Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Stadium seating vs non-stadium seating

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Film Handlers' Forum » Stadium seating vs non-stadium seating (Page 2)

This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Author

Topic: Stadium seating vs non-stadium seating

Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 10-12-2010 02:01 PM

Its not difficult to create "center-loading" stadium auditoriums, although I would say that the loading point should be 1/3 back from the screen, not halfway, or the architect ends up killing some of the best seats to the aisle.

Its also easy to compare sloped vs. stadium legroom, but in reality either can be the same. Few new theaters are sloped anymore, so there isn't much comparison. Also as was stated above, there are indeed a LOT of badly designed sloped auditoriums, in particular those from the 70s and 80s.

As far as cleaning stadium auditoriums, yes they are more difficult, but chairs can be purchased that are riser mounted, not floor mounted. That makes it easy to sweep UNDER the chairs without constantly banging the broom on the leg of the chair. Note that comes at a price, because the chairs are a little more costly and the bracing and mounting to the vertical riser can be more too.

The screen problems are typically due to stadium seating (and as Steve points out, poor architects that don't really know what they are doing). There is a general misconception that the stadium must be steep, and there becomes a point where it is prohibitively expensive to build super wide auditoriums due to the structural columns and bracing needed. But if a normal width auditorium is created with overly steep seating, suddenly the screen looks too small. So what is the inexpensive (and flat out wrong) solution? Why common width masking, of course!

For those not following the terminology, common width means the masking is controlled from the top, bottom, or both. The side masking never moves. This is the worst concept ever brought to movie theaters.

Now lets analyze this for a minute before anyone dares reply stating that common width masking is anything but foolish.

Common width masking disappoints customers. Yes there I said it. Almost every movie out these days is scope. (At least the filmmakers are finally getting it right.) Case in point, I have several complexes that have no flat movies at all playing except for a weekend kiddie show! So as a customer, you walk into the auditorium and low and behold some awful in-your-face preshow advertising "entertainment programming" is being forced upon you. Lets not worry about that too much for now. What happens is that you take your seat. Now some will argue that customers will take their seat not paying ANY attention to the distance to and/or size of the screen. I say that is absolutely incorrect (except for those people that ALWAYS sit on the back row), but regardless of that, the fact remains you take your seat somewhere comfortable to you. Most people will seat based upon a comfortable viewing distance to the screen presented. That right there becomes the problem because the show starts and the damn masking closes down. Suddenly you are watching a scope presentation and the picture just got smaller! I can't tell you how many complaints I've had to field over the years due to this. Customers don't understand the term aspect ratio and quite honestly don't give a shit even if you try and explain it to them. They just know their picture got smaller. So why are so many new theaters installing common width masking when they know DAMN GOOD AND WELL that almost all movies they run WILL BECOME A DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN THE FEATURE STARTS???

Common width masking usually = cheap exhibitor who crops the image. In digital cinema, there are people specifically installing common width because they think they can make out like bandits without paying for some sort of motorized lens. (Sadly there is at least one fairly well known company that is using this anti-SMPTE tactic as a sales tool, to try and convince future prospective customers that if they buy through them, they can show them all sorts of little tricks to save them money.) Sure the customer has a one time savings of a few bucks, but it comes at the cost of cutting the sides of the picture off for every scope movie they ever run! Ummmm, that's sort of the point of scope movies is that wider aspect ratio and how it more closely approximates the human field of vision, geniuses. [Roll Eyes]

Common width masking with stadium seating generally creates screens that are too large for the room. This is because people are so hung up on the catch phrase "wall-to-wall screens". While wall-to-wall screens can be a great thing, it shouldn't mean that you make the screen so large people have to sit in the back row to be able to properly see the entire image. With stadium seating comes excessively tall ceilings. Once that tall ceiling has been created, there is a new panic to make the screen big enough so the screen doesn't appear to be too small. Of course that's a nice idea for the commercials nobody wants to pay to watch, but then we end up back at the disappointment issue when the masking closes down as the movie starts. Fail.

Common width masking with stadium seating generally creates dim pictures. This one is easy and everyone knows why...because its all about "how small of a bulb can we run in that projector that most people won't complain about". When you then try to blow that image up on a huge wall of screen, you have certified blah that could have been better delivered at home on the flat panel tv. At that point the only thing you've got going for you is the fact you can play the movies before cable and dvd...at least so far.

Common width masking with stadium seating helps to assure the picture isn't as sharp and detailed as it really is. Come on guys, this is just a fact of lensing. Go throw up a target pattern on a 40 foot wide screen from 80 feet away using a 1.45-2.05:1 zoom lens...and then move the projector back 50 feet and use a 2.15-3.6:1 zoom lens and compare the difference. (That difference in lens and projector position will create the same sized picture.) The shorter the throw, the worse the picture. With stadium seating theaters, often the throw isn't even this generous, and external lensing must be added on top to be able to fill the screen making things even worse! The chromatic abberration and general fringing and flare on today's high brightness lenses (to be able to use that smaller bulb, remember) gets worse and worse the shorter the throw and it destroys the picture quality. But its all about running with the smallest bulb possible. Never mind that awesome sounding press release you wrote for yourself about your dedication to "only the highest quality". Nobody reads that fluff anyway. [Razz]

Common width masking with stadium seating generally causes lousy sound. Its true, creating these overly tall auditoriums due to all of the reasons above creates acoustical nightmares that often even the best sound technicians can never truly get to sound awesome because the theater owners don't want to pay all that extra money to properly treat the room acoustically (or they hire someone who doesn't really know how to handle the job, but accepts the money anyway). The tech's test equipment may SAY it sounds perfect, but trust me, it often doesn't. EQ can only do so much to a room. It can't help major design flaws like echo (and the test equipment can't separate out echo like our brains do).

There are plenty of other issues with stadium seating other than the typical use of common width masking too. Think about that pesky aisle and step lighting for a minute. Very few people understand the concept of reflected lighting, and as a result there are usually constant distractions to the left and right because of all of the lights that were not designed to offer reflected light only for safety.

Cell phones in stadium theaters do the same thing. If anyone picks up a cell phone, odds are everyone behind them will know about it even if they can't hear it. [Mad]

I'm tired of typing right now, but suffice to say a stadium seating theater CAN be designed to be awesome. Its just that most people don't put forth enough effort into it to achieve it.