Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Print Quality

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Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-28-2004, 05:27 PM:

Being very new to this game whenever I get a print that just doesn't look great on the screen I go straight to my equipment to see what needs adjusting or if something isn't right.95% of the time nothing is wrong with the gear.Is this just something I have to expect that some prints have bad focus,poor colour and brightness etc and other prints will look great?
At the moment my print of Somethings Gotta Give -no way you can get a sharp focus.LOTR-ROTK looks excellent-sharp focus,good colour etc.We put every print through our film cleaner(using Filmguard)as it is made up.Is it worth demanding another print if there is no mechanical damage just poor projected image-wouldn't i get exactly the same back?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-28-2004, 06:26 PM:

I can relate about "Something's Gotta Give." That movie had sort of a soft focus quality. Probably to enhance the looks of the stars?

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-29-2004, 01:23 AM:

Unfortunately the audience fails to understand that soft focus is frequently done intentionally for effect. Also it seems the older the stars, the softer the focus. One night a few years ago after one guy bitched about the focus 3 times, I told the manager to send the asshole up to take a whack at it. His very cocky attitude was quickly humbled when he tried to focus a very dark, soft picture from 110 feet.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-29-2004, 08:25 AM:

Yes, it is very common for cinematographers to use diffusion or soft focus for older talent, or for "period" pieces.

Using lower resolution digital intermediate and CGI to save money and time can limit sharpness, and sometimes results in visible digital artifacts.

Super-35 can produce fine images, but compared to "true" anamorphic, "Size DOES Matter".

Likewise, Super-16 origination can be surprisingly good, but it certainly won't match good 35mm. And nothing comes close to 65mm. [thumbsup]

And I won't even get into movies shot on DV or HD. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 01-29-2004, 09:02 AM:

It always amused me in some of the older films (Garbo, Davis, Crawford, etc.) when shots of the female lead would be heavily "gauzed" and cut into otherwise sharp footage. At least most cinematographers today try to achieve an overall look rather than the jarring changes.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 01-29-2004, 01:08 PM:

When I train new operators I tell them to be on the lookout for limited depth of field, selective focus or diffused focus effects in the movie. Often the director or D.P. call for these things to (supposedly) enhance the movie.

Sometimes you'll even see a shift in focus during a dialog between two people where "Character A" is in focus when he is delivering his lines then, without panning the camera, the focus shifts to "Character B".

Sometimes these effects can be subtile enough to make you think the projector is out of focus when it really isn't. I, too, have had complaints from people who have thought I wasn't focusing the projector well enough.

I have used Bill's trick of letting people focus the picture themselves on occasion. Shuts 'em up pretty quick! [evil]

Another trick when I get a complaint like that is to momentarily defocus the image and then refocus. People will see that on the screen and "know" that somebody has come to fix the problem, no matter how nonexistant it really was.

As simple as focusing a lens sounds, it's really a skill that has to be developed. You have to develop the "eye" to know where to look on the screeen at any given moment to get the right focus.

Once in a while I will go stand right in front of the screen and call up to the booth to "spot" for the operator while he focuses. Someday, I'd like to see if using binoculars or a spotting scope really works.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 01-29-2004, 01:53 PM:

quote:
Another trick when I get a complaint like that is to momentarily defocus the image and then refocus. People will see that on the screen and "know" that somebody has come to fix the problem, no matter how nonexistant it really was.

In all the times I've complained/whined [evil]

about what I thought was bad focus, I've never once seen this occur. Well, maybe once. [Wink]

Posted by Peter Mork (Member # 1336) on 01-29-2004, 02:30 PM:

Not a skill, it's an art!

Films shot with handheld cameras can be especially tough to do.
The easiest thing to focus on would be a long steady shot of something with a lot of texture, like grains of sand - but how often do we get that?

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-29-2004, 02:39 PM:

Focusing on the grain of the image is definitive, but with modern Kodak VISION and VISION2 color negative films, even high speed camera films usually have very fine grain.

Our screening rooms in Kodak have remote focusing, that allows the focus to be adjusted from the front of the theatre. I've also seen "focusing telescopes" or binoculars used if the throw is long -- just be sure they are in focus too, maybe able to see the screen perforations.

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 2038) on 01-29-2004, 02:46 PM:

I've tried the "come on up here and you try it" idea but when they see that steel ladder going "up there somewhere" they usually go away.

We open with Jack & Diane tomorrow (Friday) so I'll be looking for that (what we used to call) "Doris Day Fuzz."

Best place to focus is on actors' eyes. That usually works, or something "busy" with lots of texture.

I've noticed that ratings all seem soft the last few years. Trim up crystal clear and sharp on the tiny credits and the rating looks too soft. By then everyone is out anyway.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 01-29-2004, 03:26 PM:

I usually prefer actors faces. With the exception of Morgan Freeman. Can't seem ever to focus that guy.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 01-29-2004, 09:36 PM:

John Pytlak wrote...

quote:
And I won't even get into movies shot on DV or HD.

Tell me about it... [Big Grin]

In my film-festival stints I've had to deal with more video-to-film transfers than I care to remember. Even when I think I've got the focus spot-on as the opening credits roll, the lower resolution still quietly drives me nuts and makes me want to tweak the focus even more, even though I realize there's almost nothing to gain.

(At least the situation is better than the combination of sometimes fuzzy computer-animation shorts and ancient projection lenses I had to deal with when I ran "Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation" showings in the early 1990s. Explaining this to a complainer, which I had to do a few times and in a way to minimize embarrassment, was a bit of a challenge. [Frown]

)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-30-2004, 02:11 AM:

quote:
I've also seen "focusing telescopes" or binoculars used if the throw is long -- just be sure they are in focus too, maybe able to see the screen perforations.

I once did a few relief shifts at a small two-screen which had easily the longest throw of any cinema I ever worked at. Screen 2 was built at the rear of what was once a single auditorium. Screen 1's beam projected across a roof void over the top of the smaller auditorium, through a second port glass, and then across the main auditorium to the screen. I couldn't give you the exact throw, but you'll get some idea from the fact that the 1:1.85 lens was something like 165mm! I did have real problems focusing, simply because the screen was too far away for me to see it properly. So on the second weekend I bought a pair of binoculars with me. Problem sorted, and several of the staff there commented that the picture was sharper than they'd ever seen it!

quote:
As simple as focusing a lens sounds, it's really a skill that has to be developed. You have to develop the "eye" to know where to look on the screeen at any given moment to get the right focus.

Assuming that there are no heat issues with the projector and that all reels of the feature are printed on the same sort of stock you should not (in theory, at least) have to make any focus adjustments once a feature has started, if it's all running from one machine. One thing I found in a number of sites is that it's very important to strike the lamp a few minutes before showtime, otherwise expanding metal will cause the focus to drift during the first few minutes of the show. The same goes with 6,000 changeovers; with 2,000 changeovers I'd always leave both lamps running throughout the show.

When the feature starts, I would look for a reference point (not the opening censor certificate or distributor logo, which is often printed on separate stock from the actual film), set the focus, and then leave it unless there was something clearly not right. I also found that if there was a complaint arising from either a bad print or intentional soft focus effects, throwing the focus drastically out and then bringing it back slowly to where you started usually shuts 'em up.

During the changeover from acetate to polyester focusing could be living hell, because you'd often get a print with some reels on acetate and others on poly.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-30-2004, 03:17 AM:

our upstairs theaters (converted balcony) have slightly off-axis projection and lately focussing there has been an adventure. with new features, the credits, especially on one side, would be very soft without retouching the focus a couple times during the show. it seems to get better over the run.

downstairs we have horrible keystoning but focus stays on. must be the lens.

carl

Posted by Michael Rourke (Member # 1142) on 01-30-2004, 03:34 AM:

The newest problem is Steven Soderbergs trademark grainy image that everyone thinks is out of focus, it happened with Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich and Traffic.

Some trailers are even shot soft, like that horrible movie The Skulls, that trailer was really soft, everyone was backlit and had an aura.

Posted by Elena N. Solovyova (Member # 1636) on 01-30-2004, 03:38 AM:

It's really convinient to have a binoculars. You can split this device into two mini-telescopes to share them across two booths.

As for complaining customers (concerning soft-focus films) -- it is always useful to defocus the lens slightly before the start of presentation and shift the focus ring up to the "dead focus" mark during the first trailer. It prevents a lot of people from complaining -- at least they know that there is someone in the booth.

[Razz]

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 01-30-2004, 10:02 AM:

I have to chime in here and disagree with a couple of things:

1. I would never allow a customer to operate the equipment in any way. I just don't believe in that kind of thing.

2. Defocusing the image in order to "telegraph" a message to the audience is just wrong. I would never INTENTIONALLY throw the image out of focus, even if it is "just a trailer."

These ideas seem like "games" to me. It's a waste of time/energy.

If you are confident that the image has been correctly focused then there is nothing more you can do. Anyone who is bothered by the image should request a refund.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-30-2004, 10:13 AM:

In an ideal world, granted. But managers don't like giving out refunds, and if there's nothing wrong with your presentation they shouldn't have to.

Agreed entirely on letting customers twiddle the focus knob, though. If their hand slipped and had an argument with some sprocket teeth the possibilities for legal action would not be nice. I had a long-running difference of opinion with a former employer over its 'Kids' Club' marketing gimmick of allowing children to come up to the box and start the film on their birthday. Although, thanks to automation, we could set it up so it simply was a case of pressing one button, their parents physically had to lift them up to do it. If someone had slipped while the machine was running or managed to snarl up the film path, I wouldn't have liked to be involved in the recriminations afterwards.

Posted by Travis Hubrig (Member # 1745) on 01-30-2004, 01:47 PM:

Does anyone have the Screen Scope mounted on their XL's?
The parts manual has them listed as part P-2481...
(Page 25-26 in the Simplex XL manual)
If you have them have you used them? They seem like almost a novelty. It would be a good idea, but would only get used in a drive-in or large auditorium.
The mounting brackets are on mine, it would be fun to have one and play with.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 01-30-2004, 02:47 PM:

Oh yeah. Focus is fun.
My personal favorite is "how hard is it to focus a film?"
Well, let's see...This movie is mostly dark shots and it's a dv conversion...you try it and let me know how it goes.

IMHO the best startup for a picture is as follows...Depending on the hours on the current bulb and how it strikes I start the lamphouse one to five minutes before showtime (if the bulb is very old and hard to strike of course) and leave the manual dowser on the lamphouse closed. When showtime rolls around hit start, let the automation do it's thang and open the douser again.
Since most of the time I don't have time to stand there and watch 12 minutes of trailers I'll focus at the end of the first trailer and come back to focus on the opening credits. After that slight adjustments may need to be made but by now the equipment is warmed up and the focus is at least very close.

When the credits roll I'll recheck it on them, but most of the time they seem to be slightly off from the rest of them feature.
With a little tweaking the picture should look great the rest of the day without having to drastically change it later.

Durring the film if there's a focus issue the best i've found to focus on are as follows:
Peoples faces/eyes (I too have always thought Morgan Freeman was hard to focus)
Sand or stucco wall
And anything with sharp lines that happens to be well lit in the foreground.

And in my oppinion again, focusing is something you're born with...I've never been able to teach some people with perfect vision to focus yet others get it immediately.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-30-2004, 07:29 PM:

about leaving the lamp on with the hand douser closed.

i know it's common to do this for 20 minutes in changeover booths and some places just leave them on all day, but is there ever a possibility of damage from this?

one of our lamphouses (um, have to check on make & model) has a sticker warning against doing this for more than 5 minutes. i don't know how the sticker got there but it's professionally made, not just sharpie on a name tag. (although it does say "dowser" which is where i got that spelling.)

carl

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 01-30-2004, 07:41 PM:

The only lamphouse the douser was an issue I ran across was the Kneisley's as it was too thin also the Lumex running at 2K often had the two vanes fuse togather

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 01-30-2004, 08:14 PM:

The only benefit I could see leaving the lamp on all day is that it doesn't have to restrike every show tart, but I'm not sure that that really causes less wear and tear than using up to an hour or more of bulb time waiting between shows. That just doesn't sound smart to me at all.
And there's most likely more issues with having that puppy on all day, in a house that's running six shows a day even on an a film that's 1:55:00 long with a 15 minute break between shows you'd have that bulb on at least 84.3 hours per day. I know that sounds like a small ammount but I'd assume that consistent opperation would "wear out" the bulb much faster.

anywho, there's my 2...again [Wink]

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-30-2004, 10:42 PM:

quote:
i know it's common to do this for 20 minutes in changeover booths and some places just leave them on all day, but is there ever a possibility of damage from this?

Some higher-powered lamphouses (like, 4K+) might have issues with this practice, since a lot of the air intake comes through the snood. I think it's one of the reasons my Ultra 80 runs warmer than I like... the added heat filter blocks off the front and there are NO other air input ports other than the blower on top. The Super Lume-X is built the same way, but because it has no heat filter, there's lots of air coming in through the front (as well as what the little blower provides. Strong's older X-60 series lamphouses had some openings in the back, but, like the Lume-X boxes, there was nothing to restrict airflow in through the snood. Big Sky's 4k+ pedestal box has vent ports all over the place, so heat filter or shutter positioning makes no real difference at all.

If the lamphouse design doesn't depend on the shutter being open most of the time, I wouldn't think you'd have a problem.

quote:
The only benefit I could see leaving the lamp on all day is that it doesn't have to restrike every show (s)tart, but I'm not sure that that really causes less wear and tear than using up to an hour or more of bulb time waiting between shows. That just doesn't sound smart to me at all.

The debate here about the effect of striking lamps for each and every show reminds me of many spirited discussions in years past over how much extra life you'd get out of a radio tube by leaving at least the filaments on all the time.

Personally, I've never found that either practice makes much difference on a xenon bulb AS LONG as you are not trying to set records for most hours. If the bulb is replaced within a reasonable percentage over warranty, I've generally found that the number of strikes I normally put on it doesn't matter much one way or the other.

What DOES make a difference is how the bulb behaves in the first minute or so after you start it up... especially when it's heading toward the end of its usable life. A horizontal bulb that's perfectly good for the bulk of a presentation can look downright awful while it "warms up" and stabliizes. If for no other reason than that, I'll leave a lamp on... especially over short intermissions. Some here have also commented that it can take some time for a bulb to reach its normal color temperature, lending another reason to leave it on.

If the break is a long one, Yah... I'll turn the lamp off, but on an older bulb, I'll fire it back up a couple of minutes early... with the shutter closed, to let it settle in. Then all's good.

But then, that's just me. Do a thread search on this subject & you'll probably find hundreds of opinions in several threads about this one issue.

Posted by Chris Byrne (Member # 1563) on 01-30-2004, 11:07 PM:

quote:
I had a long-running difference of opinion with a former employer over its 'Kids' Club' marketing gimmick of allowing children to come up to the box and start the film on their birthday.

I learnt the hard way with this. A manager gave a group of school kids the 'tour' after one of their visits. This one kid was running amok, running around like a cat on a hot tin roof. It all came to a head when he took out the platter take up arm on a film playing to a full house. Needless to say - never again!

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 01-30-2004, 11:13 PM:

I had a focus problem on my last operators job back in the days of "Close Encounters". I had four screens in one building and one Cinerama style house in another building four minutes away.

Invariably, the lens would drift predictably in focus over the first 10 minutes.

Since I could not spend a lot of time in the big house, I had to devise a way to set the lens out of focus a calibrated amount and let it drift into focus. Worked every time, but it was one of the compromises that ultimately drove me out of the booth and into theatre service.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-31-2004, 05:59 AM:

quote:
one of our lamphouses (um, have to check on make & model) has a sticker warning against doing this for more than 5 minutes.

Does that sticker really refer to the hand douser or is it talking about the changeover shutter? If the latter, five minutes would be too long for comfort, I'd have thought. I once got sidetracked by a 'phone call immediately after a changeover and when I got back, the changeover shutter on the outgoing machine already had a slight dent in it, because I'd forgotten to close the hand douser before answering the 'phone. This was on a DP-70 with a 2.5k lamp, and I can't have been gone more than 90 seconds or so.

Posted by Ron Keillor (Member # 1790) on 01-31-2004, 02:26 PM:

"douser" or "dowser"
Richardson's Blue Book (Quigley Publications) 1935 uses "dowser".
Chambers Dictionary gives " douse or dowse ... to put out, extinguish ( esp in the slang douse the glim to put out the light) -- n. douser a shutter for cutting off light in a cinema projector".
So to me both spellings are okay.
The American sources (Websters and New American) both seem to limit dowser to one who uses a forked stick to find water.
This comment added to forestall argument on the subject.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-31-2004, 02:49 PM:

Regarding leaving the lamp on all day:

Some theatre sound systems will make a "bzzt" sound in the auditorium speakers when the xenon is struck. Apparently this is usually the result of a poor installation. Unless/until the problem is fixed, it's probably a good idea to leave both projector lamps on if it is a changeover booth, regardless of the bulb life issues. There's nothing more annoying to the audience than hearing a "bzzt" sound in the middle of a quiet scene.

I always leave both lamps on when running small (2000') reels and have never had a problem, though I've never run small reels with anything larger than a 2000w xenon.

Regarding focus:

Does anyone else _hate_ the "Focus Features" logo which starts out of focus? It's especially annoying when it's the first thing to hit the screen after a lens change (where one would normally want to touch up the focus). Two thumbs down to whoever designed that one.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 01-31-2004, 04:17 PM:

Most film lab screening rooms leave there lamps lit all day and all my twin machine booths I install are instructed that unless running large reels lamps stay lit

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-31-2004, 05:48 PM:

Well focusing is now "clear as mud" to me,at least I've got a few more ideas on where to look to try and improve focus.Wouldn't it be possible for some sort of logo (or whatever) to be at the start of every movie and this logo or picture being shot with the same equipment that the movie was,and in the same "focus style"(e.g. soft or sharp).Then this could be used to get the correct focus for the rest of the movie.I know I live in a dream world but this would make life so much easier for dummies like me.Still on the focus issue why does TV/Video/DVD never seem out of focus?
As for Xenons we turn them on 15 mins before the first show and turn them off at the end of the last show-we get good hours out of our lamps before flickering starts and we have had no trouble with our lamphouses.Our turnaround times are usually 5-15 mins,we would turn it off for a no-show.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-31-2004, 05:59 PM:

TV/DVD doesn't look out of focus because you're looking at an image that is somewhere around 1/200 the size of a theatre screen, among other possible reasons.

I took the "green band" off of an old trailer and spliced it into my house leader before the countdown starts. That way I can verify the focus ahead of time. We don't have a lens turret so this helps a lot when changing from a scope film to a flat one.

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-31-2004, 06:10 PM:

Mike-do you show the count-down on the screen before the first trailer?I thought that would be a big NO-NO!
I can't see that focusing on something foreign to how the print was shot would help that much!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-31-2004, 06:17 PM:

Ian - no, of course not -- the countdown comes after the focus strip. I focus and then motor the film ahead to the correct starting point.

This is not a substitute for focusing the film on startup -- it's just a hedge to prevent starting "blurry," which I hate.

Posted by Ian Bailey (Member # 1752) on 01-31-2004, 06:25 PM:

Mike-with our tight scheduling and short turnaround times we would not have time to do this as we would be displaying the "focusing strip" to the audience for the next show!
We usually thread up while the slide advertising is running.

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 02-01-2004, 02:34 AM:

i had another look at our upstairs lamphouses and they are both 2k xetrons (model xh-10 according to some paperwork, though it doesn't say so on them). they both have this sticker, which gives several sensible warnings, and ends with

quote:
DO NOT OPERATE LAMP FOR MORE THAN 5 MINUTES WITH THE HAND DOWSER CLOSED.

so can anyone who uses this model lamphouse confirm that this warning is not to be taken seriously?

this is mainly for curiosity's sake, as we normally just let the automation turn the bulb on and off.

carl

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-01-2004, 06:42 AM:

Unless there are some particular cooling issues with this model of lamphouse, it should be safe to run the lamp with the hand douser closed more-or-less forever. If there really is a danger of overheating on these lamphouses, then they would be no good in a changeover installation.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 02-01-2004, 09:55 AM:

Carl--maybe the dowser is the same as the one I've seen on the XCN-35 console: just a flat disk of steel with a piece of steel mesh attached to it. Doesn't work well for heat dissipation.

The Christie H20 lamphouse (at least the circa-1979 model I am familiar with) had what looked like a chunk of asbestos on the main dowser plate. While it worked quite well, such an approach would not fly today for reasons well-known.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 02-01-2004, 10:45 AM:

There are other things that can be used on dowsers today in place of asbestos. Refractory materials are extremely heat resistant and are typically used in place of asbestos. It also wouldn't cost all that much for a piece of Titanium that size for use on a dowser. Hevan forbid that someone actually build something to last though.
Mark @ CLACO