70mm reprint of “Close Encounters”

[Ryan Gallagher]

Also, if you are a changeover house, expect to have to deal with cans and cores from Sony. We DID NOT have a heads up on that aspect... thankfully we have a couple of serviceable 70mm split reels.

Note the loose wind and core shift (5 out of 8 had that issue) on Print No.2 from whence they came, several lids popped cause only 2 tabs of tape used, but thankfully adequate tape on the heads to avoid further disasters.


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[Ryan Gallagher]

We screened Close Encouters this summer in Bologna piazza Maggiore during Il cinema ritrovato festival (some pictures of the screening here: https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.i...allery-2025-2/). Unfortunately I haven't compared the frame with BL&S film test. But I asked for 2 small test reels to file aperture plates and Sony provided them.

Thanks to Elia's tip, we were able to also get testing material from Sony to help facilitate confirming our efforts filing new scope plates etc without putting extra runs on feature reels. Which unfortunately due to our busy live schedule, I have exactly 2 half shifts starting tomorrow morning to accomplish. Assuming they can even manage to fly the screen in with a full band worth of gear on stage overnight. Wish me luck there!

In classic timing I also woke up with a sore throat this morning... will have to see how I feel tomorrow!

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If there was any doubt, it's printed as 2.39:1 (confirmed by the focus/framing chart included on the silent final test reel), but about 2.5% to 3% undersized by Fotokem relative to SMPTE width comparison by my eyes.

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If you don't have severe keystone you can probably get away with existing 2.20 plates and mask to the vertical matte lines. That is not us unfortunately, we'll see if the time available permits our proper 2.39 plates. If we had 2.20 plates that were already filed for our keystone with 2.5% under sizing... we'd also be in business.

[Mathew Bailey]

Someone ought to rerelease Oklahoma in DTS 70mm.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Alas the cards were not in my favor, probably for the best, take a couple days to ditch these cold symptoms.

Crew just informed me the stage is not going to be able to be cleared enough overnight to accommodate the film screen, and i'm on all the other live shows up until the screening.

Day of has become the everything day, but not holding my breath on getting new plates done, will plan to use our oversized 2:20:1 plates and masking, if I finish some plates cool, if not I can finish them by the 2nd show. My hope was the test reels would have beaten the print to us, but they arrived later and all our screen time windows had closed. If I had good starter plates it would be easier, but our only two appropriate ones right now are actual blanks. Need to source some undersized starter plates from Film-Tech for next time.

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> If you are a changeover house, expect to have to deal
with cans and cores from Sony.

Thanks for the heads-up. Last time I got a 70mm feature on cores I wasn't expecting it either. We
had a couple of 1k/ft 70mm splitt reels, but only one large 70mm split reel at the theater. Fortunately,
I had another one at home that I brought in for a few days which made things easier. -jc-

[Ryan Gallagher]

Miracles do happen. Had a gorgeous screening!! This one was a calendar vs screen time battle. Can't say I want to repeat the fairly compressed timeline of getting there.

Making the time for 2.39 plates was 100% worth it in our steep keystone venue. The difference between being proud of our screening versus slightly ashamed. Now I can rest finally, unless the alien spirits come to get me like they did him. Ohh the rapture was last week? Shit. ;-)

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Due to scheduling of the room and myself getting sick last week, all my/our prep screen time was non-existent except today, day of. I couldn't even come in early AM cause my load out went so late last night.... 11am call for 6pm doors.

Believe me when say I almost had a fit when I arrived to the venue and every work light was on including ones I have to climb ships ladders to get to, turns out the renovation architectural lighting consultants were occupying the building, as well as some AV consultants. They even found me in the booth a couple times and had a bunch of questions, was not privy to this distraction and priority sharing ahead of this morning.

Afternoon of show we somehow managed the following in 6 hours, perhaps old hat for you more experienced folks, but new to me under a time crunch:

- Tested our previously flipped to 70mm config on screen finally (first time the screen had been flown in since learning of this booking a month ago).
- Adjusted lamp focus and re-align projectors to match our best existing 2.20:1 70mm aperture plates.
- Set a our non-motorized masking for Close Encounters (70mm 2.39:1 undersized)... thankfully had shorter silent test reels for this print.
- Confirmed DTS happy the print (ran R8 on both projectors, checked focus).
- Rewound all 8 reels heads out (had left em tails out for my counterpart to see the cues after I did the intake inspection).
- Settled the Blu-Ray backup in the masking (new ILS/Screen files cause 70mm scope was new to our library).
- Checked our show SPL and automation
- Filed two new 2.39:1 aperture plates FROM BLANKS to the masking (all we had available other than some 2.20 stock that was already too wide for our keystone with an undersized print), honestly I was only hopeful to get a start on them and maybe have them ready for 2nd screening.
- Left room for an hour meal before doors! (We finished the laundry list with exactly an hour to spare).

I got to relax a bit during the screening as my counterpart ran the film!

My one neg is we still have a touch of side to side jitter? (for lack of another term, faster paced than weave?) on our No.2 projector that tension and shoe can't seem to bring under control with alignments as they are. Always something to improve. This was present in 70mm this summer too but we haven't been back in the format since to try and nail it down.

[Ryan Gallagher]

2nd screening we got the kink out. No.2 projector just needed a touch more tension to eliminate the slight weave. We are always a little gun shy about turning the JJ tension knob much past 2 o'clock position, but 3'oclock is what stabalized her. Definitely need to investigate our gate settings and alignements on that guy in 70mm, historically i'm told most prints should run between 0 and 2 o'clock on a well set up machine. The fact I assume these 70mm gates were not original to these castings isn't helping us any.

It also seems I have no 35mm for many months! So I can leave the machines in 70mm finally and do some deeper dives on our shutter sizing issue, alignments, alternative DTS mounting options, and maybe replace my crackling ampex mag head!