THE LAST REEL: The final issuance of technical specs for digital, high-definition video has opened the speculative floodgates: Whither film?

This summer, a few scattered movie theaters have staged test runs of digital-video movie projection. Audiences apparently liked what they saw; so trials and tests will continue.

Distributors look forward to being able to "ship" their shows to theaters via satellite, instead of trucking film prints around. Theater chains look forward to no longer worrying about film breakage and scratchage, and really look forward to the chance to fire even more projectionists.

In a recent issue of the New York Press, Godfrey Cheshire looked ahead toward the final replacement of "film" as we know it by digital-video projection, and (like the self-described "videophobe" he is) foresw only bad things ahead.

I beg to differ.

For one thing, digital-video features will undoubtedly still include many of your favorite movie cliches. "A female lead with feminist leanings will always despise a macho hero--until the first time he rescues her from certain death. She will then become totally conventional and dependent.... Time will stand still when when the hero is in the presence of a company logo...."

For another, regular-definition digital video production's already on the verge of revolutionizing independent moviemaking. The makers of Doomed Planet (which they describe as "America's favorite low-budget Armageddon comedy!") say they were able to complete the feature for $10,000 with digital video, but it "would have easily cost a half million dollars had we shot it on 16 or super-16mm film."

(Our local readers can see the results at the Doomed Planet premiere party, next Friday (9/24) at Sit & Spin, 2219 4th Ave. in Seattle.)

Once hi-def camcorders become widely available on the indie level, ground-level directors would be able to realize their visions and make them look just as slick as the big-boys' movies (if they wanted to).

Of course, as anybody who's seen some of the abundant Amerindie-film dross of the '90s knows, just because these tools become available to more would-be auteurs it doesn't mean you'll get viewable results.

Meanwhile, the current Wired (which won't be available online until after it leaves the newsstands, approx. Oct. 17) has a cover-story package all about digital moviemaking, including two (count 'em!) Nor'wester stories: one about Seattle's "microcinema" producers and disseminators (including Blackchair Productions, 911 Media Arts, Atom Films, and Honkworm Entertainment), and one about Myst/Riven video-game legend Robyn Miller putting his share of the games' earned millions into a movie-production venture right in the Spokane suburbs (about as off-Hollywood as you can get without running into the Hollywood second-homers who've infiltrated so many other inland-west towns).

IN OTHER NEWS: Shopping malls ban studs. (Insert your own teen-boywatching joke here.)

MONDAY: Taking the personality out of print journalism.

PITCH IN: This time, I'm looking for cultural artifacts today's young adults never knew (i.e., dial phones, non-inline skates, and three-network TV). Make your nominations at our MISC. Talk discussion boards.

ELSEWHERE:

• This "quotient of humanity survey" provides a means for its creators to brand as "subhuman" anybody who disagrees with the creators' own rave-shaman-esque ideology, or who leads a lifestyle that significantly differs from theirs...
• "Gather ye casual sex while ye may, ladies!..."
• Harley purists like to call Japanese motorcycles "rice burners." Perhaps soon, the name could be accurate... (found by Rebecca's Pocket)
• Diligent citizen harassed by The Man for preventing the waste of potentially good music....