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Author Topic: Poor Projection - PCPro Magazine article Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-23-2003 05:06 PM                     Here's another factor keeping negative perceptions of theaters ingrained in the public consciousness. Most customers are lazy and just keep driving to whatever dump is the closest to their home. Very few make any effort to search out better quality theaters at all, much less actually do the extra driving to get there. Much of this comes back to personal responsibility. We can cry and moan about poor presentation quality. But a lot of people doing the griping get the poor quality presentation they deserve since they make no effort of voting with their dollars. They still go to the same theater even when getting a dependably bad experience. A shitty theater will hang around as long as there are people stupid enough to pay to watch movies there. And it is these same idiots who allow quality standards industry-wide to plummet. The executives can coin phrases like, "if we put lawn chairs in front a screen people will show up." The customer is not always right. Some are wrong and many others (including those who write newspaper articles on film technical stuff) are usually ill-informed.  |  IP: Logged Charles Everett Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1470 From: New Jersey Registered: May 2001 posted 09-23-2003 05:58 PM                     Right on, Bobby! At the Reading Cinemas in Manville NJ, the 3 smallest halls have keystoning distortion in scope ratio. That's why I drive an hour to the AMC Hamilton to see scope-ratio releases presented properly.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 09-24-2003 02:44 AM                        quote: Most customers are lazy and just keep driving to whatever dump is the closest to their home. Some time ago I looked at a survey of UK cinemagoers done in 1947 (sad, I know, but there you are). It included a question, 'What do you look for most of all when choosing which theatre to attend?' (or words to that effect). Out of around 50 different things, the ones which came up most often were proximity of the theatre to home, whether or not the theatre had central heating (less surprising than it sounds, especially during winter, because in those days homes didn't and heating costs were a big expense for lower-income families) and the start time of the programme. Picture and sound quality was only cited by around 20 of the 5,000 surveyed as a positive reason for being there, though around 300 complained of difficulty in understanding the dialogue. So I guess nothing much has changed in the last half a century!  |  IP: Logged Alan Haigh Film Handler Posts: 45 From: Watford, UK Registered: Jul 2003 posted 09-24-2003 04:38 AM                    For me, my experiences in UK cinemas have been good, or OK. I think the writer of this article must have been either very unlucky with his recent visits, or is he overstating the situation for the sake of "tabloid" journalism. By that I mean that he's propping up a weak argument. What I really, really take issue with is him mentioning "the largest cinema in leicester square" in with these experiences. If he has seen all those faults ("noisy" stock, bad joins, jumps where the film has broken [hmmmm ... that's an interesting one in these days of polyester] and the mysterious "blow-outs"]) at any of the cinemas in Leicester Square then I am utterly astounded. They are the all the biggest purveyours of "film done right" I've ever come accross. I've also been to local multiplexes occaisionally. Of course the prints are sometimes not as good here, but they are fine. In fact the whole thing is always fine. Everytime I've been it has been anyway. Also, yes you can get better speakers in the home than cinemas (as long as you aren't worried about bass response), but these do cost considerably more than 2 cinema tickets. More like 5 to 10 years of weekly cinema going. And who has the perfect room and/or perfect neighbours to make it work well? Alan  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 09-24-2003 12:08 PM                        I have mixed feelings about this. If you look at the stats that Boxoffice sometimes publishes about the number of calls to Moviefone about a particular theater, at least in NYC, they tended to be the better theaters. Also, last year, Time Out New York magazine did a cover story that rated almost every single movie theater in NYC and they got it mostly right. For the most part, the theaters they thought were the best were the theaters I thought were the best. So they have to think that patrons are interested enough in this topic to do a big story about it. Before we state that most patrons don't give a damn about quality presentation, I think an analysis needs to be done comparing the grosses of theaters that one would consider to have quality presentation with ones that don't, when playing the same films. Also, we don't give patrons the proper tools to evaluate whether a theater does a good job or not. Newspaper listings of presentation and sound formats are either missing or incorrect. There's virtually no information at the theater. I always thought there should be sign posted outside each screen that would say something like, "Presented in 35mm anamorphic Panavision at 2.35:1 and in 5.1 channel Dolby Digital with Surround EX" or something like that. Theaters never try to compete by publicizing the type of amplifiers or loudspeakers that they have. The last time I saw this happen was in 1987, when Mann's Village theater in Westwood rewired the place using Monster Cable -- they got lots of press out of that. Back in the early 80s, theaters playing films in 70mm far outgrossed 35mm presentations. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, for example, did 20% of its total gross at only the 4% of theaters (68) playing the 70mm version. Grease 2 had only 8 70mm prints out of 1250, but those 8 did 3% of the gross. So that implies that at least back then, patrons did carefully choose where to see a film based on a perception of quality and presentation. However, the business is configured very differently today with studios releasing thousands of prints and not caring about much more than the opening weekend. In addition, because of the tremendous consolidation in the industry, the chains don't want to pit their good theaters against their bad theaters, so they treat them all the same.  |  IP: Logged Brian Guckian Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 594 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Apr 2003 posted 09-24-2003 01:58 PM                     You have to wonder about the objectivity of articles like these; many magazines are advertising vehicles after all. Backing up Alan's comments re. Leicester Square, my own experiences watching films in several different theatres there has been never less than excellent, and often outstanding. Could the (exaggerated) reference to "titles jumping around the screen" etc. relate to jump and weave in the prints themselves? As we know pushing printing speeds can occasionally induce these effects. In general though the whole process seems to be geared now against quality - i.e. shoot on cheap formats like Super35, finalise the print days before release, rush it through the labs, then show it in theatres where costs have been cut to the bone.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-24-2003 10:16 PM                     Martin, one thing that props up the "better" theaters in Manhattan is seating count. The Ziegfeld has around 1,100. Loews Astor Plaza is what, around 1,500? These are much larger theaters than the typical neighborhood shoebox screen of only 120 seats. I think another thing skewed in the favor of better theaters in Manhattan is a well established reputation of some theaters. We're talking theaters where movie premieres are held. Customers see that on TV and want to try out movies there. That's how I started watching movies at the Ziegfeld when I lived in New York. I figured the place automatically had to be good if a movie premiere would happen there. You also have to factor in the point many residents of Manhattan are more highly educated and affluent types, not typical of the average American. More highly educated and well off film-goers are going to be more discriminating in terms of show quality than the average guy. I think if Moviefone did a survey in more "average" American cities they would probably get a lot of the same results Leo found in that 1947 British survey. 70mm prints would indeed improve attendance numbers at many theaters, especially in New York. But then you also have to consider the way 70mm was advertised then. Paramount's NY ads for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" debuted what many consider to be the "official" logo of 70mm. Paramount made that sweeping logo huge in the ads. In more recent years, such as with the DTS 70mm bookings of "Titanic", that same 70mm logo was tiny and almost unreadable from ink smear/dot gain.  |  IP: Logged Paul Konen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 981 From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 09-25-2003 12:39 PM                     John, I don't think that I have done a complete release without a visit from TDC. They come to the theatre because the studios have paid them to do this. TDC knows that when they come to the theatre, I will have the lenses changed, media loaded, platters built. The only thing they have to do is screen the movie. I don't have the QuBit players anymore. They've been gone for 1-2 years now. The playback system is the TDC AMS System. They let me know when content is being sent to the theatre. Usually, the media comes encrytped and the keys come separately with the tech. These keys are specific to the auditorium number playing the film. Old content is deleted after final screening on Thursday by me.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 09-25-2003 04:04 PM                        Thanks, Paul.  |  IP: Logged Ken McFall Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 615 From: Haringey, London. Registered: Apr 2001 posted 09-26-2003 11:57 AM                     Just thought I'd pass on the reply from Jon Honeyball regards using his article. Thanks to Brad for extracting the text. ========================================================= Hi – I have no objection to you lifting the HTML from the website and using it, providing you give links to www.pcpro.co.uk, and email links to editor@pcpro.co.uk and jon@jonhoneyball.com and say it was copied with my permission Thanks! Jon  |  IP: Logged

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