Let them recognise themselves without using names or sneid remarks.

Since I receive no income from any theatre or theatre company, and since my theatre reviews are in no way related to my employment, there is no conflict of interest. Having theatre staff members rate theatres would be like having me rate the research centers at my University to grade which ones are doing the best research. Since I work at one particular research center, I'd definitely want to make mine look the best, and if I didn't I'd probably get in trouble with the director of the research center where I work. I suspect that the same thing might happen with the theatre reviews if done by theatre staff members.

Suppose there are two theatres in the same area run by the same company and one staff member from one of them posts a review here that someone from the other theatre finds negative, and the upper management gets upset with the one that posted the negative review. I suspect they'd be let go.

I can think of many different types of problems that could arise because of implementation of such a forum here, from personal problems among members to staff members getting in trouble with their higher-ups. Theatre companies may develop a "don't post reviews of theatres" policy as a result.

Brad, think this thing through long and hard before you go through with it. I'm afraid it would degrade the personal relationships that have formed here over the past few years and cause problems for the participants. I'm sure that some managers in my area despise my theatre review site, especially if their theatre does not have a good rating. However, since I don't work for any of those companies, all they can do is write me and ask me to stop doing it (which hasn't happened) or file some sort of suit against me (which hasn't happened). If I became employed at a theatre company, I feel that I would have to stop running my site.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

At that time I was working for Loews and I can remember some of the critiques of their NYC and NJ theatres that infuriated me, because I knew for a fact that what was being reported was not true.

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Boxoffice Magazine publishes an annual Exhibitor Directory ("Giants of Exhibition") listing contact information for the 50 largest theatre circuits:
Boxoffice Exhibitor Directory

The International Film Journal likewise publishes an "Exhibition Guide":
Film Journal Exhibition Guide

The best management person to .cc on technical issues is usually the VP of Projection, or VP of Engineering, or VP of Operations. Examples include Roger Frazee, John Wolski, Jim Kappus, Phil Hacker, Robert Carmony, Steve Scott, Kurt Macfarlane, Barry Blackburn, Ray Gaudet, Michael Norris, Michael Thomson, Deborah Clark, Mark Louis, Carl Peterson, Dennis Daniels, David Kilderry, Dan Herron, etc.

Perhaps Film-Tech could facilitate communication by developing a directory of e-mail addresses or phone numbers for the key people at individual theatres who could respond to any problems found. Even Film-Tech people may be shy in pointing out problems in person on a busy night or when they attending a movie with others. But if they know who and how to contact someone at the theatre, their expert comments may be of help in correcting a problem. (We could start out with a directory of contact information for theatres Film-Tech people work at). Also verify the "chief" technical person at each theatre circuit who would want to know about persistent "saints" or "sinners" in each circuit.

For any film participating in the Lucasfilm THX Theatre Alignment Program (TAP), also contact the TAP hotline:
TAP Services
TAP Hotline

Phone: 1-800-PHONE-THX

Current films participating in TAP include:

Moulin Rouge

Planet of the Apes
Dr. Dolittle 2
Shrek

Evolution
Pearl Harbor
A.I.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

(Evans, feel free to correct my figure above. I rounded.)

Back to the topic at hand, I think John has come up with a potentially fantastic idea here. Can anyone add to it?

Regal has a comment card mechanism, which I frequently use, but I have no idea who gets the comments I send. Long ago, the email messages I'd occasionally get back would have the list of recipients in the email header, but the last few haven't. The comment cards used to yield canned responses (I know because one response I frequently got used to have an ungrammatical sentence). I haven't heard from any submitted comment cards in a long time, so I don't know if they're getting lost, or just quietly being sent to the local theatre managers. I wouldn't be surprised if Regal didn't have their software set up to throw anything from me away.

Carmike does not have this type of mechanism on their WWW site for submitting comments. I get the impression that Regal cares more about their presentation and have better maintenance policies overall than Carmike does. The local, neat, well-run Carmike 10 is not representative of Carmike threatres in general, but the Carmike 8 in Decatur, from what I've heard from several reliable sources, is much more representative of their theatres in smaller areas. I'm not sure Carmike as a company wants comments from customers about their presentation quality at theatres. At least Regal invites such comments with their comment card WWW page. Carmike needs one similar to it.

In my area, Regal needs to:

1. Priority 1 (over anything else) : Install adjustable screen masking on screens 3-8 and 10-16 at Hollywood 18 and screens 3-6 and 9-12 at Madison Square 12 so that both the flat and scope formats will not be shown at 1.85:1 as they currently are.

2. Train the booth staff at Madison Square 12 on framing, splicing, alignment, aim, and finding and fixing common problems. Installing new projectors will not get rid of common careless operation of that equipment.

3. Put the digital sound systems in at Madison Square 12, since in 1999, all staff members I talked to thought that all auditoriums were getting digital sound during the stadium seating upgrade. The current systems are quite poor.

Carmike needs to:

1. Train the staff at Carmike 8 in Decatur as far as splicing, framing, alignment, aim, and lamphouse alignment go. Train the staff to find problems and report them and fix them as they occur.

2. At Carmike 8, update the awful sound systems in the old Litchfield auditoriums (1, 7, and 8).

3. Upgrade the equipment at Carmike 8 to give brighter images in the old Litchfield auditoriums (1, 2, 7, 8). Images are generally dim and have poor contrast and color quality,a nd often have uneven brightness.

4. Put the same effort into running and maintaining Carmike 8 as they do running Carmike 10.

So, who are the best people at each company to write concerning these types of problems? The problems have gotten the attention of the management at certain points in time, but there seems have always been very little energy directed toward improving anything.

I really think the large companies don't care much about these issues, since people will go to these theatres if they're showing movies that people want to see rather than drive a few more miles to go to a different theatre.

The bottom line is reviews do no good in improving presentation quality if the theatre companies do not care. They only serve to let people know what to expect, on the average, when they visit a certain theatre.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

Emails to people or corporations that care AND get the job done
is the best way to go.

quote:

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Actually, if people know in advance that attending a certain theater will result in a poor experience, it is the theater that will suffer as attendance drops from that knowledge.

---

You'd think that, Brad, but I think that most of the people that go to movies don't really give a flip. People still flock to the Carmike 8 in Decatur even though people have known for years that they're consistently sloppy. People still flock to the Regal Madison Square 12 and Hollywood 18, content to see scope chopped to 1.85:1 in many auditoriums, not knowing any better, and even if they do, they still go.

Most people don't have that much of a choice when it comes to seeing movies. A person in Decatur only has one choice (whichever theatre is showing the movie they want to see) unless they wish to drive to Huntsville. The average moviegoer just doesn't care about presentation quality, unless the sound is distorted enough to be noticeable or the image is really messed up in some way. Most people don't even understand how the movie formats work and don't know enough about composition to know when a flat movie is misframed significantly and they surely don't care if the image fades out 6 inches to a foot from the edge of the screen, or goes that far past the black area onto the drapes.

I've been in showings where these things took place and I'm the only one that went out and complained about Erin Brockovich being so far out of frame that opening credits were cut off and microphones were dancing around at the top of the screen. I'm the only one that complained the one time when the film was loaded backwards (mirror image with soundtrack visible, with the edge of the image played as the soundtrack) at the old, now closed Regal 8. I'm the only one who complained when the douser was falling down during the show, darkening the bottom 25 percent of the image in a showing of American Beauty. The other people just didn't care, and were totally content to watch it the way it was.

With customers as apathetic as they are now, theatre companies can get away with minimal care, maintenance, and quality checking. I hate to say it, but customers are mainly to blame for the sorry presentations they put up with. If customers would start caring about what they're paying for and take a stand, saying "This is not acceptable" when things go wrong, certain theatres in my area would either have to clean up their act, improve their facilities to modern standards, and implement a good quality checking and control system.

Educating the "average customer" to know how to notice various problems with presentations and report them would be nice, but have you ever tried to teach a non-technical person about anything halfway technical? It's hard enough to explain it to my technical friends that are software devlopers and engineers. It would be like trying to teach a pig to sing.

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig." -- Paul Dickson

John is absolutely right, in that the ultimate goal, is a better presentation to the public, than is presently being delivered.

I know that I am coming in from a different perspective than the majority of members. However, after 45 years in this industry, I do know a good presentation from a bad one. Without knowing how to fix a problem, I know what needs to be done, to correct the problems that I encounter. Therefore if you know, what is creating the problem, I would offer a solution. The solution may help the person receiving the suggestion in speaking with their technical department.

If you are making a suggestion to a company whose technician is a member of film-tech.com, you may want to contact them by e-mail, first and give them a chance to deal with the problem before going over their heads.

I Know we all want to be able to show "Film Done Right" plus we also want to see "Film Done Right" so please let us all work together.

Anyhow I will support whatever Brad deceides to do.

Brad, I thank you for bringing this thread up, John I thank you for your insight and suggestion. I believe this can work.

Yes, you are correct. However if the customers really cared that much they would stop patronizing a particular theater in the end and they would go out of business. (Sure this is an extreme example, but you get the point of it.) Your last post seems to have just made a valid point to the Regal and Carmike theaters of Decatur that they no longer need to consider putting in variable masking, for people (including yourself - the one person who complains constantly about it) will continue to patronize the establishments.

Calculate this, what is the actual percentage of all of your posts right here on Film-Tech that mention these couple of theaters with their aspect ratio handicaps? Then calculate the odds of any Film-Tech lurker not reading at least one of your aspect ratio posts and being uninformed about patronizing those two specific theaters whenever they visit the Huntsville/Decator area. Now please calculate how many OTHER people have complained on this forum about those two specific theaters. Finally guesstimate just how valuable those Huntsville/Decator theaters are to a chain in respect to other theaters in their circuit. Does it add up?

One person complaining over and over and over and over about a particular item will accomplish nothing, unless the theater chain's head tech decides that enough is enough of the complaining and decides he needs to satisfy you. (Highly doubtful. The odds are much greater that he will learn to detest everything you say and hope you never visit their theaters again. After all, if these two theaters had adjustable masking, would you patronize them enough over what you do now to justify the expense? It's not just hanging some black cloth up. It's new lenses, aperture plates, labor, etc to make it happen.) So to put it closer to home, there is a far better chance of the Huntsville/Decator theaters receiving masking upgrades if multiple people speak out...so if in the end this idea is a "go", get everyone you know to report their findings with these two theaters positive or negative and see if it can make a difference.

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