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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: What is good enough?
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Kevin Wale
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 167
From: Guymon, OK USA
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 12-26-2003 11:42 AM
It's all cause and effect. Don't you think that it is likely that people don't "want a theatre experience" because fo some of the corner cutting that has been going on?
I think people would start wanting the "theatre experience" if it were consitantly a good experience. I fully plan at some point in the near future to drive an hour and 45 minutes to Baltimore just to see a movie(any movie) at the Senator. It has nothing to do with me being in the theatre business. I may not be in this business in three weeks if certain things work out right. I'd love to own a nice theatre and all that, but I'm a musician and it is ultimately the direction I want to go in life.
I've always been that way. I always wished I could go to the 70mm houses in the big cities but I lived in small town four hours away from everything. To this day I've never seen a movie in a THX house. Never seen a 70mm print. I've longed to for years. Long before I knew what a lamphouse was.
The romance has to be put back into this business. Yes, that puts a lot of responsibility on a lot of people at a lot of levals. But, I firmly believe it can be done. Tom at the Senator is an example of that. Who doesn't want to see a movie there? I can't imagine someone leaving there and saying... blah. Not from what I have heard from so many different people all over the country.
Give them stereo that sound better than any DVD running in 2 channel could ever wish it could give. Better analogue than any high end VCR could wish to give. Better digital than any home theatre can give. Better picture than any plasma can give.
Then, I'm totally with Steve on this one without even the slightest hint of doubt, get those curtains working again. Bring back the cartoons and STINKING NATIONAL ANTHEM. LOL.
Do the things that make you stand out, and I fully believe you can survive against any Regal in existance(I personally don't have anything against Regal... I enjoy many of them and I love modern atmosphere too.)
If product is a problem... get to Show West. Meet the people. Put a face and a sense of reality to your voice on the phone. And, why can't there be full service theatres anyway? Have an all day Star Wars marathon on one screen while the new releases are on other screens. If it can't happen... we need to make it happen anyway. Whether the specifics of that idea are a good idea or not, creativity seems to be a lost art.
If you believe in this business at all, sell it. Sell it to the venture capitalist. They like passion every bit as much as a business plan. Would you want to help someone make a dream work over the long haul that was so unconfident about the business they are in that they don't believe that getting the best equipment that best serves the customer is even financially feasable?
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 12-26-2003 01:34 PM
Scott Norwood...
quote:
what about smaller communities (which may be a hundred miles away from the nearest "state of the art" theatre) and smaller theatres showing art, foreign, or repertory product?
I don't consider small town theaters to fit into this argument very well. When they can barely pay the bills and if they were to shut down that would be the end of a movie theater in their area, I call that more of a public service (even though that term still doesn't really fit). A similar situation happens in some art houses, however there are many art houses that do extremely well. Those places have no reason in the world to purchase junk equipment and set up their theaters poorly.
Take Angelika Dallas for example. Here is an art house making a monsterous profit, yet they have just about the worst setup in town. The people making the decisions think it is because their presentations are wonderful and the atmosphere is ideal, but that is not the case. They have the strongest art house booking power and when you are the ONLY place to see a movie in town, people will put up with a substandard presentation. Ask yourself if you wanted to see a movie and it was running at both the Angelika and the Magnolia, which one would you go to? Angelika has screens with seams so bad it looks like black scratches running up the picture every few feet, the Magnolia has quality screens. The Angelika has digital sound on every screen, it's just that almost all of them are dts6-ADs, and need I remind you that this is an art house? They cheapened out to save a buck and never present anything in digital because dts is not on their prints. The Magnolia has SRD in every auditorium and presents every movie that was made in digital, in digital. The Angelika has a godawful Klipsch sound system in every auditorium, whereas the Magnolia put in JBL. The Angelika's booth is a barn and you can hear the projectors running in the front row there is so much echo in that booth, the Magnolia has a drop ceiling and does not suffer from those problems. The Angelika's seats are small and your knees will be hitting the row in front of you because the architect was going for cramming the most possible seats in a given sized room. The Magnolia has properly designed rows and much more comfortable seating. I could go on and on with this example, but this is only one theater comparison.
Manny Knowles...
quote:
No, she didn't *want* a "theatrical experience" at all. For that particular fan of the books, seeing LOTR at the movies was a necessary evil if she wanted to see that movie without waiting.
It's because she has been burned too many times by half rate presentations. (Poor management comes into play when customers start to become a distraction to the presentation much like a Sankor lens is to the picture.)
Scott Jentsch...
quote:
You will always have a core audience that will attend a theater no matter how bad the experience. I think that there is potential to be tapped by theaters that can do the experience right.
I remember at the Dallas GCC Northpark 1&2 it did not matter what was playing in Cinema 1, we would KILL anyplace else running it. There was and has not been since any place to approach that level of picture and sound quality that could be experienced in that Cinema 1 auditorium around Dallas/Fort Worth. Steve Guttag also has mentioned the Uptown in DC is a similar situation. Presentation and a good auditorium design DOES matter.
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Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"
Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 12-26-2003 01:36 PM
quote:
The romance has to be put back into this business.
Why? The business seems to be doing just fine without it.
My point being that the average moviegoer doesn't seem to be complaining.
My hunch is that a "man on the street" survey would reveal that most contemporary patrons prefer today's moviegoing experience to the one they had growing up...or the one their parents had. They may not be able to explain why they felt that way but that isn't what's important. I think they'd laugh at -- or at least be confused by -- the notion of suing movie theatres for fraud!
If anyone should feel defrauded it would be the studios but, then, there is nothing stopping them from inspecting a theatre before signing a deal. Fact is, they don't. If anything, they are only interested in the owner's creditworthiness. It's a money thing, not a movie thing and *certainly* not a romance thing.
Brad! We were posting at the same time...
quote:
Presentation and a good auditorium design DOES matter.
I totally agree and I hope my comments don't make me out to seem uncaring.
I was very much like a lot of people on this forum when I got started -- and, to the greater extent, I believe I still am -- but I have come to the inevitable understanding that this is, first and foremost, a business. We can't have everything we want. That stuff is expensive and most theatres simply can't afford it.
I think that history is showing us that audiences don't care if the curtains aren't there anymore. They don't care that we're not showing cartoons. They don't even seem to care that some kid is running the show and they don't care that he's the one to blame for all the dust and scratches they're seeing. Who knows? They may not even "see" those blemishes in the first place.
I think I have come a long way in terms of separating my "romantic fascination" with the movies and the business aspect of it.
Believe me when I say that every time we build a new multiplex I start out with high hopes that there will be at least one -- one -- auditorium where things are done correctly. Something always fucks it up.
To quote a line from "Dangerous Liaisons":
It's beyond my control.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-26-2003 03:00 PM
Steve--out of curiousity, how much would a typical small-town art house expect to spend for a full set of ISCO or Schneider lenses? Imagine a single-screen changeover house with 16mm capability. They would need at least four lenses plus one CinemaScope adapter for each 35mm machine, plus one lens and one scope adapter for the single 16mm machine. That has to be upwards of $10,000. Are you saying that every theatre owner should go out and spend $10k+ on lenses and probably $20k on sound or just close the doors and take a job elsewhere?
I don't disagree with the importance of presentation quality, but $30k probably exceeds the yearly profits of most of these places by a wide margin. Sure, there will be an increse in attendance as a result of the improvements, but will it even come close to justifying the cost?
If I were a theatre owner and had the cash for this stuff, I'd buy it in a heartbeat, but if it's a choice between running films in mono with good but old lenses and closing the doors, I'd take the former.
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 12-26-2003 09:33 PM
I love it when people get so involved in opinion rants that you eventually compare these things quite favorably with a dog chasing his tail.
From looking at this thread, it should be obvious that establishing a fixed answer to questions of what's best, what's adequate and how these factors balance against the size of market is as likely to happen as whether we should ban a political party or two, and what parties those should be. It's just not going to happen. Everyone has good points, and views that make some level of sense... especially within the world those people live in. As is normal, competitive factors tend to dictate performance levels, with the capitalistic profit motive in the balance.
Can a Motiograph, Wenzel Ace or BX?? put as steady a picture on the screen as the latest mechs out there? Some would say the classic machines can be better. I certainly got my money's worth out of them, especially during the years when most of what I was making went into my mortgage. After I paid the place off, I started upgrading the booth. Did I do that because it would make the presentation better? No. The presentation didn't change one bit. I did it because my old stuff, combined with the rest of our operation, produced a product that started filling my place up during the Summer. I upgraded out of sheer terror at the thought of dumping an entire field and sending 1,600 people home... maybe even losing an entire weekend because of a worn out part with too many miles on it that I couldn't replace. So... my booth is more modern. I've dumped a whole lot of $$$$ into making it that way. Result? Absolutely nothing the audience can see or hear. In a way, even that's the way it should be. All I did was basically pay up my "reliability insurance".
When I aquired a local quad, I opened with jittery machines, crappy reflectors, foggy lenses and nothing but SR for sound. Not one single patron ever complained about the quality of the show. Not one ever said they wouldn't be back because the theatre down the street had a better show. I DID have several people make comments about my great DIGITAL sound... and only my hairdresser knew for sure.
Based on that, why shouldn't I accept that they were coming to my place instead of the other guys for no other reason than that they all loved me??!! No... I started upgrading the booth because my own presentation made me crazy. We're all digital now, I have newer lenses (brand new ones on the list for this Summer), the reflectors have been replaced, one of the three machines is new and the other three will be gone within the next few months. The crowds are decent... and growing... but I still think it's a subjective matter of how each of them have perceived the experience.
On whether, in the opinion of a projectionist, manager or service tech, an owner has ever invested enough in the booth, it's operators' paychecks, the auditorium, walls, curtains or vacuum cleaners; I have NEVER, in over 40 years of business activities, EVER heard an employee or vendor say "you've put enough into your place... please stop!"
Unfortunately, that's the way those things are. It's not likely to ever change, and to argue the subject is pointless. I can think of countless examples of working for exhibitors whom I felt were bastardizing the history of motion picture presentation for no other reason but the profit. Bottom line, however, is that it's the exhibitor's perogative to balance his investment against his pay check. The ones who do the best job of reacting to customer wants, needs and what the other guys in town are doing to attract those customers will probably do far better than those who blindly toss money at a building just to have what others consider "the best". This could be part of why the digital industry was scratching their heads for a time, trying to understand why the exhibitors weren't all climbing over themselves to replace their antiquated old junque projectors with George's lean, mean digital projecting machine.
OK... rant off. The rest of you guys were belching opinions here, so why not blow some extra bandwidth this way, eh? ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Peace out ![[beer]](graemlins/beer.gif)
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