Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: I'm curious to know why many on Film-Tech seem to be so negative on digital cinema

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Topic: I'm curious to know why many on Film-Tech seem to be so negative on digital cinema

Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-25-2008 11:55 AM

Richard,

I can remember at many of the big downtown Chicago theaters back in the 60's that they ran the trailers after the feature... or between the ususal double feature.... never before.

Mark

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 12-27-2008 01:48 PM

quote: Chris Slycord
Since I don't understand your convoluted description:
Are you saying a theater owner came to you and said your theater has just as good sound as his home theater but didn't like that because his work theater has bad sound (and his customers don't know the difference?

Or are you saying something else? Not to be rude but I just can't follow it.

Yes Chris that was what I was trying to say he was mad at me because his customers would like my sound better than his sound.

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I can remember at many of the big downtown Chicago theaters back in the 60's that they ran the trailers after the feature... or between the ususal double feature.... never before.

And since they are called trailers wouldn't that be the right place for them? I believe that was where they were originally though I wasn't around that long ago! Contrary to my employee's thinking I was around for the first talkie!

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-27-2008 03:24 PM

I am no young pup and have been watching movies for a LONG time; I can say pretty emphatically that I have never ever seen coming attractions placed AFTER the feature. Even when there were double features in the day when such things existed, the attraction reel was run after the first feature yes, but before the second. Also in those days there was a curtain close after the first feature so that in reality, the perception was that the attractions were playing BEFORE the second feature and not after the first. It was, 1st feature end, curtain close, pause, curtain open, attractions, 2nd feature. The attractions were part of the second feature and played BEFORE it.

So even though the word trailer, at some MUCH earlier time in the cinema history may very well have come about because attractions or other program components may have been place after the feature, it has been so long since attractions were placed in that position in a program, that to say that's what it still means today is a real stretch. We can still call them trailers, eventhough today they are placed BEFORE the feature. No reason to get one's pantyhose in a knot because people still use the now seemingly contradictory word trailers. It gets its correctness "license" from colloquial and historic precident.

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 12-27-2008 05:30 PM

Frank they call them previews, trailers, befores I don't care! I was just saying that was where the origin was not they we should change the word!

At several drive-ins I have been associated with we used 20 minutes of trailers at the beginning and 20 minuets between to get them people in to the concession stand!

but it is all good!

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 12-27-2008 06:37 PM

We did the cartoon first, then feature, snakbar ads with trailers, then to the 2nd feature at our DrIn

Speaking of cartoons: remember when projectionists would leave their signature and the theatre they worked at in those cartoon cans? Definitely a piece of history there...

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Ron Funderburg
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 814
From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA
Registered: Nov 2007

posted 12-27-2008 07:44 PM

By the time I was working in theaters (late 1972) the pre-show cartoon was history. I can remember one news reel when I was a kid but only one. I'm not really sure I remember it or not it could be a memory of just seeing news reels but I seem to remember one when I was little.

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Geoff Jones
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 579
From: Broomfield, CO, USA
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 12-27-2008 08:16 PM

I saw the 1979 Star Wars re-issue at a theatre in Birmingham. Al (a 4-plex on the hill above the Eastwood Mall). There were "previews" before the film started, but not the much advertised "special preview" of The Empire Strikes Back. I stayed all the way through the credits, and there it was, "trailing" the film.

I remember being confused about why Han Solo was having dinner with Darth Vader.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

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

posted 12-28-2008 10:11 AM

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I can remember at many of the big downtown Chicago theaters back in the 60's that they ran the trailers after the feature...

When I first started hanging around projection rooms in the late 1960's, I can remember 'helping out' at a grind-house somewhere on Long Island NY that ran the trailer reels between features.

They never stopped the show.

The lights would come up from the normal "show level" as people filed in & out of the theater with trailers running on screen.

There were several different reels of trailers used througout the day, and sometimes they'd throw in a cartoon before the evening show.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 03-15-2010 05:54 PM

It has been 442 days since the last post.

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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006

posted 03-15-2010 05:54 PM

I suppose this is the best place to write about my recent experience with digital. I was hoping to see a picture yesterday with 8 other friends. It was decided we would go to a one-screener that has only got digital. When we arrived we were told that the server was down and the screening had been cancelled. They returned our money and gave us a free ticket as compensation. We went for drinks and dinner and when we went back to our cars we saw the ticket office guy who told us all the screenings of the evening had had to be cancelled. What a fiasco. In all the years I have been going to the movies I do not recall ever having a show cancelled because of technical problems with the projector. Luckily we managed to save the evening but we were hugely disappointed by it. My dislike of digital only increased more.

Also, one question to you all techni-savvy. When 4k digital intermediates are the norm and 35mm prints are produced from them, what will look better a 35mm print from a 4k intermediate or a 2k file from the same intermediate?

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Tony Bandiera Jr
Film God

Posts: 3067
From: Moreland Idaho
Registered: Apr 2004

posted 03-15-2010 06:16 PM

Ramon, Your experience is precisely why I despise D-Crapema so much. It is in terms of technical reliability and repair-ability a super-inferior method when compared to film. It will be the downfall of the exhibition industry. Only those smart enough to keep their film systems in operation (at the least as a back-up) will ultimately survive.

As for your question, that will depend on the time and quality taken in the transfer process. I have seen great 2k to film and crappy 2k to film, and crappy film-to-digital and digital-to digital transfers.

All other things being equal, my guess is the 4k to film should look better.

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 03-15-2010 06:27 PM

quote: Ramon Lamarca Marques
In all the years I have been going to the movies I do not recall ever having a show cancelled because of technical problems with the projector.

But those of us who've actually worked in theaters know that your experience isn't representative. Diodes fail, shutters sometimes break, etc. Although the most common cancellation I recall were the diodes.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-15-2010 10:33 PM

In my 30+ years here, we've had way more cancellations caused by film not showing up than by the projector breaking. Probably less than five projector-caused cancellations.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 03-16-2010 01:24 AM

Saw a booth in a plex that has the CHR CP2000 unit with the Dolby Digital Server running "Alice..." in Dolby Digital 3D (which I liked better than "Real Dumb" 3D - no dumb ghostbusting involved) and right next to it on a pallet jack, is a SLC-CineX 35 unit with platter close by.

So if the digital poops out, or can't get a digital print, they wheel the CP2000 back and push in the film unit that remains on the pallet jack for 35mm showing.

Pretty slick concept ...

-Monte

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Joe Elliott
Master Film Handler

Posts: 497
From: Port Orange, Fl USA
Registered: Oct 2006

posted 03-16-2010 02:03 AM

Monte, we were just tossing around a similar idea at our theater. I was basing it on a concept that they used at the Heart Drive-in in KC. They flooded a lot, so all of their equipment were on wheels, including the projection equipment. To align the projector properly, they had drilled holes in the floor, and would drop rods from the projector base into the holes. I never got to see it, but I heard stories. I managed the I-70 down the road, long after the Heart was no longer open for movies, but still ran a swap and shop. I remember two times when the water was over the roof of the concession stand! It was a bad location, but they did the best they could with it.

Heart Drive-in info

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