Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: West Side Squeezed

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

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Film Handlers' Forum » West Side Squeezed (Page 2)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3

Author

Topic: West Side Squeezed

Terry Monohan
Master Film Handler

Posts: 379
From: San Francisco CA USA
Registered: May 2014

posted 07-21-2015 06:16 PM

Turns out the bad West Side Story 35mm print used last Friday at the Paramount Oakland came from the UCLA Film Archive and was marked 2:20. They did run a scope lens I have been told now. The movie had been plattered. So many of my friends still say It did not look like a scope showing on the screen? Hope you can find out what happened Sam.

| IP: Logged

Sam D. Chavez
Film God

Posts: 2153
From: Martinez, CA USA
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 07-21-2015 06:44 PM

Can't speak for the print but checked and it was the usual experienced operator and the scope lenses was indeed used.

So, I'm out of this discussion as everything else is subjective.

| IP: Logged

Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

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

posted 07-21-2015 07:45 PM

Wasn't the 2.55 ratio used on prints that only had four tracks of mag stereo?

-Claude

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-22-2015 01:16 AM

quote: Terry Monohan (my emphasis)
Turns out the bad West Side Story 35mm print used last Friday at the Paramount Oakland came from the UCLA Film Archive and was marked 2:20. They did run a scope lens I have been told now. The movie had been plattered

.

What?! UCLA absolutely forbid cutting the heads and tails of their prints. This is one of the conditions of the standard print rental agreement they make you sign. A close friend of mine who used to work there (but who sadly died a couple of years ago, and so I can't follow up with him) told me that for a very small number of extremely popular titles, they have an "A print" (pristine, must not be cut and only sent to a very small number of venues they have built up a lot of trust with) and a "B print" that they may, under unusual circumstances and if there is a very powerful cultural case for it, allow to be plattered.

So I'd guess that if this show was run from a platter, it used their B-print of West Side Story, probably acquired at the end of the distribution run after the last major rerelease (i.e. not made by the archive itself from preservation elements). If they cut and plattered the A-print, then that'll be the last time that venue shows a UCLA print.

| IP: Logged

Terry Monohan
Master Film Handler

Posts: 379
From: San Francisco CA USA
Registered: May 2014

posted 07-22-2015 09:58 AM

The Paramount Theatre Oakland CA does not use the platter system. They use two 35mm projectors for changeover. The West Side Story print they got was used on a platter at some other theatre before they got the film. Must have been a B 35mm print and was very cut up. As a kid I went to the Paramount many times and the huge wide semi curved CinemaScope® screen went all the way to the edge of the stage, this was in the 50's and 69's.The curtain had a black strioe down the center and they used it for side masking. The fly up screen they use now when they show films is way smaller and not as wide today.

| IP: Logged

Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 07-22-2015 10:01 AM

quote: Sam D. Chavez
I do have a print of Woodstock that's mag only and I'd never heard of that until I saw it for myself. It was not 2:55 though, just a blank optical track.

Woodstock is a whole topic unto itself. My recollection is that I saw Woodstock in 70mm 6-track (discrete) at the Trans-Lux West theatre in Manhattan (Broadway and 49th Street). I remember the Altec A7s sitting in the aisles(!) for the surrounds. The mix that I remember had all the stage announcements coming through the surrounds, even if that didn't quite make literal sense. It also played at the Trans-Lux East in 35mm 4-track mag. Michael Coate says there's no evidence that Woodstock ever played in 70mm in NYC. I've checked all the newspaper ads of the day in the NY Times, Village Voice, Daily News and NY Post and there's no indication as to format at all.

So while I remember specifically choosing to see it in that theater because it was playing in 70mm, I don't know how I would have known that since it wasn't advertised as such and even though my father had an office right next door, I had no reason to be in midtown, so I probably wouldn't have known it even if it was displayed on the marquee. I've also tried to find an image of the marquee on the web since I figured some tourist must have photographed it, but to no avail.

I saw the film again decades later at the Museum of the Moving Image but the impression I got was that the mix was completely different. Same for the Blu-ray.

| IP: Logged

Scott Norwood
Film God

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

posted 07-22-2015 10:15 AM

Hmmm...weird about the WSS screening, but it doesn't surprise me that there is a good explanation for it. I could see the wrong-lens thing happening at a multiplex screening, but it seemed pretty unlikely to happen in a prestige venue like that theatre.

Someone probably should have mentioned the print issue before the screening, though. Audiences are generally willing to accept things like this as long as they know that the venue knows about the problem, did not cause the problem, and could not have prevented the problem from happening. An advance apology would have gone a long way.

| IP: Logged

Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-22-2015 10:40 AM

OK, someone 'splain something to me.

If the 35mm print of West Side Story, a Super Panavision 70 title, is marked as 2:20 as this one was said to be, then wouldn't that make it a non-anamorphic reduction print from the spherical 65mm. source? And as such, if you ran it through a scope lens, wouldn't the resulting image be stretched horizontally, with fat and squat images? I mean, a 35mm scope print of a 65mm title is still 2.35, right?

So confused . . .

| IP: Logged

Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 07-22-2015 11:09 AM

Well, I haven't seen the print, and so cannot be sure, but my guess would be that it's a 35 mm anamorphic print from a 35 mm interneg made from a 65 mm interpos, and the print has narrow black bars on the left and right edges to reduce the image aspect ratio to 2.2:1. This would make better use of the 35 mm frame area than letterboxing the 2.2:1 image within a spherical 35 mm frame.

Every anamorphic film process which I have ever seen uses an anamorphic squeeze ratio of between 1.25:1 and 2:1. If this print was shown with anamorphic lenses, and everything still looked tall and thin then that would seem to suggest that either the print had a squeeze ratio of more than 2:1, which I've never seen, has anybody else? Or alternatively that lenses with an anamorphic ratio of less than 2:1 were used, or variable ones set to a ratio of less than 2:1. All of these possibilities seem unlikely though.

| IP: Logged

Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 07-22-2015 11:35 AM

quote: Steve Matz
JIM,From your photo I recognize the Far left Projector as an EASTMAN 25
16mm with Carbon Arc Lamphouse.

At the risk of nit-picking, it's not "my" photo. I credited the source in my post.

I've taken, and posted some great photos- - but that wasn't one of them!

However, you are right- - there is nice a PAIR of well maintained
16mm Eastman Arc projectors in that booth. This photo IS mine:

(Actually, it was taken by my friend Daniella, but that's MY elbow! )

I also want to chime in about the print- - as others have pointed out,
UCLA usually expressly prohibits plattering. I recall having to sometimes
sign an agreement not to do so as part of the print rental contract.

But, I have gotten a few prints from them that have obviously been
plattered at some point in their lives.

And, West Side Story certainly wasn't plattered at the Paramount, since
they have enough sense there to have never installed platters. .

(I don't know where they'd put them- - the booth is already crowded with
3 35mm, 2 16mm, and even a spotlight, I think.)

Its been at least 7 or 8 years since I've been in that booth, and I don't
recall there being enough space up there to shove a platter in unless
they took out one of the 35mm projectors, & I know they haven't done that!

Trivia:
I had one festival promoter who could never get the name of the UCLA Film
Library correct. In conversations and even e-mails, he would often refer
to it as the "ACLU Film Library" But, I'm sure they have some interesting
titles too. (Make your own jokes about that)

I also often got a good laugh out of the many mis-spellings on the shipping
cases & leaders of the UCLA prints. Obviously these were film students-
and not English majors! [Smile]

| IP: Logged

Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 07-22-2015 11:51 AM

Sorry - I misunderstood Terry's post, believing him to have said that the Paramount plattered it.

On the contrary, the place is so anti-platter that it's even equipped for 16mm changeovers!

I don't believe that I've ever worked in a booth that can offer that! If I were designing my dream booth from a large, empty room with some windows on one side, I'd have a pair of Norelco AAIIs, and another pair of FP38-ESes. I'd equip the Norelcos with white light optical readers and DTS 70 pickups and use them for 70mm, plus 35mm silver dye track prints and sub-24fps silent prints (because the very fast rotating shutter enables low frame rates with almost no flicker). The FP38-ESes would be for 16mm, and have red readers with 35mm with hi-magenta and cyan dye tracks, plus 35mm DTS pickups.

Even if the equipment could be assembled, there aren't many booths around that could accommodate that (for one thing you'd need five sets of projection and viewing ports, assuming that you'd have a digital projector as well). But still, it's nice to dream!

| IP: Logged

Stephan Shelley
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 854
From: castro valley, CA, usa
Registered: Nov 2014

posted 07-22-2015 08:01 PM

While the screen at the Paramount is no longer curved it is as big as it can get. Scope is a 50' image while the stage is closer to 60' wide. The valance at the top scallops down more on the sides. So much so that it would get into the image if the screen was wider. It drops to a lower level lower than the current screen is high beyond where the screen currently ends.As it is one has to be very careful filing aperture plates as a little over on the top at the sides and you are on the silver valance. New scope lenses and new aperture plates were installed about 10 years ago. The scope ratio is about 2.35 to 1.

| IP: Logged

Manny Knowles
"What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???"

Posts: 4247
From: Bloomington, IN, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 07-23-2015 04:19 PM

Ask yourselves: What's the more likely scenario?

(a) The persistence of a faulty repertory print of WEST SIDE STORY from UCLA that was double-squeezed, so that it still appeared squeezed even with an anamorphic lens in place; or
(b) An out-of-practice projectionist screwed up.

| IP: Logged

Stephan Shelley
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 854
From: castro valley, CA, usa
Registered: Nov 2014

posted 07-23-2015 04:44 PM

The projectionist has worked there for 15 years and is not out of practice. It is after all a reel to reel carbon arc booth. They do a rehearsal with the stagehands when the set up the screen. It would have been caught then. No changeovers were missed and the lamps did not go out. Hardly out of practice.

BTW no reels were missing it is just that reels 8 & 9 were stacked together on one reel. The print came that way.

| IP: Logged

Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 07-23-2015 06:11 PM

quote: Manny Knowles
Ask yourselves: What's the more likely scenario?

(a) The persistence of a faulty repertory print of WEST SIDE STORY from UCLA that was double-squeezed, so that it still appeared squeezed even with an anamorphic lens in place; or
(b) An out-of-practice projectionist screwed up.

Since nothing about this thread makes any sense whatsoever, and without another independent confirmation that this happened, I'd like to suggest:

(c) The original poster was misinformed, got his stories mixed-up, or was just trying to stir things up.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.