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Author Topic: Porthole size preference Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2003 10:15 AM                     It all really depends on the job and the equipment situation at hand. Sometimes large single windows work out well, sometime ports just large enough for the passing cone of light work the best. Weigh the situation at hand and install what is needed. There is no standard here except to use optically coated glass, or at least white water glass. The minimum quality of glass to use is Starphire. Regular plate glass is taboo.... Why have 5K worth of lenses projecting through glass that is of lesser quality than the lenses themselves???? Mark @ CLACO  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2003 10:25 AM                     I usually spec out a single port per machine 24" high by 36" wide It allows lots of fudge factor space and allows for the big mirror boxs if 3d comes back (a few years ago I got a little sick of smaching out around the old ports in theatres to accomodate them) As for lighting I usually put a bullet fixture on the front wall at about 6' off the floor with a par 75 watt lamp in it and a single tube flourescent on the front wall just below the ceiling above the port with a pull chain to provide lots of light for service  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-01-2003 11:21 AM                        I like small portholes, with two per machine. The viewing ports should be able to be opened to quickly check the sound quality in the auditorium. A large followspot port (along with some means of covering it up when it isn't needed) is nice to have, too, since it allows one to watch the screen while seated and also makes it easy to set up additional equipment (slide projectors, 16mm/video, followspot, etc.) if needed.  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 03-01-2003 03:10 PM                     The concern of a large porthole being more effort to clean seems a bit specious to me. If that is really a concern, one could simply tape out a rectangle around the image area (with a few inches of fudge for projector movements) using paper tape, and clean that regularly, and clean the rest of the glass much less frequently. Beyond that, though, I do agree that there are benefits to both methods. The real problem with large portholes is that it discourages the purchase of high-quality optical glass, because it becomes frightfully expensive. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-03-2003 02:07 AM                        More glass = more sound reflection in the auditorium I'm seeing more old theaters-turned-PAC's having their acoustics turned whangy by locals who pull out the whole front wall of the projection booth & replace it with a flat picture window for the follow spots.  |  IP: Logged Ken Layton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1452 From: Olympia, Wash. USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 03-03-2003 08:43 AM                     William: I've seen the same thing in my area. One old theater that comes to mind is the 7th Street Theater in Hoquiam, Wash. The local "experts" there decided they didn't want to show movies anymore so they yarded out the front wall of the booth (even though it already had a dedicated followspot porthole) to install huge picture windows. Well, later on the "experts" had so many requests to run movies again that they bought a platter and beatup and very shopworn Simplex XL. When it came time to run movies, there was tons of noise from the booth and light spillage all over the audience because of the picture windows. Now they are finding out they were better off with just the original followspot porthole for stage shows. The new picture windows are too big for the followspot they have now! What idiots.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-03-2003 09:43 AM                        The Monroe Theatre at Notre Dame has a "designer" booth that jutts out over the audience like a big floating fishbowl with glass from booth floor to cieling on all three sides. It was a nightmare for light containment as well as sound; plus I never got use to the uneasy feeling it gave me working there (I used to have wake up in cold sweats from nightmares of running films in that booth naked). I have no idea what kind of glass they used. It seemed to be quite thick so I doubt it was anything but window pane glass. There is big (I understand the advantages that have been mentioned for large ports) and then there is BIG. In the booth at the Brooklyn Museum, they decided that the entire front wall of the booth was to be a wall of glass. Luckily they realized that it had to be clear coated optical glass (which was shipped in from Italy at an incredible cost -- something like 18Gs -- now, of course, they don't have enough money to by splicing tape, but that's another story). Even if they wanted to do the "wall of glass" thing for whatever high tech effect the designer was going for, I would have put in plate glass and after all the equipment was set up, cut out holes and glue coated optical glass over them. If at such time they add some new equipment, they can always cut extra holes. If it should come to a situation where they move stuff around so much that they can't accomodate them that way, then they could easily just put in a new plate glass and cut new optical glass ports -- it would still be MUCH cheaper than that huge optical glass window, plus, from anyplace in the theater other than right up against the glass, the patrons wouldn't be able to see the optical glass cutouts. Of course this window is only a single sheet, not double and it is not angled so sound transfer is always a problem. People can't talk in the booth if there are people in the balcony under the window. And of course, everything has to be lit with Little Lites at $40 bucks a throw for a piece of hardware and a 12v transformer that must cost all of $5 bucks to make. Also a few recessed lights and flourescents that can't ever be used except for cleaning. Anyway, we also use deep blue (Rosco #86, I think) gels around even the Little Lite fixtures so whatever spill there is, is deep blue. In our Whitman booth with small individual port windows, we have regular winky down lights on the projector heads, but we also have what we call Work Blues -- flourescents with deep blue gels wrapped around the tubes so the room is bathed with blue light when we are running film or when there is a followspot operator. It provides plenty of visibility to move around the booth, but it seems that any blue light that winds up reflected into the theatre barely reads 5 stories below in the seating area, and not nearly as annoying to patrons as white light. Frank John said, "You can seat in the rear seats, and see the rear of the lamps. The glass is slighty tinted." You've got to be kidding, right....TINTED port glass? What a novel idea for screwing up correct color temp.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 03-03-2003 08:24 PM                       quote: I like a seperate projector porthole and observation port. Ditto, Ken! Steve G's right; oversized ports are the result of a lack of specialized knowledge. They simply don't know how to locate portholes. After a few spectacular misses, architects probably just started going WAY oversized, so there would be no questions; to save face. Quick and dirty - who cares about functionality? In the State Theatre renovation in Lexington, KY - a booth I was able to design from the ground up - I located very small THX portholes for projectors and operator. All of them are spot-on perfect. When you walk up to the projector, you simply turn your head towards the wall, look down, and comfortably see all of the screen out the window. There's no stooping to look out, or reaching for projector controls during operation, either. And the beam exits right through the center of its opening. If you want to sweat, let me tell ya, just spec. 12" x 12" ports (with a projector that can't be moved, because you also spec'd embedded conduit) and watch as the walls come together and the screen goes up! I got it right, but I didn't sleep well for a couple of weeks. I must've checked my figures a hundred times while the booth was being constructed!  |  IP: Logged Manuel Francisco Valencia Expert Film Handler Posts: 151 From: Oklahoma City, OK, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 03-06-2003 07:37 PM                     Scott mentioned covering up the glass. This is something that I notice that a lot of theatres do not do but I do not know why. It seems logical when it comes to light spillage, just block it entirely. I have seen a picture (I cannot remember if it was in a topic or the pictures archive) where the porthole had a cardboard cutout with plenty of space for the picture. What are your guys take on this?  |  IP: Logged Chris Markiewicz Expert Film Handler Posts: 209 From: Glenaviegh, County Tipperary, Ireland Registered: Aug 2002 posted 03-06-2003 09:10 PM                     Our booth being designed for live theatre has a band of windows from end to end. The center panels are optical glass, the others are regular tempered glass. For film showings we have 1/8" plywood pieces to fit all but the center panels, held in with window screen retainers and painted black on the auditorium side. It takes about 90 seconds to install or remove the ply sections. Since our booth is HIGH above the last row of seats, even the sound of the Christie is not a problem.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-06-2003 10:15 PM                        Chris, I wanted to do that from the inception of this booth....sort of, instead of plywood, I thought we could use velour curtian on a track that could be pulled away to either corner for non-film events and when the curators give those patron tours and want that designer look. But for films, you could pull the curtain across the windows and square cutouts would fall precisely in front of the projector lenses and view locations. Higher ups nixed it big-time. Seems a famous Japanese architect designed this theatre and covering up the rear "technical vista" would be counter to the man's "work." "Thing is," says me, 'IT DOESN'T WORK!" They were not moved. Frank  |  IP: Logged Matt Hale Expert Film Handler Posts: 123 From: Vancouver, Canada Registered: Dec 2002 posted 03-07-2003 12:44 AM                        At the old theatre building I used to work in, one of the rooms still had its original, small port windows (c. 1965) The layout was obvious - projector, viewport, projector, viewport. Then there was this 5th window waaaaay down by the sidewall. Never could figure out why until eventually I noticed it lined up with another (at that point shuttered) window in the back wall of the booth that looked in on the toilet. You could check the picture while doing other things... The other booth there had some of its original small windows, plus giant ones that were installed when the room was twinned c. 1980. Lots of light leakage there.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-07-2003 10:05 AM                        I am 6'4", and throughout the 10 years I worked in cinemas, I did not find one observation port that I didn't have to crouch down to look through. I wished someone would start installing vertical observation ports - e.g. 12" across by 2 feet tall - mounted at a height that would enable both abnormally short and abnormally tall people to use them without straining themselves.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 03-11-2003 02:40 AM                        Leo, that reminds me of the time we hired this masonry guy to put in two bullet-proof windows in our new box office. After he was done with the job we went to see the finished work. Three of us walked up to the newly installed windows and realized that we all had to bend down because the top of the window ended in line with our noses. We confronted the contractor who was standing behind us. He walked up to the window and said, "So what's the problem." His head was perfectly centered; he was 5'6"! Everything is relative. Frank  |  IP: Logged

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