LOS ANGELES TIMES INTERVIEW : Scott Ross : Seeing the Future--and It’s Interactive

Most news out of the entertainment business these days has to do with media mergers. Disney marries ABC, Time Warner may adopt CNN, Westinghouse moves in with CBS. Many worry this declining gene pool of entertainment corporations bodes ill for the future of the industry. But as the number of corporate players in the entertainment world shrinks in a search for synergy, some well-placed observers say there is a far more important change taking place in the media business. They see the move toward digitally created and distributed media as far more revolutionary than any boardroom-engineered takeover.

The past decade has seen a variety of digital technologies take hold. Compact discs have replaced analog vinyl-record albums. Computers, modems and on-line services have become ubiquitous. Feature films and TV programs routinely employ computer-generated effects, and their soundtracks are recorded and reproduced digitally. The Internet’s World Wide Web now offers real-time audio; Web users can sample music from unsigned rock bands, get headlines from ABC News or take in a live football game.

But predicting the direction of entertainment technology can be tricky. A few years ago, most media pundits were convinced the future was interactive television--a kind of two-way conversation between screen and viewer. That vision has yet to find a place in reality, and some think it never will. These days, many in the entertainment business are betting technology will soon create a hybrid telephone/television/computer connected to a high-speed data network. If it becomes a reality, the info-box will forever change the way entertainment is made, distributed and consumed.

When the info-box arrives, Scott Ross plans to be ready to program it. Ross, 45, started out as a jazz musician, reinvented himself as a technologist and ended up running the innovative special-effects powerhouse Industrial Light and Magic. Two years ago, he teamed up with effects wizard Stan Winston and director Jim Cameron to form a new effects company, Digital Domain. It recently set new standards for movie makers by creating the dazzling launch sequence for the film “Apollo 13.” But to hear Ross tell it, doing digital effects for movies is only a rehearsal--the real show begins when companies begin creating programming for the broad-band digital network of the future. He believes digital technology will create profound changes in the entertainment business--and in the culture itself.

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Question: What is the “information box” of the future going to look like, and what’s it going to do?

Answer: You’ll have a television/telephone/personal computer. It’s all in one box. Connected to that box are various screens. They’re scattered through the house, like intercom stations. A screen in the kitchen might be smaller, while a screen in the family room is big--and they’ll be flat screens. Your box will be connected to an information network that can quickly move gigabytes of data in and out. Think of it as the way the Internet works now, but with the ability to access high-resolution, full-motion images.

Q: How will homes be networked, and who will own the infrastructure?

A: The homes will probably be connected to what are called “star” networks. There’s a big, main computer that sits in a central hub, and around it are smaller, neighborhood computers, which directly serve the homes in the community. It’s essentially a wiring job, so the likely owners might be telephone or cable companies. But what is on the network will be owned by a variety of interests. Take, as an example of a public institution, the Library of Congress. People could make a “toll call” to the Library of Congress server and access information there. You’ll get a bill, just like your phone bill, but instead of the call being to Uncle Bill’s house, it will be to the Library of Congress.

Q: Since most Americans don’t seem to be lobbying for another phone bill, do you see the traditional, advertiser-supported para - digm that works on television also working on this kind of a network?

A: Since we come from a culture which includes “free” TV, it’s a safe bet that they’ll be a lot of advertiser-supported entertainment. But there will be premium services that will offer things free-access providers can’t do.

This type of digital network could take decades to be fully realized, but in the next few years, you will begin to see things like network games--where people compete with others on the network. I think you’ll see some interactive education, with far better imagery than today’s CD-ROMs. And as with any Puritanical culture, I think you’ll see an explosion of sex--especially in the days of AIDS. Finally, businesses will be at the front of the line, because networks will revolutionize things--like banking and retailing.

Q: How will digital technology and networks change Hollywood, and the business of making traditional filmed entertainment?

A: My sense is that a movie, as we understand it today, will continue to be a movie. It won’t be interactive--it will still be a single point of view on a story. But I think a new art form will emerge that we can call interactive entertainment, for lack of a better term. This will offer the people the ability to drive plot lines and stories--to actually direct the action.

Q: But hasn’t the unfulfilled promise of interactive TV been the great disappointment of the digital revolution?

A: So far, the attempts at interactive TV have been driven by technologists, and that doesn’t work--it has to be driven by content, by creativity. And if you’re looking for creativity, you’re not really looking to the phone companies, or the cable companies, or the computer companies. You have to look to the art community, and they didn’t do that. Also, the cost factor is just not there yet. A $14,000 set-top box just doesn’t make sense.

Q: But beyond that, do people really want interactivity in their entertainment?

A: Come over to my house one Saturday and watch my son and all his friends--absolutely, they want interactivity. Sure, my grandmother had a problem with television; she loved the radio. And I send my father videotapes of the kids and he says, “What’s this? Send me photos.” It’s a generation gap. So interactive is sure to be a big part of the entertainment equation of the future. But will interactive media eradicate linear and traditional media? Absolutely not.

Americans seem to have a fear that some new medium will come along and wipe out their old comfortable one. I gave a talk to a group of artists at the Los Angeles County Museum, and most of the people in the audience were worried that museums would go away, and that paint brushes would no longer be used. Well, I still listen to opera. Radio is alive and well and living in my car at 7 in the morning. The point here is that something new will only eradicate something old if the old thing no longer works. Opera still works. Horses don’t.

Q: What is the future for the technophobe? If you fail to embrace technology, will you be left by the wayside?

A: I think you’ll have a less full life, and less opportunity. But, fall by the wayside? No. There will always be great violinists and great painters, but I think of technology as arrows in my quiver. If I have 50 arrows in my quiver, I’m just a better marksman.

Q: How does the rapid popularity of things like the Internet and the home computer democratize culture, and how does it fragment it?

A: This is a critical question, because there are definitely technology “haves” and technology “have-nots.” Information is becoming more and more important, and not having information means not having opportunity. So one of the things that we people involved in this--the digerati--need to do is constantly recognize that if we really want to change the world, we have to put this technology in the hands of all people. Or at least all children. As for democratizing culture, I think the on-line services are already bringing people together, not face-to-face, but in new, interesting ways.

Q: But as many people have noticed, the dialogue on many of these services is often one of intolerance, where people seem to be quick to attack others in ways they would never do face-to-face.

A: That’s probably good. We’re such a pent-up society, and we walk around with all this stuff inside us. In some ways, it will draw attention to problems, as opposed to the sort of Victorian way of keeping it under the covers. Face it, America is a bigoted, racist country. And we can hide it in the closet, or we can address it and try to do something about it.

Q: Much of the news coming out of the entertainment business this summer has been of mergers in the ranks of the big media conglomerates, all designed to create more efficient distribution systems. Given that things like the Internet--and cheaper, easier-to-use computers are already changing the way entertainment is made and distributed--do these multibillion-dollar deals make any sense?

A: For a shareholder who is looking for value over the next five years, I think the value will be there. But as the access to distribution opens wide, and the tools needed to produce content become a lot less expensive, one has to question the value of big studio-distribution companies like we have today. If there is a value, it’s in the brand name. Disney is a perfect example. We all know what it means. If Disney had an interactive-media service, we’d know our kids could sit down, and it would be Goofy and Pluto and everything Disney. The other studios don’t have that. But, for instance, MTV has it. So that branding becomes critical when there are literally millions of channels available.

Q: After a number of years of technophobia, Hollywood seems to have shaken off its fears and, suddenly, the studios are rushing to create their own in-house digital media divisions. Why did it take the film industry so long to embrace digital imagery?

A: The irony is that in the old days, Hollywood was all about technology. It was about developing films and lights, and sound and color. As we mastered the technology, people had, and I think still have, a tendency to rely on what works.

For example, during the 1980s, random-access, non-linear film-editing machines became available. But film editors wouldn’t use them until very recently. I think somebody once said, “If you’re looking for change, don’t look to Hollywood.” But, finally, after a decade, most people are editing on random-access electronic editing devices, because it’s easier, and it works better.

So Hollywood wants to be able to make sure that it’s safe. And after this summer, when audiences seemed to want all those digitally created visual effects, Hollywood thinks it’s safe.

Q: You use the term synthespian to describe the Holy Grail of digital effects, a wholly synthetic actor, created totally by computer. Should actors begin to worry?

A: Actors are not going away--contrary to the desires of some directors. But to create a synthetic actor that could do things a normal human could not do starts to make things really interesting. You might do something like Spiderman, and intercut live action with a synthetic double that does all the super-human stuff. But we still live with the hysteria of the 1950s--that computers are going to replace the worker.

Q: Many people believe that computer interconnections will mean people can move to Durango or Santa Fe and still be able to do business. Can that kind of telecommuting work in the business of making movies?

A: Film is the most collaborative form of art that there is, and there’s nothing like seeing, and feeling, and being part of a group. I just don’t see how the very difficult process of producing a film could happen with people spread across the country, all trying to work toward a common goal. However, that said, I think there are going to be other forms of entertainment--and most definitely other forms of business--that can now work in remote locations, thanks to technology.

Q: The one thing that is real today is the Internet. How do you see it developing, how important is it and what do you say to people who believe it’s just a fad?

A: I say get an Internet address. Just taken on its most base level, the Internet means e-mail. What a marvelous thing! I’m in touch with people all over the world, on a daily basis. I don’t have to react with the speed of a phone call; I can carefully think about what I want to say and compose it. I can do business, I can have social interaction, and I can do it throughout the world, instantaneously.

But as far as developing the capabilities of the Internet, we’re chiseling wheels right now. It’s funny to me when people ask why the promise of the Net hasn’t been fulfilled. Well, we’re just at the crawling stage. The public recognition of the Internet is probably about a year old. And look at all the things that have happened in that year. Sure, a lot of it is crap, but now there are a lot more people connected than ever before, and slowly but surely, there’s some great stuff being developed there. Just give it some time.*