Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Alamo Drafthouse Denver did it again

This is topic Alamo Drafthouse Denver did it again - wrong AR in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-10-2018, 03:19 PM:

On its grand opening night, the Alamo Drafthouse theater in Littleton, Colorado erroneously showed the 2.35:1 The Good, The Bad and The Ugly from DCP at an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

Last night they managed to do the inverse, they ran a showing of the 1983 film Videodrome, which is 1.85:1, with the image masked by the projector and flush to the bottom of the screen at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

I don’t even know how that happens, apparently the Sony 4K projectors have the ability to zoom and mask DCPs regardless of the intended AR?

I should’ve known from the beginning, as the entire preshow also ran in scope and you could see where the top and bottom of the frame was cut off.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-10-2018, 03:58 PM:

Every DCI projector is able to show any DCP in the wrong aspect ratio. It's an operator thing. If you had complained immediately, it would have been a single button press to correct it, while the show was running.

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-10-2018, 04:09 PM:

Either the DCPs were wrongly tagged, or someone misread the ISDCF aspect ratio tag in the DCP name when building the playlist. I suspect the latter, given the low probability of receiving two mislabeled DCPs in quick succession.

I played a DCP of The Good, the Bad... several times when I worked at the Egyptian, and do not remember its aspect ratio tag being wrong.

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 10-10-2018, 04:27 PM:

But Carsten these days without projectionists if you complain during a movie all you get out of it is missing part of the film from having to get out of your seat.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-10-2018, 07:26 PM:

In this case, Alamo “did not have a projectionist on duty,” just the manager.

Ironically what happened is half way through the preshow, the aspect ratio of the masking moved to flat and you could see the scope picture being projected onto the masking.

I complained and they said they would look into it as they said it was “just the trailers.”

I complained a second time when the movie started with the masking still in flat and the projector showing scope.

I ran out and complained a third time and the manager moved the masking into scope position.

I should have checked which was correct, but I had already missed the first six minutes of the movie. :-(

When I called today and complained it was the projection that was in the wrong AR, the manager apologized (but didn’t offer to comp food or anything), he just said he’d notify “the projection team.”

Note the screening of TGTBaTU I referenced was during their grand opening about five years ago.

Posted by Frank B. McLaughlin (Member # 6683) on 10-11-2018, 06:46 AM:

Lets face it - there are two "truths" here: 1) can not hire some kid off the street and say "you are one (projector operator)" and 2) the people who know both film and projection (be it via film or video) are in extreme short supply.

How much did Alamo save by not having a qualified person tending to the product being sold?

If quality is desired then it will have to be paid for.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-11-2018, 08:58 AM:

But, but, but... the whole selling point of digital (and platters before that) is now you can leave the booth unattended!

Posted by Sascha F. Roll (Member # 9043) on 10-11-2018, 09:50 AM:

Reminds me of a customer a few years ago before he opened his new small three screen arthouse cinema: "We don't need projectionists, all the work will be done from the front desk via WiFi".

Shortly after they hired a guy who did nothing else than testing Bluray and other alternative media content, creating DCPs, doing Laptop presentations, maintaining the equipment... as a full time job!
(And AFAIR he was always busy...)

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-11-2018, 10:33 AM:

In some of the mainstream multiplexes I service, the job title of projectionist is making a modest comeback. Their duties are ingestion, KDM wrangling, playlist construction, first line maintenance (e.g. cleaning air filters) and troubleshooting, and in some cases non-projection building maintenance (e.g. front-of-house IT). They usually don't have a projectionist on duty all the time the place is open and playing movies - typically office hours Monday to Friday, plus Friday and Saturday evenings. But it looks like theater owners are finding out that the routine operation and first line maintenance of d-cinema systems might involve less skilled labor than 35mm, it still needs some.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-11-2018, 01:33 PM:

quote:
But, but, but... the whole selling point of digital (and platters before that) is now you can leave the booth unattended!

I managed the UA Berkeley for 5 years in the 90s and we were a manager-operated booth. (There were only 3 managers total on staff.) During the week there was one manager on duty and weekends there were two on duty. We threaded, set timers and then went downstairs. Rarely were we there when the shows started and often we would set the timer and not even return to be able to check on the film until it was over and had tailed out.

How often did we have problems? Almost never. And by that I mean I can't think of a time it was ever a threading error. The problems we would have is silly little things like a dimmer triac failing so we would have to flip a breaker off and on for house lights for a couple of days until the tech brought the replacement part out, or perhaps an exciter lamp burned out. Regardless it was always equipment failures when it happened, and again it was EXTREMELY rare.

Masking was completely manual with 2 ropes to pull (one for each side), and because the Strong turrets were a joke, we simply locked them down and operated them manually. How many presentations ran in the wrong format? I'm sure with the hectic schedules there was probably a show that started with the wrong lens or masking 2-3 times a year, as we would commonly sell out 7 of the 8 auditoriums on the weekend shows, and during the week when there was only one manager on duty, we were traditionally understaffed due to corporate restrictions. Had that been a digital booth with motorized masking though, the odds are virtually zero that it would have ever happened because we would have built the playlist, QC'd the show and then not had to deal with it.

How many prints got scratched in those 5 years? To my knowledge, zero. There may have been one along the way as management staff changed, but I can't recall any print getting scratched. Because we were beta-testing FilmGuard at the time, I can honestly state we didn't even have any sort of dust buildup on the reel changes or anything...and this was back when we would play a movie for up to 9 MONTHS!

It's really all about the operator, their training and a serving of common sense.

BTW here are photos of the booth taken back then.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 10-11-2018, 02:07 PM:

And if all (even most) theatres were like that, the world would be a nicer place. [Wink]

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-11-2018, 02:38 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
How many presentations ran in the wrong format?

I still remember playing One Hour Photo. The writing on the heads all said Scope (lab printed, not a sticker or tape), the reel wrappers had S written on them.

It's obviously a scope movie then, so I built it up with scope trailers, put in my scope lens and aperture (no automation here) and started the movie for the first time on the Friday. Walked into the auditorium to stand at the back for a couple of minutes at the beginning as I usually do. The feature starts and gosh, it looks strange. Because the movie is flat! So I had to stop the show and go and change the lens and aperture to flat, rewind and restart the feature. All of which probably took about ten minutes to do.

That's the first and only time I've ever run a movie in the wrong format. But it was printed right on the film so I took their word for it and hadn't put it on my light box to check it for myself.

Lesson learned, but I never did come across another one that was mis-labeled like that.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-11-2018, 05:34 PM:

Today most theaters would just let the feature finish running and would just come anyone who complained.

I know it’s harder to tell with digital because it’s far less obvious but I believe I was the only one among 50 or so that noticed Videodrome was wrong; I was even the only one to complain about the masking.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-11-2018, 05:44 PM:

How is it less obvious? If everyone is short and fat (or tall and thin) it's the wrong format. I don't see why it would look any different in flat or scope with digital than it does on film.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-11-2018, 05:56 PM:

Well, digital doesn't distort the picture. At least on our system, if you run a scope picture on a flat setting, it'll just float the scope picture in the middle of the screen. If you run a flat picture on the scope setting, it'll cut-off the top and bottom, so people's heads might be cut-off somewhat but otherwise you'd never notice. So I can see why your average moviegoer might not even see anything amiss.

The same thing happens on a lot of TV settings at home, and you know how people tend to overlook that kind of thing.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-11-2018, 07:02 PM:

Well, there's a bit of information that I was never aware of.

I suspect my setup would still distort the image since there's an auxiliary lens that drives itself in front of the main lens when I play a scope picture, though.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-11-2018, 08:49 PM:

Precisely. You don’t see the optical distortion you did on film as there is no anamorphic squeeze - DCP pixels are always square. Showing a flat film in scope on a digital projector cuts off the top and bottom of the frame and in this case displayed that aligned to the bottom of the screen area.

Put another way, scope format films are always letterboxed within the DCP frame and flat films are always slightly pillarboxed. Alternate ratios like 2.20:1 are usually windowboxed within a flat container and instructions are provided to have projectionists manually zoom it (many, unfortunately, don’t or don’t know how.)

The masking at Alamo is top and sides only, the bottom is always the bottom; projectors have adjustments for where in the frame the scope image is displayed.

When they showed TGTBaTU as flat, the projector or projectionist actually zoomed the scope frame to fill the full flat format screen and cut off the sides, like “zoom” mode on a digital TV.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-11-2018, 11:03 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
I suspect my setup would still distort the image since there's an auxiliary lens that drives itself in front of the main lens when I play a scope picture, though.

That'd be easy to test out... put a scope film on but run it at your flat setting and see if it gives you the distorted image, just for fun.

Ours is a zoom lens so we use the same lens for everything. Since 95% of the movies we play are in scope anymore, I only load up the scope trailers these days. In the rare case that we run a flat feature, I use the scope trailers but still run them at the flat setting....that way the picture is bigger for the feature.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 10-12-2018, 09:55 AM:

I have sent a copy of this page to my friend the owner of Drafthouse Cinemas Tim League and his tech guy Mark. They got back to me and are in contact about the projection problem. I find Drafthouse as one of the best circuits today who care about screen presentation. When the New Mission Theatre in SF opened a few years ago I told them about the auto curtain cues and color lights inside the fixed up old theatre. Many times I have been to a new theatre and the auto masking system is not set up correct for the first showing of the day or they have switched a movie auditorium that was set up for a film in flat 1.85 and now they are playing scope and the black masking was set for flat. I hope the Drafthouse owners can fix this small problem. Now this last week when I went to the AMC Metreon SF in space #12 they are not dropping down the masking for scope. AMC in SF has always been great with auto masking but when they go in and put a large square screen in they don't have masking these days I guess.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-12-2018, 10:34 AM:

I seem to remember that AMC decided about a year ago on a corporate basis they were no longer going to move masking - saves on wear and tear and maintenance.

Then as they retrofit for Dolby Cinema/AMC Premium they are no longer installing movable masking at all, giving you the “letterbox experience” when watching scope films.

As has been noted here several times, ironic as that is the exact opposite of what scope was originally intended to convey. Thankfully there are still a few Regal theaters near me that have a scope sized screen for which they bring in side masking when they play flat films.

quote: Terry Monohan
I have sent a copy of this page to my friend the owner of Drafthouse Cinemas Tim League and his tech guy Mark. They got back to me and are in contact about the projection problem.

Terry, thanks for reaching out to Alamo. They can usually be counted on for high quality presentation, which is why it’s bothersome when they get it wrong (especially as many of their presentations are one time events so you can’t just return to see it presented properly.)

More troublesome is how often the ticket desk is unstaffed. You are then stuck missing the film hoping someone eventually comes out from in back and when they do, your concerns are addressed with the same urgency as they are at an AMC. [Frown]

If it’s a staffing issue they at least need to install a buzzer or bell so you can summon an employee to the desk.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 10-12-2018, 08:04 PM:

I think we never played a movie in the wrong format as long as I can think back. Some systems make it easier than others (and with systems, I mean equipment, GUIs, and your own preference/style of building shows/using blocks/macros. The only issue I remember is that we once started to play a movie in french instead of the dubbed german version, which was corrected within the first minute (stop playlist, load correct cpl directly, hit play).

That said, I guess few people would actually notice a scope/flat mistake - with digital, and properly set up formats, there is digital masking, so you don't see any image projected over the masking. Our audience sees letterboxed scope trailers during preshow, so would probably be used to it and not overly irritated.

With some movies, it would certainly be more obvious than with others.
If the staff on site is not able to correct it on their own, they should at least be able to call someone. If it would happen on our site, I would receive a phone call immediately, and would correct the problem, if obvious, within a few seconds from my smartphone/teamviewer.

I have never seen a DCP/CPL with the wrong format indicated.

Shit happens, but I would feel seriously embarrassed as a manager on duty, but incapable of correcting a presentation issue.

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Louis (Member # 10632) on 10-16-2018, 03:42 PM:

Hi everyone. Sorry I didn't reply sooner as I had to re-register for some reason. It's been a long long time since I've posted anything on Film-Tech so like the old projectionist that I am, I may have faded away. Getting back to the original complaint about Alamo Littleton, CO, I've discovered that there was a cue malfunction followed by manager error. Management claims that they issued passes and Food vouchers, but I'm still attempting to confirm this and to who.

Here at Alamo, we take presentation very seriously and I personally investigate all complaints that I'm made aware of. In addition, we have true projectionists at every venue who are not only trained but must be re-certified every year to ensure they are fully capable of operating and maintaining their equipment. Unfortunately, projectionists are present for most but not all shifts and our training and certification program for managers has not been fully implemented.

I will double my efforts to implement more fully this much needed program and in the meantime, search for ways to make a projectionist available, on call, so that in these situations a manager can verify correct procedure.

For me, it all comes down to the importance of Showmanship which I stress to projectionists, and all levels of management on a regular basis. If you're curious about what showmanship means to me, feel free to read this recent article where I explain further. http://www.digitalcinemareport.com/article/devotion-showmanship#.W8ZFwHtKhEY

Thanks Terry for bringing this to my attention and to everyone who provided input on this thread. Anyone that would like to contact me directly with questions or comments, please do so at mark.louis@drafthouse.com or find me at Show East.