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Author Topic: Interstellar locations running in 70MM Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 10-24-2014 06:18 PM                    Keeping the DTS name would have benefited both parties. Familiarity and good will built up for the name benefits the cinema side. Connection to theatrical adds prestige to the home side.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-24-2014 06:32 PM                        Exactly - the fact that the DTS brand is proving hard to kill is a testament to how successful and eponymous with high quality audio it is/was.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-24-2014 07:02 PM                     The Datasat guys have been nothing short of awesome in helping keep film alive...especially 70mm. Regardless of which name they are referred to, a wholehearted THANK YOU is well deserved. Daniel, Mike, everyone over there...THANK YOU for everything you do. You keep continuously setting the standard for quality service and genuinely caring about what you do. On a similar note, the discussion popped up off site regarding what this 5/70 release of Interstellar will do to the future of the format if some of the theaters running it ends up hiring a yahoo to play in the role of projectionist or technician. Think about it. Paramount is spending a ton of man-hours in just trying to get these screens booked. Theaters are trying to get their existing systems running or are racing to assemble systems to meet the date. At this stage the equipment chosen and most importantly, the installation technician, will have a major role in whether the presentation will be first class or not before the projectionist even gets on site. Next comes the projectionist. The best install in the world will be destroyed with a less-than-great projectionist. The print could be ruined in one single pass. Or alternatively lazy projectionists without proper film cleaning practices will end up with a print littered with dust and dirt (eventually to become scratches). Issues that happen in these regards will negate the entire purpose of a 70mm presentation. Think about it...even if everything went flawlessly and with sheer perfection, but the lens is of older optical technology or is just the wrong lens for the job, the entire efforts become a waste because an equal or better presentation could've been had with 35mm and quality 35mm lenses. But worse yet, if the prints get dirty or scratched, the entire thing will be seen as a FAIL in the industry. This could seriously hurt the future of releases in 5/70. Remember these prints cost over $20,000.00 EACH! Let's hope all of these systems were setup by quality technicians, with good equipment and are operated by truly qualified professional projectionists. Only ONE of the Titanic 70mm prints left the first engagement without any damage 17 years ago. This had better not have a similar outcome. I loaned my personal equipment to the two SMG locations and the LOOK Cinemas free-of-charge to make those screens happen and I certainly want to see future 5/70 releases. If anyone here knows a projectionist running one of these 70mm Interstellar prints, tell them not to screw it up. For any of those interested, here are the setups for a few of the 70mm installs. If anyone can chime in on the others, it would be interested to know what everyone is running. SMG ROYAL screen 8 (Dallas TX) *New installation (by Brad Miller/Dan Lyons) *Film-Tech projection staff (Brad Miller/Dan Lyons/Jeremy Spracklen/Dwayne Caldwell/Emma Tomiak) *Screen size approx 45 feet *Century JJ projector with water cooling and heat filter *Christie SLC lamphouse burning 6000 watt bulb *Christie AW3R platter *Custom oversize center rings (permits the platter to be calibrated to a slower top speed) *Film-Tech Safety Rings (prevents the possibility of a thrown print) *FilmGuard on every pass (wet gate projection and static elimination) *Dual XD10s *QSC BASIS sound processor *QSC 4-way speakers *Masking and aperture plate dead on with RP91 SMG ARLINGTON screen 2 (Arlington TX) *New installation (by Brad Miller/Dan Lyons) *Film-Tech projection staff (Brad Miller/Dan Lyons/Jeremy Spracklen/Dwayne Caldwell/Emma Tomiak) *Screen size approx 45 feet *Century JJ projector with water cooling and heat filter *Christie SLC lamphouse burning 6000 watt bulb *Christie AW3R platter *Custom oversize center rings (permits the platter to be calibrated to a slower top speed) *Film-Tech Safety Rings (prevents the possibility of a thrown print) *FilmGuard on every pass (wet gate projection and static elimination) *Dual XD10s *QSC BASIS sound processor *QSC 3-way speakers *Masking and aperture plate dead on with RP91 LOOK CINEMAS screen 1 (Dallas TX) *New installation (by Brad Miller/Dan Lyons) *Film-Tech projection staff (Brad Miller/Dan Lyons/Jeremy Spracklen/Dwayne Caldwell/Emma Tomiak) *Screen size approx 65 feet *Century JJ projector with water cooling and heat filter *Christie SLC lamphouse burning 6000 watt bulb *Christie AW3R platter *Custom oversize center rings (permits the platter to be calibrated to a slower top speed) *Film-Tech Safety Rings (prevents the possibility of a thrown print) *FilmGuard on every pass (wet gate projection and static elimination) *Dual XD20s *Dolby CP850 processor *Klipsch speakers *Masking and aperture plate dead on with RP91 ALAMO RITZ screen 1 (Austin TX) *Existing installation (I believe by Richard Tucker) *Alamo in-house projection staff (Dan Cofer/Jason Metcalfe/Sara Cushman/Ryan Croci/Tiernan O'Rourke/Joshua Brown) *Screen size approx 45 feet??? (Alamo guys, please verify) *Century JJ projector with water cooling and heat filter *Strong Super Highlight 2 lamphouse burning 4000 watt bulb *Changeover *Single XD10 *Dolby CP650 processor *JBL speakers *Masking and aperture plate within acceptable cropping on RP91  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-24-2014 10:44 PM                        Amen to Brad's praises of Datasat. quote: Brad Miller Only ONE of the Titanic 70mm prints left the first engagement without any damage 17 years ago. This had better not have a similar outcome. Sadly, The Master did have a similar outcome. The situation we're now in is that it's only when a very successful director with a lot of political and economic clout absolutely demands film and makes it a red line in his/her contract that a release on film (let alone 70mm) happens, that it does. The Master was both a commercial failure as a movie, period (I think it lost around $10-12m in the end), and the 70mm release was plagued by damaged prints and technical problems. This raised the political bar for future film releases, and if the Interstellar one is done wrong, the bar might just end up being raised a bit too high to make the next one (beyond Tarantino's) viable. Although we're not going to be playing Interstellar as part of the initial release, I think the odds are pretty high that we'll be doing some one-off shows in the second run round, and so for the record, our details are as follows. EGYPTIAN THEATRE - American Cinematheque, Hollywood, CA *Existing installation by Boston Light and Sound in 1999 *There have been four 70mm public screenings in this house since April, all of them Datasat (formerly DTS) *AmCin in-house projection staff: three projectionists have run 70mm shows since April and can thus be considered "current" in terms of experience and training. *Screen size approx 52 feet; 94-foot throw from projector to screen *Screen sufrace: Harkness Perlux 1.0 gain miniperf *Philips DP70/Norelco AAII projectors with water cooling *Christie lamphouses - 6K lamps *Isco Ultra-Star 105mm prime lenses *Changeover *Two 6Ds (one running as a backup to the other) *Dolby CP200 plus Datasat AP20 processors (output from the CP200 goes EQed into the AP20 and passed "flat" to the power amps) *JBL speakers *Masking and aperture plates within acceptable cropping on RP91 AERO THEATRE - American Cinematheque, Santa Monica, CA *Existing installation, I believe by Boston Light and Sound in 2004 *There have been 6 70mm public screenings in this house since April - 4 Datasat (formerly DTS) and 2 mag *AmCin in-house projection staff: three of us have run 70mm shows since April and are thus "current". *Screen size approx 41 feet; throw 75 feet *Screen surface - Harkness Perlux 140 miniperf *Philips DP70/Norelco AA (mk. I) projectors *Schneider prime lenses - don't have the focal distance but probably 80-90mm *Kinoton lamphouses - 4K lamps *Changeover *One XD10 *Dolby CP650 *Klipsch speakers *Masking and aperture plates within acceptable cropping on RP91  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-24-2014 10:53 PM                     Is that right? A 52 foot screen with microperfs??? I'll bet those Interstellar prints will see a lot of second run playdates. Specifically your locations and places like the AFI. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one concerned about some of the theaters deciding to run 70mm when they haven't ran it in forever or a theater that is cobbling something together and then passing it off to a projectionist that has little to zero 70mm experience. That is exactly what needs to NOT happen or 70mm will be doomed in the future.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-24-2014 11:03 PM                        Yup, that's right. The front rows are pretty close to the screen. Being realistic, few if any of the projectionists handling the 5/70 prints will have much recent experience handling and projecting 70mm, because there has been only one new movie released on 5/70 prints in the last decade and the first run of Interstellar is happening in mainstream venues, not the sort of rep houses that are doing the 70mm classics shows. I've only projected four public 70mm shows since I started working for AmCin in April - significantly less than one a month, and that is in rep houses that do the classics shows. Human beings all make mistakes occasionally, and for a high profile show such as a 70mm one I would always be grateful to be working in a double-staffed booth in which we check each other's threading and so on; though I realize that this is not economically possible in most cases. I hope that the staffing arrangements for those working the Interstellar 5/70 first run screenings will take account of the high stakes involved, allowing sensible amounts of time for preparation, cleaning, double-checking, not having to keep an eye on the digital shows running in 11 other screens at the same time, etc. etc. Because everyone involved in this is going to have to be super careful, meticulous and prepared.  |  IP: Logged Julian Antos Film Handler Posts: 76 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: Nov 2009 posted 10-26-2014 11:27 AM                     quote: Sadly, The Master did have a similar outcome ... the 70mm release was plagued by damaged prints and technical problems. Is this actually true? I read of one high profile screening that had to be DCP due to equipment failure, and one venue ordering a replacement print. It would be interesting to know what kind of shape all of the sixteen (number quoted from an interview with PTA) prints are in now. The first time I saw the film it was in a brand new print at a preview screening, still without credits, but the other two times were prints that had already been run for several weeks (the most recent time was print number 0013, sadly I didn't make a note of the print number a year and a half ago) and were still in excellent shape. Nearly everyone I've talked to who saw the film outside of Chicago didn't have any complaints and it seemed like the response was overwhelmingly positive.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-26-2014 02:20 PM                        It's certainly true from the political/PR perspective, regardless of the condition that most of the 5/70 prints were in at the end of the first run. The scratched print in London and the breakdown/DCP reversion made headlines in news media that normally doesn't even mention the technical aspects of moviegoing, and to an audience that mostly doesn't care about them (e.g. the front page of a British national newspaper). That will surely have hardened the Hollywood execs' resolve against film as a release medium, hence it now only happens when a filmmaker with a track record for being very commercially successful demands it. Though I take your point, and it would be very interesting to know how many of the 15 70mm prints of The Master are still in circulation and what sort of condition they're in. If the reality is that most of them survived the first run relatively unscathed, that would be good news. The important thing would be making sure that the decision makers about potential future 5/70 releases know that. The stakes are going to be very high for film with the Interstellar release - much higher than for The Master. One highly publicized scratching/breakdown incident in a prestige first run house and the anti-film lobby will be making headlines about obsolete Victorian garbage technology, etc. etc., and given that the movie itself is a much bigger public draw (The Master was a very niche interest/arthouse title really: very few mainstream filmgoers have even heard of L. Ron Hubbard, let alone would be prepared to go to the theater to see a 2.5-hour movie about him), those headlines will make a bigger impact.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 10-26-2014 06:22 PM                        quote: quote: Sadly, The Master did have a similar outcome ... the 70mm release was plagued by damaged prints and technical problems. Is this actually true? Yes. As I've posted before, when I saw it at the Ziegfeld in NYC a week into its run, it had dirt end to end. Don't know if it was a lab problem or whether someone dropped the print off of the platter. Also, it simply didn't look that good and if I didn't know that it was a 70mm print, I certainly wouldn't have realized it from looking at the screen image. It simply didn't have the brightness, sharpness or color depth I was expecting. The Ziegfeld is a single-screen theatre that used to be known for its great presentation quality. Many premieres are still held there. (It was originally a Walter Rugoff theatre and opened in the mid-1960s as a modern-day movie palace. It was later purchased by Cineplex-Odeon, then became part of the Clearview chain in 1998. Clearview slowly closed most of its venues in NYC and with only a few left, sold the remaining theaters to Bow-Tie in 2013. Clearview actually still owns the Ziegfeld, but it's run by Bow-Tie). If they can't do it right, I don't have much hope for theaters elsewhere. I was so disappointed when I saw "The Master" that I decided that the age of film presentation was indeed over and that digital presentation, for all its faults, was indeed better. Hopefully, "Interstellar" will be done right and far superior, although I'm planning to see it in IMAX 70mm, not 70/5. Frankly, I have my doubts especially in the venues which are slap dashing a 70mm projector together for the presentation (obviously NOT the theaters that Brad is involved with.) How many of the projectionists who will be working the 70mm presentations have ever successfully presented a 70mm film before? The skills needed to load a DCP and those needed to present 70mm properly are entirely different. When was the last time that Fincher saw a 70mm film projected in a typical commercial theatre and not a studio screening room? He may be expecting quality that he's not going to get.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 10-26-2014 07:06 PM                     Are you confusing David Fincher with Christopher Nolan? Fincher has been a big fan of digital and started shooting his movies with video cameras nearly a decade ago (I think Zodiac was his first digital-shot movie). Fincher did have one movie, Alien³ released with 70mm prints, but I'm under the impression he'd rather forget about that whole production experience. Christopher Nolan may indeed have some unrealistic expectations about how good the 5/70mm shows of Interstellar may be. However, if there is going to be any attempt of reviving 5/70mm the attempt has to start somewhere. Personally, my girlfriend and I have advance tickets booked at the LOOK Cinemas theater in Dallas for the Noon, Fri. Nov. 7 matinee. Can't take off earlier in the week for the first shows Tuesday evening or Wednesday since I'll be catching up with work after returning from a civic club trip to St. Louis. Later we're going to drive down to Austin and stay with some friends there so we can catch an IMAX 70mm show of Interstellar at the Bob Bullock Imax Theatre. I want to see how the movie plays in both 70mm formats. I wonder if it will be possible to get a booth tour at LOOK.  |  IP: Logged Sean Weitzel Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 619 From: Vacaville, CA (1790 miles west of Rockwall) Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-27-2014 12:32 AM                     Brad, I'm sure I am speaking for more than myself in requesting photos of the setups running film for the picture library.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-27-2014 01:28 AM                     Bobby, I believe I'm running the Friday shows at Look. Just give me a shout. Sean, of course we will take pictures. Hopefully someone can get pictures of the other sites as well.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 10-27-2014 12:13 PM                        I mentioned this thread to one of our programmers yesterday evening. He heard from contacts that three of the 15 5/70 prints of The Master came back from their opening bookings and were judged to be in an acceptable condition for further distribution: the rest were too scratched and/or dirty. Those three prints are available for booking, and one of them apparently remains in Europe (though he doesn't know precisely where). Of course there are unanswered questions here: most importantly where was the line in the sand drawn between acceptable and not (in other words, has the bar been raised substantially higher than it was set when 5/70 was a mainstream format?)? But the fact that out of 15 copies, 12 sustained enough damage during a single engagement to degrade the viewing experience significantly is still somewhat depressing.  |  IP: Logged Geoff Jones Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 579 From: Broomfield, CO, USA Registered: Feb 2006 posted 10-27-2014 10:13 PM                        The Interstellar website has added a page to report problems. I'm thrilled to see filmmakers showing so much interest in the presentation side of things. quote: THE QUALITY OF YOUR THEATRICAL EXPERIENCE IS IMPORTANT TO US. http://www.interstellarmovie.com/quality/  |  IP: Logged Terry Lynn-Stevens Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1081 From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Registered: Dec 2012 posted 10-27-2014 10:39 PM                     Cineplex Varsity in Toronto will be playing Interstellar in 70mm  |  IP: Logged

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