Intel & Moviemaker Are Working on Digital Frontier.

Intel Corp. and independent film production company Revelations Entertainment have teamed up for a sally into the future with what could be the first release of a fully digital film.

The "strategic engagement" between the two companies, announced earlier, this month, permits the technology giant to try out a new platform in a hands-on way before its launch.

"A company like Revelations, which has the vision for where digital filmmaking is heading in the next five years, is a very attractive partner for us," explained Roger Vakhardia, business development manager for digital media with Intel.

Revelations, for its part, will get a jump on the early 2003 release of, perhaps, the first fully digital feature film.

"I don't know of any other project currently in the works that has the same needs," says Revelations President and CEO Lori McCreary, who co-founded the company with actor Morgan Freeman.

It is anticipated that filmmaking with digital cameras will make the production process cheaper and open up new avenues of distribution through the Internet and similar pathways. The new technology could render current methods obsolete and, in the process, break the hold of traditional content brokers over the marketplace for images and ideas.

Vakhardia said Intel plans to release Itanium processor-based workstations for use in digital cinematography some time next year and its arrangement with Revelations is part of its pre-launch strategy.

"We have what we call 'strategic engagements' that permit us to work closely with leading industry enablers that understand the technology and have a need for cutting-edge solutions," Vakhardia said.

Which translates roughly as follows: Intel has a new product line coming out that promises advances in 3-D modeling, animation, scene rendering, video editing and special effects. Revelations is planning a sci-fi piece that unfolds in a world constructed inside a cylinder, which can make good use of those capabilities. Both companies pick up unique opportunities to learn something new about the technological territory into which they are heading.

French connection

McCreary, who has a degree in computer science from UCLA, said the idea was borne of a trip to the Cannes International Film Festival three years ago. Apparently, Intel was demonstrating a considerable presence. at the market. Revelations had just purchased the rights to the story, "Rendezvous With Rama," by Arthur C. Clarke, best known as the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey." McCreary says she came away with the impression that Intel was "forward thinking" where filmmaking was concerned and a dialogue was begun.

Now, it is the digital production of the very same "Rendezvous with Rama" that the two companies are to collaborate on.

Vakhardia said the story is "a great fit to try some of these technologies. It allows us to work on the creation, management and presentation of content in different formats, not just on the film screen, but on television and personal computer."

There are, according to Vakhardia, no financial entanglements involved with the venture. Intel will provide business strategists and engineering architects "who will work closely with our counterparts in co-developing this deployable solution for the film industry." That means Intel will provide the hardware and technological know-how, Revelations the creative folk.

"In the future," said Vakhardia, "if our financial relationship develops into something mutually lucrative, we'll consider a more involved situation with them."

Freeman, slated to star in the project, said, "I believe that the current trend toward more digital effects in film will continue until digital cinematography is the norm, not the 'event' it is now. Lori and I created Revelations with this kind of technological leap in mind."

McCreary predicts that in 10 years, film making with digital cameras will be a matter of course.

Intel is no stranger to the film world. The company maintains a new-media laboratory in conjunction with Creative Artists Agency at the talent representation firm's Beverly Hills headquarters. Errol Gerson, former director of new media at CAA, said, "It's exciting to hear that Intel wants to be involved with the right side of the brain. I'm a big fan of what it does as a chipmaker, but the question is, what kind of digital artists will be hired onto the project?"