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Author Topic: Carmike's DCinema Installs stopped? Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-14-2007 02:11 PM                        Why would there be a policy to not remove the attached trailer with 35mm?  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-14-2007 03:02 PM                     I see theaters remove attached trailers all the time -to place their own "feature presentation" snipe in front of the movie. AMC does it. Harkins does that as well. That's actually what I prefer. My argument for that: hearing members of the audience groan in disgust when they see more movie trailers placed after the theater's own policy snipes. They've already sat through 15-20 minutes of trailers and TV commercials thinking the movie is about to start. Once the theater chain logo is done, guess what? Another green band! More movie trailers! Yay! It really wears on the patience of more than a few audience members. If I had my own movie theater chain to run I would copy the same routine General Cinemas used: 1. Projector start, Welcome/Visit Concessions snipe. 2. Run any TV commercial spots. 3. Coming Attractions snipe (if available). 4. Movie trailers. 5. Feature Presentation snipe. 6. THX trailer (if applicable), other format trailers. 7. Feature I liked the audio/visual format trailers being placed directly before the feature's beginning since they work pretty well to pump up the audience right at the start of the movie. It's also a good minute's worth of buffer time to allow the audience to get over having had to watch 20-30 minutes worth of freaking movie trailers and be a little more "emotionally fresh" when the movie actually starts. It's a bit of a judgment call on what order to play those format trailers. With 35mm, running THX first and then the sound format trailer seemed to work well. With digital cinema, I'd probably play those snipes (DLP, Christie, Dolby Digital Cinema) first and then put the THX logo directly ahead of the movie. quote: Mike Blakesley At any rate, we were at the Carmike 7 in Billings, MT, a 25+ year old facility. A multiplex theater more than 25 years old explains a lot of the problem. The newer Carmike theaters (anything built within about the last 10 years) are quite a bit better. The Carmike 8 here in Lawton was built in 1994, but is still in good shape (with a great deal of credit for that going to its manager). Billings, Montana is a city of over 100,000 people. That's a big enough market to warrant Carmike doing something to protect it. If Carmike sits back and does nothing another company like Cinemark or someone else will come in and build opposing theaters. That's what happened in Wichita Falls, TX. Cinemark has a new 14-plex there now - and they got Spiderman III instead of the Carmike location at Sikes Senter Mall. Cinemark grabbed a lot of business from Carmike in the Colorado Springs market with the two new theaters they built within the last several years (one of which includes an IMAX-3D theater). Carmike needs to replace its old Chapel Hills Mall theater with a new flagship-class stand-alone build with 20 or more screens to get back some of the business they lost. One other problem I see with the Billings, MT situation is that it is very far away from Carmike's headquarters in Columbus, GA. That situation is probably not on their "radar" like so many other locations closer to their home base. When I lived in Albany, GA I griped pretty loud in a newspaper editorial about how bad the quality was in the Carmike theater in the center of town. Carmike did some upgrades on another theater they could upgrade on the town's east side, but eventually shut down both locations and replaced them with an all new 16 screen complex. Depending on the population draw to Billings, it sounds like Carmike should do the same thing there and do it sometime soon before Cinemark beats them to the punch.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 05-14-2007 04:04 PM                     Because believe it or not the studios can be very picky about their trailers getting played with their movies removing the attached trailer from the print and inserting a policy snipe is fine 99.9% of the time because even if you do get a trailer checker they're only instructed to check to make sure certain trailers are playing, not in what order they're playing. Those who remove attached trailers due to booking conflicts/whatever do so at their own risk. There was a Carmike theatre that did not play the attached trailer and had the bad luck of having a trailer checker or studio rep show up. That theatre did not play that studios product for 6 months. Hence the policy. If it isn't cut its going to play.  |  IP: Logged Jarryd Beard Expert Film Handler Posts: 229 From: Hellertown, PA Registered: Jul 2004 posted 05-14-2007 05:39 PM                     The only exception the policy Dustin pointed out was with Disney animated films. As I'm sure many were aware, Disney required all theatres booked with Meet the Robinsons to show the attached trailer uninterrupted with the cartoon short and the feature. Mike, your encounter just goes to show that the manager can make all the difference. If the manager did his/her job, all the problems you mention should have never occurred... well, except for the interior design. I work at a theatre that is forty years old this year. We have none of these problems. If we did, a call to Christie has the problem solved in a day or two if not hours. Incompetence, on the other hand, isn't so easily fixed.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-14-2007 07:13 PM                     In the case of Meet The Robinsons you have the situation where the theater is having to play specialized content -well, provided if the theater is showing the movie in RealD. I'm trying to remember which Disney movie it was that featured an attached trailer for the live action version of 101 Dalmatians. Was that The Hunchback of Notre Dame? I can't remember. I only remember the dalmatians trailer being something like 3 or 4 minutes long -a bit big to clip off the front of a feature. With d-cinema, it's quite a bit easier to arrange movie trailers on a computerized play list (and not leave out trailers a checker will want to see). But that will work only so long as the "attached" digital movie trailer isn't encoded within the actual movie file itself.  |  IP: Logged Jarryd Beard Expert Film Handler Posts: 229 From: Hellertown, PA Registered: Jul 2004 posted 05-14-2007 09:43 PM                     This was the case for the 2-D Meet the Robinsons as well. That's the version we played; the instructions were "in the can" (meaning with the hard drive in this case). Last year, we received the same set of instructions with Cars in 35mm. I can't remember back to Chicken Little, but it may have been the same then. In the most recent case, it had nothing to do with 2-D or 3-D. The enclosed document basically stated (in both cases) that by booking the film, individual and corporate theatres agreed to run the attached trailer(s) uninterrupted with the feature. I agree that this confuses patrons and feels odd to watch. Patrons seem consistently annoyed when we do this with 35mm programs. However, in these aforementioned cases, it was by Disney's request.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-14-2007 10:42 PM                     quote: Bobby Henderson They've already sat through 15-20 minutes of trailers and TV commercials thinking the movie is about to start. Once the theater chain logo is done, guess what? Another green band! More movie trailers! Yay! It really wears on the patience of more than a few audience members. This is precisely why I ALWAYS follow the practice of cutting the attached trailer and inserting the theater's policy in between the attached trailer and the feature. It completely screws up the pacing if you don't and inevitably brings about the groans. As far as playing or not playing the attached trailer, I always play it...I just separate it from the feature for two specific reasons: #1 If it is a Deluxe lab print, I have to insert a black slug. Deluxe doesn't understand anything at all about pacing, and instead is only worried about saving those couple of feet of film stock. I then place the cue at the beginning of the black slug (with the policy either directly before or after the slug, depending on the way the theater wants the lights and such to run). #2 The Technicolor labs understand the need for a quick pause and provide several feet of black leader. In the Technicolor situation, I simply cut the film at the first negative splice after the attached trailer, then resplice it directly back together or add in the theater policy, placing the feature cue appropriately. This way whenever the movie that the attached trailer is promoting is released, the trailer is effortlessly removed. Either way the attached trailer always runs, unless I received a used print and there are marks on it...then it's trash time without question. Damaged film is damaged film.  |  IP: Logged

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