Microspace Delivers With Digital Cinema

Microspace has now successfully delivered three full-length feature films to live revenue-producing theatres in North America.   With the delivery of DreamWorks animated film Shark Tale, Microspace rounded out its first trio of releases in its continuing digital cinema pilot program.

Shark Tale opened nationally on Friday, October 1, 2004, in both digital and analog formats, and features the voices of Hollywood hit makers Will Smith, Robert DeNiro and Renée Zellweger.  Twenty-two screens in North America were booked to show the film from Microspace’s digital delivery.

Microspace sent the film via satellite through VELOCITY ®, its product that enables customers to broadcast high-speed video or data to remote locations across the United States and Canada, to these select digitally-equipped movie theaters.

In May 2004, Microspace began the program with the distribution of Shrek 2 and continued in August with Collateral .

“Our previous experience in collaborating with Microspace made the Shark Tale project even more successful than those before,” said Cineplex Galaxy VP of Communications & Specialty Marketing Pat Marshall, “and further validates our own ongoing goal to provide top-flight entertainment via the industry’s state-of-the-art technology.”

Microspace’s digital satellite delivery gives the audience an opportunity to see this film in its “truest digital form,” according to DreamWorks Distribution Head of Operations Mark Christiansen.  Because the animated film Shark Tale is created digitally on a computer, digital distribution is the next logical step.

Actually, “whether the film is a digitally animated feature or one shot on celluloid, the advantages of digital delivery and projection over traditional methods are impressive,” said Access Digital Media President & COO Russell Wintner.  He pointed to “reduced costs and improved control and flexibility for the distributor and an enhanced entertainment experience for the audience” as such benefits.

In 2003, Microspace began its experiment with digital film delivery by delivering its first full-length movie into the Digital Cinema Lab, Alien: The Director’s Cut . 

With Shark Tale, Microspace is continuing its goal of bringing digital cinema to a theatre near you.