The weekend
before CineEurope, on June 22nd/23rd, the International Cinema Technology
Association (ICTA) started off with a new edition of its traditional European
Seminar Series.
Among the
novelties of this year's seminar which had been organized by the team of ICTA’s
European representative European Cinema Consulting was the introduction of a
European Industry Award which went to Peter Seagger, former sales executive
with Dolby, for his outstanding achievements in the cinema industry, especially
in view of the launch of Dolby Digital. The award ceremony took place at
beautiful Mirabé restaurant located on top of a hill with a marvelous view over
the city of Barcelona.
The seminar
itself, which took place at Cinesa Diagonal Mar cinema close to the CCIB exhibition
centre, accounted for a record number of over 120 attendees, was a mix of
traditional technical presentations and new interactive panel discussions. One
panel consisted of 3 to 5 panelists, each representing a different field of the
cinema business: manufacturing, integration, distribution and exhibition. That
way, one topic was discussed from different points of view. Another important
aspect was that, for the first time, also two other major European associations
contributed to the program: UNIC, the European exhibitor association and EDCF
(European Digital Cinema Forum), an association of technical experts from the
digital cinema industry actively supported the seminar and provided for a
diversification of topics focused on a wider audience.
The seminar
started off on Saturday afternoon with an introduction to some current
developments on the Spanish cinema market. The expert panel around host
Jean-Marie Dura (Ymagis) with Juan Hebera (market analyst), Carlos Prada
(Warner Bros.) and Francisco Lafuente (Proyecson) discussed why Spain is
lacking behind on a European scale as far as digital deployment is concerned
despite the successful international track record of Spanish films. The panel
took a closer look at the economic situation in the country that was hit hard
by the credit crunch and explained the reasons for rising admission fees and
the ever shrinking base of regular moviegoers.
The second
panel around moderator Tomás Naranjo (Kelonik) looked at the two leading
immersive sound systems currently in the market: Barco's Auro and Dolby Atmos.
Brian Claypool and Julian Pinn gave an overview of the main characteristics of
each system while Gerben Kuipers (Cinemec Ede) and Christof Papousek (Cineplexx
GmbH) talked about their experience with these systems in daily operation.
The topic
immersive sound also opened the seminar session on Sunday morning. After a
welcome speech by Jan Runge (UNIC) John F. Allen (High Performance Stereo) addressed
the question "Why 12 or more channel sound is not just a gimmick".
Starting by explaining what Stereo actually means Allen described the purpose
of systems and what to expect from them.
The following
second panel session on Sunday was hosted by the EDCF, Peter Wilson and made up
of three parts. The first part dealt with the technical challenges involved in
film festival organisation in the digital age. Angelo D'Alessio (Venice Film
Festival), Richard Boyd (London Film Festival) as well as Tammo Buhren and Ove
Sander (Berlin Film Festival) talked about the extremely difficult task to cope
with a variety of delivery methods and formats festival organizers have to face
and the current changes in festival structure these issues entail.
During the second
part of the EDCF panel a closer look was taken at current developments in the
field of projection technology. Tim Sinnaeve (Barco), Michihiro Tobita (Sony)
and Mark Kendall gave an overview of their company's latest product news.
Last not least
Peter Wilson and Kim Pedersen, President of the Danish Film Association and
Chairman of the UNIC Technology Committee gave some ideas on how to build
audiences and improve revenue opportunities through technology innovations such
as mobile device apps, product placement and e-commerce.
The panel
"Digital Cinema - Quo Vadis?" hosted by Oliver Pasch (Sony) focused
on the status quo and perspective of the new cinema world. Together with Mark
Waldman (dcinex) and Martin Schwertführer (ARRI) he looked at the film distribution
methods as well as the challenges involved in supporting digital cinemas.
The last panel
on Sunday afternoon dealt with film distribution. Fabrice Testa (DSAT Cinema)
and his panelists Mirko Preugschat (maz&movie) and Laurence Claydon
(Deluxe) presented an update about the various distribution channels such as
electronic film delivery and satellite transmission and the challenges involved
herein. In addition, reference was made to the topic live events in cinemas as
a new marketing tool for film distributors.
The panel
program was rounded off by latest product news of selected manufacturers.
More info
about the topics discussed will be made available on the ICTA website in the
next few weeks.
