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Topic: Harkins Southlake

Daniel Joseph Fredrickson
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: Apache Junction, Arizona
Registered: Jun 2006

posted 06-25-2006 03:34 PM

Harkins Director of Engineering has given out information before publically about it's setups and everything- if I were to post pictures and everything.... maybe I did say too much. Anyway... Most the things I said you could discover by simply looking at the lobby projector in any Harkins Theatres theatre or doing a search for the Cine Capri online.

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James Westbrook
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1133
From: Lubbock, Texas, Usa
Registered: Mar 2006

posted 06-25-2006 04:37 PM

If one is careful, posting in these forums should not compromise one's employment. Daniel's post is quite fascinating. The main negative I noted was the downgrading of their choice of projectors (Kineton to Cinemecannica). This is likely due to cost. If the managers are on top of things and treat their staff and customers right, their new theatre should do well.
Their PR person still needs to explain how they arrived at the number of speakers at the Cine Capri...assuming that person knows what they are talking about. (huh huh huh..."assume"). [Smile]

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-25-2006 09:24 PM

So, do they actually employ projectionists, or is the Cine Capri manager-operated?

And why the heck would they switch from the machine that offers one of the steadiest pictures (Kinoton) to one which offers one of the least-steady (Cinemeccanica)?

Does anyone have pictures of this place that can be posted in this thread (or as a separate picture tour)?

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 06-25-2006 10:00 PM

I heard they had problems with Kinoton projector heads starting to get bouncy because they put them on SLC consoles which are very hotspotty. That is one thing the PK60D doesn't like. It can soften up the delrin framing bushing. That leads to image unsteadiness. The solution of course would have been to just do the right thing and use Kinoton heads on Kinoton consoles. Which also gives you more and more even light. We have run a complex with all Kinoton FP50A consoles for close to 1 1/2 years now with very few and no significant problems.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 06-25-2006 10:04 PM

Aha, well that makes sense. As someone who has put a good number of Kinoton heads on Christie lamphouses, you MUST MUST MUST use water jackets AND heat filters. If you don't, the Kinoton head will develop severe image bouncing problems. If you do, the Kinoton head will perform magnificently, even with a 6k lamp.

Kinoton really needs to explain this to people when they sell a PK60D, because in my opinion it makes them look bad when their projector is installed with another company's lamphouse that produces too much heat for the PK60 to handle.

I have been the most pleased with the Christie heat filters and MiT makes the best circulator (excluding the insanely priced Kinoton unit). There is a picture of one on the Studio Movie Grill Copperfield picture page, which just so happens to have Kinoton heads on Christie lamphouses.

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Daniel Joseph Fredrickson
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: Apache Junction, Arizona
Registered: Jun 2006

posted 06-26-2006 01:25 AM

For the Cine Capri, they don't have sperate projectionists. It's typically 1 projectionists running all of the theatres including the Cine Capri.

I'm not really sure of the Kinoton setups used at the other theatres. I assume they have the water jackets and or heat filters. It was one of the steadiest pictures I've ever seen- and the theatre I was at had been running for 5 years. I know at my theatre at least we have the Mit circulators on projectors with higher wattage lamps. But then again we are using all Strong Lamphouses- not Christies.

There are just a couple pictures of the Capri Auditorium available online , however obtaining pictures of the booth or Cine Capri equipment would be near impossible due to the company's policies on photography.

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Steve Scott
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 06-26-2006 12:32 PM

That cooling issue is likely what made some performances at Crown's Block E-15 unsteady, as well. I've watched Minneapolis print of Fight Club run fine through the Riverview's Simplex 35/65, but shake & stutter in (what were then) Crown's new Kinoton heads.

Good to finally know, maybe. [Wink]

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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"

Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002

posted 06-26-2006 06:40 PM

quote: Brad Miller
Aha, well that makes sense. As someone who has put a good number of Kinoton heads on Christie lamphouses, you MUST MUST MUST use water jackets AND heat filters. If you don't, the Kinoton head will develop severe image bouncing problems. If you do, the Kinoton head will perform magnificently, even with a 6k lamp.

Kinoton really needs to explain this to people when they sell a PK60D, because in my opinion it makes them look bad when their projector is installed with another company's lamphouse that produces too much heat for the PK60 to handle.

I think they probably tell people that. But it also says very specifically in the manual that you should use water cooling above 3k in all cases. Heat filters are usually in all of their lamphouses. That some other lamphouses are more hotspotty is probably something that should be known. I have a location where the SLC lamphouses burnt huge holes in the (Simplex) dousers. Consider that the dousers are only exposed to that focussed beam of light for a few seconds! A good reason for heat filters - and new dousers, of course.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 06-26-2006 07:17 PM

Of course, when "digital projection" takes over the theater circuits may not take any of those liquid considerations into account since they will just assume "digital equals perfect" and that any cheap-ass shitball stunt will fly. Let's have a 250 watt lamp! Afterall, it's digital! You're wrong if you have a problem with it! It's digital! We could light it with a 1 watt lamp and it would still be great since it is digital! You're invited to eat a handgrenade if you have a problem with the quality! It's digital! Digital! Digital! Digital!
[Mad]

It's pretty obvious many of the folks who hold jobs as executives of movie theater circuits don't bother to watch any movies in any of their theaters. If they actually did such a thing we wouldn't be hearing about cost cutting bullshit like the Kinoton to Cinemecannica switch happening at a certain circuit's non-Arizona builds. Yeah, it's all the same. The cheap shit is good enough. Fuck those customers. They just need to pay and shut their damned mouths. Pay my fuckin' Mercedes payments, biotch!!!

Well, I recognize the rock and hard place area in which the theater circuits are stuck. The movie distributors are the real villains in all this mess. The distributors are just using today's level of video projection technology to cut costs, not actually offer something that compares to 35mm projection done right. But the "digital" buzzword pays a lot of dividends so they throw it out there like a trump card.

In the end, the bottom line is the only thing that matters. If quality of presentation is diminished, so be it. If the whole thing is a step backward in the name of "digital," so be it. American businesses are only in the business of making money. We don't actually make a tangible product anymore. We just do whatever to make some shareholders happy.

As an analogy, when asked, "what do you do for a living," a Japanese auto manufacturing executive would respond, "I make cars for a living." The American executives would respond, "I make money for a living." And there you have the symptom on why conditions on average are regressing backwards in quality in the movie theater industry. The people running the show probably couldn't give the first shit about movies. They may not watch them at all. They only want to make money off the enterprise. They need a ball pean hammer strike up side the head. Real justice that would be.

Late Edit: Sorry about the vitriol of this post. I had a couple beers (and it was a typical Monday) when I wrote it. After bicycling around 15 miles to work some stress out of the system things are better.

But still, that big business attitude of "let's just do as little as humanly possible to get by" thing really pisses me off.

[ 06-26-2006, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]

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Will Kutler
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1506
From: Tucson, AZ, USA
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 06-27-2006 12:50 AM

The Harkins Superstitution Springs is the closest theatre to me and about the only game in town except for an AMC 25 several more miles down the I-60.

Anyhow, this theatre is noted for horrible presentations....Brad and Joe would have "field-days" forever bitchin about them!

I have also noticed that for several years Harkins has been in need of a service-tech...or so their web-site says. Don't bother applying, as you'll probably never hear back!

K

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 07-03-2006 09:38 AM

I wanted to get back on the oversized screen subject again, in how it relates to screens like Harkins' Cine Capris concept and the push to change things to digital projection.

Has anyone checked out the Christie CP2000-X digital projector? It's a 3-chip 2K DLP unit that boasts a pair of adjustable 6000 watt lamps. The company claims the projector works well for screens up to 75 feet in width.

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 07-03-2006 01:58 PM

How about THREE 6Kw xenon bulbs, one for EACH of the 3 chips?!! Lots of light for sure; you could easily reach 16fL spec on a 90ft screen. To bad it would still be 2K rez blown up to 90ft. If you think 35mm would be pushed beyond its optimum optical limits rez-wise past 60ft....imagine what 2K video looks like blown up that big. [puke]

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Lyle Romer
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 07-03-2006 03:55 PM

quote: Frank Angel
If you think 35mm would be pushed beyond its optimum optical limits rez-wise past 60ft....imagine what 2K video looks like blown up that big

It's not how big you blow it up that matters, it's how far you are from it. If you are 6" from an IMAX screen, it'll look like crap. If you are 60' from an NTSC TV, it'll look great.

If somebody is 2 screen heights from a 60 foot screen projected by a 2k DLP projector it will look the exact same as somebody 2 screen heights from a 20 foot screen projected by the same projector (assuming the projector can meet the illumination spec on both).

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 07-04-2006 12:49 AM

Of course, to be sure I would never expect 2K digital video to ever compare favorably to 35mm or especially 70mm on a giant screen. But given that giant screens are sort of a new kind of fad or trend or whatever you might want to call it with new movie theater design, it seems extremely necessary for digital cinema equipment manufacturers to make some models that can at least light a giant sized screen properly. The matter of whether those pixels in that 2K image are the size of floor tiles is another matter....
[Big Grin]

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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 07-08-2006 02:43 PM

Here's a thought which could also apply to other mega-screen theatres...if you put a dual-gauge 35mm / 70mm machine into the biggest screen (e.g. the 70ft in the Cine Capri at the Southlake complex)...then you can run classic 70mm prints, taking a cue from the current revival we're seeing (i.e. Fox restorations and so on) - which is making it more doable than it has been in the past (i.e. more and more new, good prints becoming available).

My bet there is that the extra cost might be paid back in time.
I'm going way back to a comment Steve Guttag made way at the start of the thread (sorry for this late posting). He made the pertinent point that it was a shame the Southlake site et al would be burdended with poor-quality contemporary studio movies.

So by running newly-restored prints of classic 70mm titles you are now opening up another stream of programming and really boosting box office...potentially. This is also a way into management thinking which is all about the bottom line...

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