Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Any one else getting an audio/visual inspection in order to show "Tomorrowland?"

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Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 05-15-2015, 05:30 PM:

This Tuesday afternoon, a tech from Strong is supposed to come to inspect our picture and sound for next week's showing of "Tomorrowland." Sounds like the Theater Alignment Program redux. Just wondering if anyone else is going to be visited similarly.

Don't bother asking questions, because what I have written above is all I know about this visit. It does look like the trailer exhibits a 2.20 AR. Maybe the guy wants to size the picture on our NEC-2500S? At any rate, I asked our regular tech to come by at the same time and let them figure what, if anything, needs to be done.

I can't imagine that if we should fail in something, that Disney would yank the movie, especially since they are only inspecting the one screen (out of four) that it is opening on.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-15-2015, 05:54 PM:

Seems strange that they would do something like this for Tomorrowland which looks like a middle-sized hit, and not for their blockbuster Avengers movie.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 05-15-2015, 08:27 PM:

I haven't heard about an inspection but the Grand Lake is slated to be one of 18 non Imax presentation housed in the country. We get to open the movie Thursday night.

Just about everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area gets inspected for Pixar releases.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-15-2015, 08:33 PM:

We frequently get this sort of thing happening before major premieres. What usually happens is that a tech ensures that the light output from the projector is an even 14ft-l across the screen and "shoots the colors" (checks that the red, green and blue components of the white light reflected off the screen are in balance). The color temperature of a xenon bulb can change during the course of its life, and if this has happened, projector settings may need to be changed to take account of it.

If the bulb has deteriorated to the point at which it can no longer deliver 14ft-l, even after tweaking the reflector alignment, they may ask you to replace the bulb. I like to have a spare in stock if the bulb installed has done more than 200-300 hours, so that if we get a high profile screening or festival with studio checks done beforehand, we can replace the bulb if requested.

On the audio side of things, they will "tune the room", which basically means tweaking the audio processor's levels and EQ curve for each channel to ensure that the output meets reference standards when playing pink noise.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 05-16-2015, 11:35 AM:

To bad Disney shoots most of their 3-D movies in 2-D and converts to save money. Watched the 'Tomorrowland' trailer on the curved screen at Seattle's Cinerama Theatre last week and It looked good in just 2-D. They will probably only play It in 2-D as It was not shot using two cameras for the best 3-D. I think that is their policy at the Cinerama Seattle WA. They only show movies made in true 3-D not the fake stuff.

Posted by Sam King (Member # 4029) on 05-16-2015, 12:41 PM:

Tomorrowland is not a 3D release.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 05-16-2015, 10:09 PM:

Sam It says on the web site real 3-D or fake 3-D that It is in Fake 3-D. Maybe Disney pulled the plug on the phony 3-D version. Some theatres have it advertised as being in 3-D?

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-17-2015, 12:04 AM:

looks like they have dropped it - IMAX is not denoting it as such, nor Walt Disney Studio's Facebook page. Although they are never 100% accurate IMDB states the movie's AR is 2.20 (and the IMAX framing is open matte 1.90)

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-18-2015, 08:38 AM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
We frequently get this sort of thing happening before major premieres. What usually happens is that a tech ensures that the light output from the projector is an even 14ft-l across the screen and "shoots the colors" (checks that the red, green and blue components of the white light reflected off the screen are in balance). The color temperature of a xenon bulb can change during the course of its life, and if this has happened, projector settings may need to be changed to take account of it.

Yeah, well, for a premiere, I can somehow understand this. Actually I would be rather surprised if they didn't do a little bit of QC.

But for a normal theatrical run it's something new for me, at least if it's coming from a studio.

quote: Jonathan Goeldner
looks like they have dropped it - IMAX is not denoting it as such, nor Walt Disney Studio's Facebook page. Although they are never 100% accurate IMDB states the movie's AR is 2.20 (and the IMAX framing is open matte 1.90)

They did advertise it as a 3D release, at least around here, but it has now been reverted to a normal 2D release.

I'm not sure what amounts to fake v.s. real 3D if large parts of your movie come right out of the big CGI machine anyway.

On another note, the movie seems to have been rebranded as "Project T" over here, I'm not sure if this change is a smart move.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 05-18-2015, 12:10 PM:

My guess is that there is someone important that has to do with that particular film living in or visiting your area.

I used to be the projection booth supervisor at the Showcase Cincinnati 12 theatre. We had a Universal Office in town. Typically we got the T.A.P. checks on a lot of Universal release movies.

I have worked at many other theatres in may other towns and noticed that the checks were more frequent when important industry types were either in town visiting or resided there. Naples, Florida was another good example of this.

Posted by Jason Metcalfe (Member # 5739) on 05-18-2015, 01:45 PM:

Just heard it's 2.20 letterboxed in FLAT? wth smh

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-18-2015, 02:10 PM:

It's F-220 in Europe. Someone mentioned S-220 for the US (that would have to be pillarboxed). Is that wrong?

- Carsten

Posted by Jason Metcalfe (Member # 5739) on 05-18-2015, 02:34 PM:

I got an email from our rep today along with the spec sheet and both said flat

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-18-2015, 02:50 PM:

We got our hard drive of it today. They seem to be giving this release the deluxe treatment, all right --- it came with a 3-page color "tips for projectionists" insert and they are running a contest for projectionists, similar to what they've done with Pixar movies lately. And it also included a set of trading cards, like Pixar has done.

Confirmed it is 2.20:1 and flat.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-18-2015, 07:06 PM:

2.20:1 pillar-boxed in a flat 1998x1080 container? That's 'scope done really wrong. The only way it could have been any worse is if they put the 2.20:1 image in a 1920x1080 TV style container. But this isn't far from it.

It sounds to me like Disney ought to be doing their audio/visual inspections on the production and post production teams. They didn't shoot the movie on 5/65mm or even with something like the 2.20:1 ratio Arri Alexa65. It makes no sense for them to crop to that aspect ratio.

Posted by Sean Goodrich (Member # 475) on 05-18-2015, 07:37 PM:

According to an email we got, it will be letterboxed, no pillar boxing. And it's 4K.
Considering the recent trend of maskingless screens, the studio probably didn't think it'd be a big deal.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-18-2015, 08:10 PM:

Bobby, it's letter boxed in the flat container. They want you to zoom to make it fit top to bottom and then set your masking so it fits the sides.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 05-18-2015, 08:14 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
They want you to zoom to make it fit top to bottom and then set your masking so it fits the sides.

Oh, yeah- - like that's actually going to happen.
I can name more than half-a-dozen theaters in my area where the staff wouldn't
bother to do this, even if they know how, which they don't.

>I just found out I'm doing a couple of private advance screenings mid-week <

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-19-2015, 09:26 AM:

They need to be running the 2.20:1 image the full width of the imaging chip rather than reducing it down in size to fit in a flat container, or reducing it even further for a 'scope container.

Considering how so many theaters have common width screens with no movable masking the various container presets for 2.39:1 and 1.85:1 (or even 1.66:1, 1.77:1) seem useless. It's all getting letter-boxed in some kind of way, just like on the TV set at home.

Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 05-19-2015, 05:20 PM:

Well, this turned out to be a non-event. Two fellows came by, paid big bucks by Disney, says they. I ask if they want me to ingest the Tomorrowland Framing Chart and they said that wouldn't be necessary as they only are supposed to verify our light output level from the projector and check something or other on our sound system.

I asked our regular tech, James Bond of Full Aperture Systems, to visit. With three techs in the room, I just sat quietly in a corner while they did their thing. James volunteered to install a fresh bulb. As for the sound, he asked them nicely to leave it be, which they did, only denoting on their checklist that we have 4.1 sound in our big house (mono surrounds).

Our big house has a constant width screen, so nothing fancy really had to be done. I routinely run all commercials and trailers in scope format so that they never cover more screen area than the feature, be it flat or scope. The other three screens are constant height, so with those I run everything flat until the feature starts, switching to scope if that be the format of the feature.

What I still don't get is will the image be pillarboxed on our smaller screens if I resize the picture for 2.20 AR? Isn't that counterproductive?

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-19-2015, 11:06 PM:

so I don't understand this: the full image is 1.85 with the 2.20 image with black borders below and above the image - right?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-19-2015, 11:11 PM:

Yeah. It is window-boxed (pillars and letter-boxing) on the chip rather than taking up either the entire width or height of the chip like any proper format should do.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 05-20-2015, 06:07 PM:

Grand Lake in Oakland CA, had a guy from strong here checking things out today. Light level and audio balance.

The Grand Lake is one theatre in the bay area that will be showing it correctly at 2.21. Made the custom lens file and channel. If I weren't doing a show of Mad Max 3D in the late evening on the same screen I would raise the top masking up and would then use the full width of the screen like we do for 5/70mm. As it is I will bring in the side masking which is motorized.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-20-2015, 06:17 PM:

Wondering on what legal grounds these inspections take place? Are there any contracts regarding this? Are cinemas just pleased to get a free light and sound calibration? What happens if the auditorium 'fails'?

- Carsten

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 05-20-2015, 07:19 PM:

There is an implicit and no doubt a boilerplate contract that a studio has the right to withdraw the film if the cinema is not up to some standard. Films being perishable time wise compel a cinema to make corrections so if it fails inspections repairs need to be made ASAP. I did quick corrections just this week on an emergency basis.

And yes, most cinemas like nothing better than a free service call. Mine was not free.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-20-2015, 08:32 PM:

Couldn't agree more. Every time we get a studio tech and/or a Dolby tech hired by a studio to tune our room, we're getting the benefit of expertise that we'd otherwise have to pay serious money for.

It's particularly nice to have our audio systems tuned regularly, because every time we get a low-budget/no-budget movie maker in who complains that the audio on their BD or ProRes file doesn't sound "right" in the theater compared to on the PC speakers in their bedroom, I can tell them with confidence that our processor was recently balanced and EQ-ed by a professional tech and to industry standards, who gave it a clean bill of health when (s)he left, and that therefore the problem has to be in their audio mix.

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 05-20-2015, 08:52 PM:

How much adjustment of the audio is typically required? I'd really think this stuff would be pretty stable and differences would be mostly due to changes in microphone positions.

Harold

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-20-2015, 10:28 PM:

It is pretty stable. It's microphone positions and the technician himself. Some techs dial things right to the line whereas experienced sound techs understand the art of not over-EQ'ing the room, even though it won't look perfect on the analyzer.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 05-20-2015, 11:19 PM:

The checks we have had not much changes. Usually they find one one surround channel over or under by 1 db.