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MillimeterNonlinear Movie Content Finds Ideal Medium in DVD
Oct 1, 1998 12:00 PM, Dan Ochiva
DVD may have found its equivalent of computing's "killer app." Now on disk from DVD International, director Bob Bejan's I'm Your Man creates a "multi-path" narrative where viewers make choices that effect the 20-minute feature's plot. The disk, at $30, offers an experience beyond what standard, linear drama can accomplish, according to some converts. Such interactivity might just add the bit of spice DVD technology needs to bring about faster acceptance. (Currently more than 600,000 players have been sold.)
Whether or not this particular film lives up to that promise (both script and acting are less than polished), the work of New York-based Planet Theory (producing) and Zuma Digital (authoring and encoding) points out new potential in DVD production. Instead of being relegated to simple, straight-forward film-to-DVD transfers, small producers are looking for projects that offer them creative input. Making use of the full 4.7 GB available on first-generation DVD, the companies also included humorous outtakes, a plot map, explanatory screens, music, graphics, storyboards, a documentary of cast and crew on the making of the production, and a soundtrack by Joe Jackson.
Sony originally produced I'm Your Man in 1992 for a small group of specially wired theaters. In that case, 36 plot decisions hinged on mass consensus. Choosing to follow this or that character's POV, for example, entailed punching the desired button and then shouting aloud for your choice. On-screen gauges tallied the selections. While this changed the movie's near term trajectory, the final results turned out as only minor plot variations, as anything beyond that became cost prohibitive.
"The conceptual challenge here," notes Patrick Anding, senior DVD engineer at Zuma, "was to move the interactivity from multi-user polling to a single user with a (handheld, remote) controller."
Planet Theory and Zuma are planning three similar releases, including Bombmeister, a thriller written by Matthew Costello and Paul Wilson, who created the classic computer games Seventh Guest and 11th Hour.
New York-based Zuma Digital became the first East coast house to offer one-off DVD capability when it started beta testing Pioneer's DVD-R S101. Such a small run has become crucial for in-depth testing or limited installations. Usually, it is economical to create up to four disks on such a system (otherwise, at a standard replicator, first disks run from $3,000-$4,000).
The film was first transfered to Digital Betacam, and then Zuma fed the tape's signals into Sonic Solution's DVD Creator 1000.
"I don't know of any other company that offers such aggressive support of DVD and such a well-rounded set of tools," says David Anthony, CEO and co-founder of Zuma along with Blaine Graboyes.
Zuma encoded audio and video and reduced any signal noise via Digital Vision's NR 500ie. The staff used Dolby to encode the standard stereo-channel mix.
Sonic's DVD producer authoring software is part of the DVD Creator workstation. Besides software, the integrated package includes the latest in MPEG-2 encoding technology, D-1 direct-to-disk video recording (allows playback for disk recording), HyperMux DVD multiplexing technology (improved bit optimization), Dolby-certified Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound encoding, and seamless file imports from Media 100 and Avid systems. -D.O.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
