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Author
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Topic: LOOK vs AMC
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 05-20-2015 05:51 PM
I guess it's this kind of mentality that makes the difference between amateurs and pros.
From the customer side of things, It's also the difference between the restaurant you visit because you like both the food, service and the atmosphere and the restaurant you visit because it's the most convenient option at hand at that time.
quote: Mike Frese
Now, the range of good vs. bad presentations has certainly been narrowed greatly with digital presentation.
I beg to differ, at least around here. Maybe, the situation improved during the big conversion rush, but we're now a few years down the road and it's already going down the drain generally speaking. I'd even say the situation is even getting worse than during the last years of 35mm.
Film at least still required projectionists or at least someone with a basic understanding of the equipment present in the booth. Nowadays, entire multiplexes are being run on remote-control. There's literally no-one even on premise to regularly check if stuff is still running smoothly.
As a result, I've regularly seen stuff like this:
- Omnipresent focus issues
- Convergence so far off, the picture starts to look like anaglyph 3D, but glasses won't fix this crap.
- Flat content presented in scope
- Scope content presented in flat
- Stuck pixels or even pixel clusters in or near the center of the image
- Trailers dubbed in the wrong language
- Trailers containing subtitles in the wrong language
- Defective pre-show content that nobody cares to remove from the playlist
- Features with subtitles in the wrong language
- Advertisements and other pre-show content run in the wrong color space
And don't get me started about masking, or rather the lack of it... I could go on with this list for a while.
The biggest joke is, some of those theaters running those shows with misaligned equipment and just plainly defective playlists are running exactly the same broken shows a week later...
So, while digital might have fixed print-abuse, it also gave us a whole array of new problems, proles which are equally or maybe even more distracting than in the 35mm days.
quote: Mike Frese
I think to all of the tv screens out there in public (bars, restaurants, medical offices, the employee cafeteria, etc) where the signal is not formatted correctly (widescreen broadcast tv with bars at the top and bottom) and no one seems to care. So the public has a lower standard than those on this board is all I am trying to say.
At least you're not paying for the privilege and if you are or if the screens are a central part of the experience like in a sports bar, it better be right or else there simply is no excuse for messing it up.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 05-20-2015 08:14 PM
I can't speak for how restaurants, bars, etc. in other areas of the country handle their TV sets. But I do know there has been a dramatic change here in Lawton in the past couple or so years.
Several years ago there was a lot of restaurants, sports bars, night clubs, etc. that bought new flat screen TV sets, but they cut corners and cost where ever they could. So the TV sets were often small, few in number and almost always programmed with SD stretch-o-vision bullshit signals.
Competition changed all of that. Buffalo Wild Wings built a new location and had native HD on their TV sets from the start. Other new restaurants that opened did so as well. That forced existing rivals to upgrade one by one. Lately sports bars around here have been in an arms race, installing bigger and better TV sets. They're covering the walls and all sides of the bar with those things.
One thing is absolutely certain with really big screen TV sets: any SD content on them looks like ass. That especially goes for stretch-o-vision nonsense.
Some customers may not know the difference between native HD content and SD material put in stretch mode. But they can tell it looks terrible on a big TV set. Maybe they don't know why it looks terrible, but either way it is bad for the business showing that crap. I'm knowledgeable enough to tell they don't have native HD service. The customers who don't know any better may only think the business bought a cheap, shitty quality TV set or something is broken in the TV and the business is too cheap to fix it.
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-02-2015 03:45 PM
Department of Justice is on the case:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/02/media/amc-regal-antitrust-investigation-doj quote:
Two of the country's biggest movie theater chains are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ is looking into how both the chains -- AMC (AMC) and Regal Entertainment (RGC) -- use their clout over smaller competitors.
One potential anti-competitive practice being investigated is known as "film clearances."
Under this practice, theaters reportedly tell Hollywood film studios they won't screen certain movies if competitors located in close proximity also screen the film.
Related: Cina tops U.S. at the box office for the first time
Small, independently-owned multiplexes claim big movie powerhouses swipe business away from them by using this technique.
That was the argument used by Viva Cinemas, which filed a lawsuit against AMC in April.
Viva, which served Houston's Hispanic community, claimed that AMC broke antitrust laws by "threatening" major studios to not show films at Viva, and cutting off the flow of first-run films to the theater.
This ultimately caused Viva to go out of business, according to the complaint.
The two chains hold a lot of weight in Hollywood, with AMC operating 4,972 screens and Regal running 7,334 screens nationwide.
Both AMC and Regal revealed the investigations Monday in regulatory filings.
AMC said it did not believe that the company violated any federal antitrust laws and that it is cooperating with authorities. Regal echoed the same sentiment in its filing.
Both AMC Theaters and Regal Entertainment did not respond with further comment.
The Department of Justice also declined to comment.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-03-2015 11:39 AM
Where is NATO in all of this? You would think an org that supposedly represents ALL exhibitors would have been the initiator of this kind of complaint to Justice and at the forefront of such a move instead of some small independent trying to hold on for dear life....and losing. At the very least, NATO should have been gathering stats on this kind of thing for years (this "clearance" scam that the gloiath exhibs in bed with the studios have been using to whack the little guy hasn't just started yesterday) and at the very least, NATO should have filed a "friend of the court" brief and weighed in on this...been leading the charge. As usual, there is deafening silence from the NATO eunuchs.
Oh, and as for Marcel's list of presentation atrocities:
quote:
- Omnipresent focus issues
- Convergence so far off, the picture starts to look like anaglyph 3D, but glasses won't fix this crap.
- Flat content presented in scope
- Scope content presented in flat
- Stuck pixels or even pixel clusters in or near the center of the image
- Trailers dubbed in the wrong language
- Trailers containing subtitles in the wrong language
- Defective pre-show content that nobody cares to remove from the playlist
- Features with subtitles in the wrong language
- Advertisements and other pre-show content run in the wrong color space
And don't get me started about masking, or rather the lack of it... I could go on with this list for a while.
(Let me add GROSS hot-spots of the ill-conceived combination of too large screen sizes, short projection throws, flat, underlit silver screens).
....all those ills are there, and in abundance. And the worst part of it is, NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE. Digital never fixed exhibition's apathy which we all documented here over and over for decades in the Hey You Suck (Outing Bad Film Handlers) thread. NOTHING has changed, just whatever can go wrong with the sloppy use of whatever the presentation technology is that's being used, be it film or digital -- the end result is still the same -- the customer sits there and may not be quite sure what the damn problem is, but somehow in the back of his mind he's thinking how good his TV screen serves up his movies at home and making that "I'll wait for it to come out on DVD" scenario an ever-more desirable option for him.
Last night I sat watching SAN (CAN A MOVIE SUCK THIS BAD) ANDREAS in one of Regal's new RX (CAN A THEATRE SUCK THIS BAD) P screens. Some stagehands dragged me to it, for which they will be severely punished. With about 8 other people in the theatre (after only 5 days and being lauded for its $56M opening) -- word travels faster than light here in Brooklyn -- we were able to sit nearly smack in the middle of the theatre and when I tell you the hot spot was DISGUSTINGLY egregious. And it wasn't even in the middle of the screen where one would expect given our seats, so it means it wasn't even the high gain silver screen that was the problem but a lamp that was severely out of alignment. Even a minimum wage usher or a half-wit assistant manager high school kid would known SOMETHING was VERY wrong. But the question is, does anyone even CARE? Evidently not.
This is the first time I've been unfortunate to see this so-called premium house brand, IMAX wanna-be at this venue. And if this is what they are offering up for an additional $8 surcharge, as their "premium experience" ....then eff em in the eyeballs. At least IMAX has dual projection and whatever proprietary pixel matching BS they do and they are at least able to get their 3D picture, if nothing else, very bright and somewhat evenly lit. And not only did this RXP look like there was an 8FtL difference between the lower left side of the screen and the entire right side of the screen, this sewer presentation had no masking AND really soft focus, if you can call digitized pixilation "soft." Still projecting 2K, and then blowing it up so anything but closeups look like pixelated dog puke and charging extra for it is NOT a "premium experience."
Sorry, but there's no evidence that digital has fixed ANYTHING what was wrong with theatre presentation in the past is still what is wrong and maybe in spades because exhibition seems to think, we just spent umpteem millions on new digital equipment, everything should be PERFECT without intervention of any kind. Apathy which we found with film is now apathy squared. Now it's Hey, You Suck on Steroids. Same set of problems just a different set of technology flaws.
Given this same-o-same-o, any consumer who says, "I'll wait for it to come out on video" and instead saves his money by not going to theatres that charge extra for what they hype as a "premium experience" and puts that money into building his own premium Home Theatre, I say, more power to him for having some right-on cinema street smarts.
Get burned like I did last night once or twice and a savvy person might just say the hell with commercial theatres altogether. Maybe theatres SHOULD go under and let everyone watch movies on their own personal devices. At least that way you get to pick the presentation level you want and it's your OWN "experience," not IMAX's or Regal's or any of the rest of them who shouldn't be in the theatre business but operating fast food franchises (and charging too much at that). And given the nausea-making hot-dogs and stale popcorn served up at this particular Regal, their restaurant expertise doesn't rise much higher than their movie presentation acumen; the only way they would make it in the fast-food franchise business would be if they colluded with some hot-dog conglomerate to get "clearance" on hot-dogs.
Yah, I am that pissed.
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