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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Screening of Avengers Deleted
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-03-2012 12:30 AM
"...had the film been a more traditional 35mm tape version, there would have been little chance of such an issue occurring. I guess that's the price we pay for living in the future."
Freakin idiot!
Thing is, when something catastrophic happens at a CRITICS screening and they get shut out, it always gets more press than it should.
There's the famous story about the press screening of Paramount's first and highly anticipated STAR TREK - THE MOVIE movie; I believe it was at the Loews Astor Plaza where the projectionist the night before made up the print for the 10am critics screening. He spliced reel three and four in reverse. Of course when it became apparent that they were watching the film out of sequence, the show had to be cancelled. Paramount execs went bizzerk, demanding Astor Plaza people be drawn and quartered. They in turn demanded the union fire the projectionist, who, you will recall DIDN'T MAKE UP THE PRINT.
I suppose IF they had an open-ended day, they could have recovered (rewind and rebuild), but they were actually playing another engagement that opened for the day at 1pm so they couldn't just hold the audience and run the STAR TREK film late. They had to clear the room to play the contracted engagement on time.
There are two myths about this story; 1) the union actually canned guy who RAN the show or moved him out of that theatre at the theatre management's demand or 2) the guy who made up the print was either fired or moved at the theatre management's insistence. Scenario 1 would be totally unjust, IMHO if that is indeed what happened. In either scenario, Paramount, the cheap bastards that they were, had no reason to complain because if they REALLY wanted a perfect show, they should have PAID for a TEST screening. Local 306, from what I heard, didn't fight for the guy but pretty much thru him under the....platter. Yuch yuck.
Mistakes will ALWAYS happen unless you can take humans out of the equation altogether. OK...let's start with the studio executives. ![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 05-03-2012 01:16 AM
quote: Jim Cassedy
as even more experienced operators are forced out of the business, and the equipment ages, digital cinema presentation will start looking just as bad as 35mm is preceived to be now.
I don't really think this will happen, at least not to the extent film purists think it will. Look at all of the things that can "go wrong" with 35mm film and equipment when handled by an inexperienced/sloppy projectionist. We all know the long list of things that can happen.
With digital, it's pretty much either going to work or it isn't. The bulb getting dim, and Sony's 3-D lens debacle are the two main problems we keep hearing about so far. If the focus drifts, anybody who can run a computer should be able to fix that. (We've had our system for almost 2 years and I haven't noticed any focus problems yet.)
I suppose a machine can go out of alignment but don't most theater chains have tech people that go around and take care of equipment so that kind of thing would be kept to a minimum? I mean, if my little po-dunk theater in the wilds of Montana can afford have a guy come around yearly to tweak and check the system, anybody can. It's cheap insurance.
Our neighboring town of Billings has 24 Carmike screens. My wife goes to movies there sometimes when she's in town for work and she has never seen a bad digital presentation yet, and she knows what to look for. The only bad thing at those theaters is the popcorn, she says. Everybody knows how cheap Carmike is and they're into about year 4 with digital now.
Anyway, I think there are far more ways to screw up a film presentation than a digital one.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 05-03-2012 01:36 AM
"had the film been a more traditional 35mm tape version, there would have been little chance of such an issue occurring. I guess that's the price we pay for living in the future."
Idiot reporters!
Thing is, when something catastrophic happend at CRITICS screening, it always gets more press than it deserves. Who cares. They whine to much anyway; it's good they get dose of reality every so often.
There's the famous story about the press screening of Paramount's first and highly anticipated STAR TREK: THE MOVIE movie; I believe it was at the Loews Astor Plaza where the projectionist the night before made up the print and spliced reel three and four in reverse. It was for a 10am press screening. Of course the next morning when it became apparent that they were watching the film out of sequence, the show had to be cancelled. Paramount execs went bizzerk, screaming that someone get tared and feathered.
I suppose IF they had an open-ended day, they could have recovered (rewind and rebuild), but they were actually playing another engagement that opened for the day at 1pm so they couldn't just hold the audience and while they rebuilt the print and show it late. They had to clear the room to play the contracted engagement on time.
There are two myths about this story; 1) the union guy who RAN the show was either canned or moved out of that theatre at the theatre management's demand, even though he didn't make the mistake or 2) the guy who made up the print was either fired or moved at the theatre management's insistence. Scenario 1 would be totally unjust, IMHO if that is indeed what happened. In either scenario, Paramount, the cheap bastards, had no reason to complain because if they REALLY wanted a perfect show that badly, they should have PAID paid for a TRE"had the film been a more traditional 35mm tape version, there would have been little chance of such an issue occurring. I guess that's the price we pay for living in the future."
Reporters!
Thing is, when CRITICS get shut out of a screening or something catastrophic happens it always gets more press than it should. There's the famous story about the press screening of Paramount's first and highly anticipated STAR TREK The Movie movie, I believe it was at the Loew's Astor Plaza where the projectionist the night before made up the print and spliced reel three and four in reverse. It was a 10am screening. Of course when it became apparent that they were watching the film out of sequence, they show had to be cancelled. Paramount execs went crazy.
I suppose IF they had an open ended day, they could have recovered (rewind and rebuild), but they were actually playing another engagement that opened for the day at 1pm so they couldn't just hold the audience and run the STAR TREK film late. They had to clear the room to play the contracted engagement on time.
There are two myths about this story; 1) the guy who RAN the show was either canned or moved out of that theatre at the theatre management's demand, even though he didn't make the mistake or 2) the guy who made up the print was either fired or moved at the theatre management's insistence. Scenario 1 would be totally unjust, IMHO if that is indeed what happened. In either scenario, Paramount, the cheap bastards, had no reason to complain because if they REALLY wanted a perfect show, they should have PAID for a test screening. Local 306, from what I heard, didn't fight for the guy, but pretty much thru him under the platter (yuck yuck).
Mistakes will ALWAYS happen unless you can take humans out of the equation altogether.
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 05-03-2012 07:50 AM
quote: Jim Cassedy
According to multiple tweets by various members of the film press, the problem was corrected after about two hours, thanks to a relatively quick download from a distribution source.
literally: Someone deleted the files on the server, noticed it, and re-ingested it from the distribution harddrive. Probably over USB. With suitable equipment and knowledge, it could have been played much earlier by using play-from ingest media (GDC), or play while ingest (Dolby, Doremi).
Yes, shit happens. Yes, THIS thing could not have happened with 35mm.
But the projectionist could have missed building the print, he could have built it the wrong way, he could also have inwittingly sent it back before the presentation. Or it may not have arrived in time. Or the projectionist could have suffered a heart-attack just before pressing the start button.
Nothing special here, just some press jerks making something up from THEIR personal computer experience injuries.
'Ooops - did I just delete this article I have been working on all through the night?'
'Better, yes!'
- Carsten
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 05-03-2012 08:28 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't really think this will happen, at least not to the extent film purists think it will. Look at all of the things that can "go wrong" with 35mm film and equipment when handled by an inexperienced/sloppy projectionist. We all know the long list of things that can happen.
I don't know how many shows I've run on film. It will be a lot less than most meople here because I've only ever worked as a relief, not as a full-time projectionist. It must be more than 1000, and I would guess probably less than 2000. I've run maybe 20 shows on digital during the short period between digital being introduced and the last projection I did.
I've never lost a show on film, other than through the non-arrival of a print a handful of times, and a print arriving in a state where it literally wouldn't go through the machines, once. I've never lost a show on digital through any cause.
I've had to start a show a few minutes late a handful of times while I fixed a problem. I've had to stop a show on film (or had it stop itself) a few times; once due to an error on my part, once due to a fire alarm activation, once due to a fight in the auditorium and a couple of times due to equipment faults, which were quickly fixed.
I've had three problems with digital. On my first digital show there was no sound for a couple of seconds at the start due to pressing the digital button on the CP, which flipped the DMA back to the film input. The other two problems were not my fault, and remain unexplained. On one occasion the show just wouldn't start, which was cleared by powering everything down and re-starting it. The other time I'd run the adverts and trailers on film, then changed over to digital for the feature. It started ok, so I then went back to No. 2 machine to remove the adverts reel for re-winding and then realised that there was no sound. After maybe twenty seconds the digital had jumped back to the start for no obvious reason. It then ran ok, as it had done on previous shows.
As a proportion of the number of shows run, more problems with digital than film, but digital was new, and I was inexperienced with it. When I made the mistake on the first show I'd only seen the equipment for about five minutes between shows the previous evening, when I'd popped in after work to have a look, and hadn't had the opportunity to operate it at all.
I still think that I'd be more likely to be able to fix a problem myself with film than with digital, without having to call in a technician.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 05-05-2012 01:01 PM
Prob is, if you can get into the file itself, just add another character in the name string, then resave that file. This prevents this file to be used since the SPL won't recognize it as a playable file, nor will the key accept it.
Then, ingest another file to use as your main file.
Then, if that main file gets deleted, just go back into the renamed file, remove that character and resave.
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Carsten Kurz
Film God
Posts: 4340
From: Cologne, NRW, Germany
Registered: Aug 2009
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posted 05-05-2012 04:26 PM
No server allows to do this, at least not without getting into a shell. And you better not do things like that on an ingested feature. Trying to be safe from accidental file delete by doing risky things than can really screw it up? A DCP is not a single, but a set of files with hashes, referencing each other, + administrational information added by the server. And on most servers, these files get spread over different directories during ingest. You simply DO NOT mess around in there.
If you have to return your drive early, then the safest thing is to make a simple copy on a PC, NAS, wheatever. A typical 1TB disc goes for 70-80US$ and will hold 6-8 complete DCPs/features.
Even a modern notebook with a 500GB can host one or two DCPs.
And the best advice certainly is, delete features only AFTER shows, not before ;-)
- Carsten
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