This is topic Upcoming 70mm Fest in Los Angeles in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 12-09-2003, 02:25 PM:
 
From the American Cinematheque's latest press release:

THE 4th GREAT BIG 70 MM FESTIVAL!!
January 22 - 25, 2004
From Super Technirama 70 to Ultra Panavision to Dimension 150 and
more, the 70 mm. large-screen format promised - and delivered - a
Barnum-esque world of spectacular sights and 6-track sounds. If the
movies were always larger-than-life, then 70 mm. movies were MUCH much
larger - films ..... From 1955 to 1970 - the Golden Age of 70 mm.
Filmmaking - there were nearly 60 Hollywood features shot in large
format, with many more released in special engagements as 35 mm.-to-70
mm. blow-ups (which still offered superior sound and image quality to
their 35 mm. counterparts.)

This semi-annual series is a very rare opportunity to experience 70
mm. as it was meant to be seen: on a big, beautiful screen, with
booming, 6-track multi-channel sound. Following the success of our
past Festivals, we're delighted to present gorgeous new restorations
of two seminal 70 mm. films: Jacques Tati's' masterpiece PLAYTIME (not
to be missed!), the restored Todd AO print of Ken Annakin's THOSE
MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES; as well as new prints of the
sumptuous musical HELLO DOLLY! and Stanley Kramer's IT'S A MAD, MAD,
MAD, MAD WORLD. And don't miss the rare screening of Walt Disney's
landmark film SLEEPING BEAUTY !

Thursday, January 22 - 7:30 PM 70 MM
New Restored 70mm Print!!
PLAYTIME, 1967, Criterion, 155 min. Dir. Jacques Tati.

Friday, January 23 - 7:30 PM 70 MM
New Restored 70mm Print!!
PLAYTIME, 1967, Criterion, 155 min. Dir. Jacques Tati.

Saturday, January 24 - 5:00 PM 70 MM
New Todd-AO 70mm Print!
HELLO DOLLY!, 1969, 20th Century Fox, 146 min. Directed by Gene Kelly

Saturday, January 24 - 8:15 PM 70 MM
New Restored 70mm Print!!
PLAYTIME, 1967, Criterion, 155 min. Dir. Jacques Tati.

Sunday, January 25 - 1:00 PM 70 MM
Children's Matinee:
SLEEPING BEAUTY, 1959, Walt Disney Co., 75 min.

Sunday, January 25 - 4:00 PM 70 MM
Brand new restored Todd-AO 70mm Print!!
THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES, 1965, 20th Century
Fox, 133 min. Discussion following with director Ken Annakin

Sunday, January 25 - 7:30 PM 70 MM
New 70mm Print!
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, 1963, MGM/UA, 154 min.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 12-09-2003, 02:55 PM:
 
Drool.

I'm in Los Angeles January 12-14 for the annual ITEA Projection Seminar Series, but can't extend the trip to see these great films projected as "Film Done Right" by Paul Rayton and crew.
 

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Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 12-09-2003, 03:54 PM:
 
Michael

Just make sure all the forward shipping labels are changed to:

Pictureville Cinema
NMPFT
Bradford England


 

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Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 12-09-2003, 04:38 PM:
 
Bummer. I'll be about 3/4 of the way there, but I'll be busy in Park City.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-09-2003, 04:47 PM:
 
No amend that shipping label Dick to read

VIA Ontario Place Cinesphere
955 Lakeshore Blvd West
Toronto
Ontario Canada
for extended run
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 12-09-2003, 05:49 PM:
 
"Extended Run" Watch out! Ontario Place is like a black hole for prints.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-09-2003, 06:01 PM:
 
don't worry they need to be climatized before shipping overseas
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 12-09-2003, 06:30 PM:
 
No George? (Think D-150) Hrrrmph.
 

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Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 12-10-2003, 01:35 AM:
 
I'll be there to see "Hello Dolly", as I missed it last year. I heard many good things about that print.

Too bad they didn't chop out the song that the lady sings in the hat shop; that dubbed over vocal would make a cat hiss!! What were they thinking! It's so obvious and fake!!

Danny
 

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Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-10-2003, 02:09 AM:
 
What's the Egyptian like now? I read that it was greatly remodeled for the American Cinematheque. What are the auditorium specs: Screen size, size of auditorim from screen to back wall, etc. Greg Mueller (I think) mentioned sitting in the balcony at Jeff Joseph's 3D extravaganza, I suppose the booth is still in its original position?

I read that some of the floor was partitioned from the auditorium to create restaurant space or something. This is not so strange, since the Egyptian was originally a silent-era house & possibly had no partition between the back of the house & entry points like foyers, etc. Those type of houses have at some point *had* to have partitions installed for sound isolation.

Who's that guy who is impersonating Dan Lyons & cashing his checks & all? He's doesn't even look like Dan; who is he trying to fool? Is Dan like tied up in a closet, or dumped out in the wilderness somewhere? California is scary.
 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 12-10-2003, 09:56 AM:
 
William, here's a link to a series of articles on the Egyptian Theatre remodeling.
http://www.volume5.com/egyptian/intro.html
 

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Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 12-11-2003, 12:57 AM:
 
So the only "restoration" was in the forecourt.

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however, its most distinctive feature, the elaborate proscenium, was removed almost three decades ago.

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The perforated, low-relief sunburst which reaches into the blue ground of the ceiling will become the chief historic decorative feature of the auditorium.

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Who's that guy who is impersonating Dan Lyons & cashing his checks & all? He's doesn't even look like Dan; who is he trying to fool? Is Dan like tied up in a closet

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I never saw a balcony at this theatre until the current redo. If there was a balcony originally, it was closed up and plastered over decades ago.

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The procenium was also completely removed (not even one pillar visible)since at least the 50's. I saw a number of films on the theatre's D-150 screen. The deep curving curtains and screen occupied the whole front of the semi pie-shaped auditorium.

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My recollection was that the proscenium was altered for Cinemascope, & then the D-150 screen was installed in front of what remained & drapes hung over everything at the sides. "Removal" would not be clean or easy or economical or the way it's ever been done!


If you look at the plan view of the theater on the page linked above, you can see that these combination houses were essentially two buildings: The auditorium, & the stage house. They are two buildings between which is the most monster firewall imaginable - poured concrete 1 to 2 feet thick.

The bizarre thing is that these theaters were already built inside another building. Look at the plan view; you can see the funnel shape of the auditorium shell, & then outside of it the square shape of the building shell itself. If there were a section view, you would see the top of the theater suspended from the top of the shell above. Uninformed people just see them as empty spaces, but they just see the auditorium. Folks don't see what things are, how they work, or if something they don't know "is anything". A theatre is a machine installed inside a shell, & it really is most obvious in these older ones that did more.

You have a shell, then you build a cellular theater in it. If you want, you can take the theater out, you have the shell again to do something with: like complete it with offices like the rest of the building (as in the NY Paramount).

If they wanted to build a new theatre & just needed a shell to start with, a better choice would be almost anything else already standing that's just a shell. (First thing to mind would be an old department store: examples from the 1800s to 1940s were large, open, square, easily built in, lots of decorative & historic-y detail.)

But the Egyptian is weird. You can see how it got that way by following the blindered thought processes like looking at a decades-old rat's nest in an equipment rack of added equipment over the years. Okay, we'll save the theatre! But we want a different design theatre! Okay, we'll build it inside the theatre! What's been saved? The front yard & the organ grille on the ceiling. A new theatre has been built; the old theatre has been buried. It's not like a massive rehab of an existing theatre, like Powell Hall. You have to understand the progression of disjointed thinking from "save historic theatre" to "build theatre in building".

I'm all for building excellent new theatres & also saving old ones, but the result is not so much ill-conceived as it is crazy. Instead of just a theater built in a shell, you've got this Chinese nesting boxes thing. It additionally results in the strangest hoops to jump through like having to extend it into the stage house. And what's in the fly tower above the new auditorium cell? Can it be used?

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I plan to see THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES in January there

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Woo hoo! On the same day with IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, both in 70mm! I'd like to be sitting there all day with 20 boxes of Chocolate Stars and a 50 gallon drum of Sprite!


 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 12-15-2003, 03:23 AM:
 

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Removal" would not be clean or easy or economical or the way it's ever been done!

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Brand new restored Todd-AO 70mm Print!!
THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES

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So didn't ANYBODY make it to the festival to give a report?

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Yes, I attended. I saw all of or portions of every film.

I planned to write a brief article for in70mm.com but, unfortunately, have been dealing with some important work deadlines and it has had to wait. If you ask a specific question here I will try to answer.
 

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Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 02-14-2004, 02:13 PM:
 
Ok, i have a question.

How was "hello dolly"? I've missed that one the past 2 years in a row now, damn! Was it still in good shape, or has it been messed up.

Danny
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-14-2004, 02:35 PM:
 
I watched "It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". The picture quality was very good, but for me the film was too long and silly. I was a little relieved when it was over.
 

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Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 02-14-2004, 06:34 PM:
 
Michael S,

Did the theatre accomnodate for the wider UP70 ratio? Or were they cropping off the sides of the image?
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-15-2004, 03:12 AM:
 
No, everything was there.
 

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Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 02-23-2004, 12:50 PM:
 

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How was "hello dolly"? I've missed that one the past 2 years in a row now, damn! Was it still in good shape, or has it been messed up.

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Did the theatre accomnodate for the wider UP70 ratio [for It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World]? Or were they cropping off the sides of the image?

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Does the Todd-AO screen credit for Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines read: "Produced in Todd-AO" or "Filmed in Todd-AO"?

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My recollection was that the proscenium was altered for Cinemascope, & then the D-150 screen was installed in front of what remained & drapes hung over everything at the sides. "Removal" would not be clean or easy or economical or the way it's ever been done!

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