Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "The Art House Circuit"

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Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 10-02-2002, 01:45 PM:

Over on Feature Info, in regards to changeovers in Rules of Attraction, Brad says -"Ugh, I wonder how long those changeovers will be able to be effective, as especially in the art house circuit people in general don't seem to care and will chop off those frames like crazy."

Yo Brad, don't go dissin' the circuit, bro!

Speaking as someone who's worked primarily in the art-house circuit, I've been under the assumption it's the NON-arthouses who do all the chopping (present company excepted)!

Nobody I've been trained by, worked with nor trained myself cuts off extra frames - unless necessary. You and I see eye to eye on cutting heads and tails with no reference frames and although most of my colleagues frown upon that, I've never seen any of them cut more than one off. I think we're mostly a bunch of tape-peelers.

The times I spent working union shifts at GCC, Cineplex, or prints moved over from the 'big guys', I've seen MASSIVE QUANTITIES OF FRAMES cut from the heads and tails. You'd think that the changeover cue had a big sign saying "cut here".

However it occurs to me that there is a local art-house chain who has, in my opinion, a horrible presentation in all the theatres I've been to (and they're union!).

So whatever. I think half the people out there suck and the other half do a fine job whether they're union or not, whether they're 16 or 60, whether they're in Podunk, Podunkia or New York City. It boils down to presentation and those who care/vs/those who don't.

You KNEW I'd respond to that comment didn't you?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-02-2002, 02:37 PM:

I think that part of the reason why prints of limited-release titles tend to be in worse condition than those of "mainstream" titles is that they will ordinarily visit more theatres in a given period of time. As such, there are more chances for them to be damaged by uncaring or poorly trained (and not always by their own fault) operators, since it only takes one "bad apple" to destroy a print.

Having enjoyed running film in a number of art houses, my experience has been that most of the projectionists at these places are either really good or really bad, while those who work at mainstream theatres seem to be more middle-of-the-road in terms of quality. For the most part, those who work in art and rep houses seem to be above average, at least in my experience, even though the pay is often lower than for their mainstream counterparts. There are, of course, plenty of others who either don't care, are poorly trained, or both.

I do believe that art and repertory programming is more rewarding to show than most current mainstream titles, but not everyone sees it this way, it seems.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-02-2002, 03:11 PM:

Scott pretty much nailed it on two points.

Art houses seem to either really care, or really suck at taking care of the prints. Do remember that for every nice art house with good equipment and well paid and trained operators, there are probably two art houses with Edison vintage equipment that has never been maintained and the people handling the prints don't give a flip. Unfortunately I think I can honestly say that the majority of art houses have terrible equipment with operators who don't care. After all they don't have to...they have the exclusive on the movie!

The other point Scott raised is of course that I think it is common for an art house print to have a small run of say 100 prints (or less). Because of this those prints tend to get sent out everywhere for trade and press screenings and film festivals. By the time the opening date comes for a regular engagement, the print looks like shit! Again, this is not necessarily a "masses" thing, because it only takes one crappy theater to ruin a print. Unfortunately I've seen prints that have 10 chops on the leaders, each one leaving ID frames from the last chop. Some of the theaters whack away one more frame over, but more commonly I see an original cut that "preserves" 5 ID frames, then another cut 3 more ID frames over, then a cut one ID frame over, then another cut 8 ID frames over, then another cut 5 more ID frames over, etc. This is very frustrating, even moreso because art house prints are commonly analog ONLY! At least with digital the effect can be covered up reasonably well.

Then there are the prints that are basically flawless, except of course 30 seconds before and after each reel change where they look like they have been dragged across the desert.

So no, I am not picking on you or your theater directly, I am just annoyed at the way the art house circuit *in general* treats films.

Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 10-02-2002, 05:50 PM:

I think that people who cut off unecessary number of I.D. frames bugs the hell out of most of us. For the most part I see it coming from outside MY realm and vice versa.

I was just thinking about these limited run prints. They play a lot of colleges and festivals (and the press screenings) and those are who I've blamed in the past for mis-handling art house prints. Perhaps it was a Seattle thing. The only good presentations I saw there were at our theatres until the Cinerama opened - saw a couple nice presentations there.

Honestly it never occured to me that there's a lot more art-houses around with antiquated equipment than I originally thought. I admit there are some in our company who need a swift kick in the butt as well - and one of our theatres has some real sh*tty equipment. But equipment doesn't cut off reference frames, people do.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-02-2002, 08:36 PM:

I have no problems with people who leave _one_ (and only one) reference frame. I do it myself. However, one practice that I have seen lately that absolutely disgusts me is people who will chop a fade-in/fade-out at the beginning or end of a reel just because they were taught to leave reference frames. There is _no_ excuse for this. If a reel begins or ends with a fade-in or fade-out, then it should be left intact, damnit! If I see this one more time, I think I will scream.

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 10-02-2002, 11:53 PM:

With the exception of Matt (who has already been here) maybe some of you should travel to Seattle and check out our art house circuit. These people I work with here are probably the most dedicated bunch I've worked with in a long time. As Matt knows, many of us have been at our respective theaters for years. Yes, we run exclusives, but we do give a damn. We've run the same print in several of our theaters, on circuits,for a year and they look as good the final day as they did the first. Right now our theatre has been showing GREEK WEDDING since it's release date in April. I checked it today, looks fine.
I don't believe "art house" projectionists don't give a hoot. Where does this come from.
Yes, when I was doing daily film changes at one of our theatres, we did get some crappy art films. Usually we're told in adavance the print may not be in the greatest of shape because of what was discussed earlier. There were not many prints made and this one has been around the bend. I've fought everything from overly shoepolished prints to missing sections to reel heads and tails chopped to hell. It was not the norm though. We did alot of circuiting from our LA and Bay area theatres and it seems to be they also took care of the prints.
I want to think and believe the mainstream theatres don't keep a print on screen long enough to screw it up. But like stated earlier all it takes is one bad run and it's a goner.