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This topic comprises 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6
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Author
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Topic: End of proper wide screens = the end of moviegoing for me
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 12-06-2016 11:01 AM
The point to be made here is that the cinema industry is falling into that self-destructing trap of where a theater is successful without spending money on something (due to an outside influence not factored into the equation), so then another theater follows suit and so forth. Meanwhile the entire industry in their copycat nature starts spiraling downward in quality overall, and sooner or later it will find itself in a pit so deep they cannot pull themselves out of it.
The problem with masking is that not having it deteriorates the perceived image. Yes that is correct, colors are not as vivid, the perceived sharpness is not there and contrast is lower. This isn't a preference, it's just a fact of how our eyes work.
I blame IMAX and RealD for this trigger of overall destruction of presentation quality in the exhibition industry. Hear me out.
Back when IMAX started running Hollywood films (for their own survival) most theaters weren't building monster size screens, so people started getting excited over the sheer massive size of the IMAX screens (even though only HALF of the screen was being used).
IMAX has never done masking and just like how some (not all) of arthouse theaters got away with having terrible presentations, they were able to stay in business because they had exclusive content, so if the people in a town wanted to see the film, they had no other option than to put up with a terrible presentation...and the arthouse theater made money, thus these type of arthouse theater owners believed they did not HAVE to take their presentations seriously.
The same thing happened here in regards to IMAX. Back when this trend started, IMAX was the only "super big screen" game in town, so they got away without masking since people were so excited to see such a large image they bought tickets anyway and then the bean counters of the industry proclaimed "masking isn't necessary because IMAX doesn't use it, so we won't use it anymore either".
This was further backed up with the incorrect argument "digital has a sharp edge so masking isn't needed with digital" by people who never understood that masking did more for the image than simply to cover up the fuzzy edge of film projector apertures. (And that was for theaters that actually cut their plates properly, not the large amount that thought there should be a fuzzy edge to the image that butted up against the masking...but that's another discussion.)
Now theaters are back to building large screens again, yet they are taking the IMAX shortcut of not installing masking and they are foolishly creating a tall image. Humans don't see height like we see width, yet these theater designers are trying to copy the IMAX recipe by creating tall images based upon the 1.85 specification, even though 90% of movies are scope. This is where Jesse is absolutely correct. Cinema auditoriums should be built so scope maxes out the height of the screen wall. Want a taller picture? Then widen the auditorium! It's pretty simple. When theaters don't build common height screens, we get letterbox, and letterbox = home video. ("Letterbox" being even more obvious without masking.)
Keep in mind also when a customer sits in a seat they are happy with, that is directly related to the height of the screen and their distance from it. While yes I realize this upcharge bit with reserved tickets also works against presentations (since people can't pick their seat once they see what the real screen size is like upon entering the auditorium), the point to be made here is that if the movie starts and only part of the screen height is now being used, this is disappointing to the customer from every possible angle that this can be debated.
But RealD is also a huge contributing factor to the decline of quality at cinemas. They came in and did their deal with all of the big boy chains to put 3D into each auditorium, thus forcing silver screens to be installed everywhere. This post is already getting pretty long, so do I even need to explain the destruction of quality that happens to a cinema image with a silver screen vs. a white screen???
Other things happening in the industry is everyone installing significantly more expensive recliners over theater seats (of which carries a higher maintenance cost) at the cost of roughly half the original seating capacity. While I'm all for more comfortable chairs and spacing from the stranger next to me, this is also something that will help to eliminate cinemas, because that is substantially cutting their potential profits down.
Now we have people worried about "immersive lobbies"!!! To this I say: really? Are we so desperate to get customers now that THIS what we think will make customers come to the cinema?
So here we have everyone scrambling to figure out what to do. Meanwhile the answer is actually very simple. It all boils down to 2 major current facts that the decision-making people seem to be overlooking:
#1 People come to the cinema to see a particular movie. If that movie is available day and date, cinema will die. The studios want their money back as fast as they can get it, so they will continue to ease into this model with some small movie here and there that they know will bomb. This is because the studios are quite smart and know exactly what they are doing. Of course they want theaters to keep self-destructing on the above points. Then they will pick that crappy movie to day-and-date with knowing they can use the argument "see it didn't affect your profits, it's a different audience". Bullshit. It was a crappy movie! But the fact remains all it takes is for any of the reasonably large theater chains to play just one movie that is released day and date, then the fuse to the exhibition bomb will be lit.
#2 People come to the cinema to get a big screen experience that they cannot get at home. The problem is home video and home video projectors are getting better and better all the time. In fact there are lots of people now who haven't put tons of money into their home theaters that have a better presentation than the average multiplex! Translated this means if presentation is not taken as the #1 aspect of the movie going experience above every other aspect of the cinema (and this specifically means auditoriums being properly built with masking and large, native 2.40 screens) cinema will die.
EVERYTHING ELSE comes after these two points.
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-06-2016 05:12 PM
I would agree with you wholeheartedly, Brad, on your point #1. Point #2, not so much.
You and I, and the other folks on this forum, approach things differently than Mr. & Mrs. Average American Moviegoer. Since we are all more or less current or former film handlers who take pride in such matters, we expect, or even demand, a degree of technical excellence in film presentation that others do not. Just this last weekend I walked out in a showing of Allied at an AMC multiplex near here. They were trying to show the film in 2D through the RealD device in front of a Sony projector. That's bad enough, and I would have been willing to give it a chance, but what was worse was that the projector port glass was absolutely filthy and smeared, and resulted in an unsharp and low contrast image. I didn't even make it to the feature. But I am willing to wager that no-one else noticed or cared. I might point out that I was killing time by myself here, my girlfriend has mostly stopped going to the movies with me because she gets annoyed at my dragging her out of the show for presentation issues she considers minor, or doesn't notice at all. Such is it with most people. It could be argued, of course, that most people don't know from superior projection because they have never really seen it. But still.
This is why cinema will not die, at least not for reasons of presentation. People will sit through things that would make you and I tear our eyeballs out. My experience is that it takes a very serious issue to get people to up and leave a screening, a very dim picture, or one noticeably out of focus (and even then . . .). If 100 years of dicey projection hasn't killed cinema, lack of proper masking isn't going to do it. Sadly, not enough people care.
quote:
arthouse theaters got away with having terrible presentations, they were able to stay in business because they had exclusive content, so if the people in a town wanted to see the film, they had no other option than to put up with a terrible presentation...and the arthouse theater made money, thus these type of arthouse theater owners believed they did not HAVE to take their presentations seriously.
I don't know if Martin is in on this thread, or if he would agree with me, but unless you are a Landmark, or a Lammele, or an Angelica, then your arthouse is a vanishingly low-margin operation, so much so that many have gone to non-profit status in an effort to stay afloat. That having been said, I'm sure most arthouse operators want to take their presentation seriously, but lack the coin for anything more than the basics. I believe also that art/alternative moviegoers have somewhat different approach to things, a certain amount of funkiness is acceptable because it's more about supporting the theatre. There is an arthouse in upstate New York that occasionally snags a move-over from the local Regal if the picture fits their usual programming, and they usually do very well with it even though it may have already played a few weeks in town. Arthouse audiences can be like that.
But you have a point about exclusivity, I go to a lot of art/alternative theaters, and I very often encounter pillar-boxed flat (or even Academy) images on scope-sized screens. It can be off-putting, but rarely does it take me out of the picture. I'm just happy to see the film in a cinema, and happy that the operators are keeping the place going.
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Martin McCaffery
Film God
Posts: 2481
From: Montgomery, AL
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-06-2016 05:25 PM
Yup, I'm here (or, at least, one of the Martin's).
As the director of a non-profit, I do what I can to get the best presentation I can. We do have top and side masking, but since we are in a 1941 theatre, we have to letterbox or break the proscenium. Pre-digital, we had the best picture in town, because we had nothing but Carmike to compete with (but no top masking). Now, we're too dim but will have to live with it until we can afford to upgrade from the POC Solaria.
People will sit through amazing amounts of crap and abuse. But they will also be supportive of you if you treat them with respect and don't try to jerk them around.
I agree, they don't necessarily know what they want, technically speaking, but when they have a feeling something is wrong, they will quit coming to the theatre - even if that's not the theatre with something wrong.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 12-06-2016 06:24 PM
quote: Mark Ogden
This is why cinema will not die, at least not for reasons of presentation. People will sit through things that would make you and I tear our eyeballs out. My experience is that it takes a very serious issue to get people to up and leave a screening, a very dim picture, or one noticeably out of focus (and even then . . .). If 100 years of dicey projection hasn't killed cinema, lack of proper masking isn't going to do it. Sadly, not enough people care.
Ultimately theaters do not gain much benefit from customers who don't care about presentation quality. The problem is the attitude cuts both ways. They may not care if the movie is presented with a certain level of showmanship. But they also may not care about just watching the movie on Blu-ray, or DVD, or Netflix or a lower quality bootleg on a movie piracy streaming web site.
Most customers are simply going to watch the movie where ever it is available for the least amount of money. Commercial theaters don't stand any chance at all with something like a simultaneous day and date release model. Movie distributors keep pushing their luck by making release windows between theatrical and home release ever shorter.
I think the powers that be in both the movie industry (and the larger global media industry that owns all the movie distributors) are living in some kind of dream world. They're making a lot of decisions they believe will make them even more money and faster, while from my perspective it looks pretty suicidal in the long term.
Hollywood movies have not been generating nearly as much money on home video as they did 10 or 15 years ago. Retailers of physical movie & music discs as well as physical books have been decimated by online merchants. Video rental stores have seen an epidemic of closures. Home TV viewers appear to be more interested in TV series from premium networks like HBO or streaming services like Netflix. There's lots of other kinds of programming to watch on cable or online. It's pretty easy for some movie release to be forgotten in all of that. Commercial movie theaters are really the only venue where a movie release can stand out and get attention.
quote: Jesse Skeen
The movie theater is dead- long live home theater.
Like Brad said, IMAX is largely to blame for the current theater building trend of using common width screens and no masking. IMAX set the stage for it when it started showing "DMR" blow-ups of Hollywood movies on 15/70mm film. By the way, I was pretty put off by IMAX' "DMR" thing. Some theater chains had been building new theaters with at least one house featuring a really large 'scope ratio screen and big seating count. The problem was they needed 5/70mm prints for a properly bright and steady image but could only get 35mm film prints. Then IMAX comes along showing roughly 5/70mm quality while using 3 times as much film.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
When IMAX rolled out its 2K digital "Lie-MAX" product, on more modest sized yet masking free screens, they were practically begging theater chains to mimic the approach with their own home-brewed premium viewing concepts.
The other big culprit for common width screens: stadium seated auditoriums. The auditoriums have much taller ceilings. It would cost even more money to widen the auditorium for a 'scope screen that properly filled the end of the room. It's cheaper to just build a flat screen and go higher. IIRC when the AMC Grand 24 opened in Dallas in 1995 and helped launch the stadium seating building boom it had at least a few common width screens. In the late 1990's such screens usually at least had vertical masking.
Some theaters are still building auditoriums equipped with common height screens. Our newer Carmike location here in Lawton (the Patriot 13) has common height screens in all its standard priced houses; and the screens all have movable masking. Better yet, management there actually uses their automation to adjust the masking between flat and 'scope during the pre-show rather than just leave it wide open 100% of the time for 'scope (even though nearly all the movies they play are in 'scope ratio). The IMAX branded house has no masking and letter-boxes the 'scope movies.
The downside of common height screens is the low native resolution of the 'scope image being projected. The 'scope format is now the lowest quality format, all thanks to decisions made in setting d-cinema standards. Since 'scope movies are effectively letter-boxed TV style during the post production stage it only encourages a more TV like approach at the theater.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 12-06-2016 11:19 PM
quote: Brad Miller
#2 People come to the cinema to get a big screen experience that they cannot get at home. The problem is home video and home video projectors are getting better and better all the time. In fact there are lots of people now who haven't put tons of money into their home theaters that have a better presentation than the average multiplex!
The arthouse audience for sure, and the mainstream audience a little more than I think we give them credit for, are not just looking at technical presentation quality. They are also looking at the social experience of cinemagoing - being with 100 other people who'll have a similar emotional reaction to what they see on the screen as they see it, etc.
We're never going to win the arms race on techno-geekery alone. In the thread I started on "hi-def vinyl," Rex Oliver used the phrase "audiophools' to describe people who, to quote Flanders and Swann, "...never did care for music much, it's the high fidelity." 4K in the home is now within reach of a middle-class income. Just as in the 1950s when TV came along, the movie theater still has to upsell what it can offer that the living room will never be able to.
High quality technical presentation, in the hands of professional projectionists, will make a a big contribution to keeping the movie theatre alive, but that won't do the job alone. Plentiful parking, nicely decorated, welcoming buildings, a combination of mainstream blockbusters and slightly more off-the-wall choices all playing in the same building, for more arthouse oriented venues, a bar in the theater lobby ... you need to give your customers a reason to want to get out of the house.
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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 12-07-2016 01:46 AM
Now that you mention it, the 2D movie (Arrival) I saw on this screen didn't look evenly bright in the picture area, possibly due to its being silver. From where I was sitting it looked like the bulb might not have been properly focused, but having never operated digital equipment I can't be positive. Was this ever a problem with 3D on film in the past decades? I happen to LOVE 3D (I have a 3D display at home and have bought nearly every 3D Blu-Ray release just to show my support for it), but I hardly go to 3D movies at theaters though because of the upcharges (but I won't watch a 2D presentation of a 3D movie- I'll either pay extra or wait til I can see it at home.)
Letterboxed movies on IMAX screens are awkward, but I accepted that just because feature movies weren't really MADE to be shown on those screens. The films made specifically FOR IMAX theaters were in the fixed ratio of those screens. Non-IMAX screens on the other hand have been meant for showing different aspect ratios depending on the movie, and should be masked for them accordingly.
But that just shows there's people out there even more picky than I am. While the majority might not give a damn about picture quality at all (hence why they continue to throw their money away on bug-infested cable channels and have their TVs set to make everything look like a funhouse mirror), people who work at and run theaters should be BETTER THAN THAT, regardless. When I worked as a film projectionist, I could have cut corners and likely nobody would have noticed, but I still would have personally felt bad for having done so. I could not work for Cinemark or Regal in any capacity if they make it "policy" to not mask their screens- that just shows that they are LOOKING for ways to show that they don't care about presentation.
But the bottom line is that as theater presentations become more like home video, that just gives me less reason to even go anymore. Meanwhile an exceptional theater presentation that outdid what I could even GET at home at any price would have me going even if the movie itself didn't appeal to me.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 12-07-2016 01:45 PM
quote: Brad Miller
The point to be made here is that the cinema industry is falling into that self-destructing trap of where a theater is successful without spending money on something (due to an outside influence not factored into the equation), so then another theater follows suit and so forth. Meanwhile the entire industry in their copycat nature starts spiraling downward in quality overall, and sooner or later it will find itself in a pit so deep they cannot pull themselves out of it.
The problem with masking is that not having it deteriorates the perceived image. Yes that is correct, colors are not as vivid, the perceived sharpness is not there and contrast is lower. This isn't a preference, it's just a fact of how our eyes work.
I blame IMAX and RealD for this trigger of overall destruction of presentation quality in the exhibition industry. Hear me out.
You make excellent points, Brad. While some might dismiss your comments as not being relevant to the general public ("they don't notice"), I think that there is merit to the arguments nonetheless. It's a death by a thousand cuts, and while each step taken to diminish the quality of a moviegoing experience is "only a flesh wound," they add up.
I hate silver screens because of what they do to the black levels. The ones around here are pretty good from a uniformity standpoint, but when everything black is grey, watching a movie set in space or a movie that is supposed to be dark is pretty disappointing. Unfortunately, there aren't many screens left that aren't silver (at least not around here).
The combination of constant-width screens and the lack of masking just screams that the theater doesn't care. It's actually worse than letterboxed movies on one's TV, because the bars aren't white/silver on the TV. That's something one would expect from a budget theater, not one that wants $10-15 for a ticket.
The fact that the multiplex companies are heading in this direction presents a dour outlook for the industry, but it also should present an opportunity for a savvy theater owner. A theater that got all the aspects of the moviegoing experience right should succeed over one that does not.
I believe that people are capable of appreciating the differences between good and bad presentations, but some aren't as perceptive as others. They need to have it explained to them so they can understand what they should be noticing through either subtle or not-so-subtle communication. People aren't mind-readers and we shouldn't look down on them for not appreciating some of the finer points of what makes a good presentation.
I encourage everyone here that has an opinion about the experiences at various theaters to post messages on the theater's Facebook page, Yelp, and yes on the theater Reader Comments pages on our site (www.bigscreen.com). Help get the word out about what is good/bad about a theater's presentation!
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James Wyrembelski
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 114
From: Beaverton, MI, USA
Registered: Sep 2015
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posted 12-07-2016 03:38 PM
I agree with the sentiment that people, even if they aren't quite sure what it is, can tell when something just isn't right.
All business, especially service businesses, should take note of the "little" things that really add up to convey level of quality. With the economy (at least in our area) on a huge upswing, competition should begin to really take hold and it is quality that really needs to shine. If not, the price should reflect the service involved. Paying top dollar to see a show should provide the customer with quality, top dollar viewing in all aspects, even if they really have no clue what is all involved such as masking. They may not know why the picture at a particular theater is better, but it just is!
Perhaps masking could be included in the advertisement for the theater? "Pristine digital projection, enhanced by screen masking!" The general public may not know what the hell that means, but it sounds fancy! Maybe have informational posters or sheets in the lobby explaining technical aspects of projection and why masking, etc. enhances the theater experience and its superiority to home viewing? I don't know what would work, but trying something sure beats out doing absolutely nothing to resolve the problem.
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