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Author Topic: Is masking not 'cool' anymore? Stephen Furley Film God Posts: 3059 From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England Registered: May 2002 posted 06-12-2004 05:19 PM                     Didn't the 'Telekinema' at the Festival of Britain also have something similar.  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-12-2004 08:59 PM                     I personally think that any theater that shows movie in the wrong aspect ratio without warning the customer should be liable for a class action lawsuit. We got warnings for much more trivial stuff. How freaking tough is to put up a notice that certain theater numbers are not capable of displaying the right aspect ratio? Many times, I have talked to clueless managers who flat out tell me in a condescending manner that they are maintaining the exact aspect ratio when I can see the titles get cut off at the edges. Even some TV stations say that the program you are about to watch is edited for time or to fit your tv screen.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 06-12-2004 09:52 PM                        Well, I think you may be taking too extreme a view of this. All theatres don't have digital sound. Nobody's suggesting a class-action suit, even if you have NO noise reduction. Many people don't even know. All theatres aren't appropriate for stereo in the first place... many still have single speaker systems. Probably won't be seeing class-action suits there, either. Owner morals aside, not all buildings are able to put up a 2.39:1 screen. Matter of fact, not all tv stations really do say that a picture has been formatted for television... mainly because any film that isn't letterboxed to one extent or another IS formatted for TV. Fanatics could take argument all the way to whether a screen was being illuminated to 16fL... or whether the booth's lenses were state-of-the-art enough to put the best possible image on the screen... ...it ain't a perfect world out there... nor do all patrons see or hear things the same way. ...tis life!  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-13-2004 12:01 AM                     Wrong jack. if a theater advertised digital sound in a hall and they knew digital sound was not even possible , then that is fraud. Same with aspect ratios. Besides, on tv , people generally expect pan and scan even without disclaimers. But in a theater, people assume the whole frame is being shown. It is not as clear what the aspect ratio is. I dont have the tools to conveniently monitor for myself if a screen is 2:1 or 2.35:1. Now if the open mattes were removed to show the image in 2:1 , you wont' get much of a complaint from me. But for scope movies, NO way. Don't charge me 6.50 for a freaking matinee if I am not even going to be able to watch it in its entire aspect ratio on top of the expected downfalls of watching it in a small theater - like the screen size and the probably non digital sound. At least, put a disclaimer somewhere in the theater. There are disclaimers for so many things these days. Or at the very least, the manager should be able to answer that question for me when someone like me asks. So far, I have been unable to get a single manager to admit any failings.  |  IP: Logged Andrew Shingleton Film Handler Posts: 63 From: Richmond, Victoria, Australia Registered: Feb 2004 posted 06-13-2004 12:27 AM                     There's always the possibility of walking out as soon as the feature starts (or whenever you realise that the screen is incorrect) and getting a refund. If you stay and watch the whole movie you're effectivly accepting the conditions. I'm not sure legal action is the answer, because really - are you going for damages? All you should be after is your $6.50 back, which can more easily be obtained at the box office rather than the court room.  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-13-2004 02:20 AM                     What the theater has done is ruin my evening. If I were to choose between two multiplexes, and one happens to show it at the correct aspect ratio, but i choose the other one, then i wasted my evening because it is too late to go to the other multiplex. Saying that I have the right to walk out is obvious. What I am complaining about is when I call the theater, the manager should be able to level with me if the correct aspect ratio is being shown in a certain auditorium.  |  IP: Logged Brian Guckian Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 594 From: Dublin, Ireland Registered: Apr 2003 posted 06-13-2004 05:43 PM                     But I think it goes back to explaining why the aspect ratio is important, and is part of the artistic process. Talking to managers and saying, "this film should be shown in 1:2.39, not 1:2" is a waste of time, not because they are not interested, but because it is meaningless to people who are not Projectionists. You might as well be talking Greek! Unfortunately in this age of the "bottom line" I guess we also have to find new ways of explaining the concept. How do we relate the aspect ratio to the cashflow I wonder? Could you argue that cropping the image will lead to say, a 30% reduction in the box office take?  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-15-2004 10:16 AM                        I used to make a lot of posts complaining about the "Cobb Jobb" (I like that!) where in the small auditoriums, everything was cropped to 1.85:1. Regal fixed those here in Huntsville (and from what I hear, in other theatres they acquired from Cobb as well). They appeared to finish it up around March 2003. It's nice to at least know the entire image is being shown, even if scope is smaller than flat. There was really no other way to fix that problem in those 28-foot auditoriums with very high ceilings. Last night, I saw an example of how Regal is doing something stupid that is probably going to get customers that aren't aspect-ratio knowledgeable to complain. Regal Hollywood 18 now has this thing called "The 20". From the front row of the stadium section (probably more than a "flat" screen height away), the pixels from this digitalally-projected 20 minutes of one commercial after another are very obvious -- distractingly so. It runs at the "flat" aspect ratio. So what does Regal do? They open the masking for flat in the small auditoriums and if the movie is scope, the audience sees the screen get smaller for the movie (masking comes down from the top and up from the bottom). Before the stupid "The 20" thing, they just had the screen setup properly for scope to start with, so the audience never saw the screen shrink. The digital projector needs to be setup to fit either screen format and a much higher resolution needs to be used.  |  IP: Logged Jeremy Fuentes Mmmm, Dr. Pepper! Posts: 1168 From: Corpus Christi, TX United States Registered: Jan 2004 posted 06-15-2004 10:33 AM                     When I go to the movies and anything is wrong with the presentation at all, whether it be aspect ratio, digital sound, scratches, room temperature, seat location, I always file a lawsuit against that theater. I will make sure they never do that again. As of this post, there is only one theater left in Corpus Christi, since I have sued the others so many times, they were forced to close. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 06-15-2004 12:56 PM                     "So what does Regal do? They open the masking for flat in the small auditoriums and if the movie is scope, the audience sees the screen get smaller for the movie (masking comes down from the top and up from the bottom). Before the stupid "The 20" thing, they just had the screen setup properly for scope to start with, so the audience never saw the screen shrink." Yep, they made me start doing that at the one I worked at for the slides- I was so against this that I left (not the only reason, but this was the final straw.) Never mind that many of the slides were outdated, they wanted them on the "biggest screen possible." (They had no concern over giving the movies the best presentation possible however.) The masking should NEVER move when customers are there to see it, only exception being if you're running a double-feature with both a flat and scope movie, which was the first time I'd seen masking move in a theater. Since top/bottom masking is a compromise as well, you shouldn't let people know that's what you've got! If you don't have it move, only the people who know how this stuff works will notice. I liked the masking on both top and bottom a lot better than most other common-width screens I've seen which just have masking come down from the top- that makes the screen seem like it's positioned too low in the auditoriums.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-15-2004 01:45 PM                        When I worked (past tense!) at a theatre with both top masking and slides, I would always re-center and re-size the image (using the tilt adjustment and zoom lens on the projector) when changing between 1.85 and scope (we didn't have any other formats). I agree strongly with Jesse's comment that the audience should never see the screen get smaller, though I love seeing the screen get wider between the trailers/short and feature in theatres with side masking (this only really works right in changeover houses).  |  IP: Logged Mark Hajducki Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: Edinburgh, UK Registered: May 2003 posted 06-15-2004 03:38 PM                     All the top masked cinemas round here show adverts/trailers in flat format so the screen always gets smaller for scope features. One of the sites has the cheek to advertise itself as having "the biggest screens in town" unfortunately it is not possible to sit far enough away in some of these screens to be able to watch a flat film comfortably. In one cinema there are some seperate "premium" screens with one of the screens interlocked with a "standard" screen. When this happens the standard screen is side masked when the premium screen is top masked (like most of the screens in the complex). quote: Joe Redifer That's what you get for living in England. It's punishment for what you did to those peeps in Braveheart. was that a reply to my post?  |  IP: Logged Pravin Ratnam Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 844 From: Atlanta, GA,USA Registered: Sep 2002 posted 06-16-2004 02:22 PM                     Personally, top bottom masking does not bother me even if they do it after the previews. Howeever, it was funny seeing some in the audience at the local Regal get disappointed when they had to see Troy on a medium screen on the very 5th day of the release and then see it shrink after the previews to a small screen(Thanks to 1.85 shrek hogging all the side masking auditoriums).  |  IP: Logged Evans A Criswell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1579 From: Huntsville, AL, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 06-16-2004 03:29 PM                        It doesn't really bother me, since it's a drastic improvement over having the sides cut off on scope movies. Since Regal fixed that "Cobb Jobb 1.85:1-only" problem with the vertically-moving masking, I don't mind the screen getting smaller, but still, it would look more professional if the movie were scope, to have the screen be in "scope mode" so the audience doesn't see the screen get smaller. Of course, advertising money is more important than professional presentations nowadays.  |  IP: Logged

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