I have noticed that some cinemas as well as having P&D add reels also show P&D slides before the film. (While non-sync music is playing)
As a Student Cinema we are always looking to pull in extra income from advertising. And if slides were an option for us we would consider showing them.
So:
Will P&D be willing to have slide advertising at a University Cinema?
Do P&D provide the slide projection equipment?
No they do not, it is up for the cinema to provide A/V equipment for this (unless you can beg for one), P&D do provide slides as they have the contract with UGC chain in the UK.
We have gone from No curtains, No decorative lighting, No masking (UGC should be ashamed for this policy)and now No escape from advertisers...
If you can avoid it.....
Back to Pearl & Dean slides.... don't if you can avoid it!!
Pearl and Dean in australia closed down a few years back now, but when we worked with them they never payed for the slide projectors or helped out with the upkeep.
These days it's VAL MORGAN advertising or nothing, Val Morgan doesn't like competition, so it just gobbles up the small fries!
quote:
KEN...No masking??
So do you/they just show everything in the 1.85:1 space or inside the scope area, or is it just a plain sheet?Pearl and Dean in australia closed down a few years back now, but when we worked with them they never payed for the slide projectors or helped out with the upkeep.
These days it's VAL MORGAN advertising or nothing, Val Morgan doesn't like competition, so it just gobbles up the small fries!
UGC Screens are 2.35:1
1.85:1 Flat is shown on the middle of the screen with black space at the sides.
The other big problem is high gain screens along with no masking it's about the worst thing imaginable!!
UGC stands for Utterly Ghastly Cinema!!....
I believe Lydia went on to a directorship at Rank Screen Advertising after P&D.
All the best
Dave
The original policy when this cinema opened was to FULLY close the masking prior to the start of the show and during any intervals....
It was truly awful!! it was the first thing I changed when I took over. Masking is set to full open when we open and during intervals with clock projection on screen..... but let's not go there on that one.....
The original policy when this cinema opened was to FULLY close the masking prior to the start of the show and during any intervals....
It was truly awful!! it was like looking into a black hole. The whole front of the auditorium was BLACK!! it was the first thing I changed when I took over.
Masking is set to full open when we open and during intervals with clock projection on screen..... but let's not go there on that one.....
I first saw a 1.85 wide picture without masking within a masked 2.35 scope screen, much to my disbelief, at a United Artists multiplex in Orlando over 10 years ago. Although the screen was matt white, and obviously the aperture plate was machine cut, naturally I hated the bare sides. The Paramount picture I watched was about Bikers in Florida, which I doubt, saw the light of day in the UK. The story had an environmental message, and actually was quite surprisely good, although I finished up watching the film on my own, as the other audience of three must have screen hopped.
Almost opposite the United Artists was a Cineplex Odeon, both were showing different pictures. I also visited an AMC multiplex which did have movable side masking, and stereo sound. I must say that both cinemas displayed excellent picture and sound, as was presentation! Perhaps still in the days of only dedicated qualified projectionists running the boxes.
It is sad to learn on this Forum that a major multiplex operator in the UK is cheap skating with no movable side masking for 1.85 wide ratio. Like the sides being chopped off of scope on a fixed 1.85 screen, it is about time the Studios stepped in and refused product until poor standards are put right! Whatever next, pictures squeezed or stretched with a variable anamorphic to fit the screen?
I see your cinema got a very nice accolade recently on an UK website.
tell me more about the acolade.... can you give me the address of the web site please.....
I don't know all of the science about this subject but having no side masking, just white sheet, reduces the apparent contrast of the 1.85 picture. As for appature plates, these are not machine cut and as you can imagin are seldom well cut. Cutting plates to masking is hard enough but cutting without an edge to work to is very difficult. Unfortunatly its a skill that very few have as time spent on them is limited so the job gets rushed.
I remember when I worked in the Cannon Tottenham Court Road, the new owners of the Maybox Slough Multiplex, came along to see what the difference was running a picture with the side masking open. We were able to convince him how awful it was and he did put masking in, although I seem to remember that it was hand cranked at the screen!! Better than nothing I suppose.....
However we seem to be getting way off the topic......
Just going to catch 8mm on CH4.
I will have to do a search, will email you tomorrow morning with a copy!
Darren
quote:
Masking is set to full open when we open and during intervals with clock projection on screen..... but let's not go there on that one.....
The City Screen clock projectors are a double-edged sword, IMHO. If you could time the non-sync to finish just as the second hand was coming round to a show's advertised start time and then dim it out as it went past the 12 o'clock mark then the effect was great. But if, for whatever reason, you couldn't start the show bang on time then the clock projectors were a total disaster because you were advertising the fact, on a ten-foot diameter image, that the performance was starting late.
I tried to get round this at York by setting each of the three clock projectors a minute apart from each other, so that in the event of clashing start times I was able to run between the boxes and still appear to start the shows 'on time'. But all it took was a minor problem (e.g. having to fight your way through a corridor of queueing customers) and people were sitting there getting annoyed at the late start. In these circumstances the clock projectors became a massive invitation for bolshy member types to start filling out their complaint slips.
They're a lovely piece of technology which looks great in the bar, but put them in the auditoria and you're asking for trouble.
with regards the clock projector... it fills an otherwise empty screen and is a City Screen policy.
As for complaints... well we don't get them and if any place was going to get them it would be Stratford.
Leo...
As for waiting until the second hand reaches 12 etc etc etc.... get real.
In a multi screen, single manning operation you cannot waste your time going that far.
As for the time sheet, it can only be considered a guide to the start of the performance, not the feature!! Adverts and trailers are different lengths each week but the show times don't change so you have to start early or later to ensure the feature hits the screen at the correct time.
And setting the clocks a min apart is asking for trouble.... one screen could easily be four or five mins out compared to the others. Hardly sensible is it!
Otherwise the clocks were a liability and should never have been installed in the auditoria. Exeter and York got a steady stream of complaints about shows starting 2 or 3 minutes late, some of which specifically referred to the clock on the screen. No-one would have noticed otherwise. The getting real to me meant realising that you're never going to be able to start every show at its advertised start time, especially with some of the programming (e.g. there was one week in which all three screens were scheduled to start their main evening show at the same time, and two at the same time was not unusual) that was inflicted on us. Drawing the customers' attention (especially the members) to that fact was like waving a red rag in front of a bull.
Clearly the members in York, in your time, had two heads and were very different from everyone else! you seem to feel members are especially difficult?
During my time at Exeter and York my experience was that members were more likely to complain - especially about relatively minor things - than customers who didn't join the scheme. I'd guess the reasoning was that they'd paid their subscription and so were entitled to a 'greater' level of service than those who just turned up and paid the regular ticket price. You'd have to ask Darren if they're still at it - as you know I left City Screen a year and a half ago.
You seem to have the impression that 'members' are very different from ordinary mortals and more deserving of attention.
As for removing the big clocks from stations.... that is more a cost cutting exercise than anything else. The cost of maintaining these big clocks is considerable... the smaller more acurate clocks are easily maintained.
A clock is a clock is a clock.... the time is the time is the time.... no matter how you display it. If you have a clock displayed anywhere then people will go by it, some may even have their own watches, controversial I know but true none the less. How do you cope with that? The answere is you don't! You go on screen at the time you belive it to be..... to hell with what everyone else thinks the may be.
I make no apology for the fact that the clocks within my building may not all say the same time.... I live in the real world.
Hi Brad
Val Morgan is not the only cinema advertising in Aus.I do some install
work for classic movie ADS which has about 40 screens.Have you hear about Val M money problems,in was in last weeks paper.Val M may be no more.