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This topic comprises 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Author
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Topic: Worst 70mm Presentation EVER of IAMMMMMW
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-01-2013 03:27 PM
quote:
their chief projectionist came from a 35mm screening room downtown before it closed so his 70mm experience is minimal, at best . . . . It stains the crew and the crew chief for having more ego than brains.
It sounds, Michael, like you’ve got some personal issues with Don Schul. I mean, I'm hearing some bitterness here. Have you considered telling him this stuff to his face, as opposed to running he and his operation down behind their backs?
quote:
Funny how in that situation, instead of calling on their union for help by sending over a person who had shown 70mm in a Broadway house or elsewhere, they "toughed it out" on the basis of ego and a pay check . . . One person with experience would have changed the entire picture on IAMMMMW.
Who are the heavy 70mm people still in 306? Were they available for a 12-hour call during Christmas week? Why do you think their help was even needed? Because of one anecdotal, unsubstantiated report of a bad show? I attended the Walter Reade screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey last week that Kier Dullea appeared at. It was a beautifully presented show, flawless, and I hear that Ryan’s Daughter looked great as well. In fact, on all the other various film-related forums where this festival has been discussed, there have been no real reports of projection issues at all, save for a single mis-cue with the intermission of Mad World the first time it was run. Which leads me to:
quote: Michael Goucher
Fact is, as a New York union person I can vouch for the fact that almost everyone on that crew saw 70mm for the first time when this series of films showed up in the booth.
And as a long-time FSLC member, I can vouch for the fact that you are wrong. Over the years there have been plenty of 70mm prints in and out of both that booth and Alice Tully Hall. I have seen Playtime there at least twice, 2001 at least once before last week, West Side Story and others. They don’t get a great deal of it, but it comes in. Films from all over the world come into that booth, and receive clean presentations, and I’ve personally seen quite a few over the years. Really, I don’t EVER recall seeing a badly projected film there in all the while it has been open.
So, basically, they are running 70mm in that booth just fine. But here is this (wildly exaggerated sounding) tirade about a not-very-well-handled presentation of a single show, and all of a sudden the torches and nooses are out and the whole booth crew is a bunch of incompetent, inexperienced, egotistical money-grubbing whores.
Crock of shit.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-03-2013 09:57 AM
Hey Mark, before you get your pantyhose all up in a knot, let me point out that I was only commenting on THAT particular Saturday show. I haven't seen many shows at the WR probably only two other times and years ago at that, it's not a venue I frequent. So I can't and was not commenting on their general level of presentation that has gone before; my comments were specific to the way they handled 70mm presentation for that screening and that led me to comment that IF that was they way the handled 70mm, they should get out of the film exhibition business. I stand by that statement.
You claim you've seen many shows and they were always "just fine." I am glad for you. But the one I saw wasn't just fine and it was that screening that my "tyrade" was about. If an image is out of focus and I don't see ANY attempt to focus it, I call that sloppy projection work; you seem to call it a "wild exageration" -- sounds like you would just shrug that off and just fine. For me, out of focus is out of focus. If a dowser is left open for overture music in black with the lights already dim and at no time do either of the two guys in the booth have the sense to close it as crap dances all over the screen, I call that sloppy projection....what would you call it? Mis-frame? If Brad had his way, the guy wouldn't have been able to correct it be he feels that the frame knob should be removed and the shaft locked down because a projectionist should know how to frame when he threads. It's not a tyrade and it's not a crock of shit, brother, it's an objective observation based on what I know a presentation SHOULD look and sound like. OK, you never saw bad projection at that theatre since it was opened, lucky you, but you weren't at THAT screening and I was; I wasn't commenting on every 70mm screening the Walter Reade ever ran in the past, I was commenting on the one I sat through for 154 minutes and it was a C- level presentation.
Scott, yes, sound could have been the print, but uncomfortably loud? And if the focus was a print issue (possibly warmping, although unlikely as this was proclaimed a new print), but I've run a badly VS mag print of PORGY AND BESS and when I found out with a test run of the problem I had a second buddy up there and one of us was always at focus knob keeping the center of the action in focus. You and I certainly can tell when there is an attempt to keep the center in focus. Guys who have short throws and huge screens are ALWAYS needing to touch up focus. This thing just never moved. My hand was trying to turn an invisible focus knob thru the whole show. And if they KNEW there was a focus problem (this was the second show of this print) they should have made an announcement and at least explained and apologized to the audience.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-03-2013 11:18 AM
I wasn't there and have never seen a show at this theatre, and so cannot and will not comment on this particular screening. I do agree that projecting black overture music spacing, missing changeovers and making no attempt to keep the picture in focus or in rack, wherever that happens, is a failure of basic craft skills, either because the projectionist didn't have them or, for one of a number of reasons, was unable to use them.
What I do know, both as a projectionist and an archivist, is that the availability both of film projectionist skills and spares and support for the hardware is only going to decline from here on in. When I first signed up on F-T in 2000, there were probably around 100-150 posts a day on Film Handlers' Forum. Now, there are a dozen at most. That is how quickly film projection has gone from being a mainstream to a legacy technology. Another demonstration is that even in big, downtown venues in cities that are the showcase of a country's film industry (I'm thinking of the scratched 70mm print of The Master in London), it's proving difficult to put on a good presentation.
Therefore, if we want to be able to preserve the ability for audiences to see 'film done right' into the medium term future, even if only in a handful of venues worldwide, it's going to take some joined up thinking and planning. Shameless Plug: the Projection and Presentation Committee of AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) held a panel about this at last month's conference in Seattle, and we have plans afoot for an archival projection workshop at this year's, in Richmond, VA, in December. I'm hoping that we'll be able to make some videos and other resources at that event which can serve as an online go-to place for venues and festivals that do wish to persevere with film (either for film's sake, or because what they want to show is not available in good quality digital), and in particular for solving the vicious circle whereby archives are imposing ever more stringent conditions while at the same time venues are losing the skills and equipment needed to meet them.
As the plans for this take shape, and when AMIA's new website is launched (we're promised, later this month) and the P & P Committee establishes its presence on it, I'll post updates on what we're doing, and all input and suggestions would be welcome.
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-03-2013 12:46 PM
That’s all very well and good, Frank, but here’s the thing: you DID SEE JUST ONE SHOW, as you have just admitted. During the festival, the Reade ran 26 shows of 15 separate titles. So, 25 shows go without a hitch. The show of Mad World that you saw, well, there were issues.
Each and every one of us on this forum has had bad shows, and if any of you deny it I will call you a liar right to your profile picture. Many years ago here I admitted to one of mine, and there were more. During my years in the booth, ninety percent of which were in single screen changeover houses, I probably started about 7000+ shows, with what, 35,000 changeovers? Believe me, not all of them were clean, including a showing of For Your Eyes Only to a packed 700 seat theatre while in the middle of a blinding migraine. It was ugly.
But I’m proud to say 99.9% of my shows were clean, sharp and in-frame, I don’t think I was off the screen due to carelessness more then the once in 15 years, and I was considered a reliable professional. So this is what pisses me off about this thread: I know by my long patronage at the Film Society of Lincoln Center that their projection staff is highly competent in both 35 and 70mm. But it looks like you had a bad experience (and Frank, be honest, are you sure that you didn’t exaggerate just a teeny-weeny bit about how bad this show was)? And this is what it turned into on this thread:
The staff at the FSLC is incompetent! They’ve never seen 70mm before last week!! Don Schul (Lincoln Center projection HOD) is an inexperienced egotist!!! They should have called the union office for someone with more experience (because God knows, IA306 has got plenty of of 70mm Century JJ guys waiting around for calls during Christmas week)!!!! They are just out for their paychecks!!!!! THEY’RE UNION MEMBERS, SO WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FOR CHRISSAKES!!!!!!!!
. . . . followed by a lot of furious chest pounding about how nobody here would have ever ever allowed such a shoddy presentation.
C’mon, with this crap.
By the way, Frank, did you walk out or ask for you money back? No?
Couldn’t have been that bad, I guess.
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