Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: AMC Presentation "Quality"

This is topic AMC Presentation "Quality" in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-02-2013, 01:54 AM:

My local AMC just finished an extensive remodel, and now has reserved power leather reclining seating for all theaters!

Nice, but as part of the remodel they put in new rope lighting for exit lighting… that does this to the corners of all the brand new screens (this one is their ETX screen):

The manager says all designs come from corporate. [Frown]

Posted by Boris Sorokoumov (Member # 4629) on 10-02-2013, 03:22 AM:

William, we had the same problem in our new Sochi's theater. Solution was to seal the exit signs solar tinted glasses.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-02-2013, 03:38 AM:

A common problem in today's theaters...

Badly placed and designed emergency exit signs that have to stay on during the show due to regulations and those infuriating LED rope lights (often in fluorescent red, blue or green) to light up the aisles causing havoc on screen, especially during dark scenes. Additionally, those huge silver screens often used in "premium" theaters aren't really helping to solve the problem.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-02-2013, 07:00 AM:

Remember according to code, EXIT lights have to be visible, not searchlights. If the house lights are up, they are visible if not on. If house lights are down, they are visible if minimally powered. Many time the LED EXIT lights have a control which can be adjusted.

What we have here is "no desire" to correct the problem. I have adjusted HUNDREDS of screen LEDs. Louis

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 10-02-2013, 07:57 AM:

quote: William Kucharski
The manager says all designs come from corporate.

That manager needs to be slapped!

I have worked for "corporate." How many of you have? How many still do? Quite a few of us, I bet. Better yet, how many people here ARE "corporate?"

Corporate management does not sit there, on-high, and tell people what to do. They expect theater managers to run their own theater. They expect managers to do things, to be proactive at solving problems and to report back to corporate about what they did to solve those problems.

When I worked for regional headquarters, I barely saw my boss once per month if I was lucky. My job was to go out, fix movie projectors and keep theaters running. I was supposed to do what I needed to keep those movies running at all times. If I did that, my boss was happy.

If I stood there and said, "I can't fix this projector because 'corporate' says so," my boss would chew my ass. If I was the boss and one of my managers said, "I can't fix the screen because 'corporate' says so," I would chew his ass. If I was the manager I would expect to get my ass chewed.

Maybe that manager could have tried to get the strip lights in those theaters put on the house light dimmers? I'm kind of confused as to why they wouldn't be on the dimmer system. In all the "luxury" auditoriums I have seen at Cinemark, the strip lights ARE on the dimmer system. Even in the "regular" auditoriums, the strip lights are on their own dimmers.

In every Cinemark theater that I have worked at, the manager should have been able to walk up to a control panel, somewhere, and push a few buttons and fix that problem.

Even if those strip lights are not on dimmers... Even if "corporate" does micromanage at the theater level, that manager is still a jerk-off!

The correct answer would have been, "I'll have somebody look into the problem."

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-02-2013, 11:07 AM:

That's poor lighting design all the way around. First of all the verbiage in the code is STUPID. Next, the wrong kinds of LED fixtures are being used in movie theaters. The damned LED bulbs should NOT be visible, only the light cast from them should be.

There's lots of new environmental lighting fixtures being installed in all sorts of architectural developments where the lighting is recessed into walls, hidden in coves or at least covered by various kinds of caps. What's stopping movie theaters from doing this (other than fucked up verbiage in regulations)?

I-25 was rebuilt through downtown Trinidad, Colorado. I'm happy they finished that elevated road project last year. It was a pain in the ass to get through. The finished road doesn't have overhead lights. Instead street lamps were recessed into the concrete bridge railings. The lamps aren't directly visible to motorists. The lamps cast light onto the roadway in front of the motorists. It's a very clean looking design.

The new Oakland Bay Bridge was recently opened to I-80 traffic. This odd looking suspension bridge has thousands of LED light fixtures. They light up the bridge and the roadway, but the lighting fixtures and their covers keep the bright lights from glaring directly at oncoming traffic.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 10-02-2013, 12:58 PM:

You're right, Bobby. Those LED strips should only be just aglow so that people can see them enough to follow them to the exit. They are not supposed to cast any light into the room.

Recessed or shrouded fixtures are fine. If they can be had for this application, they should have been used. Look at the old movie palaces. They had recessed down lights on the bottoms of the chairs at the end of the rows. The technology has been available for decades.

Regardless of the type of fixture being used, they should be on dimmers. In my experience, they almost always are. That's why I said the manager should have been able to go to a control panel, somewhere, and adjust them.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 10-02-2013, 04:35 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
Corporate management does not sit there, on-high, and tell people what to do. They expect theater managers to run their own theater. They expect managers to do things, to be proactive at solving problems and to report back to corporate about what they did to solve those problems.

From my experience with a couple of UK chains large scale projects are taken over by head office, with little control given to the local site staff.

At one any input by the local staff into a (much needed) refurbishment of the toilet facilities was ignored. The final result was a far more expensive, and disruptive, rebuilding which has left the site with operational issues (that were predicted by the on site staff).

At the other almost any expenditure required authorization from a level higher up the chain of command. If electrical work was required to add dimmers to the step lights approval would have been needed.

It may be the case that the Health and Safety manager (at corporate level) has insisted on the bright step lighting (without considering the effect on the screen). I have seen similar situations to this where the auditorium light had to be on (low) at all times due to fatal trips in other sites, this was the cheap solution to improving the lighting in the auditoria.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 10-02-2013, 06:20 PM:

My theatre had aisle lighting. Each theatre had dimmers for it. I When the lights were down, it was very easy to see the aisle without light hitting the screen. We never ran the aisle lights full-on!

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-02-2013, 06:42 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
The damned LED bulbs should NOT be visible, only the light cast from them should be.

While I fully agree with this, it's rather hard to implement if you put those things on the edge off your steps. Although it might look pretty cool, you should probably just not do that.

In some cases, those things even reflect in your 3D glasses (and probably even in normal glasses) if you happen to end up near an aisle that has them, which is really very distracting.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-03-2013, 02:11 PM:

Please note that SOME led lighting systems are quite directional. Correct is to aim the light toward the screen and away from your forward view. Best, of course, is only reflected light.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-03-2013, 02:27 PM:

We used to have amber lights in the floor along the aisles (bulbs, not LEDs). If they were turned up bright they would definitely light up the screen so we kept them very low. They were really crappy lights...if one bulb burned out, six feet of them would go out. I think we may have had four or five weeks out of 10 years that we had 100% of the lights working. After the warranty ran out we eventually just turned them off altogether.

Nowadays we have aisle lights in the end seat standards, old fashioned-style. Much better.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 10-03-2013, 02:28 PM:

ancilary light bouncing back to the screen is a very glaring flaw on the Xtreme Xscape Auditorium (right screen) at the Brandywine Maryland location - it was so bad, I had to ask/'complain' to management about this, she said she'd look into it.

I really hate the exit signs at the Regal Bethesda location - they are so bright (and close to the screens), it's visually distracting and kills any and all the 3D presentations of a movie - I try to avoid going to that theater like the plague. I've told management this and I've facebook messaged corporate about this, but I'm not sure if anything has been done to solve this. All they need to do is replace exit signs over to the 'green' ones that are far less bright - I refer to the current ones as exit signs for the visually impaired.

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 10-03-2013, 04:22 PM:

The worst auditorium design I have seen with respect to unwanted light on the screen had the sun shine directly onto the screen when the entry door was open.

Having customers go straight from a sunny corridor into a dark screen is not a good idea.

Despite being designed by a leading architectural practice it was clear that the designers had very limited cinema experience. There was also design issues with the rest of the shopping centre.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-04-2013, 02:33 PM:

The only kind of light that has any business getting onto a movie screen is the light coming from the projector. Ambient light from another source fogging the screen is 100% wrong.

I also don't like other small yet bright sources of light distracting my attention to the screen. Lighted exit signs suck. But I suppose we have to live with them due to safety regulations. At the very least, those things should not be installed anywhere near the screen. But if there is no other alternative, such as the theater's rear exit being right next to the screen, the friggin' lighted exit sign should have some kind of metal or plastic visor installed to prevent its red light from contaminating the projection screen. It doesn't have to be as big as a wrap-around visor on a traffic signal light. At least some kind of panel blocking the exit sign's light from the screen should suffice. I think lighted exit signs should be on dimmers as well. They don't need to be all that bright while the movie is playing.

I've grown to really hate the LED rope lights so many theaters install along the floor. Kudos to Mike for using lights installed on seats adjacent to the aisle. Modern LED fixtures with visors to hide the very bright & distracting bulbs could be installed on theater seats. That kind of lighting could be designed to illuminate aisles and stairways without the ambient light fogging the screen.

The severity of this problem is relative. I know I'm sounding like this one of the worst things people encounter in a movie theater. As distracting as LED strip lighting along a floor can be, it doesn't hold a candle to the dipshit lighting up his part of the auditorium with a smart phone display.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 12-02-2013, 10:55 PM:

I never posted this; here's why this is such an issue.

This is looking from the screen back up the adjacent stairs!!!

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 12-05-2013, 02:24 PM:

That is pretty brutal.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 12-11-2013, 02:12 AM:

Yes, rather frightening, considering this shot is the venue's "premium" ETX house…

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 12-19-2013, 02:01 AM:

Just visited AMC Odyssey 24 on Barry Road in Kansas City, and watched Anchorman 2 in their new 'AMC Prime' auditorium. Cushy leather recliners, nice red ambient lighting, and also sound loud enough to make my ears ache, no screen masking, dual projector setup with BOTH 3D polarizers in front of them(fantastic way to totally eliminate any benefits of the dual setup)and yes, aisle lights shining WAYYY up on both bottom corners of the screen EXACTLY like the picture the OP posted.

I mean, it was a decent screening, but knowing it could be 80% better with 30 seconds of effort was extremely distracting.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-19-2013, 08:42 AM:

OK. Allow me to be the one to throw cold water on this (can't let Joe have all the fun).

This problem came up when I had my quad. Rather than arbitrarily turning down the exit lights, I asked the local fire marshal what rules might apply. They actually came back with a lumen number, or some such, that the sign was supposed to put out. As it happened, the light was to spec as delivered... which was exceptionally distracting.

Now here's the question...

You have a fire in an auditorium. Somebody gets hurt, or worse. It is claimed your exits couldn't be found because the exit lights weren't visible. The ensuing investigation shows your lights were not "code", or worse, intentionally turned down.

Lawsuits everywhere?

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 12-19-2013, 09:05 AM:

Then wouldn't the proper solution be to design the auditorium with exit doors placed in locations such that the exit lights would not shine onto the screen when at the proper level?

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-19-2013, 11:42 AM:

quote: Ken Lackner
Then wouldn't the proper solution be to design the auditorium with exit doors placed in locations such that the exit lights would not shine onto the screen when at the proper level?

Well, of course it would, but it seems that rarely happens. You probably can't count the number of places where you've seen exits in front of an auditorium, either at the side or under the screen. That's probably natural, since the screens in multiplexes are often against the back wall of the building.

It would be interesting to hear the conversation between an architect and whomever runs these projects at a theatre company, revolving around the suggestion an exit location should be set or modified because of the effects of the exit light. I can imagine the response would be something like... "oh, just turn it down"... which takes us back to the head of this chat.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-19-2013, 03:42 PM:

Seems like there could be a way to modify, position or otherwise fix the lights so they don't shine on the screen.

If a sign must be flat on the wall near the screen, maybe it would be possible to put some kind of "shield" in place to keep the light from shining onto the screen.

Our exit door is next to the screen... we have an exit sign that sticks out from the wall, facing the audience. The letters are red so it's not too distracting. It had some holes on the back that let light leak onto the screen, so I covered them up. It just uses a couple of 7w night-light type bulbs so it's not very bright, but easily visible.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-19-2013, 10:20 PM:

Talking with my wife about this today, the thought came up that you could hook the lights to your fire alarm system, so they exits would go full-up when the alarm went off. I suppose you could also tie them somehow to the regular house lights.

... except that's probably not the only time you might want full exit lights, so it'll likely remain a problem.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 12-20-2013, 08:57 AM:

Code in most places required EXIT lighting to have its own conduit and control system; preferably wired past any branch panels.

RED is very distracting; GREEN is much less so. In the days of 120 volt bulbs, I wired hundreds in series to effect a lessening of 80% in brightness. Kentucky only requires "visibility" which would allow lower levels during the show as well as OFF during intermission (who cares?).

Certainly light shields keep light off the screen, but a red light in your direct vision is also bad.

New york, at one time, wanted the radioactive exit lights that recharged off of the house lights during intermission; no power at all. They were a dull green and perfect as far as being not distracting. Louis

Posted by Jarod Reddig (Member # 6363) on 12-20-2013, 08:46 PM:

The green exit lights indeed seem to be less distracting to my eyes. Red effects my peripheral vision more.