"April Showers" brings 4K digital filmmaking

Indie filmmaking is becoming more and more high-tech. This is evidenced in April Showers, one of the very first feature-length motion pictures to be filmed entirely in 4K digital photography.

April Showers is a account of a school shooting, based upon the events in Columbine, CO, on April 20, 1999. Though it was written and directed by Andrew Robinson, a survivor of the Columbine shootings, it isn't a re-creation of the events. Instead, according to Robinson, it's a fictional, more generalized story intended to resonate more deeply outside of the context of the Columbine shootings. I spoke with Robinson earlier today about the film and the ideas behind it.

"I didn't want the audience to sit down and go, 'Oh, this is the Columbine story,' and divorce themselves from the fact that school violence affects us all, whether it's a school shooting or a bullying or someone bringing a gun to school but not getting the chance to discharge it," Robinson says. "No school is ever identified. It's a high school in Everywhere, USA."

The film was recorded on a Dalsa Origin II camera, a digital video camera that records 4K video (4096 x 2048) at 24 frames per second. With the exception of a few short news camera sequences shot at 1080i, the entire movie was filmed in 4K.

4K, 3-D, 2 companies, 1 cinema experience

3-D has been making a pretty big resurgence lately, especially in movie theaters. From My Bloody Valentine to Coraline, moviegoers have been lining up to put on some silly-looking glasses and watch the special effects jump out at them.

While it's still making inroads for moviegoers, 4K resolution seems to be the display tech of the future. At around 4096 x 2048, 4K digital cinema has four times the resolution of 1080p high-def video. Many filmmakers are filming their movies in 4K, and 4K digital projectors are (very) slowly creeping into theaters across the country.

Two-character number/letter combinations never before seemed to destined to combine forces, though not perhaps in the way you might think.

New Orleans Embraces 4K at The Prytania Theater

The only single-screen movie theater left in the state of Louisiana is upgrading - in a major way. The historic Prytania Theater has just upgraded to 4K digital cinema. The Prytania is the oldest operating theater in the city, having opened in 1915. It reopened three years ago with new seating, renovated lobby, and this incredible upgrade to Sony 4K. Woo-hoo!

Now, digital cinemas are becoming more and more common, but not many are 4K, and fewer are even showing true 4K material. Sony's Hancock was released in limited distribution in 4K, but the pickings are slim. 

Either way. . .