The story of the EDCF

How it started

In 1999, digital cinema first started to make an appearance as a potential technology for cinema. Back then I was working as the Executive Director of the BKSTS (British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society) which, at that time, was the premier technical association for film and cinema in the UK. Through the personal contacts of the BKSTS President, Paul Collard, we had a good relationship with the CST, Commission Supérieure Technique de l’Image et du Son, the French association for cinema technology. We exchanged information and contributed to each other’s conferences on a regular basis. It was at one such conference that the seeds of the European Digital Cinema Forum were sown.

In 2000, BKSTS held the first D-Cinema conference in the UK. Held at Pinewood Studios, courtesy of Barco’s Keith Morris, this event gave us the first look at what this technology could offer the film industry. It was just after this event that I was approached by BKSTS member, CST member and media journalist Jean-Paul Cassagnac, who said: “John, D-Cinema is coming. We need to do something about this. We need a new association.”

So where better to pursue this idea than within the BKSTS and the CST. With my colleague John Croft, we had meetings with Jean-Paul, Matthieu Sintas and others in the CST to agree on an outline of what was needed. A structure was created along the lines of the SMPTE Group DC28. Volunteers were assigned to the tasks of monitoring and reporting on the various elements of the new technology. I started work on writing a constitution. We called ourselves the European Digital Cinema Forum. Looking back, we could think of this group as the Interim EDCF.

We were now approaching September 1999; time for IBC. On behalf of the BKSTS, John Croft and I produced the first-ever D-Cinema event at IBC — a mini-conference entitled “Mastering for Digital Cinema”, chaired by Paul Collard, with speakers including Dave Schnuelle (Lucasfilm) and Dave Bancroft (Thomson).

Following the success of the 1999 D-Cinema session at IBC, and reflecting the growing interest in D-Cinema, the BKSTS D-Cinema session at IBC the following year was a much bigger event. This was another successful conference, but it finished with an unscheduled, impassioned plea from one of the delegates who demanded that “Europe gets its act together now if it is to have any influence on how D-Cinema develops.” We discovered that this person was Lasse Svanberg, a well-known Swedish cinematographer who was working for the Swedish Film Institute. John Croft and I met with Lasse a few days later, so we now had three countries looking to take a leading role in the development of D-Cinema in Europe.

Despite this progress, we were missing one important element at this point: funding. In pursuit of start-up funding, Matthieu Sintas approached Jean Menu at the Centre National du Cinéma (CNC), and I approached the UK government’s Department of Trade and Industry in the form of Charlie Sandbank, who already had set up a D-Cinema action group. This group had supported the first Digital Screen Network and created a D-Cinema test bed at the National Film Theatre. At the same time, Lasse went to talk about possible funding with the head of the Swedish Film Institute, Åse Kleveland. These three organisations — CNC, DTI and SFI — could see the potential significance of D-Cinema and agreed to provide some funding to move things along.

As they were providing funding, and they were their respective governments’ representatives for cinema, Kleveland, Sandbank and Menu decided that this should be their project. The provisional EDCF group found itself taking a back seat for a period while the politics of structure, aims and ongoing funding were dealt with.

Stockholm, 2001

The next step was to check if there was broad support in the industry for the creation of an organisation to be a focal point for European D-Cinema. To this end, the Swedish Film Institute hosted a conference at the Film House in Stockholm on 30 May 2001, with more than 100 invited delegates. There was universal support for the creation of such a Europe-wide organisation, and agreement on a set of objectives:

• To function as an umbrella organisation for European E- and D-cinema interests and as a consultative body for national governments and the European Commission.
• To liaise with other relevant bodies to assist in the establishment of appropriate worldwide standards for E- and D-cinema.
• To co-ordinate and establish European user requirements for standards for all parts of the E- and D-cinema chains.
• To initiate a European Digital Cinema Laboratory.

The strong positive response underlined the concerns of the time: distributors losing control, security of content, potential projectionist job losses, exhibition revenues being monitored by others, filmmakers’ resistance to “digital”, and overwhelming concerns about affordability.

Thus the European Digital Cinema Forum was created, with France, Sweden and the UK initially providing funding. Management services were to be provided by myself at the BKSTS. The reference to E- and D-cinema in the objectives reflected serious anxieties at that time. Intense debates tried to define D-cinema and E-cinema and the relevant standards and applications of each. Affordability for a very diverse cinema industry was at the core of most of these discussions. This question of D-cinema standards was only answered finally in July 2005, when Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) announced its D-cinema standard, commonly known as the DCI Spec.

At IBC 2001 we held the first open, public EDCF meeting, and the first meeting of the management group. Attendees were Jean Menu (CNC), Matthieu Sintas (CST), Renaud Di Francesco (Sony), Åse Kleveland (SFI), Peter Wilson (Snell & Wilcox), Charlie Sandbank (DTI), Lasse Svanberg (SFI) and John Graham (BKSTS).

The main topic was a structure that would deliver the information and services industry people were saying were needed. The agreed structure mirrored that of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), with three modules or working groups: Commercial, Content and Technical. The heads appointed in 2002 were Renaud Di Francesco (Sony) for Commercial, Lasse Svanberg (SFI) for Content, and Peter Wilson (Snell & Wilcox) for Technical.

Another issue was language, and what should be the official language of the EDCF: English, French, or both? After several months of debate, English was chosen. Similarly, there was serious debate about where the EDCF should be based — London or Paris. By this time the administration was well established with me at the BKSTS in London, and that is where it stayed. At the end of 2006 the contract for management services with the BKSTS came to an end, and from then on this service was provided within the EDCF through the General Secretary.

Structure and statutes

In this formative stage, the management group was anxious that the organisation did not become dominated by manufacturers, as some other associations had. It was felt that the EDCF needed to serve the wider industry, remembering that public organisations were providing all the funding at this time. It was agreed that there should be a three-way equal balance in the membership between manufacturing, traditional cinema, and associations and government agencies — the so-called three constituencies. This model would also apply to the management structure, so that when a Management Board was created there would be equal representation of these three constituencies. The Board would select a President and two Vice-Presidents, each from a different constituency.

These requirements, plus many others, were written into the EDCF statutes, which I was asked to write. Not surprisingly, the first draft looked remarkably like the constitution written for the Interim EDCF. These were created within the UK business structure known as a Company Limited by Guarantee, widely used by associations like the BKSTS. However, we discovered that French publicly funded organisations were not allowed, by law, to be a member of an organisation based outside France. So we had to think again.

After considerable research, we agreed that the EDCF should be established as a Stichting (foundation) under Dutch law. This is a non-business structure designed for not-for-profit organisations that collect money to provide services to members, do not create profits, do not pay dividends and do not pay their Board members. There are also minimal tax implications for the Stichting structure.

The next move was to register the EDCF with the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce, with our official address in Amsterdam at the Nederlands Filmfonds, the government agency for cinema in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam notary completed the documentation and finalised our registration in 2004. The European Digital Cinema Forum was now an official international organisation.

This registration enabled the EDCF to recruit members and collect subscription fees. Volunteers among the fee-paying members were then sought to complete the Board. The statutes formalised the position of General Secretary as being responsible to the Board for management and administration. A slightly unusual element stated that the original founding members would have permanent seats on the Board: CNC, CST, BKSTS and SFI, in recognition of the initial funding and organisational effort. In 2004 the Board decided that, additionally, the FDA and UNIC should have permanent seats. How could the EDCF adequately represent European cinema if it did not have the exhibitors and distributors tied into its organisation? Other Board positions are filled by election among the members every two years.

First board and members

EDCF Board, 2004

It is instructive to look at the members list from that time. There was an attempt to provide a balance between the three constituencies, although inevitably there were more members in the industrials group. This was the early days of digital cinema, and many companies were testing the water. Many of these names are no longer in D-cinema, and many have disappeared completely.

At this point the EDCF had members, a Board, a management organisation and three modules to carry out work on behalf of the membership. Things were moving along well.

In 2006 there was a significant change to the EDCF’s management structure. Board members were concerned that their day jobs meant they did not have the time to give to the EDCF that was really needed. In particular, the public face of the organisation at conferences and other gatherings was badly lacking. It was decided to look for someone who carried respect within the industry who could be the face of the EDCF. We approached Dave Monk, who had recently retired as Vice President of Texas Instruments Europe and Chairman and Managing Director of TI’s UK and Ireland subsidiaries. Dave agreed to join the EDCF as its first Chief Executive Officer.

Working groups

Content

Under Lasse Svanberg’s leadership the Content Module produced two publications in a short space of time: E-Cinema Content in 2002, following the conference of the same name at the Swedish Film Institute in December 2001, andThe EDCF Guide to Digital Cinema Production, published by Focal Press in 2004. The aim was to educate producers and directors about the new technologies and help them understand how this would change, and should benefit, their craft. Lasse would be the first to admit that persuading the production community to engage with us was less than universally successful. Following Lasse’s untimely death, Johannes Lassila from the Finnish Film Producers Association became chairman of this group, but the inability to involve production personnel eventually brought about the closure of the module.

Commercial

The Commercial Module started under Renaud Di Francesco (Sony) and attracted much attention, probably because many were trying to figure out how this transition could be financed. In 2002 we had 160 people signed up to be part of this group, and seminars were attended by large numbers. There was one major problem that limited the output: in a public forum of this size, nobody was willing to share sensitive commercial information. The EDCF prided itself on being completely neutral on all issues — still a key plank of its ethos — and this increased the difficulty of providing meaningful commercial advice.

In 2004 Anders Geertsen from the Danish Film Institute became chairman and took the module in a different direction as a Distribution Support Group. The most significant output was a conference for distributors at London’s National Film Theatre in 2008, with close to 100 attendees. Following a change in career, Anders left the EDCF at the end of 2008. Even though the Commercial Module had ceased to function, commercial discussions did not stop. When the Virtual Print Fee (VPF) funding proposal was introduced, explaining the mechanics of this scheme was as needed as any technical issue at EDCF seminars.

Technical

Under Peter Wilson, the Technical Module (100 members in 2002) made progress. With a brief to explain the new technology and engage with other technical organisations on standards, this module had a clear set of aims and was productive. Many of the EDCF’s explanatory publications came from this group, and workshops were well attended, often held at the premises of manufacturers who always had something new to demonstrate.

The “Four Levels of Service” proposal — an attempt to define E-cinema and D-cinema — was the first output, followed by the Early Adopters Guide, which proved invaluable to cinema operators trying to understand the new technology. In 2007 this module, together with IMAGO, created a frame-rate sub-group led by Kommer Kleijn and Peter Wilson. The aim was to have 25fps and archival frame rates included in D-cinema standards. It needed a lot of persuasion and patience before some colleagues in Hollywood were convinced that some filmmakers did indeed work at 25fps, not just 24fps. This standardisation work was carried out within SMPTE and finally translated into ISO.

In 2008, recognising the difficulties the Content and Commercial modules were having, the three-module structure was changed into a Technical Support Group (Peter Wilson), a Distribution Support Group under Anders Geertsen, and an Exhibition Support Group. Some of the biggest questions of the day did not sit comfortably in a module structure, but sat across all of them. A classic example was the emergence of alternative content: a potential win for digital cinema was the ability to screen non-movie content. This brought into focus funding and technical standards, but also fundamental questions about the structure of the industry and the relationship between distributor and exhibitor. A pioneer in this field was EDCF Board member Kees Ryninks, who created Cinemanet, a network of cinemas showing documentaries, concerts and opera. Initially these cinemas were equipped with lower-specification, and therefore cheaper, projectors than those being proposed for screening movies.

Eventually the support-group structure was abandoned in favour of the EDCF being project-led. A direct output was the EDCF Guide to Film Festivals, a project driven by Angelo D’Alessio.

Projects that lasted

The LA Tour

The most successful, long-running project across the years of the EDCF’s existence has been the annual LA Tour. Started in 2005, and still going strong, these annual two-day visits to Hollywood and Burbank have been the most important benefit of EDCF membership for many members. The driving force was to develop stronger ties with the US industry, to offer members the chance to meet some of the movers and shakers in cinema technology in the US, to increase understanding in the USA of the European industry, and to see demonstrations of technologies in development.

The first couple of tours were challenging on two fronts. First, logistics: transporting 35 people to as many as eight different locations per day in LA traffic. Establishing a group hotel, providing a tour bus and having assistance from an LA colleague, Thomas Macalla, solved this. Second, our first meetings with representatives from the studios were cautious affairs, with studio lawyers limiting areas of discussion due to concerns about US antitrust laws. We soon became recognised as a group that knew how to behave — no leaks to the press — and that there was significant expertise in our group, which resulted in valuable discussions that benefitted everyone. These meetings established long-term friendships, and in turn spawned a meaningful relationship between the EDCF and the ISDCF.

I don’t recall a conscious decision within the EDCF to provide a bridge between European cinema and Hollywood, but in effect this is what happened, and the LA Tour was the most significant part of that process.

The EDCF/UNIC SMPTE DCP project

The DCI specification pointed at a particular specification for the Digital Cinema Package. For various reasons this was not implemented for several years, with Interop deployed as the alternative. Interop is not a standard, but a packaging format agreed between some of the early manufacturers to try to ensure that content was interoperable between their systems. The SMPTE DCP is based upon the Interop DCP, with further enhancements such as support for 3D subtitles, and was published as a formal standard by SMPTE and ISO.

After a few false starts, the studios applied pressure to persuade the industry that the change from Interop to SMPTE DCP needed to happen. There was a serious risk that some cinemas would not be able to play the new format, and there could be dark screens. At the UNIC autumn conference in 2014 a group of interested parties agreed to form a working group to facilitate this transition for all European cinemas. The group was led by the EDCF and UNIC and included studios, integrators, manufacturers and service providers. It met regularly from 2015 until COVID-related restrictions intervened in 2020 — an eyewatering total of 39 meetings, run by Dave Monk.

The plan was to create simple but effective test content to be sent to every cinema in Europe, territory by territory, with local cinema associations assisting in the collection of the test data. Any problems were identified and dealt with quickly. Data-collection rates were approaching 80%. This was a long, but ultimately very successful, project that saved the industry more problems down the line. It demonstrates the strength of the EDCF in bringing together would-be competitors to deal with an industry-wide issue under the neutral and respected leadership of Dave Monk, with support from me.

The annual convention

Following the retirement of Antoine Virenque, who had guided the organisation calmly and skilfully since 2008, the respected market analyst David Hancock took over the presidency in 2015 to lead the EDCF through its next phase, as laser-illuminated projection and LED panels gathered interest for the next round of investments in presentation technology.

In addition to increasing membership, and with a renewed direction following the completion of cinema digitisation, David was responsible for adding an annual convention to the EDCF schedule. A two-day event is held for members to review the state of the industry and agree an action plan for the next twelve months. Member companies ARRI, Barco, CinemaNext and the Swedish Film Institute were very helpful in hosting these events.

Relationships with other organisations

IBC

In its formative years the EDCF hosted the first D-Cinema sessions at IBC. Over several years this developed into “The Big Screen”: three or four days of leading D-Cinema sessions, and the premier event for D-Cinema technology in Europe. With strong support from IBC’s Phil White, Dave Monk was the Big Screen producer for several years until the Big Screen Committee was created under Julian Pinn’s chairmanship in 2014. Attracting large audiences and names such as Ang Lee and James Cameron, the programme continually broke new ground — including the first public demonstration of laser projection in Europe and the first demonstration of laser-illuminated 3D in Europe. The EDCF’s Global Update became a cornerstone of the Big Screen programme.

SMPTE

SMPTE was, and still is, the leading standards organisation for cinema, and it was essential that the EDCF engage with SMPTE so that D-Cinema standards would be appropriate for Europe as well as the USA. EDCF members contributed to many of the SMPTE groups working on specific areas of technology. The most significant input was the long process of including 25 frames per second in the D-Cinema standards, which were eventually incorporated as ISO standards.

EFADs

The European Film Agency Directors were a key group in the early stages of D-Cinema development. These agencies recognised the potential that D-Cinema had to facilitate the distribution of European films. At one point six of these agencies were members of the EDCF, and their subscriptions were a significant contribution to establishing a firm financial basis for the organisation.

DCI

Digital Cinema Initiatives is a consortium of the Hollywood studios formed in 2002 to establish specifications for a common systems architecture for digital cinema. This hugely important organisation was headed authoritatively by Chuck Goldwater. The EDCF Board realised the importance of developing a relationship with DCI, to input into the standards-setting process and to help the studios understand the complexities of European cinema — including the e-cinema/d-cinema debate, affordability, and the diversity of European cinema. The connection between studio and cinema in the USA was relatively straightforward, with six studios distributing the vast majority of content. Meanwhile there were more than 300 distributors operating in Europe. The first meeting with Chuck was held at NAB in 2003, and subsequent meetings took place at NAB, ShowWest, Cannes and IBC.

The Academy

If the EDCF was considered to be a bridge between Europe and Los Angeles, the Academy was one of the pillars of this bridge. The Academy was the first non-European organisation to become a member of the EDCF, and Andy Maltz, Managing Director of the Science and Technology Council, featured each year in the EDCF Global Update at IBC. Andy hosted a visit by EDCF members on every LA Tour — well beyond the call of duty, and much appreciated by all.

ISDCF

While DCI drove policy and tackled major issues, there was a clear need to deal with the huge number of day-to-day practical issues surrounding the creation, distribution and screening of digital movies. In 2006 the Los Angeles-based Inter-Society created the Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum (ISDCF). Under Jerry Pierce, monthly meetings dealt with problems, produced recommendations and generally oiled the wheels of digital cinema. Being the nearest thing to this in Europe, the EDCF set out to develop a strong relationship with the ISDCF. Some EDCF members spent many hours late into the evening on conference calls to ensure there was European input, and in turn to discover what issues were on the table in Hollywood and Burbank.

The European Commission

The EDCF had steady, continual involvement with the European Commission across many years. Some of these contacts were very productive, others more contentious. The MEDIA Programme had a brief to expand cross-border distribution of European films and saw digital cinema as a tool to transform distribution. The EDCF explained the technology to the Commission’s officials and to cinema operators, especially the smaller chains and independents. The annual Europa Cinemas conferences were an essential part of this process.

Two connected issues were seen as problems for the Commission: affordability and US influence. The Commission’s view was that a lower standard than that being proposed as a worldwide cinema specification was more appropriate for European cinema — more akin to E-cinema as set out in the EDCF Four Levels Guide. After much internal debate, the EDCF made its position clear that only one single worldwide standard could work, to enable every film to be shown in any cinema in the world, replicating the 35mm distribution model. A timely report by Screen Digest’s David Hancock did much to underline the importance of a single international standard. At the same time it was recognised that affordability was a big issue in both the commercial and the public, arthouse and non-commercial sectors.

UNIC

In 2013 UNIC appointed Phil Clapp as President and Kim Pedersen as Vice President. From that point a strong relationship developed between UNIC and the EDCF, to the benefit of both. The EDCF’s role was primarily the provision of technical advice and supporting UNIC’s technical subgroup. The value of the relationship is best demonstrated by the success of the joint SMPTE DCP project.

Publications

A major part of the EDCF’s mission has been to educate and inform. This has been achieved by conferences, seminars and publications. The EDCF Annual Global Round-up at IBC attracted a large international audience for 13 years. Publications, both in print and on the web, have also been pivotal. They include:

• Digital Cinema: the EDCF Guide for Early Adopters (also in Spanish)
• EDCF Guide to Digital Cinema Production
• The EDCF Guide to Alternative Content
• EDCF Mastering Guide
• The EDCF Guide to 3D Cinema
• Buyers Guide to Laser Projection
• EDCF Best Practice Guide
• EDCF Guide for Film Festivals
• EDCF Guide to Digital Cinema Mastering
• SMPTE DCP for Dummies

Presidents and board

EDCF presidents

Board members, past and present

• Jean Menu
• Denis Kelly
• Åse Kleveland
• Kommer Kleijn
• John Wilkinson
• Lionel Bertinet
• Michael Lambrechtsen
• François Helt
• Peter Buckingham
• Julian Pinn
• Steffen Andersen-Muller
• Dave Hodgkinson
• Cathy Huis in ’t Veld-Esser
• Jerry Axelsson
• Sam Francois
• Matthieu Sintas
• Peter Wilson
• Anders Geertsen
• Antoine Virenque
• Charlie Sandbank
• Ramon Reissmuller
• Kees Ryninks
• Paul Collard
• Jan Runge
• Radoslav Markov
• Patrick von Sychowski
• Stijn Henderickx
• Matt Jahans
• Oleg Berezin
• Jack Watts
• Philippe Kern
• Lasse Svanberg
• Jean-Pierre Decrette
• Bernard Collard
• David Hancock
• Laurent Hebert
• Angelo D’Alessio
• Tove Torbiörnsson
• Siegfried Foessel
• Hans-Nikolas Rocher
• Guillaume Branders
• Toby Glover
• Tom Bert
• Baptiste Heyemann
• Tammo Buhren
• Steve Llamb
• Tim Sinnaeve
• David Monk

I would like to thank all of the companies, individuals and organisations that give of their time so freely and generously to support the work of the EDCF, both while I was General Secretary and now. The work it does provides an invaluable help to the industry, and long may it continue.

JG