I just pulled the spec sheet on our theatre in Port Charlotte, FL, which is a fairly typical Regal house.

At this location, four of the sixteen screens have side-movable maskings. The remainder of the screens are top-movable.

It's good to see you posting here! A couple of years ago, the manager of the River Oaks Cinemas in Decatur, AL mentioned you as the one who did the specs for that location. I want to compliment you since this theatre's equipment, to have been installed in 1991, has been excellent and has performed well. That theatre is very well-maintained and well-kept, and has the best projection quality of any theatre in my area (see my site for a large list of compliments for that location).

Since you're the VP of Technical Services for Regal:

About screen sizes: Since the Huntsville Regal locations have no adjustable masking at all in two-thirds of the auditoriums, most of which are 28 feet wide, at Hollywood 18 (3,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13,14,15,16) and Madison Square 12 (3,4,5,6,9,10,11,12), is there any hope that adjustable top masking could be installed in those auditoriums? Back in October of 1999, there was a snippet in the Huntsville Times stating that such masking would be installed at Hollywood 18, but nothing has ever been changed. Many other improvements have been made, such as installation of stadium seating in both locations, and digital sound at Hollywood 18, so I've found it very disappointing that Regal never went the extra step to fix the main problem (Scope at 1.85:1) with those theatres. I'd much rather see the screen reduced 3 feet in height to show a scope film properly than to have a bigger cropped image (by 23 percent). Top masking (Decatur Regal style in 7 auditoriums) is better than none.

Are there any masking movements from any theatres that are being closed that could be used there (from other 28-foot auditoriums?)

Evans

Huntsville-Decatur Theatre Information Site:
http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/

Most non-stadium seating theaters have a very lousy sight line to begin with. Raising of the lower masking for scope movies will at least improve the sight line for the people sitting near the rear of the auditorium. It would probably look better for stadium seating auditoriums as well.

Top AND bottom movable masking is perfectly acceptable, and is the way to go if you want to maintain a constant screen width.

Please have a good holiday season.

John, my big problem with top/bottom masking is that it really throws the light balance off between 1.85 and Scope. Scope is already more light efficient, even with the larger screen area (due the aperture area also being larger). So if one is at 16fL for 1.85:1, they are way over 22fL for Scope.

I have been known to use ISCO "Studio" lenses (f/2.8) for Scope while using Schneider Super Cinelux (f/2.0) for 1.85:1 in order to balance things out a bit. Normally this lets the theatre meet SMPTE specs of 16fL +/- 4fL (commercial theatres, not review rooms) and often has it to +/- 2fL (desired).

Fortunately, ISCO is now offering stop down rings for their Ultra*Star Plus series (red lenses) of f/2.4 AND f/2.8 so the ability to balance light closer is still there.

Steve

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"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

quote:

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Most non-stadium seating theaters have a very lousy sight line to begin with. Raising of the lower masking for scope movies will at least improve the sight line for the people sitting near the rear of the auditorium.

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Paul

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Our local theatre:
20 feet x 10 feet w/159 seats
40 feet x 20 feet w/282 seats
50 feet x 25 feet w/380 seats
60 feet x 30 feet w/451 seats

This is for SilverCity Polo Park... How do yours compare?"

Famous players does not use 2:1 ratio screens
I have done several tap alignments at Famous theatres and they are always wel within the SMPTE guidelines for aspect ratio
please check your facts

Thank you for your kind words about River Oaks. That theatre was built in 1991 when Regal was a company of 40 screens and I was the entire Technical Services Department.

It is managed by Ralph Frehauf who is a true professional. He is dedicated to running a clean comfortable theatre and to putting on a perfect presentation. The industry could use more people like Ralph.

Concerning the Huntsville Screens, their screens are on the list needed upgrades. I can't say when these screens will modified for 2.39 : 1 because there are several other proje4cts around the company that need to be attended to as well.

I appreciate your patience and your constructive suggestions. It is good to know that we have people coming into our theatres who know how a movie is supposed to look and who will let us know when things are not up to specs.

I just sent you an email (to the rkfrazee@cs.com address from your profile) which contains many more compliments about Ralph and the River Oaks 8. I feel I'm one of the few customers that truly appreciates the quality of Ralph's work, so in case you haven't read them on my WWW site, I wanted to send them to you via email. If all managers were like Ralph, then there would be no need for the ratings section of my site. The quality of Ralph's work was noticed after only 3 or 4 visits to that location back in 1997. I'm now at 47 visits with never a bad experience there.

Do you think Regal could try cloning Ralph?