[Variety]

Steven Poster says biz needs to manage evolution

…  But as Steven Poster, prexy of the Intl. Cinematographers Guild noted Monday at Variety’s Film Technology Summit, existing job titles are enshrined in union contracts, work rules and best practices hammered out over a century. And that’s a problem, because the filmmaking process that spawned those definitions and rules is fading into history.

Poster called for an industrywide consortium similar to the Digital Cinema Initiative to look at the on-set workflow and find new, flexible definitions and rules.

“We need to develop a flexible concept of what the work is going to be over the next three years,” he told Variety offstage, “because it’s going to change, and we can’t lock ourselves into something that isn’t going to have some flexibility to it.”  …

Among the new challenges that demand new standards, he said, is 3D exhibition. Poster said he’s recently discussed with a studio the idea of exhibition standards, because the 3D golden goose could be killed by dark, muddy projection.

“If there are no standards… you’re going to get mom-and-pop theaters, you’re going to get small chains, and everyone has their own standards, instead of everyone saying, ‘Let’s work toward this.’?”  …

Read the full story here: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118045915