my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » Automation Lens Change (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Automation Lens Change Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-01-2003 03:25 PM                     Common width is indeed about as foolish a thing to design as one can do with a theatre. It is impossible to meet SMPTE specs with such an arrangement...if you have 16fL on FLAT then you will have about 30 fL on scope. Scope is already more efficient than FLAT and to give scope a smaller area only compounds that issue. Next comes resolution, FLAT only has .446 inches of height to work with...Scope has .690" yet you are going to blow up FLAT to an even bigger picture so you really put your worst format out with the biggest picture. If you have turrets that will allow for a vertical offset, then use them to have only the top masking move...this way people don't have to crane their necks for FLAT. Every architect should be required to study SMPTE EG-18 BEFORE they design their stupid boxes. Steve  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 09-01-2003 03:53 PM                     quote: "You can't very well advertsise WALL TO WALL screens if you've got side masking. Customers are idiots and they'll call you on it." Yes you can. The physical SCREENS are wall to wall. You are just covering the sides of it for the crappy flat movies. quote: " But do you mean to tell me that today there are NEW builds that actually design auditoria with common-width setups ON PURPOSE? It's absurd and the architect should be banned from ever designing a theatre again. Are there really such abortions out there in any number? " YES Frank! Virtually every stadium seating megaplex is designed in this stupid fashion. What great architectural superhumangenuis we have at work here. Let's take the one format that is hurting for light and resolution and blow it up almost twice as big as the more efficient format. Architects who do this are clearly heading down to a local stadium theater and just assuming that this is the best and proper way to design their next project. (Edit: well now I feel my comment isn't really needed since apparently Steve's post above mine was on this second page that I did not notice was here. Oh well, my thoughts still stand.) The first time I encountered a common width screen was at Cinemark Vista Ridge 12. This was my first day there and in screen #3 I was showing the most beaten to shit print of Dances With Wolves in existance, complete with easily 100 splices. When the flat trailers ended, the turret switched and the masking dropped. For the next hour the managers (who were clueless) were in an uproar all because some patron in the auditorium was furious because "the curtains fell" and she "couldn't see the top of Kevin Costner's head". Ugh! Plus add in the fact that few auto-turrets truly work well and it's no wonder why people hate to do them in multiplexes.  |  IP: Logged Dan Harris Film Handler Posts: 86 From: Bristol, UK Registered: Jun 2003 posted 09-01-2003 03:59 PM                     Thankfully our company still builds new multiplexes with variable side masking and screen tabs, so that full advantage can be taken of 'scope. We also tend to opt for a few bigger auditoria at one location rather than more small auditoria. All adverts and trailers over here are flat anyway, so theres always a 20-minute pre-feature presentation. Our cinemas that have full automation (TLS Cinemation 2004/5 or Cinemec. Vector 1000 in new builds) change lenses and masking while running through spacing, and our theatres with manual lens changes have a few minutes interval with the tabs closed after the trailer reel. Then theres nothing better than having screen tabs open on a scope screen for the Dolby City title before the feature! I was watching Heartbreakers in a theatre with a common-width screen a few years ago - on the change to 'scope someone in the audience proceeded to shout "Booooo!" and the people sitting at the front had to move a few rows back. I've also been to cinemas where the masking has made the most horrendous noise and stuck half way, and where the lens has jammed half way. I firmly belive that the projectionist should be at the machine when they know an automated lens change is due. Sadly, this is not always the case.  |  IP: Logged Michael Trotochaud Film Handler Posts: 11 From: Alexandria, VA, USA Registered: Dec 2002 posted 09-01-2003 07:22 PM                     So here is a question that comes from wanting to have the affect of changing ratios without actually doing it. If I were to get a scope trailer for a film that is flat, will the trailer be "door stopped" or will it actually fill the entire width? If it is door stopped then when the feature starts, the screen should appear to have widened. So I guess the question is, are scope trailers for flat films all door stopped or do they fill the screen? If they are available in both formats, are they differentiated on the label or is it a crap shoot? Mike  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-01-2003 08:20 PM                        Most of the time, scope trailers of flat films will have black bars on the sides, with the picture in a roughly 1.85 or 2:1 ratio. Some will fill the width of the screen (essentially using vertical pan-and-scan). And, no, there's no way to tell from the label.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-02-2003 12:28 AM                        The reversal of front end design path is really ironic. Adjustable top masking was a neccessitated compromise in the old proscenium houses to show scope when it was new, while the new builds of theaters had wide screens with side masking to go out for scope. Now the new houses are designed with adjustable top masking, & it's the older theaters that have side masking!  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-02-2003 11:14 AM                        Please care about composition: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/pytlak/spring2001.shtml Common width for all formats is a BAD trend.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 09-03-2003 12:34 PM                        quote: You can't very well advertsise WALL TO WALL screens if you've got side masking. Customers are idiots and they'll call you on it. Once again that's exhibition looking for a competitive edge without understanding the technology. Just like they did creating cropped wide screen. It was a STUPID idea but it forced the studios to go along (or risk having the composition of 1.37 material ruined in the theatre). Here again exhibition is doing something out of left field without, it would seem, any input from technicians or the studios. They think this "wall to wall" marketing gimmick is going to impress people? My guess is NOT, especially as movie-goers get more savvy about aspect ratios given what they have to deal with in their home theatres. Besides, any good marketing dept. can highlight common-height screens with concept marketing phrases, like, "Floor to ceiling" instead of "wall to wall." Put in a curved screen and your've got a Floor-to-Ceiling, Panavista, Wrap-around Screen. When we run regular, standard 1.85 flat, we are showing a film in Wide Screen Dimension -- it's in every ad and the logo we created for it is stuck on every 1 sheet. Come on, you learn this stuff in Marketing 101. Selling common-height is a piece of cake. Frank  |  IP: Logged Chris Hipp Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1462 From: Mesquite, Tx (east of Dallas) Registered: Jul 2003 posted 09-04-2003 10:02 AM                     Is it that much more difficult to build a screen with side masking rather than top?? I mean if this is such a bad thing then why are so many people using top masking? I never really thought about it before, but it always seemed strange to me that the scope would be smaller than flat. Does anyone really care about wall to wall screens?? I could really care less about the size of a screen. I care about where the screen is, I hate auditoriums with stadium seating and really high screens where you have to sit on the back row to see the screen comfortably. If the house has regular floor seating then the screen needs to be higher up so you can actually see it all instead of people's heads.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-04-2003 10:29 AM                        Some claim that filling the full width of the screen makes more sense in a stadium theatre, where you often have a fairly high front wall, so why not fill more of it with a 1.85:1 image? But the original idea of "Scope" and other widescreen processes was to give movies more impact and fill the field of view, so it really doesn't make any sense for 2.39:1 "Scope" films to be shown with a smaller image than 1.85:1 "flat". And as Steve Guttag mentions, because the 1.85:1 "flat" format is so inefficient in using light, it is difficult to match light levels between the two formats if you try to project a much bigger image for flat than scope.  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 09-04-2003 01:12 PM                        The only stadium-seating theatre I've even been to (aside from Imax) is Cinemark's theatre here in Springfield, which opened in 1999. I have to say I really like the design. The relationships between screen size, including height, and the seating arrangement, seems pretty close to ideal. Well, at least "very good". Yes, most of their screens are common-width, though 4 of the 17 have both movable top and side masking. I fully understand why they're doing the common-width thing. Wish it were otherwise, but hey, I'm just glad to have aspect ratios that are more-or-less correct.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.