So we run the Smart snipe -- anyone ever use it/see it? It has a star-space field background with stars zooming toward the audience and the words "A WIDE SCREEN STEREO Feature Presentation" animate in the frame. There is a killer electronic music track with one of the best use of surround ever, with a chord that zips around the theatre and you can actually perceive it going around in a circle; it ends with an organ sustaining a wicked low chord that really shows off your bass enhancement. Quite effective. Unfortunately it has a voice-over that actually intones "The following feature is presented in Wide Screen Stereo" (whatever that means). That is a bit corny for my taste, but the over-all effect is impressive. Before I found this I used to use the wimpy Dolby logos -- the ones they had before digital, which were just the logo against a star-field (I can't remember if they were even animated), but the Smart is much more spectacular. Like Manny, I don't put them on every film -- quiet films don't seem to warrant a big opening like that, like I wouldn't use it on ORDINARY PEOPLE.

I always want to use an opening snipe in front of the film logo because that is a buffer on which to open the curtain so I can project the actual film logo on a full screen with the curtain fully opened. Years ago someone complained that the opening Fox logo shouldn't be projected on the curtain as it is opening. I agreed. But since opening the curtain is sacrosanct and the Fox logo is sacrosanct.....well, you can see my dilemma. The feature presentation snipes solve the problem. Some would say the green band would solve that problem too....yes, it would, but oooops, it's already in the garbage.

Since we play pictures at most for one weekend....many times only one run, my snipes last for decades rather than years. I have been playing the same Johnny Smoke (a Heart Association anti-smoking 90 sec animated PSA) for over 25 years. Film-Guard recently gave it renewed life -- I probably will get to play it for another 25....or at least someone will.

The Smart trailer is filmed with scope aperture but composed for 1.85. It might be a bit of a stretch using it for 1.85 in houses that only have the two ARs, but since we always play a 1.37 attraction reel before the feature, the audiences still see 1.85 as being significantly wider than what precedes the feature.

Many of our theatres did not have Smart equipment but Kintek sound processors before they put in Dolby because they were cheap and it's ability to produce pseudo stereo from mono soundtracks. The only problem with these processors that I disliked was the single sound source from behind the screen when the processor had combined the left, right and center channel all into one track. Sound coming from only the center with mono surround sucked and I made an effort to stay away from these theatre as much as possible.

On another subject you covered in your topic, I had a discussion with one of my projectionist friend regarding the opening of a curtain at the start of a feature. He said the curtain should start opening the second the studio's logo flashes on the screen and must never open and expose a blank screen. I had this discussion after I saw "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA" in 70mm at the now defunct Northpoint Theatre in San Francisco and again in 70mm a few months later here in Honolulu at the Kapiolani Theatre which is also gone. When I saw the movie at the Northpoint, the curtain opened as soon as the overture ended exposing a blank screen and in a second or two, the super sharp Columbia logo flashed on the screen and it was beautiful. When I saw it again at the Kapiolani, the logo flashed on to the curtain which was still closed and it took it's time opening and the first thing projected on the fully opened screen was the first title card. If projecting the studio logo on a screen is standard policy, that is fine and well but I think exceptions should be made with some films such as "Lawrence" because the Columbia logo used in this picture was specially created for the 70mm road show engagement and should be shown in it's full glory!

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