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Author
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Topic: 70 vs. DC starring Larry Myres
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Ron Curran
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 504
From: Springwood NSW Australia
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 03-08-2006 02:00 AM
OK, a rave across several platforms. Sue me.
The Australian widescreen introduction was entirely different to the US experience. Television transmission did not start till 1956. CinemaScope hit our major capitals in December 1953, Cinerama and 70mm projection in 1958.
Without the competition of television, cinema ticket sales in this country had declined 20% form 1945 to 1951.
The weirdest aspect of the 65mm blow-up craze was the advertisements proclaiming “On the giant 70mm screen!” how close would you have to sit?
Apart from that, one of the nails in the coffin of event films was greed. Distributors classified too many films in our contracts as “hard ticket” product to get a percentage of a higher ticket price.
We exhibitors did not regard yet another Pink Panther movie as equivalent to Doctor Zhivago and the audience certainly didn’t see the value. Overkill!
Then it became difficult for us to even differentiate between cropped and full screen, mono and stereo. The disappearance of CinemaScope as a saleable brand and the uncertainty of receiving a mag print (or, later, a Dolby A print) meant that we could not prepare the audience for a theatrical experience. Some bookers would give us the relevant information but others were like our wives “If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
I may be alone but I hate cropped 35 intensely. As a teenager and before hard matting, I used to seek out cinemas that showed Academy Format to see a crisp, bright image.
Our current debate regarding film size and DC reminds me of the fierce battle that raged between standard and Super 8. Supporters of the former praised their camera’s pressure plate as a gift from God and condemned the cartridge’s plastic plate as the destroyer of quality images. They should have changed to Single 8 and left the rest of us in peace. To think that they almost swayed me … till I changed to a Nikon camera. It was similar to my experience of changing from Kowa (quite good) to Isco and Schneider projection lenses.
Excellent films like Out of Africa were shot in Technovision whatever that was – just flat to us. Theatres had a spy network to trade secret copy numbers of popular titles. That number was the good print, the only one left with acceptable image quality or the only mag or Dolby A copy. We re-ran Chariots of Fire twice with a mono track, an insult to the film and an unjustified reflection on the cinema. Even today we have to cross our fingers and hope that we get discs or that the digital dots on the print will play. This hit and miss attitude to quality has helped to diminish the theatrical experience.
Was the audience so cheated so often that they turned away?
Checking that my nostalgia meter is functioning on Mild, I proceed.
As a cinema operator, it is gratifying, yet frustrating to see The Robe on DVD in clear 2.55 with directional stereo. Imagine if Fox had commissioned a restoration for theatrical release to follow the success of The Passion of the Christ.
The industry could learn much from the success of Mel Gibson’s effort. He MARKETED the hell out of his film (excuse the expression); he made it an EVENT, so it stood head and shoulders above the ordinary releases of the year. Unfortunately, the film was almost as violent as the clergy who were demanding it, but I digress.
About 20 years ago, we had a less auspicious marketing phenomenon in this country. A local adventurer filmed his staged adventures with a Bolex, four-walled theatres and marketed it for all it wasn’t worth. If he couldn’t get a theatre in a town, he hired a hall, a club, a bus shelter or a storm water drain and packed ‘em in.
Almost sublime to ridiculous.
Don’t take any risks, 3,000 screens today, home cinema tomorrow is not marketing.
Did they put something in the water last year? Downunder, we suffered because the sequels and re-makes from Hollywood had to fill screens 14-20 in the shopping centres while local film makers were navel gazing. “It’s the pictures that got smaller.”
It is no use just being negative about the size of the negative. That is a small part of the problem. More than one contributor to this forum has pointed out that the cost of film stock is negligible in a production where you are paying $60 million for a couple of actors and a director and $3.50 to the writer. The caterers probably cost more than the stock.
As far as I can tell, all of the people on this forum agree that the big theatrical event is what is missing from the formula. It has nothing to do with numbers. It has everything to do with passion. Excite the market and you excite the box office. We know the tools. A good story. A good crew. A talented cast. A cinema-quality negative (65mm, 5/35CS anamorphic, Maxivision48, whatever). Platform release. Solid marketing. Excellent presentation. Realistic window. All of these elements exist. It won’t be a studio that makes the move. It will be a Mike Todd, a Mel Gibson or even some character checking this forum (where are you, Ramon?). Watch the skies.
DC will eventually be WOW enough but our industry doesn’t have the time to wait. Our one point something K projector shows a great image when the new lamps go in ($1,200 a pair) but within a month or two the picture is unacceptable. I can’t remember a 35mm presentation being that shabby near the end of a Xenon’s life.
Now, about that window. The kids won’t wait. They will get it on their Ipod before film prints are made no matter how many inconveniences we establish for the rest of us. They are yesterday’s target market. If you create an event, they will come, along with the rest of the crowd. Our little cinema gets the best of them. The rest of them go to the mall and they are welcome to them. They don’t bother downloading Memoirs of a Geisha, Joyeux Noel or Capote.
Maybe our situation is unique but we know there is an audience for good films and it includes all age groups. They want more quality and less crap and they expect us to honour that. They also want showbiz, because they can get straight movies at home.
Good night and good luck.
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Ben Wales
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 602
From: Southampton. England
Registered: Jul 99
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posted 03-08-2006 11:51 AM
quote: Larry Myers
Is that the dumb guy sleeping in the booth?
Well quote Larry about this as I just recived a message on a 70mm screening last weekend at a local Art House Cinema (I left the name out) and it was sadly a negative and he went away disappointed, this is NOT the Experience we would want the public to see.
I did see this print a year ago at the Rex Cinema and it was perfect as well the Presentation.
"Had a sad experience last Sunday. Took the missus to see "Lawrence Of Arabia" in 70mm at the Harbour lights, as she'd only seen the 35.
There was a fair number in there, mostly grey heads taking younger people to see, talking shop, cinerama etc. A row of students down the front.
First mistake - the house lights dim, and they don't have the red spots on the screen anymore.
So after about 4 minutes of the overture the students are looking about in bewilderment at the black film running through in darkness.
You can't help being embaressed, so I tell the missus to look out for the cue strips passing centre screen for the lights and (non- existant) tabs.
There they go, and the picture fades up out of focus.
Your man instantly presses the button and it comes in ok. Well sort of.
The far left and right are ok, but all across the centre is out, with a little white halo around everything.
You just know it will remain like this throughout, as nobody will check it, and it did. Same for pt 2, with music in darkness again.
Somebody humped all those reels, joined and broke them down again and the result was softer than the average 35. The old dad, who told his son/daughter how sharp the picture would be, was let down.
The students will be off to buy their hi-def ready TV, wondering what the fuss was about.
Think I will keep an eye on the Rex but don't fancy the journey
to Berkhamsted.
What does that red button marked 'focus' do? Usually you can rock though to find the optimum. I don't see how you can with one push button.
If it is like some old slide projectors that had a p.e.c. and a light on the film surface, it obviously need setting up.
In any case this reprint is now abt 12 years old and must be a bit buckled, so the centre won't be in the same plane as the skids. I would need some opera glasses to see from the box but that's no excuse for not checking. Think we should take over? - perhaps not!! The Rex looks nice on the web.
I might go if they have a 70 in the summer".
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-08-2006 07:20 PM
quote: John Koutsoumis
Well they did stop using those particular lenses. As long as you had permission to do so what's wrong with using "Panavision". Keep in mind also a number of scope films are not shot anamorphic.
The "CinemaScope" and "Panavision" brand names are primarily photographic processes, and not really tied to projection. As far as I know, Panavision doesn't make lenses for movie theater film projectors. Schneider is probably the most highly regarded in that area, but I've certainly never seen anything like "SchneiderScope" blown up on a marquee. If any kind of 'scope branding was going to occur at a lot of better quality theaters that would be the only accurate thing to list.
In the 1950's CinemaScope was indeed both a photographic process and projection process as well. If my memory of CS history is correct, Bausch and Lomb was contracted to make CinemaScope anamorphic lenses for different makes of 35mm cameras and anamorphic expansion lenses for movie theater projectors. With movies like The Robe and Rebel Without A Cause the CinemaScope brand was proper to display on lots of marquees.
But then there was a proliferation of other anamorphic and cropped spherical 35mm widescreen processes. That added an element of confusion to the marketing. Then Panavision appeared on the scene with better quality lenses. Ultimately Panavision's anamorphic 35mm and 65mm processes grew to dominate widescreen movie making by the early to mid 1960s.
Today I'm not sure if any advantage would be gained in advertising that a movie is widescreen. It seems like most movies released these days are cropped Super35, with a few being true anamorphic 35mm widescreen productions. The flat 1.85:1 show is a pretty rare thing anymore, unless you visit art theaters regularly -and even there, the 'scope format is popular even on grungy videotaped shows.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
The huge number of Super35 shows make me think the movie industry is doing a sort of pan and scan method in reverse. They make the movie in a compromised format so the home video product can be made in "foolscreen" format without chopping off half the picture. But they also want to fill all of a movie theater screen too. At least anamorphic 35mm forces a film production to shoot the movie specifically for that widescreen process rather than stage the compositions safe and bland for Super35.
Even if there is some ad value for putting "widescreen" on the marquee, the term would probably have to be left at just that: A generic term. Perhaps "In Panavision" could fly if Panavision agreed to it, and if they were entirely consistent in how the term could be used. I think the "Filmed in Panavision" term should only ever be used on movies shot in the anamorphic Panavision process. I flatly disagree with it being used on any Super35 spherical work. And it is downright wrong to use on any spherical 1.85:1 productions -as was seen with movies like Who Framed Roger Rabbit or TV episodes of Seinfeld.
Even if a "In Panavision" thing can fly, theaters would have to then accomodate "Arriscope," "Technovision" and other terms that may come up from other productions using non-Panavision branded equipment.
I think the situation would be easier and more logical concerning 70mm-based productions. The marketing model used by Universal on Far and Away seems like one that makes sense. Except, the "Panavision Super 70" thing seemed stragely out of order. "Super Panavision 70" just makes more sense.
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