Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 70mm fest at the cinerama in seattle

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Posted by David J Hilsgen (Member # 2614) on 08-25-2016, 02:45 PM:

Does anybody know, on the older titles how many will be mag, we are getting a dts of 2001 this fall at the Heights ,in mpls. how many other title have had prints struck in the last 16 years with dts

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 08-25-2016, 06:19 PM:

I think there is a DTS print of Lawrence of Arabia.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 08-25-2016, 06:33 PM:

There's two separate 70mm prints of Lawrence of Arabia working that weekend on opposite sides of the country, one at the Seattle Cinerama, the other at the Somerville in Boston. For anyone who has run Lawernce in 70mm recently, are there any decent prints left? I'd almost go to one of these shows if I could be sure of a reasonably decent looking presentation.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 08-25-2016, 11:29 PM:

I'd kill to see 'Aliens' and 'Pink Floyd - The Wall' in 70mm

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-26-2016, 07:20 AM:

Visually, Aliens is not that impressive in 70mm--it is a 1.85 film and the 70mm prints don't really look much better than 35mm. The soundtrack on it is amazing, though.

I do not know what print of LoA is coming to Somerville; they are equipped to handle all mag formats as well as DTS. LoA in 70mm is an amazing experience and every film-lover should see it that way at least once. Anyone who is within walking/driving/flying distance of either venue should go to see it.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-26-2016, 10:45 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Visually, Aliens is not that impressive in 70mm--it is a 1.85 film and the 70mm prints don't really look much better than 35mm

Actually Scott, I've ran 35mm and 70mm Aliens side by side at the same time in a changeover house going back and forth for a direct A/B comparison. Visually the 35mm prints are absolute garbage compared to the 70mm. It is not even funny how much better the 70mm is. Sharpness is vastly improved, color more vibrant, steadiness of course was improved as well.

Lots of people forget that filmstocks back in the 80s are very grainy compared to more recent filmstocks. The T-grain stocks introduced in the 90s were a massive improvement. As such just because something is in 70mm doesn't mean it is going to show off the format, but it will provide a better presentation than a 35mm print made at the same time.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 08-26-2016, 11:45 AM:

I'd like to know which screen they plan on using. If it's the every day screen then I would skip it.

Mark

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-26-2016, 01:31 PM:

quote: Mark Ogden
For anyone who has run Lawernce in 70mm recently, are there any decent prints left? I'd almost go to one of these shows if I could be sure of a reasonably decent looking presentation.

We've played it probably 7-8 times since I started working at the American Cinematheque, all of them being print #4 from Sony. Here is the screening report from the most recent time I showed it, last fall:

The most recent Egyptian screening was on May 29 this year; I didn't officiate at the actual show, but the co-worker of mine who did commented that the print had deteriorated even further since the screening last September, with more dirt and scratching evident. It must have been at other venues since those two bookings of ours, which didn't handle it that carefully, not least because the reel ends had picked up more handwritten, paper tape labels that didn't come from us. So the pix quality rating probably gets a downgrade from "average/OK" to "poor" now.

So it wouldn't surprise me if this print is now the only one in general circulation. There could be others held by one of more of the big nonprofit archives, only to be let out under armed guard and once in a blue moon, but this one has, sadly, deteriorated to the point at which if I were a paying customer, I'd prefer to see the 4K DCP.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-26-2016, 01:54 PM:

I am sure that Brad is right about Aliens. I have seen it in both 35mm and 70mm (both good prints), but not side by side. There was some magical year around 1987 when Kodak made a significant improvement to the intermediate print stock, and Aliens would have pre-dated that.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 08-26-2016, 04:09 PM:

Thanks for that, Leo, and thank you Scott for the informative PM about the Somerville. I really want to see Lawrence in 70mm one more time, as I seem to recall reading something somewhere by Robert Harris to the effect that the original elements were pretty much shot, and likely not able to take another printing run. I may take a shot in Boston, where I already have many happy movie-going memories (almost all in theatres that are no longer around, sadly)

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-26-2016, 04:15 PM:

Leo, so does the SDDS track play ok on that 70mm print of Lawrence? [Razz]

I would be interested in seeing the oldest report you have on that print to compare to this one. What you wrote has happened to this print is precisely what I predicted would happen once Interstellar opened and 70mm suddenly started to become cool again (and then greatly increased once Tarantino released Hateful Eight). Suddenly people looking for an edge cobble together a 70mm setup and decide they are 70mm expert film handlers and start booking film festivals. There are only a couple dozen titles in 70mm to book in the first place, so quite literally it only takes ONE of these venues to go through and damage ALL of the 70mm prints in circulation (since most festivals run the same titles and most of them only have one print).

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 08-26-2016, 06:23 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
Lots of people forget that filmstocks back in the 80s are very grainy compared to more recent filmstocks. The T-grain stocks introduced in the 90s were a massive improvement. As such just because something is in 70mm doesn't mean it is going to show off the format, but it will provide a better presentation than a 35mm print made at the same time.

It was noticeably easier to see the difference between 70mm blow-up prints and their 35mm counterparts back in the 1980's. For instance, I watched 70mm Dolby SR and 35mm versions of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. One show as at Loews Astor Plaza in Manhattan and the other at a UA theater on Staten Island. The 70mm print looked sharper, but had more vibrant, rich color. The 35mm show was properly bright, but the color quality seemed washed out compared to the 70mm show.

I really loved the deep blue hues in the 70mm print of The Abyss I watched in 1989. I couldn't remember seeing blue colors that brilliant from 35mm prints at the time.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 08-26-2016, 11:41 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
I would be interested in seeing the oldest report you have on that print to compare to this one.

It is from a screening on September 10, 2009, on our old handwritten form. The relevant fields are as follows:

Overall print status = good
Has it been plattered? = many times (possible selections are "Never," "Once or twice," or "Many times")
Scratches = Minimal (options are "None seen,", "Minimal," "Moderate" or "Severe")
Not dusty or oily

In the free text box, the projectionist has written, "Minor scrape scratches, emulsion side, R12; not visible on screen."

So this print was new in 2004 (or at least, it was struck on 2383 stock with an edge code indicating manufacture in 2004 - I suppose it could actually have been struck a year or two later), and it would seem that around 90% of the dirt and scratches now on this print were inflicted since 2009. Whether this is because it's received much more intensive use since 2009 or because it's been handled by lower-skilled projectionists, or a combination of the two, I don't know.

All I do know is that I have personally shown it three times since April 2014, and can confidently say that I didn't have any accidents with it and that it left my booth in the same condition it arrived, and on one of those occasions (when I removed a bunch of paper tape from the heads and tails, the glue from which was contaminating footage further in, and added extra spacing to the start of some of the reels) it left in better condition. Sadly, I've noticed a significant deterioration in its physical condition on every return visit it's made.

As for 35 to 70 blowups from the '80s and '90s, I've tended to notice that they vary a lot in terms of subjective image quality gain, especially with 'scope blowups, where anamorphic lenses are involved in the printer optics. Of the prints I've shown in the last couple of years, I remember one of The Untouchables that looked so sharp and detailed it could almost have been shot on 5/65, but at the other end of the spectrum, one of The Wild Bunch that looked washed out, excessively grainy and with clearly visible anamorphic distortion towards the sides of the frame; I've seen a 35 'scope print from the same rerelease that looked an order of magnitude better. And furthermore,the Wild Bunch print was on the first of the T-grain print stocks (5386), whereas the Untouchables print was on 5384, so whatever caused the poor quality of the Wild Bunch print, it wasn't the generation of technology in the release print emulsion.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 08-29-2016, 12:09 PM:

David there is also the Ultra Panavision print of Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World that is DTS sound.