Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Arclignt's Dome 50th Anniversary

This is topic Arclignt's Dome 50th Anniversary - NO large format or Cinerama!! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-17-2013, 04:07 PM:

I'm not sure whether it's due to the retirement of John Sittig - previously Arclight's beloved Director of Projection & Sound, and arguably Cinerama's greatest partisan - or whether their Facebook representative is correct in saying Arclight wanted to focus on the anniversary, not the process - but as a part of their 50th anniversary of the Dome Arclight is not showing any films in large format or even Cinerama.

They are showing It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World - in digital.

Worse yet, they are showing How the West was Won in what may be the lowest resolution format available to them - single strip 35mm!!

I can't imagine what they're thinking; so many people are going to be so disappointed believing they'll be seeing How the West was Won in Cinerama when what they'll be seeing is that beautiful three strip image shrunk down to a single 35mm frame then blown up dome-size. How is that a "celebration" of anything but film grain?

What's much more of a pity is during last year's 60th anniversary of Cinerama, they showed How the West was Won from the beautiful 3-strip print they own and a stunning 70mm Ultra Panavision print of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

I've heard from several people over the past year that Arclight has dropped in quality; is this yet another sign concealed under the veneer of "being a celebration of the Dome, not the process?"

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 10-17-2013, 04:20 PM:

Robert Harris has completed a restoration of the 197-minute version of Mad World. I wonder if that is the one that will be shown. (It will be released on Blu-Ray in January from Criterion.)

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-17-2013, 04:31 PM:

I doubt it; I suspect it's the current DCP.

Posted by Edward Havens (Member # 4715) on 10-17-2013, 05:50 PM:

To be fair, it's not like the Cinerama Dome actually played a real three-strip Cinerama title during its first forty years, and it's also not like they go a very long time without having some kind of Cinerama festival of its own. They just did a Cinerama 60th Anniversary festival last year, and I'm sure John would be willing to come out of retirement for a few days if Pacific/Arclight asked him for assistance on the next one.

Off topic, if you ever get the chance to see John's collection of lenses, films and other items of the widescreen era, you must do everything you can to see it. I wish he's write a book about his collection.

Posted by William Kucharski (Member # 7246) on 10-17-2013, 06:17 PM:

I'd love to see his collection.

I was at the festival last year and now am especially grateful that I was.

It's just you'd think that when the blurb for their anniversary states:

quote:
We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of Hollywood's most recognizable landmarks: The Cinerama Dome, a geodesic structure boasting a screen of 32 x 86 feet with a 146 degree curve. Opened on November 7, 1963, the Dome was designed to show movies in the Cinerama process, known for its ultra-realistic projection, and is currently one of only three theaters of the kind left in the world.

they might actually want to show a film in the process.

It's their decision, I get it, but it's still a pity.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 10-17-2013, 10:34 PM:

quote: William Kucharski
How is that a "celebration" of anything but film grain?

Maybe this is the point. The industry has transitioned to digital, and that's where their allegiance lies now. What's in it for them if they start making film look *too* good?

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 10-22-2013, 08:59 AM:

So.... If you had a restored print of something, and had a DCP made of each strip, is there a way you could synchronize 3 digital projectors?

Posted by Lincoln Spector (Member # 6835) on 10-22-2013, 01:10 PM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
So.... If you had a restored print of something, and had a DCP made of each strip, is there a way you could synchronize 3 digital projectors?

It's probably possible. There's a theater near me that syncs two digital projectors for 3D.

I imagine that you could get Cinerama quality with a 6K projector set up specifically for the AR and curvature. But first, someone would have to make a 6K projector.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-22-2013, 07:19 PM:

I've long believed that setups with multiple adjacent projectors are doomed to fail, because it will always create visible and distracting artifacts where the images meet. But...

I've recently been to The Wall by Roger Waters, the reincarnation of the original concerts they did back in the 80's.

They use a giant wall as backdrop that spans the whole venue and this was a stadium that seats about 50,000 people, so this thing was really HUGE.

The resolution of the whole canvas is supposed to be 8560 x 1620 pixels. The brightness of the projections is beyond amazing, I've never seen such bright digital projections before. They're using about 24 projectors for the wall alone, together with a custom rig that seems to chop off a bit off the vertical edges of the projections.

I do believe they use at least two projectors for every segment, to achieve this amazing brightness.

I've been looking for visible seams, as they're usually easily spotted in multi projector setups, but I've not seen a single one.

So yes, with sufficient dedication and budget, you could create something really amazing.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 10-22-2013, 08:52 PM:

I saw HOW THE WEST WAS WON in three strip Cinerama at the Cinerama Theatre in Honolulu doing it's first run engagement and it was just marvelous. I saw it again about a year and a half later at my hometown theatre, the Waipahu in 35mm with mono sound and it was terrible. On the other hand, the Movie on Blu Ray gives a very good impression of what I saw in the original version. By the way, the three strip projection equipment at the Archlight Cinerama Dome is from our Cinerama theatre.

-Claude

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-24-2013, 03:26 PM:

Everything at the Dome is DCP for this including this Sunday's presentation of Mad Mad World. Sadly, this appears to be more about celebrating that the dome exists than it does the different formats both digital and film that it has and can still run.

Mark

Posted by Randy Pryde (Member # 7488) on 10-24-2013, 10:42 PM:

As of the time of this post, the arclight webpage notes that the showing of "How the West Was Won" will be in the original 3 strip Cinerama process.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 10-26-2013, 02:02 PM:

Indeed, it does, sounds like the previous moaning was a bit unjustified:

quote:
Presented in the original three-strip CINERAMA projection process... From the Erie Canal and Ohio River, across the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, How The West Was Won is the story of America’s expansion westward as told by three generations of pioneers, this massive motion picture was filmed with one of the greatest cast ever assembled.

Sounds pretty much awesome to me. It's not right around the corner for me, but when I would be in the vicinity, I would definitely try to catch this.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-26-2013, 04:13 PM:

And they are running HTWWW again on November 14th @ 8 PM. But possibly only a 35mm print. The listing wasn't exactly clear on format for that showing.