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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: When do you open the curtains?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-23-2004 01:22 PM
You guys are great -- it is good to see that showmen still actually fret over this stuff which very unfortunately seems to be scoffed at and even ridiculed by the multiplex generation. No matter the slight variations in method mentioned above, the main point is that a curtain was always used, even in the underbelly, third run neighborhood theatres. All the grind houses on 42nd Street (Manhattan) used curtains even as their death knell was tolling and everything else was falling apart around them. And yes, it was considered anathema for an audience to see a "naked" screen, as the Manager's Manual at the Interstate Theatre chain (Texas) called it (circa 1965). I wish I had saved that manual -- it gave and entire chapter to "curtain protocol," and detailed the way the curtain, house and curtain warmer lights were to be used. And it made it clear what a major infraction it would be (heads would roll) if the protocol was ignored (managers and assistant managers quaked in their boots over this as it was made quite clear that heads would roll if this was not followed). In the State Theatre in Austin where I first worked, the curtain motor broke at one point and the manager went bizzerk. He assigned not one, but two ushers to be at the curtain cable back stage at least 15min before a curtain pull was needed to insure that the pull got done. He told me that there was a street manager, a kind of quality control guy from the main office, who went from theatre to theatre in the chain to check on everything. He could walk in at any time unannounced, and if he saw the curtain protocol being ignored or, godforbid, if he spotted a naked screen staring back at him, it meant Really Big Trouble. So our manager checked on the whereabouts of these two ushers every hour making sure they remembered they had curtain duty. This all may sound a bit over the top to us today, but I can assure you, these old showmen were quite serious about the feel and the look of the show. Of course multiplexes put an end to all that silliness.
The Manual emphasized exactly what you all are saying -- the curtain covers the technology and aids in the suspension of disbelief. Just as in live theatre, the curtain covers the stagehands setting up the set before the play opens. The cinema curtain does much the same thing. It is also used as a marker between the preshow gack and the main feature. In fact, a pause was specified between the curtain close and the main feature, kind of a way to increase anticipation in the audience and to signify that something of import was about to happen. It was during that interval that the mask would be reset to either wide screen or wider screen (scope) depending on the feature AR. The cartoon/attraction reel was run Academy, so even if you were running a 1.66 feature, the audience still saw the picture get wider for the feature. Of course this was predicated on a common height image; common width or reduced height scope was unheard of in those days and I am sure would be considered a lot more unacceptable than seeing a naked screen.
Yes, the color of the curtain is a guiding factor. A dark or patterned curtain is not conducive to projecting anything on it. In the a handful of the flagship theatres you would find a double curtain the Grand Curtain, usually a waterfall curtain, and a screen curtain, usually a split traveler. Radio City Music Hall, which has relegated film programs only to the occasional special events, still uses double curtains. The Grand Curtain flys exposing the screen curtain which unlike the main curtain is designed for sound as well as picture being projected on it.
Screen curtains designed for film presentation were almost always of a light color (ours is a cream-white satin) so projecting the studio logo on it would not be an issue as long as the curtain opened fast enough so that the logo would remain on the screen long enough for it to be viewed completely (curtain opened full). Our proscenium is 45ft width and the Fox logo frame will remain on the screen long enough for the curtain to completely clear the mask while the frame is still being projected if it is a 1.85 image. For scope, it doesn't get completely opened before the logo frame changes (or crossfades to the CinemaScope frame in the older titles) but it opens about to a 2:1 AR which for all practical purposes lets the logo frame almost totally visible. On the other hand, almost all theatres now (even back then) splice on their own custom logo snip before the studio logo, so if the curtain does cover the first few seconds of the opening image, it is not the actual start of the film.
Then there is the issue of the sound. If the curtain was designed specifically as a screen curtain, it should be a fabric that is nearly transparant acoustically. If it is some other fabric like standard velour, it will block the opening logo music and in such a case a decision will have to be made as to what is more offensive -- allowing a naked screen or allowing muffed sound. I've seen main curtains not designed for sound transparency or even for clean image projection (dark colors, distracting designs, scallops, etc.) being opened before any picture is projected and only after the curtain clears most of the screen does the projectionist project the first frame. If there are the proper curtain warmers, at least the screen will be bathed in color, and not just a white blank. But here the instincts of a good showman will dictate what works best for his presentation.
I work an auditorium built within the last 10 years and it has no screen curtain, but we do all we can to prevent it from looking naked. We use motion lights that project continually moving splashes of light and now that we have a fairly powerful video projector, we project those "visualizations" that are incorporated in the media players like RealPlayer, Windows Media Player and WinAmp that sync to the preshow music. We also have two mirror ball units that project specs of light on the screen. It's not a curtain, but it's not a totally blank screen either.
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Ray Kaufman
Film Handler
Posts: 16
From: San Pedro, CA, USA
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 06-23-2004 06:29 PM
Dan, sorry to read you're losing those curtains. It still could've worked as the ads and previews could start on curtain closed or in, (more on 'in' in a moment.) and then closing them to open again on the feature's logo, if one.
We are an old fashioned, movie palace and still try and start as originally intended, with the curtains closed. When this house first opened, there were three sets of curtains, The Grand, Main and Title curtains. All were split and could either travel or fly. In addition, we had three-color footlights and border lights which are fun to change and literally dance color throughout the auditorium.
Part of the build-up to the Feature Presentation was all the things that could and should be done with the curtains. Let's say there are a series of 4 trailers. The Grand could open with the Theatre's snipe beginning moving into the trailers. The Main and Title are flown up and out. As the previews end, the Grand stays open but the main flys in. Behind it, the Title is brought in, unseen by the audience. When the feature starts, the main travels open revealing the logo as it's projected and then the Title rapidly flies out. Picture starts.
On ending the show, when the credits, if any, roll and assuming they're white on black background, now's the time to have fun with the foot and border lights as they'll reflect whatever color is thrown on the screen, not affecting the letter clarity at all. When either the MPAA slug comes up or The End, then the Title curtain flies in one last time.
And for the manager mentioned in the beginning of this topic, Ya needs to come to L.A. and visit the start of any El Capitan screening to see the audience reaction to the light and curtain show prior to the movie. Even though it's automation, it never fails to get a round of applause. It's called showmanship and is one of the few pleasures left, setting oneself apart from the ho-hum rest.
Oh yeah, one last point. There's a reason it's called a Title curtain.
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-24-2004 01:44 AM
For houses with just one curtain that isn't acoustically transparent, if the film opens with just music or sound effects at the top with the picture under the logo, I think it's no problem opening the curtain as the picture hits the screen. The fanfare not only increases in volume as the curtains open, but 'blooms' with the highs filling out. It is effective as a top of show device.
If it's not music, the type of dialog placed there is likely not to be much of a problem either in the maximum of 10 seconds that it takes to get the curtain out. Audiences are easily more sensitive to intelligibility of dialog than a *lot* of picture defects, & there'll be a few seconds of increased attentiveness & effort to decode the information which will actually work for pulling them into the show in that process in the short period that rapidly decreases in the need to expend that effort.
The whole lights down, sound up, opening the curtain with the picture idea anyway is a manipulative process of quickly sequential new occurrences designed to immediately draw the individuals' attention from inner thoughts or the surroundings & conduct their awareness entirely into the show. It's fast & effective & successful, & what the audience member wants.
I think you can see the result of not using such a system to quickly & completely direct the individual's attention entirely into the show at theaters with no curtain & long waits before the feature. In those cases, even after the show starts, you're still settling & trying to get into the picture.
The top of the show is one of the most worried-over, worked-over, & highly constructed points of ANY show: live, filmed, reproduced from film, whatever. If it's ineffective, they're not grabbed immediately, & you've got to battle harder & longer to get their heads into the show. During that wasted time, the audience is struggling, & not feeling very satisfied with the results of what they came (& paid) to see.
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