First the bad news. While India?s movie industry is the world?s most prolific?churning out some 800 films a year?what stands in the way of sustained growth is rampant piracy, high distribution costs and poor reach.
Now the good news. Digital cinema, a relatively new concept, is fast catching up among film producers and cinema owners as the best bet to tackle many of these evils. While it seemed like a non-starter when companies such as Adlabs and Mukta Arts first took up its cause some years ago, the platform is making a comeback, thanks largely to the efforts of UFO Moviez, an Apollo International subsidiary, which is going at it hammer and tongs.
Currently, movies in India are shot in the celluloid as opposed to the digital format, and are then distributed as film prints imported from companies such as Kodak and Agfa. If each film print costs about Rs 50,000 and if 200 prints are made for every movie, one can well imagine the total cost on simply getting the prints made!
And if one were to take into consideration the total number of movies churned out every year, the outlay on film prints touches a whopping Rs 800 crore.
Given the costs involved, some filmmakers follow a two-step strategy for film release. In the first leg, about a hundred prints are distributed in A-class cities. By the time these prints reach smaller cities and towns in the second leg, the film?s commercial viability goes down as does the print quality. The delay in release also encourages piracy as cinema owners in smaller towns procure pirated versions leaked during the various stages of distribution.
This is where UFO can step in. It offers the wherewithal to convert full-length feature films into a compressed and encrypted digital format and deliver them electronically through dedicated satellite links to secured servers installed at theatres. These in turn can be screened by the exhibitors via digital projectors. ?The aim of UFO Moviez is to ensure maximum, widespread and simultaneous release of movies on its platform,? says Raja Kanwar, vice-chairman of UFO Moviez. ?The exhibitor doesn?t have a big burden of investment. We provide the hardware required to receive movies at the distributors end and they have to pay us as per usage.?
UFO?s financing option seems to have gone down well with B- and C-type theatre owners who may be willing to make an outright investment of Rs 10 lakh on secure servers and digital projectors. While a theatre owner has to make a non-refundable deposit of Rs 2 lakh, the rest is taken care of by UFO. The distributor and exhibitor pay Rs 500 per screening in the first week and the rate goes down with time. ?The per-screening cost for a theatre is much less this way,? Kanwar says.
Consider this. According to data collected by UFO, Elite theatre in Phagwara in Punjab saw its average weekly collections grow three times to Rs 50,000 after it subscribed to the new format. The same was reported by Shreeji Chitramandir in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh that saw weekly collections double to Rs 50,000. ?It benefits both the producer as well as the theatre owner. While a producer can increase his reach manifold, the threatre owner?even in remote locations?gets direct access to the latest blockbuster. Moreover, the whole system is piracy-proof,? says Kanwar.
UFO Moviez is currently connected to 700 theatres across India and plans to create a chain of 3,000 digital cinema houses worldwide by 2008. UFO is looking at tie-ups with theatres in the US, Hong Kong, Singapore and London?markets that have a substantial Indian population. The other major player in the business of digital cinema, south-based Real Image that operates through subsidiary Qube Cinema, has over 100 screens in south India, besides hooking up with cinemas in the US and Portugal.