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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Question on Digital Cinema
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-24-2008 03:32 PM
Paul G: Film rental stays the same, from what I hear. The virtual print fee is NOT paid to the theatre. It's paid to the company that financed the installation of the digital equipment.
On the Cinemascope topic - when that format was introduced in my theatre, the industry was trumping it up as if it was 3D! Here's a clip from a newspaper article about our Scope installation from 1953:
quote:
The big project, however, will be the complete remodeling of the front or stage end of the theatre, in preparation for the installation of a wide panoramic screen, which will be 30 feet wide and 16 feet high - just about twice the width of the present theatre screen, which is 14 x 16 feet. This screen, when installed, will accommodate regular motion pictures, as now projected, and also the new Cinemascope method of projection, wherein the illusion of three dimensions, height, width and depth will be realistically placed before the audience without the use of colored glasses or anything other than normal vision. It is the last word in the new three dimension method of presenting motion pictures - the same method as was employed at the initial and phenomenal showing of "The Robe," which has been widely acclaimed the world over. Two and one half times as much subject matter is projected on the new wide screens as is seen on the ordinary movie screen. Incidentally "The Robe" will be presented by the Roxy late next spring.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-24-2008 08:40 PM
quote: Frank Angel
I am not convinced that future generations will feel the same impact as we do about those differences.
I'm not so sure about that. At least in this region of the country the folks I see buying/renting "fool screen" DVDs are in older generations. A lot of younger adults are surprisingly knowledgeable or at least very observant about things like differing aspect ratios and the "look" of 'scope.
quote: Frank Angel
Many early films had the word CinemaScope in the same point size as the film title. Now, scope pictures are played without so much as a reference to that fact anywhere, not in the ads, not at the theatre lobby, not on the 1 sheets.
The bulk of a movie's credits were shifted from the front of the movie to the end of it during the 1970s. With that change, phrases like "filmed in Panavision" have been crawling up screens facing vacant auditoriums every since.
Many large movie palaces have closed over the past few decades, only to be replaced with cookie cutter multiplex builds. It seems a little ironic to have a giant "CinemaScope" logo projected onto a tiny screen in an auditorium not much bigger than work place break room. This problem really grew in the 1970s.
Movie poster design even began omitting phrases like "filmed in Panavision" during the 1970s. Every now and then I see a modern movie poster use the Panavision logo or that marketing phrase, but it's rare.
The biggest problem today screwing up how 'scope is treated is way too many movies are using it. Movies in 1.85:1 seem pretty rare, unlike the late 1980s when damned near everything was flat -thanks to the influence of the booming home video rental industry and VHS. Today, if a movie is shot spherically, chances are it will just get cropped to 2.39:1 regardless of what kind of movie it is, be it an epic worthy of 'scope or some little throw-away comedy. 2.39:1 is getting so over-used that it doesn't seem special anymore.
Those problems don't help framing formats like 2.39:1. But there's still a certain fashion to the look of 'scope. Just look at all the music videos on TV that have been filmed with anamorphic lenses to get that distinct movie look.
quote: Ron Funderburg
The Cinerama aspect and other wide screens in excesses of 2.39 to one were developed to mimic the human filed of vision
There's more it than that.
Different aspect ratios give a director and DP different options for composing the frame. Take a walk through a gallery showing paintings or photography. You're not going to find everything on the wall there framed in the same shape. Why should movies be forced to do that?
"Portrait," "landscape" and very wide "marine" framing conventions in painting have been around for hundreds of years. Immersive movies like This is Cinerama left a visceral influence on filmmaking. But I contend that classic art and still photography as art have had a much greater influence on choice of framing format and shot composition.
With the overuse of Super35 and the often safe, half-assed compositions that go with that home video safe wide screen, I could see that being the opportunity for everything to go 1.85:1 or 1.77:1. When someone shoots a 2.39:1 movie in anamorphic, he has little choice but to compose for that super wide rectangle.
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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007
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posted 01-25-2008 04:06 PM
Okay, don't any of you fellow wonderful film handlers take any offense to the following statement. It is a statement of the facts of life in our current cinema environment.
I'm tried of the half trained, fully careless, totally unconcerned way that the current crop of unqualified film handlers do their jobs. I hate to receive film off break now, scratched, jumbled edges from brain wraps, layers and layers of tape on splices, broken DTS CDs crammed in under the reels. The film looking as if it was run though a washer, or trampled under foot. Dirt, grit and generally very poorly taken care of film.
It will be a good thing when we learn you can't take people and just dump them in the booth! Well I have know that for a long, long time but the bad condition of film after just few short weeks is something I don't understand. I got “The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything” today and built it up only to find several spots where it was obvious they had brain wraps, multiple layers of tape on the frames where they had joined the reels.
How can movie have several layers to be stripped off after two weeks? It is scratched in several places that I can see while building up so I'm not looking forward to seeing it on the screen.
God help us when did we get where any 16 year old kid could run a booth!
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 01-25-2008 07:38 PM
One of the problems is too many business people in this country follow the business model of hiring whoever will work for the least amount of money rather than paying a bit extra or significantly more for someone who can do that job very well.
There's lots of people with very little art/design talent trying to work in the graphic design industry, and they're given jobs because they're willing to work for very little pay. They have the following mindset: "Ooh, I can click a few buttons in Photoshop; that makes me a graphic artist!" Yeah, I can swing a golf club, but that doesn't make me Tiger Woods. I own three electric guitars, but I'm no Edward Van Halen.
On the bright side, the notion that "computers are making the art, so we don't need to hire any real artists" is finally dying out a bit. People with real art/design talent have far better developed visual problem solving skills and are therefore far more productive in design than anyone who cannot think visually.
It's sad that film projection is turning into a sort of lost art form. I think it just comes down to having someone in the booth who really loves movies, has some mechanical aptitude and just gives a damn about doing his job competently. And that doesn't necessarily require a person that would turn film projection into a career either. It just takes some decent work ethics.
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Roger Summars
Film Handler
Posts: 11
From: Buffalo, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Sep 2007
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posted 01-29-2008 03:27 PM
Ron Funderburg
On 2 occasions, we have received a print 3 weeks old from a town in Northwest Oklahoma that starts with the letter "W". I know we received from them because someone had to drive over there to get the print. In both cases, the print was VERY dirty from start to finish. Because of that, we have instituted a new procedure in the booth where we do a "Booth Checklist" for each film we run, and put the completed form in a folder for the theater manager to review. It contains such information as lamphouse hours, lamphouse current, how many spare rolls of splice tape, condition of the print/DTS discs, any pre-show issues, and on and on.
Someday I'll make friends with the manager of that "W" theater, and I can casually say "What kind of equipment are you running? Care if I have a look?"
On the upside.....
Since this happened, I have been able to get the booth crew interested in maintaining a cleaner booth, a cleaner projector, and generally a cleaner environment for ourselves and our equipment.
Roger
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