My Future on the Silver Screen

I didn't have to go to the campus today. It's the first day I've had off in the last eleven. The upcoming week promises to continue being hectic. My next free day occurs in December. Jay had to use up another of his twelve, use-it-or-lose-it sick leave days. This morning was for shopping. After lunch, we drove to Richmond to see Beowulf in IMAX 3-D. The experience was pretty amazing.

I'd venture the feature would not be nearly as awe-inspiring on a standard screen. By the end of 113 minutes I was delightfully dizzy. The industry is finally getting closer to the day when authentic-looking film making needn't bother with reality at all. Technically, this movie is substantially better than Polar Express. There were far fewer creepy moments this time around when watching the actors do their motion-capture, computerized thing.

Certainly there's a promising future in this type of storytelling. Thirty years ago, I had never seen such real looking spacecraft as Star Wars allowed. I'm sure the audiences 44 years prior to that, thought the effects in King Kong were the ... well ... bee's knees.

So perhaps when at the theatre in 2025, I'll be able to step into the scanner booth when buying my movie ticket. For the price of the ticket, I'll be featured in the big action sequences in a tiny role as an extra. That'll force me to have to look very hard for my fleeting moment on screen, however. I expect if I were to cough up enough extra cash, I'd be able to purchase a much larger segment of screen time. By that time I'll be retired and, most probably, as frugal with cash as I am today. So, don't expect to see me flying around on a dragon ... ever.