A LOS ANGELES TIMES - FINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT : The Next California--The State’s Economy in the Year 2000 : The Next California / HOLLYWOOD AND TECHNOLOGY : Welcome to Siliwood : Will Convergence of the Creative and Technical Lead to a Jobs Revolution? : That’s Digital Entertainment

The worlds of entertainment and technology are moving ever closer together. Digital advancements are already revolutionizing every facet of Hollywood, from project germination to post production, and the future promises innovations limited only by what creative minds can imagine.

TELECOM

Regional phone companies such as Pacific Telesis, Bell Atlantic and Nynex will be looking to buy and produce programming, in addition to offering services such as movies on demand and home shopping systems. conversion of phone lines to fiber-optic cable will bring a deluge of new interactive online information and entertainment media.

FILM

“The days of linear filmmaking are numbered,” says Alan Yasnyi, executive director of USC’s Entertainment Technology Center, an industry-funded research and development group. “We have entered the era of non-linear filmmaking,” he says, where film footage will be digitized and accessible to post-production crews practically as it is being shot. For example, a director will be able to view dailies on location in Bangkok while a digital artist in Hollywood modifies the same footage. This kind of simultaneity will not only dramatically enhance the efficiency of the production process, but also its quality, Yasnyi says.

* Keen viewers of the 1982 movie “Blade Runner” may have recognized the film’s final panoramic shots of alpine forests as footage recycled from “The Shining” (1980). But even the most observant future audiences will be hard-pressed to spot reused digital images. Digital-image libraries, compiled from vast computerized collections, will give filmmakers the ability to construct new worlds from old ones. Images will be taken from several different films and combined to create entirely new landscapes. The ability to recycle images could potentially save Hollywood billions of dollars in production costs.

* The dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park,” the monster in “Species” and the ghosts in “Casper” have introduced the idea o digital worlds inhabited by computer-created characters. Experts speculate that a film using synthetic actors and actresses might not be far off. Will synthetic characters make human thespians obsolete? Far from it, says Scott Ross, CEO of the Venice-based digital effects company Digital Domain. “Digital characters will be able to do things that actors couldn’t traditionally do. But there’s nothing like an actor, like that ability to convey emotion. Digital artistry isn’t a threat to the acting profession, it’s a useful addition.”

* A decade ago, the makers of the movie “Clue” supplied audiences with three alternate endings. Interactive cinema will take the options a step further, providing filmgoers with the opportunity to shape their own cinematic adventure. Cued by choices presented through on-screen graphics, audience members will determine the plot by pushing buttons on specially equipped theater seats. As patrons make their choices, a computer will tabulate them on-screen. The audience majority, with some computer-added randomness, will determine which of the hundreds of potential plot twists is selected.

MULTIMEDIA

although low-end multimedia workstations currently cost about $15,000, high-powered models will be economically accessible to computer users at an individual level. These workstations equipped with video capture cards, CD-ROM recorders and top-of-the-line editing software, will provide users with the tools to create CD-ROMs from start to finish.

* Film and computer software companies will team up regularly to create CD-ROM packages. Films such as “The Lion King” are increasingly being followed up quickly by CD-ROM games. Software companies are producing projects in cinematic fashion, from filming sequences on soundstages to writing stories with engaging characters and complicated plots. Talent is moving to software production in ever-increasing numbers; don’t be suprised to see the names of actors, screenwriters and directors on the backs of game packages in the near future.

Sources: Entertainment Technology Center, Digital Domain, Sony New Technologies, High Technology Distributing, Silicon Graphics Inc., Leonard Maltin’s “Movie & Video Guide 1995,” Times and wire report.