Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Ban on showing Universal trailers?

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-16-2007, 08:31 PM:

Anyone else refusing to show the Universal trailers with the blatantly out of frame green bands? I know this doesn't affect theaters that chop those off, but since most theaters do run them I am curious as to how many people feel this is unacceptable for their presentations.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 01-16-2007, 08:49 PM:

Which trailers are these? Is it just the green band that's out of frame?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-16-2007, 08:51 PM:

Yes it is just the green band. Kingdom and Evan Almighty for certain. Regardless, it looks like the movies are being ran out of frame, even though they aren't. Not acceptable.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 01-16-2007, 08:58 PM:

As soon as I posted, I remembered seeing that on EVAN ALMIGHTY. Personally, I don't think it matters. As long as the movie itself is in frame, it's all good.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-16-2007, 09:20 PM:

Has Universal been notified of the problem? Until the problem is solved, can the green band portion be respliced to put it in frame?

I agree, showing an out of frame green band is bad practice.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-16-2007, 09:56 PM:

Why John, what do you think this thread is? I am notifying Universal right now about it. [Big Grin]

I am amazed that nobody noticed it who proofed the final version before 10 bazillion prints were made. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 01-16-2007, 10:13 PM:

Are the bands you're talking about a whole sprocket out of frame? Because my EVAN ALMIGHTY trailer wasn't that bad. Are these trailers flat or scope?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-16-2007, 10:42 PM:

He must mean that it's printed just a bit out of frame. I have a flat Evan trailer running here and I can't say I noticed a blatant problem...but then, it's the 4th trailer in and I may have just missed it.

At any rate, I wouldn't refuse to run a trailer (especially one for a movie that's going to need all the help it can get) just because of something that (A) doesn't hurt presentation and (B) no audience member will give a crap about.

Posted by Chad M Calpito (Member # 3736) on 01-16-2007, 10:48 PM:

I would have to agree with Brad that running a trailer out of frame due to the green band being out of frame is unacceptable. To me, that is one of my biggest pet peeves. At my theatre, we get rid of the green bands, so, I haven't noticed or even knew that there was a problem with the green band on Evan Almighty.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-17-2007, 01:48 AM:

I haven't looked at the flat versions of these trailers yet, but the scope ones are very bad. After hitting the screen once, they were yanked and thrown in the trash...along with all other scope copies on the shelf, and hence the ban on scope Universal trailers until we see they have fixed the problem. (I've got to check out a flat Universal trailer later this week and see if the problem plagues those too.)

We also had to toss all of the trailers for that new Adam Sandler movie where he is playing a bum. Turns out every one we were sent has black blotches on them. We tried, the quality sucked, they went bye bye. [fu]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2007, 02:17 AM:

(and you didn't send them back in the cans so the depots can recycle the polyester to make new film?)

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-17-2007, 08:03 AM:

Agreed with John P.--why not just replace the green band with one (with the same rating) from another trailer?

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-17-2007, 08:47 AM:

I've been noticing a lot of quality control problems on proper framing. I've seen some letter boxed flat trailers for scope movies framed all the way at the top, and I've seen some framed all the way at the bottom. That's the entire trailer though. Then I noticed some framing goofiness in Night At The Museum. I haven't noticed any trailers where it was just the green band that was mis-framed, but I may have just missed them since I'm only there two nights a week and don't get to see everything.

I can't wait until digital projectors make all this nonsense go away. [Razz]

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-17-2007, 09:31 AM:

Scott and John, you are advocating I take a green band from another trailer and splice onto the Universal trailers?

First, that will rarely work due to the audio being ahead of the picture.

Second, that would mess up the MPAA's descriptive explanations they sometimes like to stick onto the green bands such as "rated PG for intense violence, vaginal bleeding and multiple donkey rape scenes".

Third, if Universal is the studio that can't get their framing right, why should I punish another studio for their screwup?

Nope, the Universal stuff goes in the trash.

Mark, I recall that flat trailer that was letterboxed and printed way out of frame. Can't remember the name of it, but those all went to the trash too.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-17-2007, 09:57 AM:

I'm guessing your theatre is not paying for these trailers.

Those of us who are not at first run multi-plexs have to pay for most of our trailers, so I certainly wouldn't trash them. If they were unrunable, I would get a replacement and demand a refund. At least then someone further up the food chain would know about it.

Posted by Michael Cunningham (Member # 210) on 01-17-2007, 11:16 AM:

The mis-framing of the green bands isn't done in such a way that you could cut / edit them into frame. Basically, the two lines of white text on the field of green is centered on the 2nd sprocket hole (counting from the top of frame) rather than between the 2nd and 3rd sprocket holes. You could manually frame down a bit, then back up, but actualy cutting would cause a frame line to show.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 01-17-2007, 11:49 AM:

quote:
Those of us who are not at first run multi-plexs have to pay for most of our trailers,

???????

Who are you paying for trailers?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-17-2007, 12:42 PM:

I think the true story is that Brad just hates trailers.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-17-2007, 12:47 PM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
???????

Who are you paying for trailers?

Technicolr, Deluxe, and until recently Consolidated. I could also run off a list of those (besides Cons) that have gone under in the last few years. Anyone remember Donald Velde? [Wink]

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 01-17-2007, 02:16 PM:

i love donald velde trailers!

i see all kinds of green bands. some do strike me as being framed way off. but at least those are sharp. you should see some of the video derived ones. ugh!

we are required to play a number of ads these days. there is a series of mercury ads that always starts with a badly printed leader. the problem is that if you include the entire soundtrack, you also include some white striping opposite the soundtrack. kind of like on this picture from the "tips" section:

also the flat versions have extreme negative dirt and negative tape splices. i can spend a good chunk of time laying a thin strip of tape over the white stripe and blooping out all the negative dirt with a marker and they still look like shit.

is not playing these ads an option? nope. [fu]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-17-2007, 02:24 PM:

quote:
not at first run multi-plexs have to pay for most of our trailers,

..course, that can be an easy fix if you have a first-run in your town, or near by: Develop an excellent business relationship with the manager, or even owner and I'm sure that they'll be glad to dump off all the unused trailers that they get in the cans to you....free of charge.

I get massive amounts of new trailers from our local first-run houses in my area here to feed the three discount houses around here with enough stockage of trailers that they can easily put on 3 plus trailers per feature that will last them for months on end.

Plus, there are rare occasions that these first run houses, who are done with trailers (or don't use the included trailers), will stock the cans with these trailers to be shipped back to the depot, and the depot will not open cans on arrival, thus when they ship the cans out again, that theatre is sometimes blessed with the needed trailers.

..something to chek into, but yes, if a 2nd run to discount circuit needs trailers, they are charged for such.

-Monte

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 01-17-2007, 04:49 PM:

Are you throwing prints with CrAP code in the trash too?

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 01-17-2007, 06:55 PM:

No problem for me. I just make sure its not the first thing to hit screen.

For me, the bigger pet peave I have with Universal is with the labels. Flat should be green, and scope should be yellow. Universal does it backwards.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-17-2007, 07:00 PM:

quote: Jesse Skeen
Are you throwing prints with CrAP code in the trash too?

No, we just don't run the CAP coded reel. It also lets us fit another show in each day. [Big Grin]

Yes of course I am kidding. Still though there are other studios producing properly framed trailers as an option to play in front of our movies. We can't go to another studio to replace reel 4 of a movie just because it is CAP coded. As a result, Universal currently gets no promotion of their movies via trailers and other studios get extra promotion. It's just that simple.

Posted by Luci Reeve (Member # 3651) on 01-18-2007, 09:10 AM:

Mark J Marshall
What framing goofiness did you notice?...We open Night at the Museum tomorrow.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-18-2007, 11:00 AM:

Hi, Luci.

I posted about it over here.

Basically some shots look like they are framed too low on the action. In some non-close up shots, the top of the actor's heads (above the eyes and forehead) are chopped off by the top of the 1.85 frame in those scenes. So, if your projectionists are ones that can look at a scene composition and immediately determine if the movie is out of frame, they won't be able to rely on that skill with this movie. It is quite an annoyance for those of us with that skill. But it's not the kind of problem that is going to cause you to lose a show or hand out passes. The vast majority of your audience won't notice.

You won't have a problem. But if you watch it, see if you can spot the scenes that I'm talking about.

quote: Mike Olpin
Flat should be green, and scope should be yellow. Universal does it backwards.

THAT'S another thing that drives me nuts. Was Universal not invited to the committee of every other studio when they decided to do it that way? Or did everyone else decide to switch and not tell them? Or what the heck happened with that?

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 01-18-2007, 12:15 PM:

Jack asked, "Who are you paying for trailers?" and Martin replied, "Technicolr, Deluxe, and until recently Consolidated."

Err.

We're at the bottom of the food chain, so we understand this well.

Technicolor charges SHIPPING on trailers ordered through them, but they do not charge for the trailers themselves. They charge for one-sheets from some studios (Exhibitor Direct Billing -- EDB), but not for some others. They do charge one-sheet shipping.

Deluxe does not charge us for trailers at all. I'm kind of stunned that they might charge you.

Consolidated charged a $10 fee for trailers, but requested (demanded?) returns, making it more like a rental fee.

Question
What's this about Consolidated being "until recently"? Did they
go under? What happened to their inventory and their customers?

--jhawk

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 01-18-2007, 02:15 PM:

For those that are paying for trailers, is there some kind of data somewhere that shows the additional sales realized by playing trailers for upcoming movies?

I'm curious why someone would pay to show advertising (that doesn't even include the brand of the organization paying the money), unless it had a direct impact on sales.

Unless the cost was dirt cheap, I don't see it making sense. Considering how cost-conscious I've found theaters to be when I approach them about my services, I'd think they'd want the studios to pay them to show the trailers!

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 01-18-2007, 03:09 PM:

Scott: The cost is basically dirt cheap (except for Consolidated, and those are indie films, which we can mostly disregard, I think). TES charges whatever shipping, and they often default to second-day, which can be pricey, but if you ask them to ship ground they will. And if you order multiple items at a time, it's cheaper still.

So a penny-pinching theatre who is forced to order their own trailers can get them for well under $1/trailer.

(The bigger cost is EDB one-sheets, for studios that charge for them, which are $5/one-sheet, plus shipping. Still, pretty puny.)

And, of course, if you order the trailer through the studio Exhibitor Relations folks, usually there's no charge. But generally they ask you to order through Deluxe or TES (as appropriate), unless the trailer is restricted or limited-distribution, etc.

--jhawk

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-18-2007, 03:18 PM:

Trailers are hands-down the best advertising bang for the buck there is. The audience is captive and they are ALREADY moviegoers, so you're not advertising to a bunch of folks who will never see the inside of a theatre, the way you are with TV ads.

There are probably about 6 to 10 movies a year that we have to run without having played a trailer. Unless they are well-known blockbusters or a known quantity like a "Jackass" or such, not having a trailer is certain doom on the grosses.

Whether or not we've had a trailer quite often makes the choice whether we'll play a marginal film or not.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-18-2007, 06:00 PM:

quote: John Hawkinson
Question
What's this about Consolidated being "until recently"? Did they
go under? What happened to their inventory and their customers?

They went out of business in December. Don't know about their inventory. The distribs that used them have migrated elsewhere.

quote: John Hawkinson
except for Consolidated, and those are indie films, which we can mostly disregard, I think)

Of course, I run a single screen art/indie theatre, so I'd rather not be ignored [Wink]

And, rarely any economy of scale for me. We only show trailers for movies we have booked. Occasionally I'll be able to order more than one title at a time, but it is rare.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-18-2007, 09:41 PM:

..going back on the Universal topic: - I did check my scope copy of Evan Almighty and it plays with no problems. Thus, wonder if Brad received trailers made from one printing negative, and I received this trailer from another printing negative.

For I.D.'s sake, the leads on this trailer (tail leader) IN #2. Thus, would this be internegative #2 being used in printing this copy that have here?

-Monte

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-20-2007, 01:26 PM:

Monte, I think you will find you did not carefully frame your projector. The odds of there being different green bands on different negatives is pretty doubtful.

This is what I am talking about. Notice that the green band is blantantly misframed, yet the opening logos (and everything else) is dead center framed.

(Yes I am aware the quality is poor, and no I don't care. It was shot with a still digital camera and it is good enough to show the print problem. If you want quality, go here.)

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 01-21-2007, 12:50 PM:

Err, Brad, the text is above centerline in both your capture and in the apple.com/trailers video. Perhaps it is simply deliberately high (perhaps because of the absence of the filmratings.com and mpaa.org URLs at the bottom)?

It does not look unappealing to me.

--jhawk

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-21-2007, 02:32 PM:

Since there are multiple versions of every trailer, it's likely Monte's doesn't have the problem. The one we're running here looks fine to me.

Lately I've noticed that the content of the green band has been shifting around on "unrated" trailers. Sometimes the standard advisory is exactly centered like it has always been, with the "for future information" and the filmratings.com URL just added across the bottom (making the whole thing look off-center vertically) and other times, the advisory is moved up somewhat to compensate for the added info. Sometimes the advisory message is much bigger than other times, too.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-21-2007, 04:03 PM:

Either the main text should be centered (personally I feel it should be centered at all times) or the main text and censorship nonsense should be both centered.

Regardless, this and future trailers with tags like this are trashbound. It may meet jhawk's extremely high standards of presentation, but it doesn't meet mine. While what I uploaded here is a tiny version that actually requires some looking to notice the misframing, it DOES look like the film is being presented noticeably out of frame in the theater.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-21-2007, 04:35 PM:

I agree with Brad that this is annoying, but I still would have just gone through the "old trailer box" and dug up something that has a "standard" MPAA green band and replaced the rating band only, leaving an extra frame of black before and after the "good" green band to hide the splices.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 01-21-2007, 07:44 PM:

"Lead, follow, or get-out-of-the way." Universal should be encouraging US to do a better job. What is wrong with this picture? Louis

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-21-2007, 08:18 PM:

After seeing that video clip that Brad made, I couldn't see what all of this buzz was all about, (did like when the curtains((or maskings)) opened up on the green tag though) until I took that questionable trailer out, lined it up with another scope trailer's frameline and FINALLY saw what all of this whoopla is all about:

(sorry about a fuzzy picture due to being taken with my phonecam..)

First, yes, I do have slightly undercut scope apertures to where I have a decent about of frameroll between framelines to where I didn't notice any sort of abnormal framing.

Second, with this scene that I took with one scope trailer on the left and the questionable Universal trailer to the right, with frameline straight across with one another, one can see the 'slight' difference being the Universal trailer's script in the green tag being a slight higher in frame than the left one.

To me, this is such a very minor situation here, but had to see for myself on what this was all about.

It's a personal prefence call on this one. I'm leaving this one on this trailer.

-Monte

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-21-2007, 08:45 PM:

Geez, and I thought you boys were pickier about your presentations.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 01-21-2007, 09:46 PM:

In the Land of the Free, you may choose not to show certain trailers.

Australia's Code of Conduct specifies that we MUST show a trailer of a feature at least 2 weeks prior to opening.

Australia's film classification ofice regulates that the classification tag MUST be attached and that the "to be classified" leader MUST be shown till the feature is classified.
No option of trashing a trailer here.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 01-21-2007, 09:58 PM:

Wow, Ron. Does that mean distributors are guaranteed to give you a trailer for movies, even rep. titles? That sure would be nice!

--jhawk

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 01-22-2007, 05:21 PM:

No John, it is not exactly a 2-way street, but we do get most trailers.