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The
Grosvenor Cinema in Glasgow hit the headlines in mid-October when a tradesman
broke through a partition wall in the projection room and discovered a dusty
and unlabelled can of film. Joiner Ross McMillan told the Glasgow Evening
Times, “I didn’t know what it was at first, I hoped it was hidden treasure but
when I realised it wasn’t I was about to throw it in the skip.”
The cinema
staff opened the unlabelled can and discovered a print of the 1933 hit “King
Kong”, which had been missing from the RKO vaults for years. Perhaps
fortunately for McMillan, the print is not on highly flammable nitrate stock
but is a re-released celluloid version from the 1950s.
Anyone who
has walked through a well-run film archive will have been impressed by the
multitude of cans stacked from floor to ceiling, each one labelled around the
edge using a magic marker on camera tape. The guardians of this treasure trove
once presided over an impenetrable card index and protected the cans with their
lives, only releasing them to archivists furnished with permission signed in
triplicate.
Today, the
cans will be bar-coded and the information stored in a sophisticated digital
database. There is, however, a flaw in the system that can bedevil even the
best run archives. Human beings don’t put film prints back in the right can!
Even if
the can found at the Grosvenor had “King Kong” written on the outside, it might
have contained trimmings and damaged film, there could be no guarantee that it
contained the entire feature.
Once the
identity of the contents was established, questions remained about the version
within. Did it have the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) certificate at the
head (and is it still valid?). Might it just be the trailer, or maybe only the
second reel? A projectionist’s life was never an easy one, especially with a
full house on the opening night.
It would
be a mistake to thing that the era of digital cinema and YouTube means that
screening the wrong version will never again be a problem. With so many
different languages, sub-titles and national legislative requirements,
identifying which version is which has never been so complex or important.
For
example the BBFC, now charged with classifying instead of censoring what we
watch in the UK, can advise content distributors to make minor changes to the
DVD or Blu-ray Disc version of a film in order to ensure a “U”, “PG” or “15”
rating. In doing so, they initiate a new version; maybe only slightly different
from the Australian Classification Board and perhaps identical to the Irish
Film Censor’s Office version in every aspect aside from the opening card. Yet
another version might well be produced for TV, satellite and cable, and the
airlines will request a sanitised version that will offend nobody.
For the
production and distribution community, this plethora of alternative versions
has become a growing nightmare, with millions of different copies of film and
TV assets created each year. The problem has been compounded by the multitude
of technical standards used for encoding digital media data and the blossoming
of mobile handsets and smartphones.
It is
little wonder that content producers, led by the Hollywood studios,
broadcasters and leading cable companies, have been looking for a solution to
this problem for a number of years. Until quite recently, there were too many
vested interests, each demanding proprietary systems or customised additions to
basic “standards” that could render them all but useless.
Other
industries have done a much better job in identifying different unique
versions. Nearly 100% of the book publishing industry adheres to the
International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN) system and UPC codes are widely
used. Yet the equivalent International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN) has
made little headway, despite determined efforts by its promoters.
Now, a
coalition of industry leaders in the entertainment supply chain has taken
another look at the problem aiming to increase the speed and reduce the cost of
registering content. Rovi, MovieLabs (a joint venture by the major studios),
Comcast (the largest cable and home internet provider in the US) and CableLabs
(a consortium of US cable operators) are the founding members.
Rovi
Standards and Emerging Technology Director Adam Powers tells Cue Supply Chain
that the universal adoption of a version identification system was the key to
its success. To achieve that it has merged several independent development
strands into a single non-profit entity: the Entertainment Identifier Registry
or EIDR.
Powers
says, “Being able to identify what is identical between each asset and what is
different is very important, as well as establishing the relationships between
each one of them.”
The
concept is much more complex than that faced by the book publishing industry
with multimedia assets consisting of different series, episodes, cuts and
languages, as well as multiple encoding formats, aspect ratios and definitions,
he says: “Instead of just one identifier for one asset, you end up with perhaps
hundreds of identifiers per asset. We will now be able to provide a separate
identifier for each of the many professional video assets that exist for each
work.”
If EIDR is
adopted as widely as organisers hope there should be advantages in every area
of media creation and distribution. Revenues increase when the right product
reaches the right consumer at the right time and with the reduced need for
content tracking that EIDR promises, the resulting workflow improvement should
mean efficiencies and savings.
In
addition, Powers says that new opportunities will arise from the provision of
value-added services such as universal search and discovery, residuals
tracking, rights management and consumption metrics: “EIDR is a centralised
registry that automatically assigns a unique identifier for every new asset,
and anyone can look up the asset using that identifier. The idea is to make
EIDR easy to join, quick to access and inexpensive to use.”
Powers
says that the partners have learned from some of the previous schemes tested by
the music industry: “They charge ‘pennies per track’ and with millions of
tracks, they end up being far too expensive. It’s just too cumbersome to track
payment on a track-by-track basis. Members of EIDR simply pay a fee to join on
a yearly basis and it’s ‘all you can eat’ from there on.”
For EIDR
to succeed, it will have to achieve acceptance beyond North America and support
from leading media industry organisations elsewhere in the world will be
crucial. Having the French Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA) on board is
therefore an important step.
New
members are needed to help the process along and he believes that once the
fruits of the work that has been done so far become known to the wider
community, there will be an incentive to exploit its advantages. Unlike 35mm
film, there is no need to play an entire reel before certain identification can
be madesince the EIDR code is embedded throughout.
“EIDR will
make it possible to provide functionality that includes advanced advertising,
interactivity and the Keychest and UltraViolet digital locker initiatives. This
is a key piece of infrastructure in the supply chain that will drive consumer
applications of digital video,” Powers says.
Back in
the Grosvenor in Glasgow, RKO’s successor Universal Pictures told the manager
that the late return fees for King Kong have mounted up over the years and that
£43,000 is now due.
The print
is in good condition and before the reel’s return to the archive on November 8,
it will be given one last season of screenings to celebrate the opening of the
refurbished venue, now equipped with digital projection facilities and renamed
the Grosvenor Café and Cinema.
In the
circumstances, Universal Pictures has agreed to waive the late charges.
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