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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: How to best present "Spellbound"?
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-29-2003 09:25 AM
First Elec. is pipe #3. Right behind the rag. If you think I'm tearing out all that horse cock just to move it, you're nuts! ![[Wink]](wink.gif) (Although, we do need to install the cable cradles that weren't put in when they built the place.)
The 1-E is two pipes down from the screen. That gives almost 24" of space between them. That's more than enough to prevent the screen getting snagged on a gel frame, etc. Yes, we have to be careful not to turn the lights directly on the screen but you'd have to be a serious dolt to do that! Under normal circumstances, the 1-E is at trim a good 6' to 8' above the top of the screen. (When screen's in.) Our policy is to always grid the screen when it goes out. That gives about the same amount of space below the screen. We never grid the electrics. We don't have cable cradles. Remember? We do have a loading gallery so there's no need to grid the electrics.
The next pipe up from the screen is the orchestra shell. (AKA: "Clouds") You know, those angled panels to reflect the sound out to the audience? They're made of heavy plywood and iron pipe. When we're not using them they collapse and hang vertically. They take up just a hair bit more than their alloted 8" when they are collapsed. The screen frame is made from 2" dia. iron pipes held together with Kee Klamp fittings. There are angled battens coming off the back of the frame to give it stability. They stick out a bit from the back. If one is not careful when flying the clouds or the screen they will rub together. Basically, we have the same protection as you, Frank. The battens on the back act as guide rails. He who makes the screen and clouds rub together too hard is given the job of repainting the clouds.
We never have any stage lights on when it's a movie night, although I do, on occasion shine a gobo on the screen from FOH to act as a light curtain. I don't do it often because I have to have an operator at the light board. It's just not worth it unless it's a special event. I burn gobos with the movie's title or logo if it's a big show. Sing-along S.O.M. provided gobos for us!
Same goes for curtains. I have never even considered having them close for a movie. That means there'd have to be a hand at the rail. We just don't have the manpower. Besides, if I did it once I'd have to do it all the time. (At least with gobos, I can claim that it costs money to make them.) What I do is fly the main rag in as normal and draw it all the way open. Then I draw it shut again until it's about 2'-3' further open than the edges of the screen/masking. There it stays. You have to draw it all the way open so that all the excess material bunches up behind the valence where it's not seen by the audience. A half-open, bunched-up rag looks ugly if you don't do that.
Our speakers are on roll-away carts. They store against the backstage wall, behind the "full-black". Last upstage pipe is a full stage black velour curtain. Travelled w/ fullness. I always bring it in for movies to prevent backstage reflections. I like to fly in all the legs and borders too so that they act as sound baffles. It deadens the backstage area a bit so it doesn't sound so hollow. Most people don't notice the difference but I do.
How I long for a theater where I can just "light the fire and go!"
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-30-2003 01:49 AM
quote:
Out of curiousity, why would the first electric go in front of the screen?
You have to remember these are now performing arts houses 1st, movie theaters only occasionally. You can *never* get that first electric as far down as it needs to be. The first electric is on the first pipe available, & the screen is on the 1st pipe that can be had afterwards.
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That seems unnecessary (why would you want to light the front of the screen from above?)
It's not to light the screen, it's just because 1st electric gets 1st dibs on the pipe it can best use.
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and likely to damage the screen, either due to large lighting instruments that hit the surface or due to heat if someone accidentally turns on the power when the screen is lowered.
HAHAHAHA! Yes, Amazing Criswell, both! Add into that inexplicable behavior like people running the electric way up or down to where the screen is & mucking around at the board to find a circuit. And many a screen has been snagged by many a light in many a place. Look at the duct tape on the back side with understanding.
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At the Columbus (the only place I've shown films that also has full stage rigging, albeit from the 1920s), the first lineset (after the fire curtain) holds the teaser, the second holds the main curtain (which is used as masking), and the third holds the screen.
The fire curtain runs in a track attached to the back of the proscenium opening. That wall is a firewall, the track has a U-shaped channel around it creating the "smoke pocket". The fire curtain & its associated froo-fra is not a part of the fly system.
This is confusing. There's a teaser in front of the main curtain? Maybe you mean the valance? Except for the fire curtain, usually anything that hangs in front of the grand rag is purely decorative. A 'teaser' is a piece of stage equipment, & would be behind the main curtain.
That draped valance is not as original; it once had additional narrower segments of longer swoopy swags draped farther down hugging the prosc at the sides. That's how they made artistical the transitions to the different colors in the drapes. They're gone because the screens got wider & went to the edges of the prosc.
A straight valance is often used alone in movie theaters now, since it leaves more room for the screen. Also, it's a cheaper replacement when the valance must be replaced because of damage from dry rot, water, fire, or falling plaster, or if there's renovation & re-decoration.
Straight valance alone hanging in front of the main curtain at the Majestic in Eastland, TX:
Another layer is often a lambrequin, which is sort of shell-like: fabric & sometime pseudo-jewels & tassels glued to a hard backing, usually flat but sometimes with glued-down draped ruffles. It is also neccessarily flown, to get it up there & get it down for cleaning, etc.
The Southtown in Chicago, from the ATOS website at
http://www.atos.org/Pages/Palaces/Southtown-Chicago/Southtown.html
all copyrights theirs:
showing a light-colored lambrequin, hanging in front of a draped valance, hanging in front of two straight valances,hanging in front of the main curtain. A lambrequin can be convex, like that one likely is, or hang straight as a board. It may hang behind any valances also, & have the appearance of a straight sheet (looking like a fire curtain slightly in) or looking like a pseudo-teaser.
All of those usually hang not only in front of the main curtain, but in front of the firewall in a false arch over the proscenium opening proper. The lines are usually onstage, passing through various means through the firewall.
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There are also two other screen frames (for 1.33 ratio only) farther back which presumably were used in the silent era when live shows were combined with films in the same program.
In houses built for movies that also had stages, the screen was usually hung *much* further upstage than it is installed or is put back now. You can usually see its own lineset & some *heavy* blocks for it 4 to 6 feet back! It usually didn't even run to the pin rail, but had its own arbor & floor block. Look in the grid, see the mongo loft blocks (if the grid is wood, the screen blocks would have been mounted on steel beams extended into the grid), look on the stage directly beneath & find the holes where the floor block was. Nowadays, screens are hung as far down (forward) as possible. Frames & the rest of the load (attached "screen setting", screen curtains or doors, etc.) have been lighter since the silent days, too.
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This theatre doesn't have "electrics" in the modern sense...they just have a half-dozen or so of those striplight/cyc light type things with white/red/blue lights pointing straight down
Border lights, that was typical. They were very effective, very flexible for rapidly changing shows. A teaser is also called a border, the first set would be found on the switchboard as "First border", etc.
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There's another, lighter, curtain a few feet behind the screen (and stage speaker) which stays closed during films in order to avoid reflections from items stored backstage
Most modern stage hangs have/want a dark, heavy velour traveler about 2/3 back, that's GREAT for pulling behind the speaker to suck up sound & light reflections!
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The speaker itself is not flown, but is on rollers and can be easily moved offstage as needed.
When sound came in, if the theater was still being used for stage shows, the Vitaphone speaker was usually flown (sometimes run in sideways on its own track, talk about sucking up space!), & Fox houses, closely associated with sound on film Movietone, often had onstage a Movietone Lift: the speaker cabinet was on a lift behind the screen & when not in use, it went down so that the top of the cabinet (decked) was flush with the stage.
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We never have any stage lights on when it's a movie night, although I do, on occasion shine a gobo on the screen from FOH to act as a light curtain
We really need to resurrect & create oil light projectors, which were used for that application. They looked great, made the peeps rapt, docile, & happy.
[ 09-30-2003, 03:32 AM: Message edited by: William Hooper ]
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 09-30-2003 09:45 PM
We don't have a 1.66 lens/aperture set. I'm going to have to use the 1.85. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
However... This could be a good time to pitch the new lens(es) I've been bitching to my boss about for over a year. (Several years, actually, but renewed bitching in the last.) How can I get the most bang for the buck out of any new lenses purchased? I think I have hatched a plan but let me try it out on y'all. Remember this: I can move the side masking open or closed to, virtually, an infinite number of positions. Further, I can scrunch the screen vertically by a couple feet by flying it out. (The top masking is a fabric border on the next pipe down.) Right now we have three lenses: Regular flat, Scope and Acad.
Here's the plan:
- Toss the flat & scope lenses. They are junk. (You may remember my pictures in the past.) Maybe I can get a few bucks out of them on ebay!
![[evil]](graemlins/evil.gif) Keep the Acad. lens as is. We use it, maybe once or twice a year. It's not as bad as the others. - Buy new lenses for scope and regular flat that fit the screen as it flies out now. (To the spikes.) File aperture plates in the normal manner.
- Get a couple of extra apertures and file them for 1.77 and 1.66 ratios. Scrunch (vertically) or scretch (horizontally)the screen to fit the images.
IF I got my math right I could conceivably get 5 ratios out of only 3 lenses. What I'm driving at is being able to tell the boss, "If you buy me "X" more lenses I'll be able to present "Y" formats in their full splendor for only "Z" dollars whereas mere mortal projectionsist would tell you that you have to spend "Z++" dollars.
I'm hoping to appeal to a tight-fisted boss's avarice to get the goods I need for my booth! Gotta' love THAT! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Am I on track here? Or, do I have it all bass ackwards?
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 10-03-2003 12:47 AM
Maybe I'm missing a piece, but here's what I see as a plan to just get by with lenses for 2 aspect ratios, 1 is given as scope:
What makes it harder is that your screen is 13' x 31', that's a 1:2.38 ratio. So it's set up to be for all intents common height for all formats. In other words, a different lens for each format - as its aspect ratio gets taller, its lens shrinks the picture vertically.
It's easier if you'd been more square. Most older proscenium houses are tall & closer to 1:2, 1.66 often is perfect in them. With a taller screen that 1.66 fits in nicely & to the top, you could just use the same lens for 1.66, a shorter aperture plate, & bring in the vertical screen masking for 1.85. Both would stay the same on the sides, same as on the print; you'd just be masking the screen shorter, like the fatter framelines on the print.
At 13' high & 21.58' wide & for 1.66, 1.85 would still be 21.58' wide but 11.66' high.
If you start whittling vertically from 1.37, it gets painful.
1.37: 13' high, 17.8 feet wide
1.66: 10.72' high, 17.8 feet wide
1.85: 9.62' high, 17.8 feet wide
Are you running changeovers (two lenses per format, wake up & smell the money!) or a platter?
You might be happier just getting new lenses for your most-used flat format.
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I read Steve's question about whether you're masking a large amount vertically in 1.85 as hoping that you *are* masking a lot vertically for 1.85. If that was the case, your 1.66 could be the same lens, just filing out the plate more vertically & pulling the vertical masking out some more.
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Steve said:
quote:
I don't find the 1.33-within-1.85 all that objectionable
You need to see it in a house with some real keystone, not this dinky play-toy stadium seating multiplex keystone! I love my Looney Tunes, but when one runs 1.37 in 1.85 on a screen masked out to something wider for the feature, that black area becomes a blatant trapezoid.
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