Reg. Trib. Milano n. 418 del 02.07.2007
Direttore responsabile: Elisabetta Brunella

 
 
 
  International Edition No. 29 - year 3 - 29 February 2008

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JUST IN CASE: If the e-mail you have sent to infocinema@mediasalles.it bounces back, please use this temporary address:

mediasalles@alice.it

  

DigiTraining Plus 2008:
European Cinemas Experiencing New Technologies

London, Great Britain
9-13 April 2008

Deadline to benefit from the early-bird fee of 550 euro: 3 March 2008

Download the application form
(Cliccare qui per scaricare il formulario di iscrizione)
 

Useful links for the course

- UK Film Council: www.ukfilmcouncil.org.uk
- Arts Alliance Media: www.artsalliancemedia.com
- XDC: www.xdcinema.com
- Kino Digital Cinema: www.kinocinemas.co.uk/home.htm
- Odeon UK: www.odeon.co.uk
- Curzon Soho: www.curzoncinemas.com
- EDCF: www.edcf.net
- More2Screen: www.more2screen.com
- RealD: www.reald.com
- Hotel Ibis London Euston St Pancras:   www.ibishotel.com/ibis/fichehotel/gb/ibi/0921/fiche_hotel.shtml

Practical information for the course

The course will begin on 9 April 2008 at 3 p.m. at the Ibis London Euston Hotel in St Pancras (3 Cardington Street - NW1 2LW - London) and will close on 13 April at 11 a.m. at the same address.

Deadline for application: 3 March 2008
Fee: 550 Euro covering tuition, teaching material, accommodation and meals included in the programme.
A limited number of scholarships is available on request.

 
Advance news from the speakers at the DigiTraining Plus course 2008

FABRICE TESTA, XDC
VP Sales & Business Development

His presentations at the DigiTraining Plus 2008 Course will concern:

• XDC Business Model: benefits of Digital Cinema, the VPF Business Model, supply of DC Equipment, support services, exhibitor’s responsibilities;

• Alternative Content and the DDCinema offer: pre-recorded content, live content, commercial proposal

Fabrice Testa joined XDC in January 2005 just after the creation of the company. As Marketing Manager, he succeeded in positioning XDC brand as one of the key players in the digital cinema industry in Europe. Largely involved in the XDC’s commercial activities, Fabrice has recently been named VP Sales & Business Development. Prior to XDC, Fabrice gained a comprehensive experience in management, sales & marketing, business development with various companies in the field of multimedia, interactive games and video projection systems as well as web-based applications and international high tech projects. Fabrice has an MSc in Engineering and an MBA from Brussels Solvay Business School.

 

NICOLA GADDES, Arts Alliance Media
Distributor Services Coordinator

Main contents of her presentation at the DigiTraining Plus 2008 Course:

•  Brief introduction  to  Digital  Cinema    Distribution Services

•  Content Management & Security

• DSN Manager – online submissions and booking system
 
Nicola joined AAM in March 2005 and is currently Distributor services coordinator working as the first point of contact for all distributors interested in pursuing a digital cinema release for their films. Nicola is responsible for managing all content from submission through to the release in the cinemas ensuring the content team is aware of any upcoming releases and that distributors have everything they need in order to make sure their release is as successful as possible. She also handles all online training for the submission and booking of content through AAM’s unique content management system DSN Manager.
 
Nicola joined AAM after working in advertising and production, in particular production assisting ads, short films and music promos. Nicola has a BA in Media Arts from Royal Holloway University of London.
 

Cinema visits during the DigiTraining Plus course 2008

The Curzon Soho cinema was voted London’s Number One by the readers of Time Out, considered the Bible of leisure activities in England and throughout the world.

Situated in the cosmopolitan Soho district, at the heart of London, the complex has 3 screens showing a broad range of art-house movies. It also hosts art exhibitions and has a bar and a shop with a wide selection of art-house and world cinema DVDs.

In this cinema two digital projectors have been installed, in the framework of the DSN initiative promoted by the UK Film Council aiming at broadening the cinema offer through digital technologies.

During the visit included in the DigiTraining Plus 2008 course, Mick Stephen, the Technical Manager at Curzon Cinemas will be answering participants’ technical questions.

On 9 February 2007, Odeon, the largest cinema chain in the United Kingdom, launched two all digital, fully networked and DCI compliant multiplexes, bearing the OdeonDigital brand name. They are located in the outskirts of London, at Hatfield and Surrey Quays. The visit to the Odeon Surrey Quays will represent one of the highlights of the DigiTraining Plus 2008 course.

All 9 screens at Surrey Quays are equipped with digital projection systems which are also used to experiment with new forms of entertainment, such as the screening of 3D films, concerts and sports events.
This week’s programme includes digital screenings of six different titles, including the Oscar winner “No country for old men”.

The Kino Digital cinema at Hawkhurst in Kent is the first “purely digital cinema”, which means no 35mm projectors, to be set up in the United Kingdom.
DigiTraining Plus 2008 will be visiting it thanks to the co-operation of Paul Corcoran, Managing Director of Kino Digital, who will explain to participants the technology available in his cinema and, more importantly, a completely new concept of programming and offer of services for audiences.
This cinema, that opened in 2006, is part of the DSN initiative promoted by the UK Film Council.
Later the same company launched another “purely digital cinema”, with 2 screens, at Sevenoaks. Digital equipment purchase was in this case financed by Kino.
Paul Corcoran says in fact: “We are in absolutely no doubt that the increased revenue and the savings achieved by digital exhibition make such a purchase financially viable”.

(Per leggere il testo in italiano cliccare qui)
 

European Cinemas Experiencing New Technologies
Course programme
Wednesday, 9 April
Thursday, 10 April Friday, 11 April Saturday, 12 April Sunday, 13 April
  Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast
 

At Curzon Cinema, Soho
Transfer by metro (Leicester Square), departing from hotel no later than 8.30 am

9 am
The reality of running a digital cinema within the DSN scheme: technical and operational aspects, including distribution, by Fiona Deans and Nicola Gaddes, Arts Alliance Media

Visit of the cinema led by Mick Stephen, technical manager of Curzon Cinemas
 
Business models, part I: Arts Alliance Media, by Fiona Deans

At Odeon Surrey Quays
Transfer by metro (Canada Water), departing from hotel no later than 8.45 am

9.30 am
What benefits does digital cinema bring to exhibitors?
Practical experience of running a digital test on all screens of a digiplex by Richard East, General Manager of Odeon Surrey Quays

10.45 am
Coffee break (visit to the projection booth)

11.15 am
How to obtain additional revenue thanks to digital cinema? - Part 1
Significant experience in United States: the activity of Emerging Pictures, by Giovanni Cozzi

11.45 am
Question & answers session

12 pm
The world of 3D, by Matt Cowan, RealD
3D screen (demo)
 

At Kino Cinemas, Hawkhurst, West Kent
Transfer by private bus, departing at 7.30 am

9.45 am
How to manage and programme a “purely digital cinema”
by Paul Corcoran

10.45 am
Screening of a selection of upcoming European digital movies by XDC

At Ibis London Euston St Pancras

9.15 am
Course evaluation
 
11 am
Course closure

Participants are free for lunch 12 pm
Cold lunch
At Curzon Cinema, Soho
1.15 pm
Lunch
At Frankie & Benny's
Surrey Quays Road, London
12 pm
Lunch
At The Royal Oak Pub, Hawkhurst
 
At Ibis Euston St Pancras Hotel

3 pm
Welcome coffee and
Registration
 
3.30 pm
Opening of the course
Your host: Jens Rykaer, President of MEDIA Salles

3.45 pm
Welcome speech by Agnieszka Moody, Director of MEDIA Desk UK
 
UK cinema exhibition - challenges and opportunities, by Phil Clapp, CEO of the UK Cinema Exhibitors' Association
 
4.30 pm
Presentation of the course, by Mads Egmont Christensen, moderator
 
Digital screens: how many and where?
by Elisabetta Brunella, Secretary General of MEDIA Salles

5.30 pm
Coffee break

6.00 pm
What do we talk about when we talk about digital cinema?
by Dave Monk, European Digital Cinema Forum

7.45 pm
Presentation of who 's who


At ICA - Institute of Contemporary Arts
Transfer on foot

2 pm
Welcome speech by Mark Adams, Director of Cinema of the ICA

2.15 pm
The UK Film Council 's Digital Screen Network and the opportunity of digital cinema, by Alex Stolz, UK Film Council
 
3.30 pm
Questions & answers session on digital contents - film distribution.
With the participation of Anna Godas, Dogwoof Pictures and Sara Frain, Metrodome

4 pm
Coffee break
 
4.30 pm
Business models, Part 2: Technicolor, by Tom Cotton

Return to Ibis Euston St Pancras Hotel
Transfer by metro (Euston)

3.30 pm
Challenges to copyright in the digital world, by Charlotte McMillan, SJ Berwin

4.15 pm
How to obtain additional revenue thanks to digital cinema? - Part 2
Alternative contents, with presentations by Christine Costello - More2Screen and Fabrice Testa - DDCinema

5 pm
Coffee break

5.30 pm
Business models, part 3: XDC, by Fabrice Testa and Bernard Collard in collaboration with Sound Associates, Jerry Murdoch

Return to Ibis Euston St Pancras Hotel
Departure at 1.30 pm

3.30 pm
The German debate on cinema digitalisation, by Detlef Rossmann, president of AG Kino

4.30 pm
An overview of significant digital experiences around Europe by:
- Silvana Molino, Microcinema, Italy
- Mathias Holtz, Folkets Hus och Parker, Sweden
- Benjamin Dauhrer, CineCitta, Germany
- Enrique Martínez del Molino, Yelmo Cines, Spain
- Massimiliano Giometti, Giometti Cinema, Italy

6.30 pm
Final statements

 

8.15 pm
Opening dinner
At Ibis Euston St Pancras Hotel

Participants are free for dinner

9.20 pm
Beginning of the screening "U2-3D" at BFI IMAX (metro: Waterloo).
On request - reservation needed (according to availability)

Participants are free for dinner

8.40 pm
Beginning of the screening "Shine a light" at Odeon Surrey Quays
(metro: Canada Water)
On request - reservation needed (according to availability)

8 pm
Closing dinner
At Thistle Hotel, Euston (walking distance from Ibis Euston St Pancras Hotel)
 

MEDIA Salles reports 829 digital screens in Europe. 5,000 in the rest of the world.
By Elisabetta Brunella, Secretary General of MEDIA Salles

The European Cinema Yearbook – 2007 final edition, presented in Berlin on 15 February, provides a snapshot of the situation of digital screens worldwide at December 2007. For the first time, as well as projectors using DLP Cinema technologyTM, MEDIA Salles also reports 4K projectors, thus producing a result of 5,829.
Of these installations, 829 are situated in Europe, in 536 cinemas. Twelve months previously, the figures were respectively 531 and 359. The number of screens has thus risen by 56%, and that of cinemas by 49%. This means that the average number of digital projectors per cinema is increasing and today comes to just over 1.5. This trend confirms that we are shifting from an experimental phase, in which a single projector may be sufficient to test the digital projection system, to a phase that might be termed “commercial”, in which digital projection must serve the entire life cycle of a film distributed by means of the new technology. In order to do this, it is essential for digital projectors to be available in several theatres with different seating capacities, within the same complex.
This is why the decision has been taken by several companies to equip a high number of screens in the same multiplex, if not all of them, with digital projectors.
Odeon UK is an example, with their decision at the beginning of 2007 to install 18 digital projectors in the 18 screens at their sites in Hatfield and Surrey Quays.
The latter complex, also equipped for 3D projection, is one that has been included in the programme of visits planned during the course DigiTraining Plus 2008 organized by MEDIA Salles for the coming April.

Europe’s 829 digital projectors are distributed throughout 24 countries, from Portugal to Russia, Iceland to Greece. Their territorial distribution is shown in the following table, which also shows the number of cinemas with at least one digital projector installed and the average number of digital projectors per cinema.
The country by country situation, which sees the United Kingdom in the lead with 272 units, or 32.8% of all Europe’s digital screens, followed by Germany (152) and France (69), shows that the spread of digital screens is not directly proportional to the overall number of screens in each country.
In the table the last two columns show two classifications, reporting the position of each country in terms of digital screens as well as screens in general.
It can immediately be seen that smaller countries, such as Belgium (which boasts 51 digital projectors), Austria (33) or Norway (29) seem to have started out on the path towards digital screening more quickly than larger markets, such as Italy (37) or Spain (31).

(Per leggere il testo in italiano cliccare qui)

From the MEDIA Salles' "European Cinema Yearbook - 2007 final edition"
Presented in Berlin on 15 February 2008

To see the full section entitled "Digital Cinema Worldwide in 2007", published in the MEDIA Salles "European Cinema Yearbook - 2007 final edition", please click here

New MEDIA Salles offices

On 30 June 2007 MEDIA Salles relocated its offices to the Milan headquarters of Agis, Italy’s entertainment industry association.
Our new address is:

MEDIA Salles
c/o Agis Lombarda
Piazza Luigi di Savoia, 24
I-20124 Milano

Tel. +39 02 6739781 Direct line +39 02 67397823
Fax +39 02 6690410
E-mail: infocinema@mediasalles.it
temporary address - February 2008: mediasalles@alice.it