Caravans of sleek limos, pudgy paparazzi screaming at stars strolling down a long red carpet. That’s the sizzle at every spectacular Hollywood premiere.

But what’s going to happen in the high-tech age of new media, when a film doesn’t debut in a theater but on the Internet? Rent a tux, hire a taxi and then rush into a home office to watch a movie on a computer?

Unlikely. Nonetheless, on May 5 Metafilmics and SightSound.com will debut “Quantum Project,” a sci-fi tale billed by its makers as the first big-time Hollywood movie produced exclusively for the Internet.

The film is another example of how Hollywood is trying to figure out formulas for media convergence.

“This is something that is being done for the first time. There is no context,” said Stephen Simon, a Metafilmics partner who co-produced “Quantum.” “When they made the ‘Jazz Singer,’ nobody knew what to do. There was no sound in theaters. Nobody knew how people would respond to actors whose voices they had never heard. You have to invent a context for what is happening now.”

There has been endless discussion about the potential of using the Internet as a medium for films that, with a click of a mouse, can be instantly distributed globally.

“Quantum Project” is believed to be the first feature specifically produced for the Internet with special effects, well-known stars and an Oscar winner as director.

Downloading difficulty

Prior to “Quantum Project” which stars Stephen Dorff, Fay Masterson and John Cleese Hollywood films have been distributed on the Net through companies like SightSound, which in 1999 offered the cult drama “Pi” for rental over the Internet. But previous films offered by SightSound, which include such noir classics as “DOA,” first premiered in theaters before being made available for rent on the Web.

Video pirates have also used the Internet to distribute films without first obtaining the permission of producers. And there has been online streaming of short films, particularly animation.

“Quantum Project” appears to be a high-quality film from the looks of its trailer displayed on Sightsound.com. (The entire movie was not made available for review.) Its director, Eugenio Zanetti, won an Oscar for art direction for “Restoration.”

The 40-minute film cost $3 million to make and is less than half the length of most movies released in theaters. By comparison, a 120-minute, made-for-TV movie usually costs less than $3 million.

“We got to make the first one,” said Simon. “A lot of people will be rushing to be the first to be second.”

A week before the film was scheduled to premiere, no one associated with it would estimate how many viewers might download “Quantum Project,” but the film is expected to be available online for at least a year.

“We have no idea how many hits we will get or what would be the metrics for success,” said Barnet Bain, Metafilmics partner and co-producer of “Quantum.” “In our own way of thinking, we did it!”

Lewis Henderson, vice president for new media at the William Morris Agency, called “Quantum Project” the “beginning of the beginning,” but was hesitant to proclaim it revolutionary.

“I don’t see it as necessarily breaking a lot of big ground to be the first large video stream,” he said. “There have been other large pieces of content, like the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.”

Still, he said, there is a potential audience for films like “Quantum Project.” There are now more than a million homes wired with broadband cable capability in the United States. Potential audiences are expected to increase as the pace of these high-speed connections increase and the quality of video improves.

Content is king

The key, however, remains the content of the projects.

“If (Internet movies) can get a big enough following and reach the audience they want, they can make commerce off of it,” Henderson said. “But they run the same risk as independent filmmakers who try to get their films distributed. The quality and content has to be appealing and attractive, and that comes down to bandwidth constraints.”

Bandwidth, or the pipeline into the computer from the Internet, is indeed a problem. The slower the modem, the worse the picture looks and the longer it takes to download a film.

“Quantum Project,” which will cost $3.95 to download and be encrypted to prevent piracy, could take a half-hour to download even with a high-speed modem, and eight hours with the slower modems used by most home computers.

To successfully download “Quantum,” a viewer will need a computer with a Pentium processor, Windows Media Player and a soundcard. It is anticipated that most viewers will download the film from SightSound’s Web site while they sleep or while at work.

Producing a film specifically for the Internet was the brainchild of Scott Sander, president of SightSound.com. It will give him total control of the rights to the film, which he could, in turn, sell off to cable, broadcast television or other media.

“Quantum” went into production last June and was made by using the latest digital technology, in which the movie is “captured” on digital cameras and audio equipment. No film is ever used, but the Panasonic digital cameras can be set to record images to approximate film stock, unlike most analog videotape cameras.

“It makes the film look and feel like a major motion picture,” Bain said.

Bain said Metafilmics plans to develop other projects for the Internet, including a comedy. But the production house isn’t dropping all its projects in favor of work for the Web. It has just finished a TV bio of Linda McCartney, the late wife of Beatle Paul McCartney.