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Topic: Theatrical print quality

John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-29-2010 12:57 PM

Scott, I think that information is outdated. My understanding is that multiple INs directly from an ARRIlaser or whatever is the norm now.

I do not have a citation.

Claude: what did they say when you asked them? If you don't ask when you see a problem, there's no chance of finding out what went wrong and possibly having it corrected, or at least explained.

--jhawk

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

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

posted 07-29-2010 12:58 PM

That sounds like an issue with auditorium/screen design. I've seen a few places (older, smaller theaters) that used a flat ratio screen and clipped the ends off of 'scope. Horrible, yet kind of funny during title sequences when the letters are running off the left or right end of the screen.
[Razz]

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 07-29-2010 08:22 PM

The Varsity Theatre in Honolulu at one time was a 800 seat single screen auditorium and a couple of years before it was twinned, Consolidated made it into a Road Show venue with 70mm and six track stereo sound capabilities and presented THE BIBLE, THE SAND PEBBLES, STAR, DR. DOOLITTLE and a revival showing of 2001 A SPACE ODDESSY all in the large film format. During the years after it was twinned, it was a very dreadful place to see 'scope' pictures projected on their narrow screens but if it was the only place to see a movie I want to see right away, I just had had to live with it. It was very painful to see important part of the image and credits on the right and left cropped off and that is the reason I tried to avoid the Varsity as much as possible. The theatre no longer exist anymore after it was demolished a couple of years ago.

I had no idea the new THE KARATE KID was released in 'scope' because the 'flat' version I saw last Sunday at the Pearlridge 16 looked normal and nothing like the severely cropped movies I used to see at the Varsity. Even the opening and closing credits looked fine with nice composition and no cropping. The screen in the auditorium seem to be too small to project 'scope' pictures because the width of the screen extended to both sides of the wall of the room. The screen ratio was not even the standard 1.85:1 but more like 1.66:1. If movies were projected in scope on this screen, it would be rather small with no up & down masking.

I saw THE KARATE KID very late during it's run when many 1st run theatres were no longer playing it. It has now been out more than a month and with about four showings a day, the print I saw must have gone through a projector over a hundred times already but I do not think it would have caused the print I saw to look as bad as the one I saw the other day. There are two kinds of light that are harmful to photographic color dyes- infrared and florescent and I believe the light from film projectors is incadestant and not harmful to color dyes on 35mm films.

-Claude

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 07-29-2010 08:33 PM

Don't ever patronize that auditorium again, because you DID see a scope print severely cropped.

Not every movie is framed to take full use of the scope aspect ratio. We used to laugh at the compositions on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because of this. Go get your letterboxed video copy, draw an imaginary 4x3 square in the middle of the letterboxed image, and with only a couple of exceptions such as the shot when young Indy is hanging on the edge of the boxcar, the entire opening sequence still works cropping it all the way down to 4x3. Its pathetic. Clearly they did this to make for an easy pan-and-scan video transfer, but still it sucks.

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Martin McCaffery
Film God

Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-29-2010 08:58 PM

quote: Brad Miller
Not every movie is framed to take full use of the scope aspect ratio.

Can you say Brett Ratner [evil]

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Michael Brown
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1522
From: Bradford, England
Registered: May 2001

posted 08-08-2010 10:34 AM

There is a single screen that I visit on occasion that seems to crop the sides of a scope image. Their scope image is slightly wider than the flat, but still is nowhere near what it should be. Last film I saw was The Ghost Writer about a month ago. It didn't really suffer from the edge cropping but still I don't really like the idea that i'm missing information on the sides that is supposed to be there.

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