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Topic: Harkins Southlake

David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 06-01-2006 09:43 AM

In the context of discussions here, "vertical masking" ususally means "movable vertical masking".

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-01-2006 02:35 PM

quote: Michael Coate
Has anyone actually been to this new Harkins complex and observed whether they utilize vertical masking on any of their screens? I'll give Harkins a "free pass" on this one if they went with horizontal masking at their new complex. But nonetheless, every exhibitor is guilty of this horrible practice in many if not most of their modern facilities.

I have not been to the brand new Southlake complex in Texas, but I suspect it is very similar (if not identical) to the Cine Capris in Oklahoma City. The OKC location does not use vertical masking. I watched the last "Harry Potter" film there and its 'scope image took up all the height and width of the screen.

Aside from the slightly dim projection on a screen honestly too big for 35mm to handle, my only other complaint with the Cine Capris is the colors are a bit drab (goldish yellow curtains, lots of earth tones, etc.). On the upside, it isn't cheap or cartoony looking.

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Steve Scott
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1300
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 06-01-2006 03:26 PM

None of their press release really alludes to proper film presentation. To me, it looks like more of an attempt at selling the look of their lobby, and the whole paragraph on the wonders of child care in the theatre doesn't help the showmanship aspect. A good showman ought to be the one that keeps the kids acting civil in the auditorium, not designating a chamber for their short attention spans. A cry room would have been adequate. [Smile]

Amenities are the things that kill me too. The more features you throw into a location just give the managers something to gloat about. It's an easy attraction device, whereas it often seems that decent presentation just requires too much vigilance on the part of staff, or in this case, managers [uhoh]

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-01-2006 11:55 PM

quote: Andrew McCrea
I thought vertical masking was good.

quote: David Stambaugh
In the context of discussions here, "vertical masking" ususally means "movable vertical masking".

...which means that "scope" movies are shown smaller than "flat." And this, as far as I'm concerned, is just plain WRONG!!!

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 06-05-2006 09:26 AM

quote:
...which means that "scope" movies are shown smaller than "flat." And this, as far as I'm concerned, is just plain WRONG!!!

Caring About Composition

quote:
"Scope" Is Meant to be Wider than "Flat"

Filling the full width of the screen for both 2.39:1 scope pictures and 1.85:1 flat pictures is almost as bad as "one size fits all" screens. This poor practice has become a popular trend in modern theatre designs, especially those with stadium seating. The misguided idea is to fill the front wall of the theatre with the biggest image possible, regardless of the intended format. So instead of maintaining the same image height for the scope and flat formats by using adjustable side masking, both formats are projected with the same width. The top and bottom masking are adjusted to letterbox the scope format, and actually project a much smaller image than the flat format.

What's wrong with this picture? Plenty! First, the wider 2.39:1 scope format is usually chosen to give pictures greater impact, than the more intimate 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Letterboxing it to a smaller image often violates the intent of the cinematographer and director in telling a big story.

Image quality of the flat format suffers in comparison to the scope format, especially when common width screens are used. The projectable image area of the 1.85:1 flat format is only 65 percent of the much larger and efficient scope format. It makes no sense to project the much smaller flat film image area on the print to a much larger picture than scope on the screen. It simply magnifies the grain and greatly reduces the light level. For example, a theatre that is getting the SMPTE aim of 16 footlamberts for scope on a 25 x 60 foot screen, will typically get only about 13 footlamberts for the less efficient flat
format on a 25 x 46 foot screen, which is still within the tolerances allowed by the standard. But if they try to magnify the flat image to fill a 32 x 60 foot screen, they will only get a sub-standard 8 footlamberts, since the light must be spread over a much larger screen area. When you project flat and scope
films to the same width on the screen, bigger is definitely not better!

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-05-2006 10:27 AM

I guess digital cinema throws a little wrench in the discussion with "Flat" having more resolution and equal or better (depending on if an anamorphic lens is used for "scope") light output.

That is the thing that's made the least sense to me about the DCI spec. I know it saves money on anamorphic lenses but they should have specified that "scope" would be anamorphically squeezed and use the entire chip resolution. The projectors could have un-squeezed the image for use without an anamorphic lense for cheapo installations.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-05-2006 06:42 PM

I'm not sure about the 2K chip designs, but the really crappy low rez 1280 X 1024 pixel DLP projectors did indeed use an anamorphic lens. They had to do so! Crop into an image only 1024 pixels tall? Without aid of an anamorphic lens even all the "digital is nothing but orgasmically great" fanboys would have even had to say, "hey, man, that looks like ass!"

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-05-2006 07:48 PM

The way DCI specifies things, the native resolution of 'scope is 2048x858 (2k), 4096x1714 (4k) and flat is 1998x1080 (2k), 3996x2160 (4k). So neither format uses the entire imager. The projector has the option to fill the whole imager with 'scope and do an anamorphic squeeze. The projector operating in this mode is not allowed to degrade the image.

So the flat format has about 23% more resolution than the 'scope format that was designed for bigger picture.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-11-2006 06:59 PM

I'm not sure if/when I'll be able to check out a show at the Harkins Southlake Theater. I did look up its location on Google Earth and it is right along the path I usually take into the Dallas area. In fact this new theater is right across the street from a 7-11 where I've stopped many times to get gas or just take a pit stop on road trips back and forth between Lawton and Dallas.

The town of Southlake is just west of Grapevine. Part of this area are pretty affluent. This new theater is less than 4 miles away from Cinemark's Tinseltown 17 in Grapevine.

Harkins is also going to build a new 18-plex in Grand Prairie near the I-20 TX-360 stack interchange. I can't remember what other theaters are in that immediate area.

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Paul Konen
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 981
From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-11-2006 09:56 PM

They used to have a job posting for a GM position for a new building in Plano at George Bush and Coit. They were even on the tax rolls for Plano for a while.

The position is no longer posted.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-12-2006 12:52 AM

This thread over at CinemaTour has a grand opening ad touting the wall-to-wall crap. (It's a different ad than the one Brad posted in this thread's initial post.)

John Pytlak wrote:

quote:
"Scope" Is Meant to be Wider than "Flat"

Thanks for posting this, John. I'm surprised there hasn't been much if any outrage over this practice ("flat" movies being shown larger than "scope" due to wall-to-wall screens), particularly from the "Hip To Showmanship" and "Film Done Right" crowd here at film-tech.

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Dustin Mitchell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1865
From: Mondovi, WI, USA
Registered: Mar 2000

posted 06-12-2006 02:39 AM

What you are advocating, essentially, is a smaller flat image, not a larger scope image. Assuming side masking the scope image for a common height and common width screen should be almost the same-there is no reduction in the quality of the scope image. If the equipment and screen size are adequate to ensure good light on the screen even for flat on a common width screen-where's the beef?

I don't get it, really. I mean, I could see it if you were running your trailers in flat and your image got smaller for the scope feature, but that hardly ever happens in first run plexes anymore. Common width doesn't make scope smaller, it just makes flat bigger and so long as the flat image is still acceptable (which it isn't in John P's example) I can't see what the big deal is.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 06-12-2006 07:12 AM

Many theaters touting "wall to wall" screens in their ads are not using side masking. You have a vertical mask that lowers for 'scope movies. That does indeed make a 'scope movie noticeably smaller than a flat one. I've seen this sort of thing done often at AMC locations.

I will say the "wall to wall screens" term is something that gets used on lots of grand opening ads regardless of the kind of masking used on the screen.

What has not been confirmed (at least in the verbiage in this thread) is whether this new Harkins location uses vertical masking on its Cine Capris screen, much less any other screen in this 14 screen complex.

It also sounds like some people are complaining about this Harkins site without having visited the place to actually see how good or bad it is.

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1400
From: Davie, FL, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 06-12-2006 08:52 AM

Another thing about "wall to wall" screens. Some locations I've been to (notably Muvico) have a curved black wall which begins about 10 feet or so in front of the screen and curves inward. The exit hallway is placed along this wall. So I guess technically the screen is "wall to wall" but if the walls were square there would be 6-8 feet on each side of the screen.

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Richard Fowler
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA
Registered: Jun 2001

posted 06-12-2006 09:14 AM

Generally like in the Muvico design the screen is basically wall to wall in reference to the seating area [Wink]

; angle wall constuction helps create space for adequate Exit passage between auditoriums. 70% of the screens that I outfitted in the past decade where wall to wall top masking set-ups. Some of the small auditoriums looked like a poor man's IMAX when projecting 1.66 / 1.85 images [Confused]

Client, architect, construction per square foot demands overruled side masking. I was lucky to do two way masking systems in 10% of the locations to get the best average from each format.

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