Latest / FUTURE OF XYZ / Future of Moviegoing | Jed Harmsen | S8 E1
Transcript
- 00:00:04:00 - 00:00:28:08 Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to the first new episode of 2026. I can't believe it! We are talking about the future of moviegoing. With me is Jed Harmsen, who is the vice president and general manager of the cinema and group entertainment at Dolby Labs, also known as Dolby since 1980, since 2021. I'm in a different universe now. 00:00:28:08 - 00:00:39:03 Speaker 1 And he was there previously for ten years. Has a long track record in media and technology, content creation. Jed, welcome so much to the Future of XYZ. 00:00:39:05 - 00:00:41:09 Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. 00:00:41:11 - 00:01:03:22 Speaker 1 I should say, also, your background we can talk about you have an undergraduate degree, both in engineering as well as economics and finance from Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd College, inversely that way. Pomona College is in California. You now live up in Washington state with your wife and girls, and, I should disclose to everyone on the 00:01:03:24 - 00:01:10:13 Speaker 1 who's listening, we've known each other since Jed was born, so, it's a long time. 00:01:10:15 - 00:01:12:08 Speaker 2 As long as I've existed. 00:01:12:10 - 00:01:31:06 Speaker 1 It's pretty long time. And it's really lovely to be able to have this conversation. We'll start as we always start Future of XYZ, Jed, with just defining the topic. So in the context of your experience and the conversation we're going to have today, how do we define moviegoing? 00:01:31:08 - 00:01:57:02 Speaker 2 Yeah, I and I think at Dolby, we tend to define it, fairly specifically to the opportunity for consumers to go into a communal group entertainment setting and engage in arts and entertainment, and specifically for moviegoing, film, in the way that they, they most enjoy. So that's that's how we talk about it. Going to a movie theater, enjoying film together. 00:01:57:04 - 00:02:16:16 Speaker 1 It's so interesting. because obviously Dolby plays in, in the broad entertainment swath. So in in that definition, how does moviegoing fit into that kind of broader entertainment landscape in 2025 or 2026? Sorry, we're now 2026. 00:02:16:18 - 00:02:48:08 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. The so fundamentally, what we focus on, and certainly both in my role at Dolby and I think Dolby as a constituent of the general entertainment industry, is focusing on creating new, innovative sight and sound experiences that broaden the creative palette for artists. And as a consequence, allow consumers to kind of fall more deeply in love, if you will, in whatever the film, the TV, music, gaming that they, they happen, to want to engage in. 00:02:48:10 - 00:03:16:23 Speaker 2 Obviously for moviegoing, that's pretty specific to films and it's specific to, movie theaters and, and communal enjoyment. But for Dolby, we also focus on how can we make that as good of an experience as possible, but also being intellectually honest, if you will, of what you're also going to have the opportunity to engage in that experience in the home and on your phone, and not only in movies, but also episodic television and live sports and music and video gaming. 00:03:17:02 - 00:03:40:18 Speaker 2 And so we come from a place of not trying to sort of dictate, if you will, here's where you need to go in and engage, but you're going to engage in a whole breadth of content and a lot of different consumption context, the sort of language I use. And we want to make that as immersive and vibrant and captivating and engaging as possible. 00:03:40:18 - 00:04:04:11 Speaker 2 So that sort of so what we do in moviegoing is, is a foundational part of where the company has been for over 50 years. I think we're close to 60 now, if not maybe past 60. Similarly, I've like lost, I've lost the ability to track Gregorian calendars. Because it's it's a sliver of this entire, you know, entertainment ecosystem that we love participating in. 00:04:04:13 - 00:04:13:21 Speaker 1 Well, I was going to actually talk about the history of Dolby for a second because it was founded in London by Ray Dolby, actually, 1965. So you're correct. 00:04:13:22 - 00:04:14:18 Speaker 2 Right at 60. 00:04:14:20 - 00:04:47:15 Speaker 1 And then moved to headquarters, moved to San Francisco in 1976. The claim to fame of Dolby himself was revolutionizing audio with this noise reduction. Background noise for film specifically originally the cassette and then later film. I think there's a whole bunch more that comes into this because now you guys, as we just talked about, are in entertainment across movies and streaming and gaming and PCs and music and mobile devices and obviously all your licensing, etc.. 00:04:47:17 - 00:04:57:13 Speaker 1 What do you think is the legacy of this life like audio on the experience of modern moviegoing worldwide today? 00:04:57:15 - 00:05:28:09 Speaker 2 Whoo! So I think it's two different elements. So there's there's two parts to it. Part of it is always continuing sort of in in Ray's heritage. And that's also just what everyone at Dolby intrinsically believes in, which is if you deliver a more compelling sight and sound experiences that people value them. Right. And so, yes, it started with noise reduction as a means of, you know, removing hiss and giving greater vocal clarity to music and on cassette and whatever else. 00:05:28:11 - 00:05:54:23 Speaker 2 That thing gave way to where I think a lot of people probably most think of Dolby as is probably in the early 90s, synonymous with five one surround sound. Like really the advent of surround sound. and then that has now sort of evolved into our latest, you know, version of superlative audio, if you will, which we call Dolby Atmos, which really was how can we think about delivering audio in a fundamentally different way? 00:05:54:23 - 00:06:15:16 Speaker 2 So instead of, you know, putting audio two channels like this sound goes in the left and the right in the center, and all of that going to artists and creators and saying, don't worry about that level of technicality. Focus on where do you want to place objects sort of in space. How do you want this to atmospherically, no pun intended, sound? 00:06:15:22 - 00:06:39:14 Speaker 2 And then it's our job to as faithfully as we can, subject to the constraints of physics, make what you have in your mind, in how you want that soundstage to sound. Translate in a movie theater of X, Y, and Z. Also, no pun intended. Dimension and volume and a sound bar in a living room and, a wireless pair of earbuds and all of that. 00:06:39:14 - 00:07:04:10 Speaker 2 And then that ethos sort of also translated on the imaging side, where probably over a decade ago, 15, 20 years ago, the whole industry was looking at, you know, how do we make picture better? And everyone was very fixated, or a lot of people were very fixated on more pixels, like, let's go from standard def to high def and then 4K and 8K and like there's talks of 16K and all that stuff. 00:07:04:12 - 00:07:22:22 Speaker 2 And I really admire what Dolby did and this is before I was there, taking a step back and thinking more first principles of like, well, what actually makes a picture more compelling? Like what's going to get a more visceral experience? And so we focus a lot more on what how do we make displays brighter and how do we decrease black level? 00:07:22:22 - 00:07:45:03 Speaker 2 How do we show more colors? How do we make things look more lifelike? That gave way to Dolby Vision, which similarly we have in all these different categories. So, that original long winded answer to that original sort of ethos and fingerprint that Ray had very much still persists to this day in what we do in, in moviegoing, in all these other verticals that we engage in. 00:07:45:07 - 00:08:13:09 Speaker 1 That I love that. And it's I kind of didn't expect anything less. I think a lot of legacy companies that hold to the ethos, as you say, of the founder or founding vision. and in this case, founding technology, kind of really have the greatest impact on, on our modern world. It's interesting to me, as I think about, moviegoing, because the first dedicated store front movie theater, if you will, was opened in New Orleans. 00:08:13:09 - 00:08:39:14 Speaker 1 I only know this because of researching prep for this, was opened in New Orleans, Louisiana in July of 1896. And then there was another one, called Vida Scope. I don't know if that was the brand. It must have been, because they were both Vida scopes in Buffalo, New York in October of that year. And then like, you know, fast forward to, you know, ten years by 1905, they were kind of penny cinemas everywhere, all over the world. 00:08:39:15 - 00:08:51:24 Speaker 1 Not maybe not all over the world, but largely. It's a huge question so feel free to like, just like high level it. But like, how has moviegoing evolved over this time at the highest level? 00:08:52:01 - 00:08:54:03 Speaker 2 The 120 year progression of movies? 00:08:54:03 - 00:08:57:10 Speaker 1 Right. Exactly. In in in 30 seconds or less please. 00:08:57:10 - 00:09:21:00 Speaker 2 That's right, that's right. So there there's I think it's evolved in a lot of different ways. And what I love about this industry is it always even in whether it's times of pressure, if you will, or Covid like there's always opportunities that we find ways to sort of reinvent ourselves. And to your point, sort of evolve with where consumer consumption habits are going and all that stuff. 00:09:21:02 - 00:09:47:12 Speaker 2 There's everything from like, obviously the advent of color in film and going from stereo to five one and now all these immersive formats. So there's a whole technological evolution. Where we are today, like, I'll just try to because I don't want to recap the whole hundred bit. I think we're we're seeing a lot of transformation today is really a consumer preference towards what we it's called in the industry, PLF, which stands for premium Large Format. 00:09:47:14 - 00:10:08:23 Speaker 2 I don't really like the large part because large, candidly, is not one of the things that consumers necessarily really gravitate towards. So I just focus on premium experiences of which we participate in. We have our offering called Dolby Cinema, which is our version of the ultimate moviegoing experience. but if you look at that premium category of our industry in 2019. 00:10:08:23 - 00:10:41:10 Speaker 2 So let's look at maybe even the past six, seven years, that was on the order of 10% of global box office. probably even lower than that pre 2019. It's now up to 15%. So it's grown 50% over this 5 to 6 year time frame. And to us what that illustrates is that consumers still very much value getting out of the house, going and engaging this communal experience that I can go through a whole bunch of other stuff about, like demographic segmentation, millennials versus gen Alpha and all that, which is really interesting. 00:10:41:12 - 00:11:10:00 Speaker 2 but at the heart of it, it's they love that experience, so long as they feel as though they're getting value out of it. In the way to get value out of it is ensuring that that experience they have in a theater is fundamentally differentiated and unlike anything they can get in some other context. So that's that's where we sort of currently are in this evolution of, of moviegoing is a focus on on premium offerings and ensuring that when people choose to go to a theater that they're getting something they can't get elsewhere. 00:11:10:02 - 00:11:29:11 Speaker 1 I had it to speak about later. So, we might come back to this premiumization and personalization topic, because I think it's an interesting one, and it's obviously in entertainment, it's increasingly, in everything it's increasingly obvious. It's a, it's a way of driving margin as a way of driving revenue. It's a way of engaging your customer base. 00:11:29:17 - 00:11:47:07 Speaker 1 It's a way of kind of deepening. But I want to come to something that that opportunity perhaps leads to, which is also in this hundred and 20 year history of moviegoing, has storytelling itself also evolved in relation, do you think, to the moviegoing experience? 00:11:47:09 - 00:12:04:20 Speaker 2 Oh, massively. I mean, from, from and you've seen, you know, there are periods where, you know, like spaghetti Westerns and then they sort of, you know, the Western as a, as a genre sort of fell by the wayside. And then it came back, if you think of in the 90s with like Unforgiven, hopefully my dates were going to be right. 00:12:04:22 - 00:12:29:14 Speaker 2 And then it kind of subsided again, you know, and then on the episodic side, right, you had Yellowstone, the cut that when it originated kind of came out of nowhere. So there's always been these waxes and wanes from what sort of resonating, if you will, in the cultural zeitgeist of, of of culture and in with moviegoers. And at the same time, the technological advancements. 00:12:29:14 - 00:13:02:19 Speaker 2 And I'm trying to focus too much on the technology in and of itself, as amazing as it is, but how the technological advancements in this get into one that we're in the honestly, still, in the very early days, related AI and generative AI, how those tools are allowing different forms of storytelling, whether it's making them more interactive in certain ways, in the technology or the means to tell either new stories or to tell stories in a way that you were fundamentally not able to historically. 00:13:02:21 - 00:13:25:04 Speaker 2 and interestingly, you know, and again, this is like, this is a Dolby centric piece, but when we came up with Dolby Atmos, a big part of how we originated it, and same with Dolby Vision was talking to filmmakers and rerecording mixers and cinematographers and saying what you want to go and tell the story. What is what do you want to be able to do? 00:13:25:06 - 00:13:47:17 Speaker 2 How do you want it to be able to sound, or how do you want it to be able to look that you cannot currently do right, so it's not focused on doing it for technology sake. We're very centric on using the technology as a means to evolve the storytelling and so yeah, I think it's there's branchless narratives that have become like big things in, in episodic and certainly in video gaming. 00:13:47:19 - 00:13:53:03 Speaker 2 yes. Storytelling has changed pretty dramatically. And I think I think we're at the cusp of it changing more. 00:13:53:08 - 00:14:09:05 Speaker 1 Well, it's interesting. And we're going to get to that because I think I read a quote from you that said that you believe creating more emotional and captivating consumer experiences fosters a stronger connection to the content and story. Tell, tell us a little bit more about that. 00:14:09:07 - 00:14:40:16 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I just I believe and this is now much more personally and I think it's it's certainly aligned and it's why I’m at Dolby and that's what we do. Being able to viscerally like just when you choose to engage in something, having, that experience to be sort of more transformational and, and it's not just sound better and look better, that's just such like, trivial words. 00:14:40:18 - 00:15:14:01 Speaker 2 I feel like deepens the emotional connection to whatever that story is like. I just fundamentally believe I'll pick on Sinners because it is, it's my favorite movie of the year. I think it's incredible. What Ryan Coogler did was amazing. Engaging in that film, like in a Dolby Cinema, like with in an Atmos presentation and in Vision and, and, particularly there's a music segment when they're in the house, it's going through a whole bunch of content genres, like it's just a viscerally different thing than when I watched it at home. 00:15:14:06 - 00:15:47:10 Speaker 2 And so that's really what I mean of like, we have these opportunities to sort of, from a moviegoing standpoint, put aside all the churn of day to day life, of which there is plenty and kind of lock in, if you will, on two plus hours of transporting ourselves to a different world and into a different story. And I think it's an incredibly special thing that I don't want to assess just in, in humanity to ever lose sight of appreciating, which is probably a whole different thread, but that's kind of the spirit of what I meant by that. 00:15:47:10 - 00:15:59:10 Speaker 2 And so what we do and innovating certain sound technologies is a component of how we can help evolve storytelling, help evolve the way consumers engage in those stories and deepen that emotional connection. 00:15:59:12 - 00:16:11:12 Speaker 1 I love I love that as an answer. I mean, give you a chance to talk a little bit more about the tech because I know that's, you know, largely where Dolby is focused and where you are. 00:16:11:14 - 00:16:13:06 Speaker 2 I’m a recovering engineer, recovering. 00:16:13:06 - 00:16:34:09 Speaker 1 Engineer, recovering engineer, is that what you call yourself? But you you you have engineering in business. It seems like you've merged them well. So this is like a quick round. This is like, you know, that 30 second but even less, like one, one line, but there are a lot of them. So I want to talk more deeply, about the experience of moviegoing and its evolution in certain parts. 00:16:34:09 - 00:16:38:03 Speaker 1 So I'm gonna ask you a series of questions, and it's like, quick answers. Ready? 00:16:38:05 - 00:16:39:20 Speaker 2 All right. I’ll do my best. 00:16:39:22 - 00:16:44:17 Speaker 1 What defines success in moviegoing. 00:16:44:19 - 00:16:50:24 Speaker 2 in increasing number of people engaging in that activity, more people doing it. 00:16:51:01 - 00:16:57:11 Speaker 1 What are the markers of a great moviegoing experience? 00:16:57:13 - 00:17:14:09 Speaker 2 Oh, good ones. great image quality, great sound quality, unobstructed view of the screen. I got to put in, like, recliner, more comfortable seating. I'm going to go with those for the moment because, okay, that is. 00:17:14:10 - 00:17:19:14 Speaker 1 Fair. I'm like, I'm like vendor vendors like food, food and beverage. Probably not. 00:17:19:16 - 00:17:26:14 Speaker 2 That’s all right. That's yeah it can get subjective. I'm still a popcorn and like, candy guy. 00:17:26:16 - 00:17:37:17 Speaker 1 Yeah. Red vines, if you have to choose, what is the number one most important aspect of moviegoing? 00:17:37:19 - 00:18:02:21 Speaker 2 This is a cop out, doing it. Like actually making the conscientious choice to go and engage in something, communal, if like that, to me, is the most important, valuable thing. Like getting these experiences with other people in a dark room, to me, is the most valuable part. Honestly, if I'm going to give you the tech answer, I actually think it is the, the overall sort of sound quality. 00:18:02:21 - 00:18:18:23 Speaker 2 You know, there's an old quote and saying that sound is more than half the picture. I think we often take for granted how important audio is in film, from the score to effects and all that. So if I have to pick a tech angle, it's the audio one. 00:18:19:00 - 00:18:31:11 Speaker 1 I love that, what is you've talked about this little bit. So what is the role of live interaction, active participation, community engagement. 00:18:31:13 - 00:18:59:16 Speaker 2 in the moviegoing experience. So to some degree not right. Because when you're when you actually get in the room, I think a big part of it is, again, I mentioned it earlier to put the distractions to the side and not actually having live engagement. I think there is a upcoming feature state where there is exploration on, like, do we actually want to thoughtfully curate stories that lean into that interaction? 00:18:59:18 - 00:19:18:08 Speaker 2 so where the audience is actually whether it's through a mobile device or otherwise, actually engaging in and, ushering the narrative along that they're seeing on the big screen. I think both have a place I wouldn't put them against one another is like one is good and one is bad, or they're just different and they speak to different audiences and different experiences. 00:19:18:13 - 00:19:34:07 Speaker 2 But for today, specific to moviegoing, turn off the phones and put all that aside and allow yourself to actually be transported to what these artists have put, you know, labored thousands of people have labored into putting on the screen in front of you. 00:19:34:09 - 00:19:59:18 Speaker 1 And so it's it's really I mean, movie moviemaking is filmmaking is its own its own conversation. I've done a little bit of it because it's tackling at once is also challenging. How realistic do you think this kind of next gen immersive experience conversation is? AR VR, 4D, metaverse is this hype? Is this real? Is this what's already here? 00:19:59:20 - 00:20:18:20 Speaker 2 Blend of all so so I think it is a real thing I'll focus more on. There's a couple pieces that that I think are that are definitely here to stay right. Generative AI for all the pros and cons. And there's a ton that is still churning as it relates to fair use and a whole bunch of legal things that I have absolutely zero capability of opining on. 00:20:18:22 - 00:20:38:06 Speaker 2 But I think it's pretty safe to say that that genie isn't going back in the bottle, so to speak. and it's going to have an impact on how we evolve storytelling. And it's also gonna have an impact on these consumption context and how we engage in the content. I think there's also a big emerging part in, neuro and physiological data gathering. 00:20:38:06 - 00:21:13:03 Speaker 2 There's actually been some more recent articles about this and being able to actually determine, if you will, from these neurological and physiological metrics and indicators, like, what do you actually put aside reporting bias? But it's not too far fetched to think we actually could give consumers feedback on you actually love this more and here is how and why. Then if you combine that with certain AI techniques and pattern matching and then yeah, blended reality experiences like there's, that's, that's not wildly out there. 00:21:13:05 - 00:21:36:02 Speaker 2 I think there's absolutely going to be some pitfalls and like some false starts of like, oh, it's we think this is what, you know, the future of entertainment is going to look like. And we're going to put it out there and it's going to be on walk. That's what we do is is particularly in the technology business, you iterate your way towards what that success will be, and you can only do that if you start with a hypothesis and then gather feedback and iterate. 00:21:36:08 - 00:21:55:15 Speaker 1 It's pretty fascinating, I have to say, like thinking about like haptics. So like for the like, you like think you understand what someone's into and you like, spray them with a scent in the theater and like, you know, someone's like, hyper allergic to, like, peanut butter and like, you know, treat it like I, I'm being ridiculous. But at the same time, like, I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, man. 00:21:55:15 - 00:22:00:20 Speaker 1 Like, as you say, it's iterative and you have wins and you have losses along the path. 00:22:00:22 - 00:22:18:08 Speaker 2 Yeah. And you just learn. I mean, I'll tell you, like a good an example of it is when we brought Dolby Atmos to live music for the first time, we have a venue in Las Vegas called Dolby Live, where you have residencies and and the vast majority of the shows are available in Atmos as a communal live concert experience. 00:22:18:08 - 00:22:37:01 Speaker 2 So when we thought about doing that and we started to work with our partners at MGM resorts and working with the artists again, we we sort of imposed, if you will, or projected is a better word, how it was used theatrical. And this seemed like, oh, they're going to take guitars and like spin them around the room and do all of this stuff. 00:22:37:03 - 00:23:03:10 Speaker 2 and one of the things we learned really early on is they were like, this is incredible, like, this is magic. And the reason why is because now that we have all this spatial fidelity and more control over the sound we actually can allow, instead of having to jam all of the instrumentation and sound design with the vocals in a like this stereo pair of just into these two speakers or in some cases one speaker, like a mono feed. 00:23:03:12 - 00:23:32:17 Speaker 2 we actually can give way more vocal clarity to, pick your artist, and bring the overall level of the mix and the experience down to reduce like tinnitus and ear fatigue. So like, you're able to hear the singer better and have a more comfortable experience. And like that was not on any of our like, bingo card, so to speak, of how this is going to be using what they find value in so interesting. 00:23:32:17 - 00:23:54:10 Speaker 2 Yeah, it's really interesting. And then there were similar, similar experiential things when we applied it, to stage performance. We did. We partnered with Kenneth Branagh in his production in King Lear at the Shed in New York. Yeah. And again, just what we learned about like, oh, here's how this is transformative. Because if I'm going to go and tour the show, it allows me to get set up faster. 00:23:54:10 - 00:24:03:06 Speaker 2 And it's just, this is what we love. What we do is we have these hypotheses, but we put them in the hands of the artists and people who know way better than we do. And we learn. 00:24:03:08 - 00:24:25:01 Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, that's what design and art is really about, right? It's create, it's creative, and it's creativity is ultimately problem solving, creating things that don't exist. last two, in terms of, this fast round, is sustainability at all a consideration in moviegoing? If so, how? And and if not, why not? 00:24:25:03 - 00:24:44:19 Speaker 2 I think it absolutely is. I mean, I can tell you we do from a product design standpoint. So we think a lot about, you know, basically the electrical efficiency of what we build and how to make it more efficient and, it's definitely particularly challenging for our industry because in business applications, we are typically doing more high power stuff that consumes more electricity. 00:24:44:21 - 00:25:04:01 Speaker 2 I think sustainability is also a part of when we talk to our exhibitor partners and with studios, right, how they construct venues, how to do it in a green way. how do you even retrofit existing buildings so that there's more renewable energy? So I think it's definitely a topic. it's definitely something that Adobe we're pretty conscientious of. 00:25:04:03 - 00:25:10:17 Speaker 2 Do I think we can always be doing more of it? Sure. I mean, I can make that statement as, like a global citizen as well. 00:25:10:19 - 00:25:23:08 Speaker 1 Yeah. For sure. okay. what are the most exciting changes that you think are coming down the pipeline? Let's, like, think like, I don't know, 1 to 10 years from now. 00:25:23:10 - 00:25:52:22 Speaker 2 1 to 10 years. So I'll break into two, I think, within the next 1 to 5. So, like in that first five year, continuing to see again more of this premiumization and just the quality of, sight and sound that we're able to go and experience in movie theaters continuing to go up in that continuing to allow our business to, to thrive, which admittedly, I can be objective is like also fairly self-serving, because that's what we do. In the 5 to 10 year, 00:25:52:22 - 00:26:18:14 Speaker 2 We talked about it earlier, but I think there's some really fascinating things at the intersection of generative AI. these neurophysiological, biometric, you know, data elements and mixed reality, you know, wearables and things of that nature, both on the audio and the imaging side, that I can't fully disclose, but we have like in our proverbial, you know, pipeline and, and, Cave of Wonders. 00:26:18:16 - 00:26:36:10 Speaker 2 That is pretty exciting. both because it will again heighten just the way we're able to engage in stuff as you think about it today. but it also can allow for an, a new form of storytelling that is that's just always pretty exciting. 00:26:36:12 - 00:27:00:03 Speaker 1 it's interesting because one of the things that we've, I've heard as a red thread here, besides the technology, obviously, is this kind of like relationship with the creators themselves. And in your role at Dolby, you're responsible for fostering these strong relationships with the filmmakers, with the artists, with the creators of these, what we can arguably say are very culturally impactful content pieces, at a global scale. 00:27:00:05 - 00:27:27:08 Speaker 1 How does making Dolby technologies, or just generally excellent technology more accessible, help amplify not only just storyteller voices in general, but amplify it more? Historically underrepresented voices and stories, especially in a time frankly spoken when there seems to be a lot of pushback against what we would, quote unquote call DEI, which is really just inclusivity and equality. 00:27:27:10 - 00:27:45:10 Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. That's right. So, well, so first on that, like, yes, the creative outlet is is part of my charter, if you will at Adobe. I have to give a shout out to Michelle Maddalena and her whole team who, who are part of my organization of Dolby that do an incredible job, fostering and creating all these relationships. So there's two parts to it. 00:27:45:10 - 00:28:01:13 Speaker 2 Like there's the current echelon, if you will, of premium content and what we do and, and I've alluded a lot to it, of working with them, asking them questions rather than proclamating and just engaging in a what is what is the story you want to tell them? What do you feel like you can't do today, and how can we help? 00:28:01:15 - 00:28:30:03 Speaker 2 And that has ultimately led to why, like, I think it's 49 out of the top 50 movies over the past five years have been in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Like, we're we're pretty tied with them and that's that's impressive. Yeah. It's great. you know, and it's and it's why like our Dolby Cinemas have, you know, on average or routinely the highest box office per screen averages and all that stuff. Specific to the underrepresented story piece. 00:28:30:05 - 00:28:56:14 Speaker 2 again, I mentioned how we're not only fixated on the theatrical moviegoing piece, but also, sports and in the home and mobile. part of that is also user generated content. And I think by being able to make higher quality production and storytelling tools from a sight and sound standpoint, but then also, again, we talked about, generative AI and other filmmaking techniques that still need to be very human centric. 00:28:56:14 - 00:29:25:14 Speaker 2 To be clear, I think that allows stories to effectively to lower the budget, if you will, to get these stories out there. And with all of these different platforms, between streaming and theatrical, and, you know, your YouTubes and all of that, there's more opportunity for those stories to find audiences and ideally to snowball, not to make them all viral hits, but to like, find a path towards, towards an audience. 00:29:25:14 - 00:29:41:16 Speaker 2 And we've had before, and I just think that's that's important. I also think that specific to the theatrical moviegoing business, we need to continue ensuring that those stories have a place on the biggest, on the biggest screen for the business that I look after. 00:29:41:20 - 00:30:09:14 Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. I have a number of friends and we've done an episode on documentary. and that's a whole genre unto itself. But it's, it's certainly a challenging one. So anywhere we can get these stories, both real and imagined out is good. you joke that you're a recovering engineer, but you have quite significant expertise in XR and virtual production and machine learning and content creation and immersive audio and all these kinds of things. 00:30:09:16 - 00:30:32:21 Speaker 1 But you're also a business person. That's what you do. and I'm curious, you know, we're recording now and, you know, early December, yesterday it was announced that Netflix is acquiring Warner Brothers discovery for about $80 billion. It's actually like Netflix was smaller than Warner Brothers discovery in terms of like, its role. And they're acquiring this huge behemoth. 00:30:32:23 - 00:31:00:14 Speaker 1 I have to say, in full disclosure, I worked on the corporate rebrand, the corporate architecture and the impact platform for that merger of Warner Brothers Discovery. So, the quickness of which this is all come undone is, is, maybe, maybe, a little surprising, but it's fascinating. On the same time putting your business hat on, I mean, and not at Dolby, because it probably represents an even bigger opportunity in some ways for Dolby. 00:31:00:16 - 00:31:14:09 Speaker 1 But what does this kind of corporate consolidation of publicly traded companies, as Dolby is also, mean to the entertainment industry at large? Is it a is it a risk or is it an opportunity or a little bit of both? 00:31:14:11 - 00:31:52:15 Speaker 2 I think it's a little bit of both. So I mean, both Warner Brothers and Netflix pre-merger or wherever, whatever we're going to call this thing the intended merger are huge partners and customers of ours. So, yeah. So I'll, I'll put aside the Dolby hat and speak more just from an industry standpoint, everyone is going to have and I've already seen this morning like incredibly bimodal responses like it is the doomsday event for all of the entertainment in Hollywood and like, oh, it's incredibly amazing for x y and z reasons, usually we end up somewhere in the center, which happens a lot, which is like are there some elements that are definitely non-ideal about it? 00:31:52:15 - 00:32:20:08 Speaker 2 Yes. Does it also give way to some opportunity? Yes. in the immediate and this is just piggybacking on history that we've seen in the entertainment industry, like when, you know, Disney and Fox came together from a very strict theatrical, moviegoing like theatrical slate standpoint. candidly, I think there's there's risk. I'm probably aligned a little more with like, this is, this is a problem for the theatrical industry. 00:32:20:10 - 00:32:54:14 Speaker 2 Again, we're six years, not quite post-Covid. and in that time, it's like we definitely, Covid was a problem and then we had the strikes and we've been in this constant trying to ramp production back up. the biggest challenge we have from my perspective in the moviegoing industry isn't consumer desire to go to the theaters. Like I can tell you, Gen Alpha prefer going to theaters versus watching at home by nearly about a two and a half to one ratio, like they massively prefer communal experiences. 00:32:54:16 - 00:32:58:24 Speaker 1 And so interesting it takes them outside of their personal device, I guess. 00:32:59:01 - 00:33:25:09 Speaker 2 And that preference holds not to the same degree, but that the preference for theatrical holds for for Gen Z, for millennial and Gen X as well. So like the desire and opportunity to go and engage in these experiences is there. Where we've seen some like falling off is in the habitual moviegoing habit, like people that used to see Pick Your Threshold five films a year that now is going down and it's very correlated with the number of titles 00:33:25:09 - 00:33:51:21 Speaker 2 we have an opportunity for them to go see something that resonates with them. So with that backdrop, when you look at if these things come together and if a lot of the Warner Brothers slate, over time, right. Think post 2029 or something like that, no longer goes to no longer goes to theaters. It just goes to the platform like it's a pretty meaningful chunk of box office in just production. 00:33:51:21 - 00:34:11:09 Speaker 2 That would have to be filled. Therein lies a potential opportunity like, yeah, might Paramount, A24, Apple you know, Amazon MGM. Like, might they fill that gap and even exceed it? right now now we're in it. And might filmmakers make changes? Right? Right. 00:34:11:11 - 00:34:33:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. And all of these companies I mean, Netflix included, as you guys have done now, have opened your own end to end kind of experience center, also known in your guys cases, Dolby Cinema and Netflix theaters, etc. like, it's like a recreation of what was in it in a, in a holding space. So perhaps there is, a revitalization also, it will just look a little different. 00:34:33:15 - 00:34:58:02 Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's why I think there is risk. But but out of the risk is opportunity right for other people to step up or for, the way in which we engage in these, in these pieces of art to, to change and evolve. So I tend to be, more in the middle of like, yes, there are headwinds from those headwinds often create opportunity and time will tell where we sort of, net out. 00:34:58:02 - 00:35:24:02 Speaker 2 I think the thing that's giving us the most pause is this notion of in industry, we call it windows. Right. And I think the big challenge we have is, is, you know, there's all of the NBA math on like, well, here's how much of the money is made in X number of days and all that stuff. what drastically changes for that, though, is if you're setting a consumer behavioral expectation that they can get it differently, it's like. 00:35:24:03 - 00:35:45:15 Speaker 1 It's very interesting. and we could probably geek out on this part of it for a long time and we won't. but I think what's really interesting about that aspect of this is it comes back to what we were going to talk about, about Premiumization is is everything is such a I mean, when you are a shareholder, you know, publicly traded company, it is about creating shareholder value on a quarterly basis. 00:35:45:20 - 00:36:06:07 Speaker 1 And there is enormous pressure. And, you know, at the end of the day, moviegoing is about the art, as you've well said all along. It's about the experience. And it's like, how do we balance the expectations of shareholders and of the corporation with the desires and needs of the both the consumer base but also the artistic community who is creating? 00:36:06:07 - 00:36:17:19 Speaker 1 So it's that's that's in our in our kind of post capitalistic world right now. It seems to be, the, the, the challenge and, that we all face in every industry. 00:36:17:21 - 00:36:47:06 Speaker 2 Yeah, absolutely. And and I'll speak on like, from my standpoint, the notion of, you focusing specifically on shareholder value and, you know, who holds the equity of your company is, obviously, like there's a fiduciary responsibility to make decisions that are in service of taking care of those folks. The best way, in my opinion, of taking care of that shareholder value and long in a long range horizon, is thinking about the totality of the stakeholders and the businesses that you are engaged in. 00:36:47:08 - 00:37:28:02 Speaker 2 Right? So for us, that is not only the shareholders, they are definitely one constituent. Our employees are another really important constituent. None of this technological innovation happens without incredibly talented people, of which we have thousands of at Dolby. It's also the filmmakers. It's also our studio partners. It's also the theaters and it's the streaming platforms. And so, I think part of the challenge that we also have is that so many of these companies at times become incredibly myopic and focused on me, like, here is what my company needs without necessarily zooming out into, like, well, what is the best way to lift this collective industry, of which we will naturally, benefit from 00:37:28:03 - 00:37:38:18 Speaker 2 as well? Maybe that's like too kumbaya. This is why I'm not a CEO is like I do think about it more. It's always more than just one constituent to get to an optimized outcome. 00:37:38:20 - 00:37:44:10 Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. It's, stakeholder capitalism, they call it. Right. 00:37:44:12 - 00:37:44:20 Speaker 2 A version of. Yeah. 00:37:44:24 - 00:38:06:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. cool. Well, we have one last question, Jed. it's the same question I ask everyone. I'm going to have to redo my math a little bit since we're now in 2026, this episode. so fast forward 24 years into the future, 2050. what's your greatest hope for the future of moviegoing? 00:38:09:16 - 00:38:31:02 Speaker 2 Three greatest hopes. One incredibly selfish, which is that I'm still alive and able to do it. The second is that this general notion of a communal group entertainment experience where people can come together into a dark room and enjoy a piece of art or a film for the first time together, is a thing that we continue to do, like that. 00:38:31:02 - 00:39:02:15 Speaker 2 That is still part of the fabric of humanity and culture. so that's my second. My third is that because I have confidence that will persist, is that, there will be a new form of storytelling in those environments that are more interactive and that further allow consumers to feel part of the art and part of the story, than necessarily just watching it as a distance, actually be in the story as opposed to you watch the story. 00:39:03:10 - 00:39:03:19 Speaker 2 Those are my three, I guess. 00:39:04:06 - 00:39:20:17 Speaker 1 I love that. well, Jed Harmsen, vice president and general manager of cinema and group entertainment at, Dolby Labs, thank you so much for joining us on this very first episode of Future of XYZ season eight 2026. I can't believe it. 00:39:20:19 - 00:39:23:06 Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me. It was great. 00:39:23:08 - 00:39:43:06 Speaker 1 for everyone watching and listening, you can find us everywhere you always have. So you can watch on YouTube. You can stream, on any of your favorite podcast platforms. Make sure to leave us a five star review so people can find us. and you can visit futureof.xyz to get all links. Or ifdesign.com/xyz. 00:39:43:06 - 00:39:49:24 Speaker 1 We look forward to seeing you again in two weeks. On the future of color. Thanks so much.