Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: cinema screen size to small?

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Posted by Mike Moreno (Member # 4887) on 03-04-2016, 07:48 PM:

hi guys.

Here at the cinema the boss want to build 3 new auditoriums and they ask me about the screen zise they planed to install but i am not sure if what they are planning. they propose
20.99 width to 11.31 high in a room with 40 seats and a trhow distance of 47.57 "
I never seen a screen that size. Do you think is to small?

thanks for your help

mike Moreno
mexico

Posted by Jay Wyatt (Member # 8768) on 03-04-2016, 07:54 PM:

Mike what units are we talking? Meters, feet, or furlongs?

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 03-04-2016, 08:17 PM:

Whatever the units that works for a fixed width screen. It would use the full screen for 1:85 and scope would be 8.8 x 21. Make sure there is a lens for the projector you want to use that will do it with that short throw.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 03-05-2016, 12:22 AM:

My theatre has a screen that's 20 feet wide and just under 8.5 feet high to make a perfect scope-size screen. Scope movies fill the screen exactly, top to bottom and edge to edge. Flat movies fill the screen top to bottom, but leave a foot or so of empty space on each side.

I have 153 seats and the throw is about 60 feet. The building is about 24 feet wide from wall to wall.

This is what it looks like:

I use a Christie 2210 projector and have a "spreader" lens that drives itself into place when I play a scope movie.

The picture is beautiful, really. And 153 seats is a dandy size for this location since it's big enough that it rarely sells out but it's small enough that if there are ten people here it looks like there's someone here, and it doesn't cost a fortune for heat and air conditioning.

So a smaller room like this can work very nicely as a theatre. My humble opinion, anyway.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 03-05-2016, 07:35 AM:

That is a small room, but not every feature will fill a 250+ seat house. As long as there's a lens that works (that's not an unusual throw ratio) it seems good to me.
The multiplex idea was to allow a variety of movies, they always have a range of room/screen sizes.
What's the owner's reason for building a cinema this size?

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 03-05-2016, 08:55 AM:

Here is an actual US cinema auditorium that does a fair amount of business. Will it be any smaller that this?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 03-06-2016, 04:11 PM:

If the measurements you posted are in feet, then I don't see why there would be any problems with the screen size and throw distance. There are plenty of rooms out there smaller and with shorter throw distances, especially in venues like repertory or arthouse cinemas.

The only problem with a low room like this, is doing stadium seating, if that was actually planned in the first place.

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 03-06-2016, 06:46 PM:

That screen in Ogden's post looks as big as the proposed new Samsung Galaxy phone.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 03-06-2016, 09:36 PM:

The original Cineplex Eaton Centre and the Cineplex Carleton had some rooms like that. I saw a few films in them, it's not the same as a "big cinema" but not too bad.

Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 03-06-2016, 10:23 PM:

I'm sorry, but if I walked in and saw a screen that size, I would turn around and get my money back. It looks smaller than what I have in my basement.

It also makes me sad to see those center aisles.

Posted by Mike Moreno (Member # 4887) on 03-07-2016, 07:55 PM:

yes guys is on feets.
Thanks a lot for your ansewrs. i have more to talk and show to my boss.

best regards

Mike moreno
mexico

Posted by Derek Martin (Member # 7657) on 03-08-2016, 09:35 AM:

From a book of architectural guidelines, "the maximum distance between the screen and the most distant viewer (MDV)should not exceed 8 times the height of the screen image. An MDV 2 to 3 times the screen width is preferred."

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-09-2016, 02:46 PM:

Worked in a 6 plex where we had one house with a 9x18 ft screen. Throw was 50 ft. Also had "shotgun" seating as with the image above.

When it was film, flat looked horrible since they wanted full screen for flat, thus a 2.00:1 flat aperture was used.
Talk about some serious cropping in the image.
They knew nothing about presentation quality.

Digital came in, with a NEC 900C, and made flat look better.

-Monte

Posted by Martin Brooks (Member # 1269) on 04-02-2016, 12:14 AM:

quote: Mark Ogden
Here is an actual US cinema auditorium that does a fair amount of business. Will it be any smaller that this?

I agree with Geoff on this. If I paid money and walked into that screen, I'd also turn around and get my money back. I've done that with theaters/screens a lot larger than that even before I had a big-screen TV at home. The first time I went to the Cinema 3rd Avenue when they stuck a third screen in unused space behind the 1st screen (originally 165 seats, now 48 lounge seats) , I turned around and got my money back.

Any business has to differentiate to survive. I don't see how a theater like the one in the pic survives. With consumers purchasing ever larger screens at home and with shorter and shorter theatrical windows, about the only thing a theater like that offers is "a night out with other people."

I think for theaters to survive, they have to offer a "big screen" and "big sound" experience and/or they have to offer atmosphere. IMO, a screen should fill my field of view. Aside from the blockbusters where the potential audience feels they must see a film on day of release, people don't need much of a reason to stay home.

NYC might not be typical since real estate is so expensive here, but since 2001, we've lost 18% of the screen count and 32% of the theaters in spite of some new builds. And since mid-2012, we've lost 15% of the seats, although some of that is due to lounge seating.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-02-2016, 06:00 AM:

quote: Mark Ogden
Here is an actual US cinema auditorium that does a fair amount of business.

Did they not need the janitor's closet and turn it into an auditorium?

Who would pay money to watch anything in there? It looks like something made for a cheap kids sitcom set like Saved By The Bell or something like that.

They could advertise an "IMAX Sized Screen." When they get complaints they can clarify that it is the size of an IMAX film frame.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-02-2016, 07:13 AM:

There are small screens like this that receive praise from patrons and are sold out every night. However, only after having spent a decent amount of money into a club-like surrounding, chairs, not as shown just the bare essentials. It is not the screen size that makes a cinema worth attending. Of course, even with a luxury outfit, it will always be a niche. And even if you can charge twice or three times as much for tickets, you will only be able to sell maybe 20 to 30 per show...

- Carsten

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 04-02-2016, 08:52 AM:

A screen that size can make reasonable bank playing exclusive runs of art/alternative/foreign/repertory titles where the audience doesn’t expect or need the whole big-screen experience, and is just happy for the ability to see the picture at all. Nobody in their right mind would go there to see Star Wars or Batman v. Superman, but you may just go to see Mountains May Depart, or Cemetery of Splendor, or Embrace of the Serpent, or any other obscure, low distribution title.

In New York City, the enormously popular Film Forum has some screens that are not much larger than the one in the above picture (which for the record is Screen #2 at the Four Star Cinema on Clement Street in San Francisco). Nevertheless, the audience that the theatre gets doesn’t mind, because the kind of programming they show doesn’t lend itself to the whole PLF/IMAX/AMCPrime/RPX/Atmos/DolbyVision thing anyway. I saw the shot-on-16mm Carol on a screen just a little larger than this, and it worked fine. You wouldn't want an immersive big-screen experience for something like that anyway, it would probably even work against the picture given the intimate content.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-04-2016, 04:33 PM:

To me, it's not really the screen size that matters, it's the field of view that's covered which counts most. Theater geometry matters much more than size. An unobstructed view at the screen is also very important as is a comfortable viewing position. Nobody likes to raise their head for two hours or more.

Most people have a hard time guessing how big a screen actually is. IMAX figured that one out, they design their theater geometry to make their screens look bigger than they actually are.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 04-04-2016, 04:50 PM:

The name IMAX stands for Image Maximization

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 04-04-2016, 06:27 PM:

quote: Mark Ogden
Here is an actual US cinema auditorium that does a fair amount of business. Will it be any smaller that this?

Holy crap! That has to be the Los Feliz 3. It used to be a single screen theatre that got butchered into a 3-plex in the 90's according to Cinema Treasures. I saw a screening in a room that looked exactly like this picture and it was quite hilarious. I think it was Atonement so it's been a while since I was there. They were also running mono+surround DTS so that just made the experience so much more incredible. Anyway, I hope your room doesn't turn out like that, it was pretty awful. It was extremely narrow and they had to put the screen way up high so it could go above an exit if I remember correctly.

Posted by Mark Strube (Member # 4190) on 04-05-2016, 07:19 PM:

Mono + Surround DTS? How strange. So does that mean it's a DTS soundtrack with the 3 front channels collapsed to one mono channel?

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-06-2016, 04:02 PM:

If you design your auditorium like a tunnel, you probably are not helping anybody by adding more than a single front speaker.

As a bonus to the experience, you might want to hand out some of those classy binoculars.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-06-2016, 11:16 PM:

I remember arguing with my old business partner about that. He didn't think our screen/auditorium was wide enough to warrant stereo sound. (The screen is 30 feet and the auditorium's about 32 feet wide.) He said, "you won't even be able to tell it's stereo unless you're sitting in the front half." So after he was gone I went ahead and put the stereo in and proved him wrong.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 04-11-2016, 04:20 PM:

There is no shame in refusing to build a crappy cinema. There IS shame in paying for and building a room that you know in advance is low grade. All of your rooms will be judged by the bad ones. Consider your reputation.

The best seat has always been defined as 1.5 times the width in scope. Where do you want that to be? The front row? The back row? I always liked it to be about 3/4 of the way back. In a 100 foot room, a 50 ft screen would put the best seats at 75 feet.

Usually for film it was 85mm on the scope lens.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 04-12-2016, 05:37 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Most people have a hard time guessing how big a screen actually is. IMAX figured that one out, they design their theater geometry to make their screens look bigger than they actually are.

You can get a pretty accurate guess by counting the ceiling tiles and noting the orientation. I guess a lot of people don't pay attention to the standard ceiling tile sizes.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 04-12-2016, 12:46 PM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
To me, it's not really the screen size that matters, it's the field of view that's covered which counts most.

My thoughts exactly. My feeling is the screen size relative to the auditorium should be such that when sitting in the middle of the auditorium I can view the entire screen without having to turn my head side to side, but the screen will pretty much fill my field of view. The problem with the picture on page one isn't so much the screen size as the distance from the screen for some of those seats.

Posted by Gary Lightfoot (Member # 8842) on 04-21-2016, 05:45 AM:

THX recommends that the furthest seat be no more than 3.68 x the screen height (of a scope screen), which gives a 36 degree horizontal viewing angle. They say that a 26 degree viewing angle is the furthest acceptable.

This diagram is often used and shows many of the recommended seating/viewing recommendations along with screen height relationship and horizontal viewing angles.