The Last Film Show?

I've just attended a screening of Andy Conlan's first full-length feature début, The Last Magic Show. Among the usual questions asked of test audiences — "Who would this movie appeal to?", "Who does the lead character remind you of?" — was one that I found particularly interesting; it involved how you would most prefer to watch the film: in a theatre, at home on a DVD (with extras), on TV, on the Internet or on 'a portable device'. It's interesting that in an age when mainstream film studios are lamenting the loss of profit due to Internet pirates, independent producers would potentially choose to release straight to moviegoers via digital formats. In fact, doing so would be a less expensive — and potentially more financially lucrative — avenue, due largely to the fact that most independent features are produced almost entirely digitally, as this one was. Well, I say almost because there were sequences — the opening and closing scenes, and flashbacks throughout the narrative — which were shot on 16mm. Conlan himself explains his reasoning for this process in an interview with Onfilm magazine from 2005:

"The idea to "bookend" the movie with footage shot on film was taken from '28 Days Later'. I can only pretend to guess at their motivation for this, but the theory as I hope to apply it here is to ease the audience into the story with the 16mm part of the film. They say, "Okay, "I'm at a 'movie movie'", they relax, forget about the picture, get into the story, and then before they know it, they're watching a digitally originated image and hey, it's really very good. In our case, there is specific motivation in the story at which we switch to the DVC Pro footage and a definite motivation at the end to switch to the 35mm part. We just have to make sure the transition is noticeable, without being jarring. It's a delicate balance."

Conlan's film has a direct link to today's lecture; the same costume designer worked on both The Last Magic Show and Florian Harbicht's postmodern Grimm Brothers' tale Woodenhead.