I think it would be a fabulous idea to make the 3 minute BBC NEWS update available to project onto cinema screens so that people at the cinema (especially youngsters) who dont normally consume news & information will get the latest News from the BBC.
I think your idea that it would be a fabulous idea to have the idea that you had is fabulous.
That is already done in Brazil. Do not know if we're first on that. It features basically a one minute spot for news before movies. The spot contains some eight news items: a photo, a title and two lines of text. It all comes from news agencies. I wonder if wouldn't be easy to use videos as well -- but well, videos seldom are self explanatory today, more so in small formats.
Maybe the BBC, with its big newsgathering section, could do it. In Brazil, the company providing them is www.ig.com.br
what... are we still in the 30's?
Read a newspaper, turn on the TV, hell, listen to the radio on the way home.
Nice idea...
Shouldn't be too hard to stream, only problem is who would foot the bill...the cinemas who wouldn't gain in terms of customers or the corporation who won't make money from selling the news...
I think digital news reels are a great idea.
Back in March BBC reported: "Irish cinema 'set to go digital'
The traditional 35mm film projectors are being replaced. Ireland is set to become the world's first country to have digital film in every cinema..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4365875.stm
Here in Australia there's at least one ex-IMAX cinema that with digital projection could show *heaps* of news.
There is enough unwanted television before the main feature as it is - all those adverts. I don't think people would appreciate 3 minutes more.
that's an awesome idea. It would have to be a damnsight better for everyone to watch the news than all those bloody adverts! ;-)
I like the idea
i go to the cinema to suspend my disbelief and get away from this 'reality' thing.
having adverts before the flick is bad enough, so i think i would be rather miffed at seeing a news broadcast that wasn't a part of the fiction.
Joseph, thats a great idea!
As a multimedia designer, I'd probably go for a very different design for the news, have different windows on the big screen, one for the news presenter, one for streaming headline text, and another for maybe images. The news in 3 mins - rules: can't be boring, has to be informative, yet not digress from the fact that people are there to watch a movie - so entertainment. Its difficult, but if you do things the right way incorporating colour, snazzy graphics/text.. people will start wanting more. Nes could differ depending on the film audience.. e,g family/teen/PG rating. I for one dont use the tv to watch the news anymore. I use the Internet so this would appeal as Im an avid cinema goer. Over and Out.
Hehe, just like the old days? But a good idea - I'm sure last year I read an article (BBC news) that lottery money was being used to pay for 200+ digital cinema systems (the idea being more indy films, as distribution is much cheaper). Presumably, these would be ideal for displaying a downloaded news report (easier than copying to film, that's for sure).
That would be really hard to accomplish, cinemas still use 35mm film for projection, so you would literally have to get a newsreel developed everyday and shipped out to the cinemas, which would then need to be spliced or put on as a seperate reel. This would be ridiculously expensive and a logistical nightmare in my opinion.
They could use the same content which is distributed to the Maiden Outdoor screens at station platforms (although these are vision-only, no sound).
Perhaps it wouldn't be part of the main programme (ads, trailers, film), but would just be on the screen silently as people fill up the seats waiting for it all to start.
Would beat watching curtains.
Perhaps the best form of this would be an ad for BBC News 24 and BBC News Online.
It'd screen just like any other digitally projected ad, and be paid for like one. But unlike the others, it would be up-to-the-minute up-to-date. This would really drive home the concept of the BBC offering fresh news 24/7.
If the concept is broadened to include TV, computer screen screensavers and other devices, it'd probably be more useful.
On the TV front, it would appear on UK RTLs and all the many public access stations overseas if not some commerical and government ones as well. There's a big market for good, free video content.
Why oh why would anyone be interested in watching the news at the cinema? Get a life! Enjoy your 'FILM'!!!
As Frankie mentions, this kind of thing is already done at railways stations on big screens... I notice they do the same thing on National Express coaches now - there are overhead TV screens in front of most seats and you plug in headphones in order to hear the audio feed.
If you were determined to do the same in cinemas, why not just have a plasma screen somewhere in the lobby - then people who wanted to get up-to-date on the news before their film could do, and others would be free to ignore it!
Would be nice to have it maybe in the art of the news-show... "This was the news" or whatever it used to be called...
I don't think it fare to give the viewer traditional news though, since you go to the cinema because you are bored by normal TV, or because of the special effects, the news is not part of that.
My local cinema shows slides of usually very bad local adverts, whilst people are taking their seats.
This would be a great time to show an rolling summary of the news headlines, RSS fed most likely. In fact, you could just hook up a Mac with OS X Tiger running the RSS screensaver to a digital projector....
I think this is a great idea - we could certainly use it here in the US. I think some of the more independent or smaller cinemas would be interested in this - maybe the idea would spread to larger ones.