Kerala - Alappuzha   

A big leap for Malayalam film industry

A. Harikumar

First satellite screening of Malayalam film at Seethas theatre in Alappuzha today

ALAPPUZHA: The Malayalam film industry will take a big leap into a digital future on Thursday when the film `Ananthabadram,' directed by Santhosh Sivan, will be screened at Seethas Theatre, here, on the day without using the conventional prints on film.

The screening of the movie without using film, which is the first attempt of its kind in the history of the Malayalam movie industry, will be made possible by the application of satellite technology to the cinema, said Jayan Joseph, Travancore regional manager of the JK Associates, Kollam, which, along with United Film Producers, had played the role of service providers to the producers, distributors and the theatre.

Mr. Joseph said the application of satellite technology for screening will be confined to Alappuzha for the time being. The film will be simultaneously released in other theatres all over the State in the conventional way. Mr. Joseph said the new technology will bring down the costs of production and distribution and would prove to be a boon to the film industry, which had been going through a crisis owing to the spiralling cost of production. Moreover, the new technology would provide a unique experience to the spectators because of the quality of the pictures delivered to the screen, Mr. Joseph said.

On the technology, Mr. Joseph said the master print of the film will be converted into the digital format first and will be transmitted to the satellite.

The uplinking will be done at Mumbai, he said. The signals from the satellite will be accepted by the receiver installed at the theatre and would be downloaded to the server of the hi-definition digital projector at the theatre, he added.

Mr. Joseph said the new technology would reduce the possibility of piracy of films to almost nil. He pointed out that illegal copying of films often take place during distribution. The satellite screening uses the encrypted codes for transmitting and could be decoded only by the projector.

On the cost effectiveness of the technology, he said producers were spending huge amounts for buying films, processing and preserving it and transporting it to theatres. That could be avoided by using the digital technology. Mr. Jospeh said digitalisation will make it possible to have more than five sound tracks for the film and that would make it easy to convert the film to any language.

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A big leap for Malayalam film industry

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