MOVIE INDUSTRY MAY BE IMPROVING ITS IMAGES

True or false: Most of the movies shown in movie theaters today don’t look the same as they did 20 years ago.

Answer: True. They look worse!

True or false: Television’s “Dynasty” is shot on film, but if you tried to project it onto a large screen in a theater, it wouldn’t look as good as most movies that are made for the big screen.

Answer: False. It would look better!

True or false: When the movie industry switched to the current standard of 35-millimeter film, Franklin Roosevelt was President of the United States.

Answer: False. The President was Theodore Roosevelt.

When you consider the technological changes made in the movie industry in the last 80 years, you wonder why the exhibitors who convened at the Century Plaza Hotel for last week’s National Assn. of Theater Owners convention didn’t show up in period costume. Starched collars for the gents, bustles for the ladies.

Of course, movies look a lot better now than they did in 1906 when 35-millimeter became the industry standard and when audiences could be aroused by a pair of lips puckering up for a kiss at 16 jumpy frames per second. Film also comes in color now and with narrow magnetic strips that contain broad stereophonic sound.

But when you compare movie technology to almost anything else--air travel, communications, medicine--its breakthroughs don’t add up to a very long list:

--In 1906, 35-millimeter film.

--In 1930, camera and projection equipment that advanced film at 24 frames per second and carried sound impulses.

--In 1956, the advent of 70-millimeter film, which, when utilized, greatly improved both sound and picture.

There have been steady refinements--in lenses, film emulsions, screen shapes and so on--but as Glen Berggren, vice president of Optical Radiation Corp., told the exhibitors during one of last week’s convention programs, the ways movies are shot and shown haven’t changed much in eight decades.

The change currently being proposed, a switch from 24 to 30 frames per second, will improve the sharpness of the images we see in theaters. What it does is take six more individual pictures of the same image each second, eliminating all of the flicker we now see and much of the blurring of movement. (TV’s “Dynasty” is filmed at 30 frames, which explains why it would look better in theaters than regular movies.)

But based on the comparison demonstration given to the conventioneers, the enhancement will be nowhere near as dramatic as the coming change to high-definition television. (High-definition TV will have images with more than twice as much visual detail as present sets.)

Nevertheless, because the industry can convert to 30-frame projection at relatively low costs, and because that would bring film into sync with the television broadcast standard, it will likely be adopted. According to Ed DiGiulio, chairman of an industry committee on frame-rate study, there will soon be a “black box” that exhibitors can place between their existing projectors and their power source to convert to 30 frames per second with a flip of a switch.

DiGiulio said the box will cost less than $700. That’s bargain-basement technology for the theater operators, but the distributors who will have to pay for the additional film stock may not agree. (Movies often don’t look as good on the screen today as they did two decades ago because distributors cut costs in the making of film prints.)

The disheartening thing about this discussion--at least to the moviegoer listening in--is that far better technology than a 30-frame film standard already exists. The 70-millimeter process is vastly superior to 35-millimeter, but because the exhibition industry resisted a costly switch over to that format, it is seldom used. (Most films advertised as 70-millimeter are actually shot on 35-millimeter and blown up to 70.)

Then there is Douglas Trumbull’s Showscan, a revolutionary process that sends 70-millimeter film through a projector at the speed of 60 frames per second. Showscan images, projected at the same speed, are extraordinary. With 2 1/2 times the visual information, the images are almost as good as you can get with your own eyes.

If people who have been to the World’s Fair aren’t knocked down by Showscan, it’s probably because they will have already been knocked down by it at the World’s Fair.

The unfortunate thing is that Showscan, which Trumbull has been doggedly pushing for more than four years, is treated as a novelty attraction, like Cinerama or 3-D. The truth is that any film, of any genre, can be made--and made to look better--with Showscan.

If the film industry is truly worried about the dizzying array of technological changes being made by its TV and video competitors, there is a process at hand.

Trumbull has made several concessions to make Showscan more practical as an industry standard. Originally, it was an all-inclusive process. Theaters had to be built to specific designs and dimensions, and the exhibitor would have to install sound systems, also to specifications. At that, it was a novelty, as evidenced by the fact that Trumbull’s only serious taker used it as a side-show attraction in a chain of pizza parlors.

As far as its general theater application, Showscan has been caught in a financial Catch-22. Many exhibitors told Trumbull they would convert to Showscan when there were Showscan movies available. The studios said they would begin shooting films in Showscan when there were Showscan theaters.

Trumbull has now developed kits that will allow theater owners to convert their existing projection equipment, 35-millimeter and 70-millimeter, to run film through at 60 frames per second. Trumbull said there are several scripts now in development at major studios that he has been assured will be shot in Showscan.

Even when Showscan is reduced to 35-millimeter and shown at 30 frames per second (the prints would use every other frame from the Showscan negative), the image is sharper than conventional 35-millimeter. The image transferred to videotape will be better too.

Trumbull may have turned the corner, in terms of making Showscan a viable commercial enterprise for his company. This week, at a car dealers’ gathering in Orlando, Fla., Chevrolet will debut a 90-second $1.5-million commercial that Trumbull did in Showscan. Shorter versions of the commercial will soon air on TV.

The process is likely to catch on quickly with the advertising community, where the quality of presentation is always the top priority. But if you saw the light turnout of exhibitors for last week’s seminar, you couldn’t be too optimistic about Showscan’s future in the movies.

Multiple choice: If you want to see theater owners reach for their wallets, show them (a) a new sound system; (b) a better projector, or (c) a high-output popcorn machine.

You got it.