Each year at the Oscars ceremony, Hollywood says goodbye to stars and filmmakers who’ve passed away. This year, the award show will bid adieu to the Kodak Theatre.
Just a decade ago, the glamorous 3,300-seat venue was touted as the Oscars’ first permanent home, but the 131-year-old company has forfeited its sponsorship of the venue as it struggles with bankruptcy.
The move symbolises Kodak’s fading star power in Hollywood. Although seven of the nine “Best Picture” nominees were shot on Kodak film, the industry’s increasing use of digital editing and projection has ravaged the company’s printing business.
Kodak is unable to afford the marketing boost the Oscars once gave it. Last week, a bankruptcy court judge approved its early exit from a 20-year naming rights deal it signed with Kodak Theatre owner CIM Group in 1999. As a result, Kodak won’t have to pay the $3.6 million annual naming fee.
The Kodak Theatre, which was custom-built for the awards show and first played host to the ceremony in 2002, will be described to millions of viewers on Sunday simply as the “Hollywood & Highland Centre.”
The judge’s decision came too late to remove the signs outside, which may cast a sense of gloom over an industry already rocked by technological change. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which declined to comment for this story, is reportedly considering a move to a different venue.
The Academy won’t suffer financially from the unpaid fee, since it doesn’t have a direct relationship with Kodak and most of its $100 million annual budget comes from licensing the Oscar ceremony’s broadcast, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The Academy leases the space from CIM Group.
It’s not as if Kodak didn’t see the digital future coming. Last October, Kodak licensed its patented laser projection technology to Imax Corp. to allow digital projectors to work in domes and other huge theatres that were once reserved for film.
Even if its name is gone from the Oscars, Kodak will still be a part of filmmaking, as long as Academy voters continue to pick movies with that rich, grainy “film look.” Kodak stock film was used to shoot Oscar-nominated movies such as War Horse , The Tree of Life , and The Help , even though the captured images were converted for digital editing and delivery.
Mark Graziano, senior vice-president of post-production at War Horse maker DreamWorks Studios, said the end of the sponsorship serves as a reminder of the “lost art” of film production, and of the workers who once had titles like “negative cutter.” It used to take two weeks, for example, just to prepare a rough cut for studio executives to view in screening rooms. The process is nearly instantaneous now.
“It makes you nostalgic for the days when we only worked with 35-millimetre film,” Mr. Graziano said, noting that film still has a place at many studios. “You look at many filmmakers that swear by film capture, their movies always look gorgeous. It’s hard to turn your back on that.”
