Who needs film? Evidently George Lucas doesn't. He shot his next "Star Wars" movie digitally, on tape instead. In 1996, when the science-fiction director saw movie production costs soaring past the $100 million mark, Lucas approached Sony with a challenge: find a way to capture images digitally, but deliver the picture quality of film. Sony put a prototype machine in his hands by November 1999. A year later he had completed shooting "Star Wars: Episode II"— using only high-definition digital technology. It's set for release in May 2002.

Now other directors have joined the force. The University of Southern California just opened a digital-arts center to train the next generation of filmmakers; technology companies like Texas Instruments, Sony and Panasonic are building cutting-edge equipment, and artists are gradually getting onboard. For moviegoers, the benefits can be subtle: digital movies don't degrade like film so the 100th viewing will be as crisp and clean as the first. Cheaper moviemaking tools will also make it easier for budding auteurs to say "Action!" Next year Hollywood plans to present the first high-definition digital movies on high-definition projectors. This means live-action movies that have been shot with the new cameras will be screened using digital light projectors (DLPs). The industry's hope is that when projected using this special microchip technology, images shot on digital cameras will not only look as good as film, but also be delivered as easily as e-mail. With digital, studios plan to beam movies over satellites or fiber-optic lines directly to theaters eliminating the expensive process of making and shipping multiple film prints. So far, a handful of studio releases have been shot in digital video, notably Mike Figgis's "Time Code 2000" and Spike Lee's "Bamboozled," but these were transferred to film and projected the old-fashioned way. The first studio feature using both digital cameras and digital projectors will be Jersey Film's "How High," due at the start of 2002.

Right now, few audiences can experience the full digital effect. Only 31 screens world-wide are equipped with the technology. Financially strapped theater owners say they won't be snapping up expensive digital projector systems just yet. "We can spend $30,000 for a top-of-the-line 35mm projector that will last 20 to 30 years or $150,000 for a new technology that could be obsolete," says John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners. Still, a new research study predicts that more than a third of the country's 36,000 movie screens will go digital in the next five years. There have already been a couple of "stunts" digital transmissions of movies using satellites, and some theaters have screened digitized versions of movies like "Dinosaur" and "Toy Story 2" using DLPs. For those showings, technicians physically delivered the movies on CD-size discs and loaded them into projectors at each theater. The projectors decode the digital information and transmit pictures to the screen.

What does a transmitted pictures look like? Right now, a lot like TV. At a recent DLP demonstration in Silicon Valley, the experience didn't live up to the hype. To the eye of an average movie-goer, images captured digitally did not have the same feel of those shot on film. Digital pictures do have a hyperreal clarity. You've never seen water that sparkles so crisply or trees so green. Even so, images captured on the industry's newest equipment — the Sony 24P high-definition camera fitted with Panavision's sophisticated lenses — still look flat and two dimensional.

The technology has also not yet overcome large gaps in resolution — the amount of picture information carried by digital pixels is still a fraction of what is contained on a frame of 35mm film. This deficiency affects color and shades. "Film is bigger," says cinematographer John Hora. "There is more grain available to make variations in a tonal scale. Anything like a gray will look silky smooth on film, but not on digital." Certain fine objects elude capture on digital tape. "Computers don't do as well at the subtle stuff, such as cigarette smoke," Hora says.

Then there's the matter of our eyes, which are just not used to gazing at pixellated data on a large screen. "Your brain has to work a little

harder to construct the image," asserts cinematographer Allen Daviau, whose credits include "Empire of the Sun" and "E.T." And though specialists are tinkering with lenses and lighting to improve digital's profile, some directors say there is still no duplicating film's rich look.

Technology, of course, improves rapidly. And digital movie-making already has one important upside: it's cheaper. Independent filmmakers are especially fond of the medium, using it to tell small-budget stories that might not otherwise get made. Director Allison Anders had only 17 days to shoot her "Things Behind the Sun", when she turned to digital last June. "There were fewer trucks. Your film is all in a little box," Anders recalls, instead of on big, bulky reels. Digital cameras are lighter, more mobile and can use more available light, making it easier, some say, to set up shots. "I could just run down and grab things," Anders says of impromptu "image capturing" (the new word for filming) she did on the set. "I saved a tremendous chunk of my budget." The question is: will moviegoers pay an esthetic price?

（from NEWSWEEK， April，2001）