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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: 70mm Alive And Well In San Francisco
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-21-2005 02:47 PM
per foot; then you need 25% more feet of it.
If you make a 70mm print then it will cost much more than a 35mm one; several times as much, even with DTS rather than mag striping. You need to recover that cost from the fairly small number of people that will see that print, you can't charge more at cinema A which is showing a 35mm print just because cinema B in the next town is running it in 70mm. You would probably sell more tickets for a 70mm show than for a 35mm one, but would the difference be enough to recover the extra cost of the print during it's lifetime.
If you shoot in 65mm, or other large format, then the difference in cost applies to the total production budget, and is much smaller in percentage terms. High quality 35mm reduction prints can be run in almost every cinema in the world, and everybody seeing the film would benefit from the higher quality, so you could charge a slightly higher ticket price. Let's say you charge 20 cents more on each ticket sold, with the cinema keeping just a small part of that, after all they have no extra costs in running a film shot in 65mm, and the rest going back to the production company. How many tickets would a film have to sell to recover the extra cost of 65mm production? How many films are produced each year which do sell enough tickets to recover the extra costs. I would have thought that there would be quite a few. I assume that this would be for mainstream titles; I doubt that 65mm would be viable for anything else.
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Andy Summers
Master Film Handler
Posts: 397
From: Bournemouth Dorset United kingdom
Registered: Jun 2005
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posted 07-21-2005 03:11 PM
To
Robert Harris
The transfer of “Lawrence of Arabia” to DVD format, now you and “Gene Katz” laboured lovely care into getting all the elements together for major restoration treatment for “Lawrence” back in 1987 was it not, and the 70mm presentation at the “Odeon Marble Arch” in 1988 was fantastic.
Sound and image was all there, and focusing on the dialogue panning was cool, I have say I do like sound, the sound that drives the emotional elements up there on the screen was total indispensable…
But again with the DVD format offering the promise of better performance, well I think someone don’t know who, but there is a scene in the film where “Maurice Jarre” score makes, what sounds like a 2 second jump, my instinct told me to check the other language format….
Oh yes that sound ok but I don’t understand German, switched back to English language, and did I soon get board with it and turned it off…
So what is the funny hear with this as a former cinema projectionist, and we are all consumers hear every one of us, I don’t understand the film was looking good and sounding good until chapter 39, check it out where “Lawrence” walks across the top of the train carriage…
Also other works I have are “Vertigo” & “My Fair Lady” where on the audio commentary you mentioned out how great SDDS is and with the five screen full spectrum channels now back in position.
With HD-DVD on the up and coming horizon, it will be great to have a 10.1 or 10.2 in the home cinema arena with this newer format in home cinema entertainment would it not, five channels up front, two for left and right sides one for the back one for height surround and two LFE channels, not impossible very doable.
And going back to the issue the transfers from film to DVD and HD-DVD have to be monitored by people who care more about the film transfer than the money, I not saying you where not there during the transfer for DVD release, but someone as made a total bodge up, and therefore I have started to lose faith in some of the technicians and re-recording mixes.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-21-2005 05:41 PM
Steve,
So we both agree that the cost of a 70mm print is going to be considerably greater, several times, the cost of a 35mm one. The question then is whether, and how, the extra revenue generated by the 70mm print can recover the extra cost involved in producing it.
quote: Steve Guttag
Going back in my memory bank...I seem to recall a quote in one of the trades where a 70mm release represented 4% of the screens running the film and they brought in over 20% of the income. Is that due to 70mm or due to the fact these theatres (probably larger than most and in high density areas) is up for speculation. Then again, some of of why people go to do things is for the "event" of it all. 70mm certainly adds to the event feeling. 70mm can often give credibility to a film too...That is make it more significant than it is. This is not always the case but a 70mm theatre will generally get more than its share of attendance.
I know that a large twin theatre we ran had one 70mm screen and on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom...70mm theatre would sell out while the the other theatre would not running same title in 35mm (rather than booking a short run feature we decided to wait for the next big break feature to put in the other auditorium so ran TOD for a couple of weeks on the other screen).
I don't disagree with what you say here, either.
quote: Steve Guttag
I absolutely think one could charge more for showing a film in 70mm and get the money. There is no question in my mind that a 70mm release would make its money back and in fact would improve the overall bottom line to the studio.
Ah, I think you have misunderstood what I said; maybe I didn't word it very well. You could charge extra for a 70mm presentation, and I agree that you would probably still get more people through the doors than you would if you had been showing 35mm. However, the number of people who will see the film in 70mm will be only a small proportation of the total number who see it in all formats. Let's say that 10% see it in 70mm. I think that figure would be somewhat opimistic, given that there are large areas, and entire countries, that have no 70mm equipped cinemas, but let's use that figure for now. You could charge those 10% a higher price, but only those 10%. You couldn't charge extra to the 90% who see the film in 35mm, or indeed who see it at home on DVD, on the grounds that other people somewhere had seen it on 70mm. You would be able to generate extra revenue from only a small percentage of the total audience to pay for the much more expensive prints.
I contrast this situation with that for 65mm production where all of the total audience will experience improved quality, and can therefore be expected to contribute to the additional cost which, in terms of the total production budget will be relatively small, say 5%. Obviously it will vary somewhat for different films.
quote:
There are too many factors in how a film will do. A bad film will do poorly,
I'm not sure I agree with you here, there are plenty of films where my assessment of them differs from that of the general population. What do you mean by a 'good' film, or a 'bad' film? There have been many films which I thought were absolute junk, which did very well, and vica versa.
I'm certainly not opposed to 70mm projection, but I don't think it will ever account for more than a few percent of the total audience for a film. I think that 65mm production would benefit more people, and be easier to justify financially; and as I said before, you can stil make a few 70mm prints if you want to for venues that need them. Maybe if more films were being shot in 65mm, or Vista, or Technirama it would even be a spur to more 70mm exhibition.
quote: Steve Guttag
Of course, I have the position that if you are shooting a wide screen film for a mainstream feature release and don't think it justifies 65mm origination...it probably shouldn't be shot to begin with. (my positions are not always popular ones)
My views are frequently unpopular on various newsgroups to which I contribute; uk.railway, for example.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-21-2005 06:20 PM
quote: Steve Guttag
Going back in my memory bank...I seem to recall a quote in one of the trades where a 70mm release represented 4% of the screens running the film and they brought in over 20% of the income. Is that due to 70mm or due to the fact these theatres (probably larger than most and in high density areas) is up for speculation.
What we're really asking here is to what extent are customers willing to seek out and pay more for top-end technical presentation quality? My take on this one is that clearly (as in, clear to someone with no technical knowledge of cinema projection) bad presentation has an instant negative effect, but that above average technical presentation has a gradual and cumulative positive effect.
If a theatre continually has false fire alarms which stop shows, or the lamp is worn out and flickers like a dim candle, or the sound is so badly EQed that you can't understand the dialogue, I've known friends and relatives who've consciously decided to go to another cinema because they came out of the last one with a headache or not having understood the plot of the film. But if they see a flawlessly presented 70mm print they won't instantly decide to come back on account of the good technical presentation. More likely, that'll be one (in their mind) of the things which added up to a nice evening out. They'll probably go again the next time a film is on they like the sound of, word will get round the town and locality, and the cinema will build up a solid customer base from there.
IMHO, if 70mm is going to make a comeback as a technical selling point, it can't be a short term quick fix: no-one is going to justify higher ticket prices simply by whacking up a poster announcing a 70mm presentation. 99.99% of the population will neither know nor care what 70mm is, and the 00.01% who do will seek out and find good presentation regardless of what you charge them. Over the months and years, however, and assuming you do all the other things right as well, having a 70mm print may give you the edge over the venue on the other side of town which doesn't. But if 70mm projection is to make a sustained comeback, my guess is that it'll take that sort of long-term commitment to make it work.
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