Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Infiltrator Premier Technical Glitches

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Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 07-14-2016, 10:00 AM:

Now that the world has gone digital, nothing ever goes wrong...

quote: News Story Link

Stars Walk Out Of Infiltrator Premiere After Technical Glitches

By WENN in Movies / TV / Theatre on 14 July 2016

Actresses Diane Kruger and Olympia Dukakis walked out of the U.S. premiere of their new film The Infiltrator after a series of technical glitches.

The film, which stars Bryan Cranston as real-life undercover U.S. federal agent Robert Mazur, was supposed to receive a glitzy debut at New York's AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 venue on Tuesday (12Jul16).

However, a star-studded audience including Bryan, Diane, Olympia and co-star John Leguizamo were kept waiting when the film failed to start before a more technical glitches resulted in the temporary halting of the screening after 30 minutes.

"When they went to start the movie they had some issues," a source told editors at the New York Post's Page Six gossip column. "The screen was black, there was an issue with the subtitles... About 30 minutes in, the lights go up and they stop the film."

A representative for the film confirmed to the paper that the actresses had left the screening early, but claimed that their departure was planned.

Happily for Bryan and his co-stars, the critical reaction has fared better than their attempts to show off the film, as it has attracted generally positive reviews, with his performance as Robert, an agent who battled Colombian drugs king pin Pablo Escobar, earning particular praise.

The real-life crime fighter was also in attendance at the ill-fated premiere, but according to Bryan, he had to maintain a low-key presence at the screening due to fear of reprisals from criminals.

"I can’t point him (Robert Mazur) out to you or anyone else because he put a lot of people in prison, and they would like nothing more than to get back to him," Bryan told the publication.

The Infiltrator was released in the U.S. on Wednesday (13Jul16) and hits U.K. cinemas on 16 September (16).

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-14-2016, 12:57 PM:

I did several press/preview screenings of this movie last week.
Had no trouble at any of my shows. Obviously, Mitch, they should
have hired one of us here to do the premiere.

>And I get really upset when they say "they had to stop the film".
- -if it was actually FILM they probably wouldn't have had to stop it.

It looked like a pretty decent movie, unfortunately, I didn't have
time to sit and watch any of it because I spent the entire screening
trying to straighten out a problem with another pre-release press
showing of a movie I had later the same day, where NONE of the KDM's
they were sending me were matching up with any of the 3 or 4 versions
of the flick on several hard drives I had received earlier in the week.

I don't know if it's the phase of the moon or if all the competent
people are on summer break, but I've had more KDM issues in the
last 2-3 weeks than I've had so far all year.

(But I manged to catch all in advance- so I haven't lost a show) [thumbsup]

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 07-14-2016, 01:42 PM:

There has been a bulletin sent out about subtitle issues. The subtitles start a few seconds after the 16 minuet mark. It is scope and 2k file. I believe it is 4k projectors that were having issues. At least that was what the bulletin was talking about.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-14-2016, 05:22 PM:

No test screening? No backup file? Is that really how premieres are handled these days?

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 07-14-2016, 07:17 PM:

More failed premieres in the last 5 years than in the history of film.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 07-14-2016, 09:16 PM:

quote: Stephan Shelley
The subtitles start a few seconds after the 16 minuet mark.

Since the movie is about a Mexican drug lord, there are subtitles
whenever they start speaking Spanish in the dialog. So they
are interspersed at various points throughout the movie.
But yes- as I recall they first start to appear abt 10-15min in.
I was running on a 2K projector, so we didn't have any problems
at the press previews I did.

Posted by Philip Wittlief (Member # 1724) on 07-15-2016, 09:34 AM:

I have had the issue on some 2K series 1 projectors. Does anyone know what technical glitches caused them to start 30 minutes late?

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 07-15-2016, 10:59 AM:

Philip, I would bet the issue was bad KDMs that didn't unlock the show. [Roll Eyes]

quote: Jim Cassedy
>And I get really upset when they say "they had to stop the film".
- -if it was actually FILM they probably wouldn't have had to stop it.

Here's an idea for such big premiers: Why not do it in 35mm with a DCP back-up? IIRC doesn't Lincoln Square have at least ONE 35mm house?

Of course even if they DID have a 35mm setup available, odds are there is no one left there that knows how to use it properly...

In my 30+ years of doing screenings, over literally hundreds if not a thousand or so shows, I can recall only TWO lost shows due to technical issues...one was the press/AFM screening of "Happy, Texas" at the Santa Monica 4 (some dumbass editor at the studio spliced in a studio logo without adding the mag track)....by the time we had figured out what the exact problem was the decision was made to cancel the show (not by us in the booth, we just cut the logo out and viola, perfect sync).

The other was a screening at UC Irvine of a short film where they sent us just the mag track reel with no picture reel...(plus we didn't have the dubber installed at that time anyway..).

In general, a 35mm premier would have less chances of a show-stopping issue... (of course certain film related issues could have still happened, but the odds of a quick fix were greater.)

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 07-15-2016, 07:43 PM:

Philip, if the issues you are talking about with series 1 projectors have to do with subtitles, make sure the TI firmware is on the last release TI made. 15.x. It enables smpte subtitles to a certain degree. Series ones will not display smpte subtitles at all without this last version. There is a length limitation that series 2s do not have.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-19-2016, 07:00 AM:

quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
doesn't Lincoln Square have at least ONE 35mm house?

Of course even if they DID have a 35mm setup available, odds are there is no one left there that knows how to use it properly...

Yes they do have 35mm & 70mm in the complex.
They still have operators from Local 306 to run it.

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 07-19-2016, 01:36 PM:

Thank you Bill. [Smile]

Let's hope they take up my suggestion and premier in 35mm with DCP backup. [Smile]

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 07-24-2016, 02:03 AM:

I just saw this film yesterday at the Cinemark/Century in Daly City CA. No subtitles were on the movie. I had to sit thur many minutes of Spanish with no subtitles on the print. To make maters worse like many Cinemark/Century theatres around the USA they play many scope movies on their square 1.85 screens. These smaller cinemas as well as the larger ones have masking that did move last year but now you have to sit thu a scope film with white screen shown at the top and bottom. At least our local AMC SF theatres have nice masking that moves at the correct time. If I had read this post before I saw the film I'd complain to someone If you can find a so called manager at any Cinemark Cinema. They even have, like so many of their cinemas the top level candy counter is closed (they think they are saving help money) but not having It open with a small sign to tell you to use the refreshment counter in the lower lobby. This is why their steps are filthy with spilled Coke and other things, you have to carry all your goodies up 3 flights plus go down to pay for them. I enjoyed the film but I'd wish I had seen It at a AMC theatre with a better screen set up in SF. No showmanship these days in the SF Bay Area at Cinemark/Century. Even old Ray Syufy who ran Century for many years before his sons sold out to Cinemark always used the proper masking. It's so much nicer and easy on your eyes when watching a wide screen movie. Some day AMC will buy out Cinemark and things will change for the better I hope. PS:I forgot to mention there was a small hole in the middle of the screen!!! Check out this film and see If your local cinema has It set up the correct way with subtitles at times.

Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 07-24-2016, 01:25 PM:

I can't wait for the day where the "this wouldn't happen with film" circle jerk ends.

This is just poor presentation whether it was film or digital, there should have been a tech screening for a premier which would have most likely prevented this error.

I almost wish there was a way to check cinema logs for all cinemas in the country (or world) and I can guarantee that the instances of lost shows has actually gone down. The fact of the matter is that these guys clearly didn't care and we would never know if they would have cared with film either to have someone watching it 100% during the show to make sure it doesn't brainwrap or would they do a film tech screening to ensure that the film was built correctly. We will simply not know, I think the one thing that digital has done is create a "set it and forget it" mentality which should be changed. If you are 100% with your tech screenings and actually checking and triple checking your work, the chance of a public lost show is very low.

I could count on 1 one hand the amount of digital shows I have lost, and 2 of them were due to exploding xenons (thanks Phillips!). Film was the same way, if you did your checks and actually cared your presentation would go off without issues. If people broke the set it and forget it mentality, digital would be just fine (imagine quality argument aside)

Probably not going to attract any flies with this honey like post, but still, it gets old guys....

*edit*
Also terry I wouldn't get your hopes up, all remodeled AMCs have fixed masking, they aren't putting the money into masking or fixing masking motors anymore. I'm not actually sure of any the major chains that are...

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-24-2016, 02:10 PM:

If it's an older Series 1 projector, then, as Stephan notes, it probably had an old TI firmware in it. If it's a 4K Series 2 playing a 2K DCP with XML subtitles, then the screen or PCF file needs to be set up a specific way, or subtitles won't work (can't remember the specifics, but when I had this problem a couple of years ago, Steve Guttag very kindly posted the solution).

But yes, the staggering thing is why this wasn't caught in the preparation for such a high profile show. My only guess is that because there were only subtitles on one or two scenes, the projectionist previewing it didn't know that they were supposed to be there (e.g. thought that the Spanish scene was just for atmosphere and that the audience didn't need to know exactly what was being said) or maybe even only spot checked the movie and didn't land on those scenes while doing so.

Whenever we do studio premieres with VIPs in attendance, a tech from the studio comes on the morning of the show, shoots the colors, checks the light level, and watches the whole DCP. Usually a Dolby tech comes to tune the room, too. The studio tech is someone who knows the movie and has seen it many times before, and so would catch something like this immediately. Interesting that this clearly wasn't done for this show.

Also, we've been here before, with the Attack on Titan debacle, when a load of theaters that almost never played subtitled and/or SMPTE DCPs tried to play this one and discovered the old TI firmware issue the hard way. In the aftermath of that, the distributor announced that all its future DCPs would have burnt-in subtitles, not XML ones.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-24-2016, 03:37 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Now that the world has gone digital, nothing ever goes wrong...

quote: Terry Monohan
...many Cinemark/Century theatres around the USA they play many scope movies on their square 1.85 screens. These smaller cinemas as well as the larger ones have masking that did move last year but now you have to sit thu a scope film with white screen shown at the top and bottom.

quote: Jim Cassedy
I don't know if it's the phase of the moon or if all the competent
people are on summer break, but I've had more KDM issues in the
last 2-3 weeks than I've had so far all year.

quote: Martin McCaffery
No test screening? No backup file? Is that really how premieres are handled these days?

quote: Louis Bornwasser
More failed premieres in the last 5 years than in the history of film.

quote: Manny Montes
I can't wait for the day where the "this wouldn't happen with film" circle jerk ends.

quote: Manny Montes
This is just poor presentation whether it was film or digital, there should have been a tech screening for a premier which would have most likely prevented this error.

Digital projection is little more than an excuse to be lazy.

People are too lazy to carry those "heavy" film cans up a flight of stairs. They are too lazy to splice film properly and take care of their machines and they are even too lazy to simply check their movie before a Hollywood premiere where all the principles are present.

People are simply too lazy to do the jobs that they are getting paid to do.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-24-2016, 03:47 PM:

Wasn't I assured a couple of week ago here that qc screenings are not necessary?

Why, yes I was.

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 07-24-2016, 04:11 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
No test screening? No backup file? Is that really how premieres are handled these days?

Not in Los Angeles. We still take things very seriously for a premiere out here whether it be film or digital. At my main venue, we still have our xenon Christie projector sitting next to our new laser projectors. We do a full run-through on both projection and sound systems usually the day before the premiere and sometimes early in the morning on the day of. We don't take any chances on a premiere. Ever. There is no excuse for the projectionist not catching that the movie didn't have subtitles showing up. It most definitely should have been caught well in advance of the big show. I can't imagine the studios having a different procedure for premieres in New York so I'm not sure who is to blame for this one. We also might not have all of the details of this event either. It is still a possibility that they did do a proper QC and run-through with everything working properly and then for whatever reason, the projector or server decided it didn't like subtitles anymore. I remember our DSS-200 having issues with subtitles disappearing intermittently on one of the older firmware versions. Let's hope this wasn't due to projectionist incompetence. Then again, there might be an opportunity for one of us to get a new job in NY in the near future [Cool]

EDIT - Also this:

quote: Frank Cox
Wasn't I assured a couple of week ago here that qc screenings are not necessary?

Why, yes I was.

Per your own link, you must have again glossed over the details of what was said just as you did in that thread. For example, one of Leo's replies to you:

quote:
As everyone above has pointed out, previewing a show in its entirety is usually impossible, because:

1 - The budget isn't there to pay a projectionist to do it, except if it's a really high profile event (e.g. a premiere, or a VIP is doing a Q & A);

I'm pretty sure a premiere qualifies as one of the times you absolutely do a full run-through before the show!

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 07-24-2016, 05:31 PM:

What you're saying is that it's less important/unimportant/doesn't matter/we don't care about providing paying customers with a quality show.

Sorry, but I'm not buying into what you're selling with that statement. You guys can do what you want with your theatres; I'll do everything that I can to provide my customers with the best experience that I can when they come to a show in mine.

If Queen Elizabeth accompanies Quentin Tarantino to a movie at my theatre, they're going to get the same show and the same set-up as Robert gets when he comes to a show here. (Robert is the guy who does my weekly garbage pickup; he comes to movies when he can afford it.)

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 07-24-2016, 05:59 PM:

quote: Randy Stankey
People are simply too lazy to do the jobs that they are getting paid to do.

Or, as mentioned above, they aren't paying someone to do the job (i.e.: Complete run-through of the film before the premiere).

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 07-24-2016, 05:59 PM:

Hi Frank,

I won't question your work ethic. I for myself do the occasional qc at our place. But not every feature we play get's that treatment, because I am not always there. My main intention for this actually is to get the audio level right.

How many failures/problems did you experience during your own qc runs? I assume very few?
Wouldn't you think that at some point you would naturally get lazy about this if so little actually goes wrong? Because I think that's the reason most places don't qc nowadays.

Another aspect here for an owner/operator like you may be that you simply think 'I book it, I watch it'. Also, I guess you don't play that many shows per day?

- Carsten

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-24-2016, 06:56 PM:

quote: Frank Cox
If Queen Elizabeth accompanies Quentin Tarantino to a movie...

...the resulting PTSD would put an end to any hope she might have of outliving her mother.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-25-2016, 01:36 AM:

quote: Carsten Kurz
Wouldn't you think that at some point you would naturally get lazy about this if so little actually goes wrong?

For more than ten years, at Mercyhurst, I pre-screened every single movie that I played (or had a trusted minion screen the movie for me) even though I double and triple checked every foot of every reel of film, myself. I knew that the projector and sound system were working exactly the way I wanted them to work because I, personally cleaned, checked and maintained all of the equipment on a continual basis. I still pre-screened every movie even though I was certain that, but for an unforeseeable circumstance, when showtime came, the movie would play correctly.

In all those years, the number of problems that were found in all those movies could be counted on my fingers and, In my memory, there were two or three show stoppages with customers in the auditorium.

I didn't get to play very many current movies. Maybe I got to show a few second-runs of popular movies but 90% of them were boring foreign or independent movies. (French "talking movies" where the characters sit in a cafe, smoking Gouloises, drinking Pernod and pontificating about how their lives have gone wrong...those are the WORST!)

I did all of that because it was my job.

Nowadays, people bitch when they have to click a button on a computer screen in order to show a movie yet they wonder why a Hollywood premiere fails because of some vague "technical problem."

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 07-25-2016, 06:16 AM:

If qc is 'their job', they should have time slots and KDMs assigned for this, means, multiple qcs would have to be on their daily work schedule.

Are they sleeping while their job demands them to qc a movie, or have they been assigned other jobs to do instead of qc?

- Carsten

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-25-2016, 07:45 AM:

Sorry Manny...you are wrong. The number of lost shows with digital has absolutely gone up as compared to film. The number of maligned shows has probably gone down though. You can have a digital system sail through a tech-check and still crash and burn on the big show. Mechanical systems normally give some sort of warning about their pending failure, digital systems don't.

Now as to subtitles and 4K. Subtitles are defined as to their location (left/center/right) and lines above the bottom. The disconnect comes from that subtitles are generated by the projector while the image is generated by the server. So, when you play a 2K movie with subtitles on a 4K projector, the image gets scaled but the subtitles go where they would on a 4K image...which is cut off since that is now below the image. What one needs to do is in their PCF selection is to use the 2K PCF for all 2K subtitled features. This defines the image area as 2048x858 (for scope) or 1998x1080 (for flat)...then the subtitle engine (CineCanvas) will place the subtitles referenced to those positions (correctly). If you don't use PCFs and need to do it the hard way (you Christie people, though you too can use PCFs if you tick the box), then merely make sure your input file is correct with the right resolutions.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-25-2016, 08:45 AM:

quote: Steve Guttag
The number of lost shows with digital has absolutely gone up as compared to film. The number of maligned shows has probably gone down though. You can have a digital system sail through a tech-check and still crash and burn on the big show. Mechanical systems normally give some sort of warning about their pending failure, digital systems don't.

I think it's kind of strange how it seems like people will accept a failure in a digital system where they would not accept a similar failure in a mechanical/analogue system.

If this premiere had been presented on film and some comparable kind of failure had happened, I bet people would have been called out by name and heads would have rolled.

But, since things are digital, they blithely accept it as if nothing is wrong.

As a person who tries, very hard, to do the best job he can, I feel insulted when other people just coast on through their jobs and don't seem to care. I might not get everything right. I often make mistakes but I do my best to fix them when they happen. I get pissed off when some people don't seem to even put in a modest effort and, when things go wrong, they just say, "Oh, well..."

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 07-25-2016, 10:21 AM:

Randy, where did I give the impression that it was "acceptable" in the digital world?

One thing digital does is lure people into a false sense of "everything is alright" and hands-off. You have these yahoos telling exhibitors to eliminate the booth and put the projectors in hush boxes in the cinema itself. So just who is really going to maintain that forgotten about projector? Just how good a convergence/boresite are you going to do on a projector you can't get it and when you do work on it, it isn't in final position?

As I said before more film shows were maligned (scratched, dirty, out of frame...or otherwise less than the quality as distributed...heck many prints weren't worth showing as distributed).

Whereas with film systems, often the problem was such that it could be resolved in the time it takes to make a splice or some such thing...now it is going to be more time as often a tech will need to be involved to figure out what is wrong and what the appropriate fix is. This takes time that leads to a canned show. Furthermore, the repair prices on digital systems are many, many times the cost of a film system so you are less apt to see spares of critical parts in the booth. How many of you keep a spare ICP, light engine or cinema controller (aka PIB)? These can all be show-stoppers. Keeping an Enigma handy is also a good idea...IF YOU KEEP IT CHARGED.

Oh...and if you DO keep all of these spares at the ready (to the tune of nearly $30K (depending on model and manufacturer)...is it comforting to know that your warranty on them are expiring pretty rapidly!

Compare that to film systems. What did you need to keep as spares? A couple of gears, some belts maybe an intermittent? One's overhead to ensure a 100% up time has certainly gone way up. Gone are the days of a diode fixing a lamp power supply (aka rectifier)...now you need a spare LPS(U).

I can say that for ALL of the studio screenings I've done in the digital era (even just for press), there was a technical run through with just me in the audience to verify that all should perform as it should. If there was no run-through, shame on the studio that allowed that. You can't catch the unpredictable but you CAN catch things like wrong configurations or perhaps bad content.

I have one site that maintains TWO complete systems (projectors and servers)...all shows are 1-offs, they have to work.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-25-2016, 04:15 PM:

quote: Steve Guttag
Now as to subtitles and 4K. Subtitles are defined as to their location (left/center/right) and lines above the bottom. The disconnect comes from that subtitles are generated by the projector while the image is generated by the server. So, when you play a 2K movie with subtitles on a 4K projector, the image gets scaled but the subtitles go where they would on a 4K image...which is cut off since that is now below the image. What one needs to do is in their PCF selection is to use the 2K PCF for all 2K subtitled features. This defines the image area as 2048x858 (for scope) or 1998x1080 (for flat)...then the subtitle engine (CineCanvas) will place the subtitles referenced to those positions (correctly). If you don't use PCFs and need to do it the hard way (you Christie people, though you too can use PCFs if you tick the box), then merely make sure your input file is correct with the right resolutions.

Thanks Steve. I remembered the principle of what I was trying to achieve and that you helped me with (telling a 4K projector to put XML subtitles in the right place on a 2K canvas), but not the terminology and precise sequence of steps, because I did this almost two years ago and my memory is not what it once was.

My broader point is that for a major premiere with big stars in the house, this gotcha really should have got them far enough beforehand to enable them to dig themselves out of the hole in time for the show that mattered.

As someone who sometimes does officiate in the booth at A-list premieres, I would genuinely like to know what went wrong here: not for the purpose of recriminating or accusing anyone of incompetence, but to learn from the mistake and to add the necessary check to the preparations I make in future (unless it's one I do already and they just didn't do).