PARK CITY, Utah -- It was a film without film, a movie without moving parts. The premiere of Rize that took place last Saturday at a ski lodge here was a historic event -- the first feature film to be delivered via wireless internet technology.
Industry execs and VIPs including Pamela Anderson, her boyfriend and her lap dog, were on hand for the screening. But if Sean Maloney of Intel hadn't described the process before the film started, many audience members might not have known they were seeing something special.
"You've come to see a production and it's not here," said Maloney, a vice president at Intel, which produced the screening in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival.
Even so, Rize certainly looked like a real movie, and sounded like one, too. David LaChapelle's documentary is an adrenaline-pumping tour through Los Angeles' urban dance scene, and when projected onto a big screen and through a big, booming sound system, it played just fine -- especially considering that the source material was located 800 miles away.
"I feel like Alexander Graham Bell," said LaChapelle when introducing the film. "Oh, and I'm not really here -- this is a hologram."
Joking aside, the Rize screening was one of the most impressive internet deliveries yet. After the screening, LaChapelle, a former photographer, told Wired News that he was thrilled with the presentation.
"I'm very particular, and this was as good as I've seen the film look, in terms of clarity, color contrast, grain. Everything was perfect."
The success of the Rize screening may hold broad ramifications for the future of the movie business.
But first, here's how it worked: Intel technicians in Hillsboro, Oregon, encrypted Rize, which was shot on high-definition digital video. The file was streamed to Salt Lake City, then beamed via microwave to Park City and through a WiMax connection to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain.
A receiver at the ski lodge sent the file to an HP Media Center PC, where it was decoded and projected through a high-end digital projector. Intel's wireless connections allowed huge amounts of data to travel quickly -- at up to 24 Mbps, about 20 times as much throughput as DSL provides.
The installation of the equipment wasn't trouble-free: The mountaintop antenna was knocked loose by the same storm that caused deadly avalanches in Park City earlier this month. Intel techs had to travel on a Sno-Cat through gnarly terrain to fix it.
But the effort seems worthwhile: Intel has proven real movies can be sent to theaters through the air from remote locations. What will that mean for the future of entertainment?
"If the technology proves successful and critical issues such as cost, reliability and, especially, security can be addressed, then wireless would seem to have a chance to be a significant part of the future of feature film delivery," said Nick Dager, editor and publisher of Digital Cinema Report.
Dager said that studios could send films to venues around the world simultaneously. Demand for pirated materials could drop and movie releases could become huge, global events. The savings to studios and distributors would be substantial, too -- creating, shipping and destroying 35-mm prints cost an estimated $1.5 billion a year.
But wireless delivery might be an even bigger boon for independent venues, and not just theaters. Got a cafe and want to screen the new arty experiment from Belgium? Or are you hoping to use a documentary to rally Wal-Mart opponents in your local library? Or to show some gritty shorts in your hipster club?
Once a wireless infrastructure is in place, you'll just need a computer, a projector, some chairs and a white wall. Sign on, select from what could become a nearly infinite menu of titles, pay your fee and you'll be in the movie business.
The current independent screening scene, according to Joel Bachar, requires a few more steps. Anyone wanting to show a film has to contact the distributor, negotiate payment, have the disk or film or tape shipped and then ship it back. Simplifying the system could help what Bachar describes as the "microcinema network" become larger and more cohesive.
"If we had good access to the equipment, it would revolutionize what we do," said Bachar, founder of Microcinema International. Establishing either a wired or wireless system of distribution, Bachar added, would be "the final step of the building-out of the microcinema network -- it would make content more readily available and delivery that much easier and cheaper."
Jim Johnson, general manager of Intel's broadband wireless group, acknowledged that a substantial infrastructure will be required to make wireless movies the norm. The build-out is a very big deal, and probably years away. Still, Johnson thinks wireless cinema is worth looking forward to.
"The most-viewed films ever, say for Titantic, had audiences of about 750 million," he said. "We could reach that many people at one time."
And the technology will also afford theaters far more flexibility in programming.
"If you wanted to be able to rotate more films, you could easily play three or four or five films in each physical theater each day," Johnson said. "It could completely change the rules about how you could structure film delivery -- how you show films and where you can take them."
