporting events, sports-participation, charity participation, conventions (at least a ton in So. Cal.), and amusement/theme parks, too. But going to a movie theater is admittedly still one of the few economical and entertaining things that you can do in a large room with other individuals.

Maybe movie theaters and attendees also offer -- at least to "Joes" like Usedcarsalesman -- a hard to quantify value such as an answer to how "strangers" will respond to visual stimuli.  Usedcarsalesman guesses you could say he gains inadvertant "political insight" from within movie theaters.  And, movie theaters offer other "political" benefits, too, not just for Usedcarsalesman. What viewer isn't subconsciously heartened by the warmth of reacting to entertainment in the same manner as people they do not know?

Usedcarsalesman thinks that movie theater chains and single theater operations, rather than closing up shop, may build on the inherent "social" aspect of movie theaters by installing new Digital Projectors. To start, Digital projectors may enable theater operators to download a new feature straight from the film distributor, greatly streamlining theater operations, eliminating film, film storage, film maintenance, and shipping costs/delays.  But the largely unheralded, potential "social" benefit of digital projectors is that they will make it economical for theater operators to provide a more diverse array of entertainment to a paying public. 

With mostly digital projectors in theaters, you may see niche market films which formerly would have been prohibitively expensive to distribute as a film print, live network-video-game championships (games are often more profitable than Hollywood films at this point and need a stadium type venue to allow a mass audience to cheer the top players), and even the next generation of 3-D films that are viewable without special glasses (Trust Usedcarsalesman, far more enjoyable in a big theater than on a relatively puny 70 inch plasma HDTV).

Frankly, Usedcarsalesman thinks that the new digital projectors may enable theater operators to hedge the financial risk of showing standard Hollywood fare by drawing audiences with the aforementioned variety of novel entertainment alternatives. They might save and strengthen traditional movie theater enterprises which may lead to a new post in BoingBoing.net titled, "What's Saving Movie Theaters?"