National Seminar on Digital Cinema
Against this backdrop, an opportune event was the National Seminar on Digital Cinema 2005, a part of the ongoing 9th International Short and Independent Film Festival, Dhaka. The seminar held to discuss the issues, problems and prospects of digital cinema in Bangladesh took place on December 26 at the Begum Sufia Kamal Auditorium, National Museum, Dhaka. Eminent director Tanvir Mokammel was the chairperson at the seminar. Noted moviemaker Tareque Masud presented the keynote paper on digital media, its issues, problems and prospects. Tanvir Mokammel, Manzar-e Hassin Murad, Morshedul Islam, Jahidur Rahman Anjan and Mainul Huda made statements on the subject as well.
Discussing the potential of the medium, Masud said, ÂDigital cinema technology delivers picture with incredible clarity and vibrant colors. With this technology, there is no more color fading, jump and weave, scratching and dirt accumulation, which are common problems in celluloid. For moviemakers, their movies are seen exactly the way they are intended to be seen, with light, shade and texture captured with digital accuracy. The distributors can provide a better quality viewing experience of their movies and save big bucks, as they won't have to reproduce prints. Moviegoers can see a movie in its original pristine condition, exactly the way the director intended it. We have very few postproduction facilities in the country."
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. To increase the quality of digital cinema, filmmakers must go abroad to acquire technical knowledge on the media, said Masud. He further called for government support, both financial and logistic.
The discussion session also featured the technical problems of digital cinema. As documentary film director, Jahidur Rahman Anjan said, "Every digital camera has a unique response to light and it is very difficult to predict without viewing the results on a monitor or a waveform analyzer, increasing the complexity of lighting. However, accurate calibration techniques are being developed which eliminate this as a practical problem, and the possibility of inexpensive post-production color grading can make digital cinematography more flexible than film in achieving artistic color effects."
Subsequently, films were being screened at the festival.