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Kristin here\u2014<\/p>\n
The Internet is mind-bogglingly huge, and a lot of people seem to think that most of the texts and images and sound-recordings ever created are now available on it\u2014or will be soon. In relation to music downloading, the idea got termed “The Celestial Jukebox,” and a lot of people believe in it. University libraries are noticeably emptier than they were in my graduate-school days, since students assume they can find all the research materials they need by Googling comfortably in their own rooms.<\/p>\n
A lot depends what you\u2019re working on. For The Frodo Franchise<\/em>, studying the ongoing Lord of the Rings<\/em> phenomenon would have been impossible without the Internet. A big portion of its endnotes are citations to URLs. On the other hand, my previous book, Herr Lubitsch Goes to Hollywood<\/em>, a monograph on the stylistic and technical aspects of Ernst Lubitsch\u2019s silent features, has not a single Internet reference. Lubitsch can only be investigated in archives and libraries, where one finds the films and the old books and periodicals vital to such a project.<\/p>\n Vast though it is, the Internet is tiny in comparison with the real world. Only a minuscule fraction of all the books, paintings, music, photographs, etc. is online. Belief in a Celestial Jukebox usually works only because people tend to think about the types of texts and images and sounds that they know about and want access to. Yes, more is being put into digital form at a great rate, but more new stuff is being made and old stuff being discovered. There will never come a time when everything is available.<\/p>\n Even so, every now and then someone proclaims that in the not too distant future all the movies ever made will be downloadable for a small fee, a sort of Celestial Multiplex. A. O. Scott declared this in \u201cThe Shape of Cinema, Transformed at the Click of a Mouse<\/a>\u201d (New York Times<\/em>, March 18): \u201cIt is now possible to imagine\u2014to expect\u2014that before too long the entire surviving history of movies will be open for browsing and sampling at the click of a mouse for a few PayPal dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only that, but Scott goes on, \u201cThis aspect of the online viewing experience is not, in itself, especially revolutionary.\u201d He\u2019s more interested in the idea that online distribution will allow filmmakers to sell their creations directly to viewers. That would be significant, no doubt, but as a film historian, I\u2019m still gaping at that line about \u201cthe entire surviving history of movies.\u201d Such availability would not only be \u201crevolutionary,\u201d it would be downright miraculous. It\u2019s impossible. It just isn\u2019t going to happen.<\/p>\n (The image above was generated to publicize the “Search inside the Music” program that is an important part of the Celestial Jukebox. Imagine movie screens with actors’ faces in those little boxes, and you’ve got the Celestial Multiplex.)<\/p>\n I will give Scott credit for specifying \u201csurviving\u201d films. Other pundits tend to say \u201call films,\u201d ignoring the sad fact that great swathes of our cinematic heritage, especially in hot, humid climates like that of India, have deteriorated and are irretrievably lost.<\/span><\/p>\n Dave Kehr<\/a> has already briefly pointed out some of the problems with Scott\u2019s claims, mainly the overwhelming financial support that would be needed: \u201cTony Scott\u2019s optimism struck me as, well, a little optimistic.\u201d On the line about \u201cthe entire surviving history of movies,\u201d Kehr suggests, \u201cThat\u2019s reckoning without the cost of preparing a film for digital distribution \u2014 the same mistake made by the author of the recent vogue book ‘The Long Tail’ \u2014 which, depending on how much restoration is necessary, can run up to $50,000 a title. None of the studios is likely to pay that much money to put anything other than the most popular titles in their libraries on line.\u201d As Kehr says, the numbers of films awaiting restoration and scanning isn\u2019t in the hundreds, as Scott casually says. No, it\u2019s in the tens of thousands even if we just count features. It\u2019s more like hundreds of thousands or more likely millions if we count all the surviving shorts, instructional films, ads, porn, everything made in every country of the world. To see how elaborate the preservation of even one short medical teaching film can be, go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Putting aside the need for restoration, newer films present a daunting prospect. To help put the situation in perspective, let’s glance over the total number of feature films produced worldwide during some representative years from recent decades (culled from Screen Digest<\/em>‘s “World Film Production\/Distribution” reports, which it publishes each June): 1970, 3,512; 1980, 3710; 1990, 4,645; 2000, 3,782; and 2005, 4,603. For me the numbers conjure up the last shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark<\/em>, only with just stack upon stack, row upon row of film cans.<\/p>\n Scott isn\u2019t the first commentator to prophesy that all films will eventually be on the Internet. It\u2019s an idea that crops up now and then, and it would be useful to look more closely at why it\u2019s a wild exaggeration. It\u2019s not just the money or the huge volume of film involved, though either of those factors would be prohibitive in itself. There are all sorts of other reasons why the advent of practical digital downloading of films will never come close to providing us with the entire history of cinema.<\/p>\n Coincidentally, two experts on this subject, Michael Pogorzelski, Director of the Film Archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Schawn Belston, Vice President, Film Preservation and Asset Management for Twentieth Century Fox, visited Madison this past week. Mike got his MA here in the Dept. of Communication Arts and now returns about once a year to show off the latest restored print that he has worked on. Schawn isn\u2019t an alum, but he has also visited often enough that most students probably think he is. The two brought us the superb new print of Leave Her to Heaven<\/em> that Fox and the Academy have recently collaborated on.<\/p>\n I figured it would be very enlightening to sit down with these two and talk about why the Internet is never going to allow us to watch just anything our hearts desire. They kindly agreed, and with my trusty recorder in tow we went for burgers\u2014and fried cheese curds, a commodity not available in Los Angeles\u2014at the Plaza Tavern. I’m grateful for the fascinating insights they provided into some of the less obvious obstacles to putting films on the Internet en masse<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n No Coordinating Body<\/span><\/p>\n Before we launch in, though, one point needs to be made: there is no single leader or group or entity out there organizing some giant program to systematically put all surviving movies on the Internet. There isn\u2019t a set of guidelines or principles. There\u2019s no list of all surviving films. How would we even know if the goal of putting them all up had been achieved? When the last archivist to leave turned out the light, locked the door, and went looking for a new line of work?<\/p>\n Most of the physical prints that would be the basis for such transfers are sitting in the libraries of the studios that own them or in the collections of public and private archives (including many individuals). The studios would make films available online for profit. The archives might be non-profit organizations, but they still would need to fund their online projects in some fashion, either by government support, from private grants, or by charging a fee for downloads. Most archives are more concerned about getting the money to conserve or restore aging, unique prints than about making them widely available. Preservation is an urgent matter, and making the resulting copies universally available for public entertainment or education is decidedly a secondary consideration.<\/p>\n Mike works for a non-profit archive, Schawn for a studio, so together they provide a good overview of some key problems facing the creation of an ideal, comprehensive collection of movies for download.<\/p>\n \n Money<\/span><\/p>\n People who claim that all surviving films could simply be put on the Internet don\u2019t go into the technology and expenses of how that could be done.<\/p>\n Of course, Schawn says, studios want to \u201cdigitize the library.\u201d That phrase is highly imprecise, however. He specifies, \u201cFor the purposes of this idea of media being online, available, downloadable, streamable, whatever, that\u2019s something that we\u2019re dealing with now using existing video masters. So there isn\u2019t an extra cost to quote, unquote digitize. But there is a cost to make the compression master, what we\u2019re calling at Fox a \u2018mezzanine file,\u2019 which is basically a 50 megabit file. That’s the highest-quality \u2018low\u2019 quality version of the content from which you can derive all of the different flavors of compression for the various websites that have downloadable media.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a huge problem with this, in that Amazon, iTunes, and Google all have a slightly different technical specification of how they need the files delivered to them. If you don\u2019t have this kind of mezzanine file, you have to make a different compressed version for each one of these, which costs something, certainly. It\u2019s not incredibly expensive, but it\u2019s not free.<\/p>\n \u201cSo why? What\u2019s the motivation to us to compress at Fox the entire library? I don\u2019t know. Are we going to sell enough copies of Lucky Nick Cain<\/em> [a 1951 George Raft film] compressed on iTunes to cover the costs of making the compression? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n Compatibility and the Onrush of Technology<\/span><\/p>\n Schawn\u2019s mention of the variety of files needed by the big download services raises the problem of compatibility. It\u2019s not just a matter of supplying the files and then forgetting about the whole thing, assuming that the film is available to anybody forever. What about new standards and formats?<\/p>\n Shawn: \u201cJust as with consumer video, the standard changes, so what used to be acceptable yesterday isn\u2019t acceptable now in terms of technical quality.\u201d As time passes, plug-ins make access faster and cheaper, and eventually the original files don\u2019t look good enough. He points out that currently iTunes can\u2019t download HD. If it becomes possible later, \u201cIf you want to get 24<\/em> in HD, what Fox will have to do is go and re-deliver all the files in HD.\u201d And presumably re-deliver again when the next big format revolution occurs.<\/p>\n Mike explains further, \u201cUsing the mezzanine file, you would just have to continue to reformat it to whatever the players demand. The lowest of the low quality will keep going up as people have broadband and can handle larger chunks of data faster.\u201d<\/p>\n What about the film you\u2019ve already downloaded? You acquire films using plug-ins, which change. Think how often you\u2019re told that an update is now available. If you go ahead and keep updating, the changes accumulate. Eventually you may not be able to play the download you paid for. Quicktime will have moved way beyond what the technology was when you made your purchase.<\/p>\n Schawn and Mike both point out that at this stage in the history of downloading, the level of quality is still pretty bad in comparison with prints of films in theaters or on DVDs. It would be nice to think that the virtual film archive could provide sounds and images worthy of the movies themselves, but that will take a long, long time–not the “before too long” that Scott envisions.<\/p>\n Copyright<\/span><\/p>\n I raised another matter: \u201cBut what about copyright? Every time I hear something about restoration or bringing something out on DVD, it\u2019s, \u2018Well, there are rights problems.\u2019 And some of those rights problems don\u2019t get resolved. I assume that quite a few films that they blithely believe can be slapped up for downloading can\u2019t<\/em> be slapped up.\u201d<\/p>\n Schawn: \u201cSure, and there are often not any kinds of provisions in the contract about Internet distribution\u2014obviously! So you\u2019re right, how do you deal with that?\u201d<\/p>\n He pointed to Viva Zapata<\/em> as a film that Fox has restored but can\u2019t make available due to rights issues. The potential sales are not thought to warrant paying to resolve those issues. \u201cI\u2019m sure there are lots of titles in everybody\u2019s libraries that you can\u2019t just pop up on the Internet and start selling.\u201d<\/p>\n The copyright barrier is worse for archives, which seldom own the exhibition or distribution rights to the films they protect. Usually\u2014though not invariably–the studios do not object to archives owning and preserving prints. Making money through showing them or selling copies would be quite another matter.<\/p>\n Mike described the online presence of archival prints. \u201cOn a much smaller scale, this is being attempted in the archive world already, like on Rick Prelinger\u2019s site [Prelinger Archives<\/a>] or on the Library of Congress<\/a>\u2019s site, where they\u2019ve put up dozens of moving-image files. True, it\u2019s not independent cinema and it\u2019s mostly commercials and the paper prints that have recently been restored. On Prelinger\u2019s site it\u2019s all the industrial films that he\u2019s collected over the years. That has seen a good amount of traffic, but it hasn\u2019t created new audiences for these films, I would argue. At least, not on a huge scale.\u201d<\/p>\n Prelinger\u2019s site contains only public-domain items, including the ever-popular Duck and Cover, <\/em>allowing him to avoid the problem of copyright. Similarly, the Library of Congress gives access primarily to films in the pre-1915 era.<\/p>\n Suppose an archive and a film studio both have good-quality prints of a minor American film made in the 1940s. The archive does not have the legal right to put it online, and if the studio decides that it does not have the financial incentive to do so, that film will not be made available for downloading. A private collector might possibly create a file and make it available, but he or she would risk being threatened by the copyright-holder.<\/p>\n Piracy<\/span><\/p>\n We briefly discussed the methods used to prevent pirated copies being made from downloaded films. Like DVDs, downloads can be pirated, with people sending copies to their friends or even offering downloads for a fee in competition with the copyright holder. Copy-protection codes might make it necessary for a purchaser to keep a downloaded copy only on a hard-drive without being able to burn it onto a DVD. Another type of code could erase the file once the film had been viewed once or twice. That\u2019s not exactly conducive to the ideal archive of world cinema, where we would hope to be able to study a film in detail if we so choose.<\/p>\n One might think that piracy protection mainly applies to studios, with their need to make money. Mike points out, though, that the need for such protection \u201ceven applies to the archival model, too. For films that you mention that have gone out of copyright, there\u2019s still the same costs associated with putting a silent film that no one owns–digitizing it, creating the compressed master that goes on the Web\u2014and they aren\u2019t the kinds of subjects that people are going to get rich on at all, so there isn\u2019t a lot of piracy. You don’t hear many archivists complaining, \u2018Hey, you took my 1911 Lubin film, damn you! You can\u2019t put that on your Website. That belongs on the archive\u2019s Website.\u2019 But that scenario becomes more of a likelihood for more popular titles. The obscure 1911 Lubin film is on one extreme, but Birth of a Nation<\/em>, a well-known silent film a lot more people would like to see, is on the other. Let’s say the highest-quality copy is on the Museum of Modern Art\u2019s Website and can be easily lifted and posted on your own site. And even if you just say, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll charge 99 cents or I\u2019ll charge 50 cents to stream it,’ it\u2019s still going to be someone taking over something that the archive put all of the high-end effort and money into doing. Frankly, I think unless it\u2019s an archive with a national mandate and a little bit higher budget to digitize and to put the contents of their archives online, there\u2019s not going to be any motivation to make that high-end investment up front.\u201d<\/p>\n Thus an archive may simply not bother to put a film on the internet because it can\u2019t guarantee recouping the costs that would be generated.<\/p>\n \n Language and Cultural Barriers<\/span><\/p>\n Scott\u2019s notion of easy access to all of surviving world cinema implicitly depends on an idea that all these films are either English-language or already subtitled or dubbed for English-speaking users.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not true for a start, so there would remain a great deal of work to translate films that have never been released in English-language markets. That\u2019s another huge, expensive task.<\/p>\n
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