Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: AMC Flatiron Crossing - No Fandango Sneak for Secret Lives of Pets 2: Key Issue

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Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 05-25-2019, 04:23 PM:

Just came out of the Fandango Sneak Preview of Secret Lives of Pets 2 at the AMC Flatiron Crossing 14, or what should have been.

Readmits for all, the keys wouldn’t unlock the feature.

Lots of unhappy hyped-up kids and parents.

How does this happen? Are there no QC screenings for sneak previews?

Last time I saw this happen was with a Fathom screening of White Christmas a few years back at Century Boulder.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-25-2019, 06:08 PM:

It's my understanding (based on what I've read on this very website) that very few QC screenings are done by anyone any more. I'm one of the apparently few who still checks every feature before showing it to the public but almost everyone else just runs on the press play and pray school of operations.

Which I don't agree with.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 05-25-2019, 06:58 PM:

Not surprised people ignore the Deluxe admonition:

quote:
On average, it could take up to 24 hours to replace any faulty hard drive/satellite failure, so we ask you to ingest all content as soon as possible and schedule a quality check screening after the keys unlock the feature.

Sigh…

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-25-2019, 07:52 PM:

When digital cinema was still shiny and new, there was a form that came in the box along with the movie that was to be filled out with name of projectionist and the date and time that the QC screening was conducted, said form to be faxed back to Deluxe or Technicolor upon completion of the QC.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-25-2019, 08:41 PM:

We don't run the entire movie through thanks to time constraints (mostly my pesky other job), but I always run the first 10 minutes or so to check the sound level and then I always check the credits to see if the "offset" is right.

At least now they're putting the start of the "credits" in the info sheet along with the start of the "crawl."

I wonder if that theater had a "defective" key, or one for a different server. Either way they should have been able to use the Deluxe website and get a new key within about two minutes, and if THAT fails call Deluxe direct and get it emailed.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 05-25-2019, 11:17 PM:

Unless they are going to send keys that unlock the feature at least 24 hours before the show, QC screenings are not likely to happen and the warnings are pretty useless.

Having keys activate at midnight on the day of the show is not uncommon. Some that activate the day before the screening do so in the middle of our evening show, so also pretty useless.

I just have a single screen, how are multiplexes supposed to QC even if they wanted to?

It should be a requirement that all keys are active 48 hours before a show, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 05-26-2019, 02:11 AM:

Are most keys timed that closely to the start of a showing/run?

Also, at least for the Doremi ShowVault, when displaying the SPL it even has handy little Red (no valid KDM) / Green (valid KDM) / Orange (valid KDM that expires in less than 48 hours) icons that appear before the feature's name.

Or am I assuming too much to think someone would look at that prior to showtime to make sure everything is a "go?"

Especially with these Fandango Sneak Previews, given general release isn't until June 6, I could see the keys being fairly tight time-wise, but stil.

Please don't think I'm criticizing AMC, but rather even though I attend a fair number of films (well, perhaps fifteen a year), it's surprising I've now been to two "no valid key" screenings within three years.

I'm genuinely curious as to what the failure mechanism is here.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-26-2019, 02:21 AM:

I don't know about anyone else, but in my case the key for my Friday movie is usually valid at either 11pm or midnight on Wednesday night. So I just watch the movie after my regular show is over late on Wednesday night after I finish the clean-up and whatnot.

There have been a few occasions when the key is valid sometime on Thursday morning, but that isn't very common.

Posted by Peter Foyster (Member # 9599) on 05-26-2019, 07:35 AM:

As Mike does, I always check the sound levels and, without fail, the credit offset. It seems that "Credit offset' is quite a subjective term.

As the owner of an outdoor cinema I have to be sure of where the credits commence as there are no "Aisle" lights and people always get up the moment the credits appear, so I need to ensure that the lighting is at preshow level at that time. Otherwise there is the risk of a patron tripping in the dark and injuring themselves.

I have managed to convince the Film Distributors of the importance of this and have always been able to receive a key valid from the Wednesday night prior to the screening (we screen Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights).
At the very least, I have been able to get a special key, open for an agreed upon hour on the Wednesday night, to allow for the testing to take place.

The only time I have ever had a KDM not work on the Wednesday was simply because I failed to notice that a "Supplemental package" was attached, however once I ingested that it was fine.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-26-2019, 11:43 AM:

We use the credits position(s) to turn our field lights on and trigger our audio system to overlay an intermission or exit announcement. For at least that reason, we run the front and back of every feature, to verify the keys work and establish where we actually want those light and announcement macros to hit. We do that somewhere between sunset on Thursday and sunrise on Friday.

That said, I haven't had a single KDM failure in 7 years over 3 screens. I HAVE ingested the wrong keys for the version I've loaded into my server, but the right elements have always been here. I just needed to figure out what I loaded wrong, content or key.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-26-2019, 12:08 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
I wonder if that theater had a "defective" key, or one for a different server. Either way they should have been able to use the Deluxe website and get a new key within about two minutes, and if THAT fails call Deluxe direct and get it emailed.

Being an early screening, it's entirely possible the keys didn't unlock until an hour before the show was to start. Also it is common to send a key ONLY for the auditorium that is booked to play the movie. This way they don't have to have their security patrolling every screen in the building to make sure there isn't a piracy effort going on elsewhere in the complex.

Many things could then cause an otherwise proper key to fail, such as someone at the theater swapping servers between auditoriums to troubleshoot a problem, or the studio simply expecting to play the movie in #12, but operations puts them in #8.

Regardless, if the studio didn't authorize keys to every screen in the building for an early screening, then they can't just hop onto a key website to retrieve another.

Posted by Steve Moore (Member # 4753) on 05-26-2019, 12:11 PM:

Same here, I always play the first few mins to check the volume and then about an hour in and then also the end to check cast position. I also check the subtitled version for our hard of hearing shows each week.

Most weeks we are lucky and the KDMs unlock on Thursday, so i can check after my last show. Some KDMs only unlock at Midnight on the Friday morning, so usually involves me going to the cinema in my lunch hour, from my other job, to check.

I've never run a digital show without checking first. In fact they get far more checks now than when we were on 35mm!

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 05-27-2019, 09:19 PM:

We only recently were even allowed to prescreen shows per company policy. So there's a possibility...

Posted by James Wyrembelski (Member # 9037) on 05-28-2019, 11:56 AM:

quote: Frank Cox
I'm one of the apparently few who still checks every feature before showing it to the public

I'm with you on that. I also QC every single show. Usually on Weds or Thursday afternoons. I'm sorta lucky though since I usually don't have any time constraints. I have another job, but its flexible so I can fit it in. Our keys are almost always unlocked by 12AM Wednesday.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-28-2019, 02:09 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
It should be a requirement that all keys are active 48 hours before a show, but I am not going to hold my breath.

Our keys almost always unlock at 12:01 Thursday, so I do most of my checks on Thursday night. If there is a problem, we'd never get a replacement before the weekend is over, so I always make sure to hang onto the outgoing movie until the new one is tested, in case we need to do an "emergency holdover."

If it's a big movie opening on the break, I often stay up late and QC it as soon as it unlocks....that's the only way we'd be able to get a replacement in time.

In almost 9 years I've only had one instance where I would have requested a replacement, and it was a 'flop' kind of movie anyway with about 10 or 20 people per night (if that), so I just skipped over the "bad" part manually and informed the audience beforehand that there was going to be a few seconds' gap in the action.

At least for us, Disney features always unlock Wednesday at 12:01 am, and I haven't heard of any widespread "piracy" problems due to that, and they seem to be doing OK, so I don't know why other studios can't do the same.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-28-2019, 02:23 PM:

It's interesting that some times some studios will hire someone (a technician) to go in either early or the day before and QC the auditorium (Shoot colors, light levels, Checks SPL's, etc...) and the DCP (full run through) as well as perform a stand by for the screening. I have done screenings where I have had to go in and replace loudspeaker components, lamps, etc..., etc... just to get up to spec.

and then sometimes they don't and things like this happen. Strange.

Posted by Mark Lane (Member # 10848) on 06-05-2019, 02:51 PM:

I preview every movie we show, sometimes it is done at midnight when the keys become active.
There has been a couple of time where the keys did not work. I called Deluxe and within ten minutes I had new keys.
From my experience, if it was just an issue with the keys, the theater projectionist should have been able to call Deluxe and have the problem fixed within a few minutes.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 06-06-2019, 08:31 AM:

quote: Mark Lane
From my experience, if it was just an issue with the keys, the theater projectionist should have been able to call Deluxe and have the problem fixed within a few minutes.

That’s just it; I’m sure this was the theater manager trying to handle it as best they could as I highly doubt the theater had any type of actual projectionist on duty at 3 PM on a Saturday afternoon.

Note that both in this case and a week later, with a different feature at a different AMC, theater management had no idea the feature hadn’t even started until I notified management, anywhere from five to twenty minutes after show time.

(In the case of the latter, I really do wonder how long the patrons seated in the theater would’ve just sat there staring at a dark screen before one of them thought to go ask someone…)