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MillimeterSMPTE: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Jan 3, 2003 12:00 PM, By John L. Mason
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To read an essay by George Spiro Dibie, ASC, click here.
The Society of Motion Picture Engineers was founded in 1916. The founder was C. Francis Jenkins, co-inventor of the Vitascope film projector that was used to present a series of short films at the Koster and Bials Music Hall in Manhattan in 1896. Film historians consider that landmark occasion the dawn of the cinema industry in the United States. By 1916, the 35mm format was a de facto standard for motion picture production and projection, but many producers and exhibitors were still using proprietary systems for producing and projecting motion pictures.
Jenkins and the other pioneering members of SMPE succeeded in fostering a dialogue between cinematographers, producers, equipment manufacturers, and exhibitors that resulted in a 35mm film standard, which, in turn, led to a rapid acceleration of progress. During the 1920s, standards were established for a transition from panchromatic to orthochromatic films, silent movies to sound, early color systems, etc.
SMPE also played a vital role in defining and codifying the need for standards for displaying film, and ultimately, video images on television. The “T” for television was therefore added, and the acronym became SMPTE.
The SMPTE conference in 1989 marked the centennial celebration of the opening of Thomas Edison’s Black Maria Studio in New Jersey. In his keynote address, Len Coleman, who was SMPTE president at the time, said the mission of the organization was to continue its historic role of advancing the art form by defining the need for codifying standards in collaboration with producers, the creative community, and exhibitors.
His words still resonate. SMPTE now has some 10,000 members in every part of the world today, including 15 student chapters. Our basic mission hasn’t changed. We need to concentrate on building and maintaining bridges with producers, the creative community—especially cinematographers—and the exhibitors who are affected by the recommendations made by our working groups and standards committees.
This October, our 144th conference in Pasadena was a landmark occasion because it included a day of discussions organized by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) and the International Cinematographers Guild (ICG). That resulted in a fruitful exchange of ideas and discussions about technology issues facing our industry.
During the coming year, SMPTE committees will focus on such seminal issues as the future of digital cinema; the digital encryption and compression technologies needed for efficiency, and as a safeguard against piracy of intellectual property; the creation of metadata standards that will help to ensure the future artistic integrity of motion pictures which have been mastered and stored in digital format; and the codifying of standards which help to assure that nuances in colors recorded on film are retained during digital projection and displays on computer and television screens. SMPTE is also active in helping to educate the next generation of filmmakers with our student chapters, including a scholarship program.
We recently organized the SMPTE Foundation with a $100,000 seeding grant from Kodak. The foundation is a non-profit offshoot of SMPTE, which will explore long-range, strategic missions for the organization in the areas of education, the intellectual exchange of ideas, and the need for standards that serve the art form. The focus group planning these activities includes the presidents of ICG and ASC.
In 2003, my good friend Gavin Schultz will serve as president of SMPTE. I wish him well in this important endeavor. For more information, visit the SMPTE website at www.smpte.org.
John L. Mason, director of the Kodak Student Filmmaker Program, is the outgoing president of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE). For more information on SMPTE, visitwww.smpte.org.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.
