Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Did You Ever Run 70mm Trailers?

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-12-2006, 08:56 PM:

For those of you who were projectionists working a changeover booth back when 70mm prints were available, did you receive 70mm trailers to run with your 70mm features? Or, did you run 35mm trailers and pre-show stuff on Projector #1 and Reel 1 of the 70mm feature on Projector #2 and then during Reel 1 switch over Projector #1 to 70mm in time to change over to Reel 2?

Did you prefer running 70mm trailers so that they, like the feature, could be heard in stereo and use the same masking setting? Or did you prefer flat, mono 35mm trailers so that the transition to 70mm and full six-track stereo would have impact?

Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-12-2006, 09:03 PM:

What a great topic!

I can't wait to hear more.

Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 12-13-2006, 02:09 AM:

I've got a copy of the "Lawrence of Arabia" contract with Columbia/ 3 Falke bio from 1963, where it is specifically stated, that a 70mm trailer for "Lawrence" has to be shown as much as possible in advance before the films release. The contract was signed in early 1963, and the film opened in October the same year.

The only 70mm trailer I have ever run commercially, was the "Far and Away" "...now, this is our movie!!" trailer. We did that during "Spartacus" at the Imperial (in Copenhagen) in 1992.

btw, not all 70mm trailers had 6-track sound - at least not in the 80s

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 12-13-2006, 02:23 AM:

I don't think I've ever seen a 70mm trailer at a normal film screening; I've seen the odd one at the Widescreen Weekend at Bradford.

Of the four cinemas where I've seen most 70mm films, one I can't remember, another, the NFT, doesn't normally show trailers, and the other two each had three projectors, one still has, the other has replaced one with a 35mm only machine and another with digital. They both ran trailers etc. on 35mm on one machine, and the feature on 70mm on the other two.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-13-2006, 06:32 AM:

Not exactly sure what info we're talking about here, but I've seen lots of 70mm trailers, daters, and policy snipes. General Cinema did them.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 12-13-2006, 08:32 AM:

If the 70mm trailer was available, we ran it in 70mm. If what we needed to promote only had a 35mm trailer, we ran that. So yes we did 35 to 70mm changeovers. However, in the 70mm boom of the 80s and early 90s...there were an abundant amount of 70mm trailers so one normally need not have to run 35mm versions.

Steve

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 12-13-2006, 08:55 AM:

At the orignal Cine Capri in Phoenix, we ran trailers in 70mm
when we were running a 70mm feature. Generally they were spliced on to the head of reel-1. We had enough to do handling
the contour curtain, title curtain, curtain wash (lights), house
lights without having to worry about changing over to 35mm for
the trailers! And, by doing so, it kept the screen presentation
quality VERY high. However, we didn't run trailers for all 70mm
show. The contract usually forbid it.

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 12-13-2006, 02:20 PM:

Yes, 70mm trailers were sent to theaters running a 70mm feature because (in many places) you could not change from 35 to 70, "on the fly." I still have a few I kept for testing. If the studios wanted their trailers seen, that meant printing them in 70mm. Sometimes the sound volume would be way off, but generally they sounded pretty good.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 12-13-2006, 02:31 PM:

In Westwood, CA, we ran 70MM trailers that the studios sent to be run.

Posted by John Stewart (Member # 989) on 12-13-2006, 04:36 PM:

While working for GCC, if we ran a 70mm feature, there was almost always a 70mm tr or 2 including the policy trailer and/or THX. Of course, that was a platter system. In the 70's the only reel to reel 70mm prints I ran at the Fox were older prints so no trailers.

In 2004 we received a print to run during the summer series. One of the cans was really heavy. So, when I opened it, it was brimming with film. Turns out it was someone's 70mm trailer reel. Seems like it ran about 30 or 40 min. Sort of wished I had made a list of the titles on this reel but I really didn't have time. One trailer was something of a soft porn.

John

Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 12-13-2006, 05:16 PM:

When I worked for GCC, I specifically remember running a 70mm trailer for "Star Trek V" on our run of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". We didn't have a "Coming Attractions" policy trailer, so all we could do was "THX", "Star Trek V", "GCC Feature Presentation" and then the film. It seemed difficult to get 70mm trailers at the time.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-13-2006, 06:02 PM:

There are some rather strange 70mm trailers out there, many for films that never had 70mm engagements. I own the following:

Problem Child (1990)
So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993)
Tummy Trouble (Yes, the trailer is for the cartoon, with some mention of HONEY I SHRUNK THE KIDS) (1989)
Alien3 (1992)
The 1985 Will Rogers Campaign
(My Prize) Return of the Jedi (1983)

Some of these I don't think ever ran, as they are on cores with complete leaders.

Sure would like to see them someday.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 12-13-2006, 11:36 PM:

This has little to do with addressing the original question, but I remember seeing a 70mm trailer for "Three Men and a Baby", playing in front of "The Last Emperor". The reason I remember it is because the film suddenly stopped and burned during that trailer. This was at the Edwards Town Center in Costa Mesa CA. Platter. The projectionist that day was an older guy who was clearly mortified about the accident. Before restarting the film, he came down to the auditorium and apologised to the audience for the unscheduled intermission, and invited everyone to come up to the booth after the show for a tour.

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 142) on 12-14-2006, 02:34 AM:

I ran plenty of 70mm trailers back in the 1980's. Some did require a masking change as they were widescreen 70mm, like Gremlins etc.

They were always impressive and all that I ran were 6 track sound. At the Forum in central Melbourne we had 70mm trailers for the The Jolson Story and That's Entertainment amongst others as 70mm test films! These old standard 70mm blow-ups with re-mixed sound were not too bad at all from memory.

During a season we always joined the 70mm trailers to the front of spool 1, we changed over after the last of the 35mm trailers. they always had impact seeing the top and side masking open up and the thumping magnetic come through.

At the Village City Centre we had 70mm THX traliers; now they were something.

David

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 12-14-2006, 08:09 AM:

One of the booths I worked had 2 DP-70s and a Simplex E-7. They often ran the trailers on the E-7 and didn't have to change setup. Another had 2 DP-70s and occasionally ran 70mm trailers.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-18-2006, 12:43 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
This has little to do with addressing the original question

Oh, but it does! I probably should not have asked the original question in a fashion where it was restricted to changeover projectionists. I thought a specific question would work best, but I suppose a more general question would've interested more readers and perhaps invited more replies. And I was curious how some projectionists chose whether to run 35s or 70s if they had the ability to show either. At any rate, I shouldn't have excluded those of you who attended 70mm presentations as a paying customer.

The real question, then, would be: what the hell did you think of 70mm trailers? Great? False advertising? Prefer 35mm for reason given in my original post? Any interesting trailer stories?

Me? I thought they were great, especially in the '80s since that was about the only way you were gonna hear a trailer in stereo. And it was a kick to see 70mm trailers for movies that were never going to get released that way.

I do have an interesting trailer story, and I wonder how many of you experienced something similar or if any of you changeover guys ever did this?

I saw a LOT of 70mm presentations in a LOT of different theatres. Most theatres where I saw 70mm always ran 70mm trailers (or no trailers at all), including the one 70 house where I once worked. However, the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood was different. When the Chinese would run 70mm features, sometimes the trailers and pre-show stuff was also in 70mm and the other half of the time it was 35mm. But with "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade" in 1989, they showed a combination of 35mm and 70mm trailers.

The opening-day trailer arrangement was "Ghostbusters II," "Star Trek V," "Black Rain" and "Batman." The "Ghostbusters II" trailer presentation was 35mm/flat/mono; the other three were in 70mm/full-width/stereo. This was the first time I can remember a format change occuring "live." Needless to say, the transition from 35mm trailer #1 to 70mm trailer #2 was fantastic (and even a deaf person would have to agree that the "Star Trek" trailer and everything that followed sounded phenomenal).

[ 12-18-2006, 02:12 AM: Message edited by: Michael Coate ]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-18-2006, 03:36 AM:

(Isn't it amazing that the love for 70mm is still very alive to this day by all of these testimonials?)

In as much that I was void in ever having the opportunity of projecting this large format, yet myself have seen 70mm trailers and do fully agree that their 35mm counterparts have no comparison to the 70mm versions when it comes to sound and picture presentations.

Posted by Ben Wales (Member # 92) on 12-18-2006, 03:55 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
(Isn't it amazing that the love for 70mm is still very alive to this day by all of these testimonials?)

I only wished that the Studios would see this thread and still consider 70mm in selected venues as the "Ultimate Cinema Experience", D-Cinema [dlp]

is coming and here to stay (so they tell us)but will not replace the real Widescreen Experience we had a few years ago.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-18-2006, 06:57 PM:

I watched lots of movies in 70mm when I lived in New York and a good number of them had 70mm trailers.

The 70mm teaser trailer for Total Recall was one of my favorites since it had a really good surround fly-by gag. I saw that on the front of a few different 70mm shows in late 1989 and early 1990. The only thing I didn't like about that 70mm teaser was that it implied the movie would be in super wide aspect ratio. I was let down when finally watching the movie (in 70mm) and seeing it projected flat.

I remember 70mm trailers for Star Trek V and Black Rain playing in front of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at Loews Astor Plaza in Times Square.

Point Break had a 70mm trailer. I just can't remember for sure which 70mm engagement that one preceded.

I have rarely seen a mix of 35mm and 70mm on trailers before a 70mm show. I do remember seeing one 35mm trailer (The Price of Tides I think) run on the front of a 70mm showing of Baraka at the UA Cine in Dallas. To go from that 35mm trailer to native 65mm photography of the Himalayan Mountains was a staggering difference in image sharpness.

70mm blowups are pretty cool on a giant sized screen. But the best thing really is natively shot 65mm/70mm.

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 01-29-2007, 01:30 AM:

I just saw a whopping batch of old 70mm trailers on Saturday which, I must admit, was quite a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon. (Yes, believe it or not, it actually rained in Los Angeles!) So the 70mm trailer subject is on my mind again.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Point Break had a 70mm trailer. I just can't remember for sure which 70mm engagement that one preceded.

As I'm sure you remember, Fox had two 70mm releases in late 1990 ("Predator 2" and "Edward Scissorhands") and "Point Break" may have been among the trailers shown with either of them. It may have even been the attached trailer, although my notes suggest otherwise. It seems more likely that you saw the "Point Break" trailer in early to mid '91 with "The Doors," "Backdraft," "The Rocketeer" or "Terminator 2."

quote: Bobby Henderson
I do remember seeing one 35mm trailer (The Price of Tides I think) run on the front of a 70mm showing of Baraka at the UA Cine in Dallas.

I highly doubt "The Prince Of Tides" was one of the trailers seen with "Baraka" considering that particular Streisand film was released two years earlier!

This "Baraka" trailer thing, by the way, is getting weirder and weirder... one member remembers a trailer from a film released two years prior, and another member (this thread) remembers a film released two years after!

Posted by Warren Smyth (Member # 1838) on 01-31-2007, 05:52 AM:

I ran 70mm trailers such as Camelot in the late sixties. The programme was entirely 35mm except for the trailer which played just befor interval. In those days, we ran half an hour of shorts, had a twelve minute interval, followed by the feature.

I used to join the last short together with its tail piece intact, to the start of the leader of reel one of the feature. At the end of this short I changed over to the trailer in 70mm and then stopped the other projector on the leader of the incoming reel one of the feature. This avoided having to thread up the feature during interval but could involve a lens and aperture plate change which was done while the 70mm trailer was running.

Advertising slides were shown in those days involving continuous work during the interval and I was on my own. There was insufficient time to thread up the first reel of the feature and this was the era of curtains, lighting effects, overtures and en'tractes.

We had Cinemeccanica Victoria tens and I had obtained some 5,000 foot reels previously used in the fifties for running 3D, which fitted the feed and take up shafts. I think these reels had been made by Kalee and they were painted red or green. I was able to join the whole of the first half together, and still have space for the first reel of the feature. The first half was generally in wide screen unless a scope trailer was run and of course, in this case, it was replaced by the 70mm version.

The take up needed a little help when starting up as it was partly full, so I would leave the bottom magazine door open to remind myself. It was also wise to check the feed spool after the stop, as there was often a loop of film formed which could tug on the feed sprocket when the projector restarted.

I would convert the projector from 70mm to 35mm as well as thread up the second reel of the feature while reel one was running. We had Super Zenith carbon arcs with a separate set of mirrors for each guage to produce the appropriate spot size at the aperture.

The management left me to decide whether to run trailers in 35mm or 70mm. The method was a little unorthodox, involved more work but I considered it worth it, to see the improved results from the 70mm version of the trailer. In some cases, 70mm trailers of features we intended running in 70mm were unavailable.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-31-2007, 01:53 PM:

quote:
I highly doubt "The Prince Of Tides" was one of the trailers seen with "Baraka" considering that particular Streisand film was released two years earlier!

I know what I saw. There's any number of plausible explanations on how odd-ball trailers wound up getting shown with that print.

Baraka didn't just come and go from theaters like the typical Hollywood mass production release. The movie was first shown in 1992, but I saw it at the UA Cine in Dallas in January of 1994. As that print traveled from one theater to another it would be easy for various bits of trash to wind up in any of the cans.

Then some projectionist who's just there to punch in and punch out on the clock may not be thinking about what really should or should not be shown on the front of the movie. I have seen LOTS of very sloppy work regarding movie trailer use over the years. This may just be another case.

And then there's the outside chance someone deliberately chose to run any small bit of film they could find on the shelf in 35mm to show the viewers the difference of true 65mm/70mm.

Whatever the reason, the trailer for that Barbara Streisand movie was stuck on there.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-01-2007, 09:04 AM:

On the 1995 re-issue of '2002: A Space Odyssey', we actually had the first 4 minutes of the feature re-printed in 70mm and ran the opening titles in 70mm on 35mm features.

Mightily impressive, but a small pain having to do it 6 times a day. We opened with 35mm ads and trailers and changed over to the 70mm 75 second (or thereabouts) 2001 'trailer'.

As the 35mm prints moved around the complex a bit, I used a trailer of 'Baraka' as spacing timed perfectly so the 35mm machine never had to stop while the 70mm was running. At he end of the 70mm trailer, you just changed back to 35mm effortlessly. As the 'spacing' Baraka trailer had no dialogue, it was easy to cut it to the perfect length and also made it usable as an actual trailer in the 35mm only screens where 2001 couldn't be played.

Apart from that, Far and Away was the only 70mm trailer I ran.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 08-04-2013, 03:14 PM:

It has been 2376 days since the last post.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 08-04-2013, 03:14 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
(Isn't it amazing that the love for 70mm is still very alive to this day by all of these testimonials?)

I do agree. I wish the studios would compare the grosses from The Master in 70mm vs the grosses from the AVX crap at certain locations.

I wonder if The Master had any attached 70mm trailers. I can't remember if there were any attached when I saw it in 70mm.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 08-04-2013, 04:14 PM:

For 70mm shows, I'd usually do it the way you described- -
I'd run the 35mm trailers (there really wasn't any other pre-show stuff)
and then switch to the 70mm projector with the feature on it. Maskings were
motorized, so the effect of the 'expanding picture' as well as the switch
to multi-channel sound was always a crowd pleaser.

From an operational standpoint, the only thing I did differently is that since my
booth had had a complete dual control system which allowed me to operate all
theater functions from either projector position, I pefrered to put the 35mm
trailers on the #2 projector. That way I could keep the "odd-even" relationship
between machines & reel numbers constant. That was just to give me one more
level of 'insurance' against accidently threading up the wrong reel near the end
of a looooooong weekend shift.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-04-2013, 05:26 PM:

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I wonder if The Master had any attached 70mm trailers.

It did. They might not have actually been "attached," and I don't remember the titles, but the screening that I attended definitely had a few current 70mm trailers prior to the feature. All DTS, not mag.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 08-04-2013, 05:54 PM:

I worked for National Amusements back in the nineties. We were trained on how to switch over our Century JJs from 35mm to be able to run 70mm. We ran a reel of a bunch of 70mm trailers when we went through this training. We did this using a Christie platter that had the inter-changable centerfeeds.

Later, I was able to run the film "Hoffa" in 70mm. It was the only 70mm print i ever ran. We had trailers on it, but for the life of me, I can't remember for what movies. If I remember correctly, they only released trailers for films in 70mm that were going to actually run in 70mm (somewhere at sometime).

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 08-04-2013, 07:44 PM:

quote: Dennis Benjamin
Later, I was able to run the film "Hoffa" in 70mm. It was the only 70mm print i ever ran. We had trailers on it, but for the life of me, I can't remember for what movies.

I think the 70mm trailers Fox sent out with the 70mm prints of "Hoffa" were "The Vanishing" and "Jack The Bear."

quote: Dennis Benjamin
If I remember correctly, they only released trailers for films in 70mm that were going to actually run in 70mm (somewhere at sometime).

Definitely not true. During the '80s and early '90s, they were making 70mm trailers for just about everything, regardless of final exhibition format.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-04-2013, 08:37 PM:

I know I ran the extremely long (14mins?) 70mm trailer for Close Encounters of the Third Kind at the Annandale Cinema in Annandale, VA. Ran lots of 70mm at many locations in the DC area in the 70's-80's but have no specific recollection of the trailers we ran, but sure, we ran them in 70mm at both changeover and platter houses.

Posted by Jason Whyte (Member # 1433) on 08-05-2013, 08:29 AM:

"I wonder if The Master had any attached 70mm trailers."

They were SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and KILLING ME SOFTLY. As THE MASTER was 70mm 1.85 these trailers were letterboxed to 2.39 within the 1.85 frame. They still looked great, however.

Posted by Daniel Schulz (Member # 1881) on 08-05-2013, 11:15 AM:

In addition to Silver Linings Plabook and Killing Them Softly, Disney printed 70mm trailers for Lincoln.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 08-05-2013, 02:34 PM:

Besides trailers, how about short subjects? I know of two that were promotions for the Todd-AO 70 mm film process. One of them was shown with OKLAHOMA. I never saw it because Honolulu did not get 70mm until SOUTH PACIFIC opened.. OKLAHOMA had a overture and I am curious how they managed to show the promo Todd-AO short. I would have to assume the curtains closed at the end of the short and the house light turned up a bitt when the overture played.

-Claude