Moving Movies to Digital

The following is a MediaNote Classic. It was originally presented to MC101 students in Summer 2012.

As we have discussed in class, the major movie "studios" today are largely distribution companies, looking for multiple ways to make money off the content under their control. Also, we have discussed the "atoms to bits" theory, where all physical media--including film--is destined to be replaced by its digital equivalent.

Today's Medianote is an NPR story about converting classic films to digital format, and the artistic and capitalistic decisions that are made during that conversion process. Should a film be made exactly as it was released in 1940, or should it be enhanced by processes that have become available over the last 70 years. At the end of the day (to use a horrible professor phrase), are movies mostly commercial products subject to change to fit consumer tastes? Or are they art works to be preserved in the way they were made? Or are they a combination of both?

Questions...

•Are movies art? How are they and how are they not?

•Is altering a classic film like altering a painting at the Getty Center? What about a not so classic film? Who decides if a film is classic or not?

•Is making a film image lighter or more in focus always a good thing? When is it not?

•If you were in charge of the Warner Vault, what would you do with an original print of a classic film?

•How much does the original artistic vision of the director matter?