70mm in Madrid Spain!

[Javier de Blas]

Hello everyone!
This last April I've been the proud projectionist that screened the 70mm blow up of kill bill at cine Paz, Madrid, Spain.
It's been a hard installation against time, with a lot of difficulties like finding a lens proper for the venue, creating new aperture plates for the 2.35 letterbox format, finding the dts 70mm, an xd10 with subtitle license...

But everything worked great at the end and the screenings were magnificent.
Even though the cinema doesn't have a thx certification, the installation was made by an old worker of thx here in Spain (David Pereira), and it followed the exact same rules they did back in the day for the certification. He even used the original mics and measurement equipment. The room has 6 channels on screen to fill the whole room, accompanied by two subwoofers, one for effects and other to fill the screen channels low frequencies. And after all that, 20 surround speakers with two subwoofers, one for each surround channel.
Of course all speakers with their own amplifier and in screen channels one for tweeters and other for woofers on each channel.


In any case, it sounded and looked really good.

Here's a little video I did of the cinema and the DP75.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkxaAr3XwJg

It did really good selling tickets. All session where packed for the first three weeks. So the cinema is interested in doing a monthly 70mm projection in the future as a rule. Witch would be amazing in my honest opinion.
The only problem is that Spanish distributors are been incredibly stubborn to get copies. Of course they have to be imported, and most of them are just avoiding the idea completely ( I'm talking big names here, like those son.... war.... etc). Let's hope it gets easier in the future.

I'm here for any questions you may have about it too.

[Jim Cassedy]

Very nice! One question: Was the print sent to you in one piece on a big 'platter
reel' or something similar, or did you have to assemble it on the platter yourself?

[Ryan Gallagher]

Congratulations, sounds like it was a great run. Nice video!

[Brad Miller]

Very nice! One question: Was the print sent to you in one piece on a big 'platter
reel' or something similar, or did you have to assemble it on the platter yourself?

Those Show Shipper reels haven't been used in years. They are cost-prohibitive in all aspects (which translates to less 70mm prints produced). Also since platters don't have the ability to wind 70mm tight enough on takeup for return shipping, those big "platter reels" have proven to cause film damage during return transit after the initial playdate. Their print went out just like the one you played via changeover.

[Jim Cassedy]

Those Show Shipper reels haven't been used in years.
< edit > Their print went out just like the one you played via changeover.

Based on what you said about the damage and costs involved that makes a perfect
sense that they are not being used any more. Since, as you know, I generally avoid
taking platter jobs, the last time I saw and used one of those was 2017, when I
was in San Antonio for DUNKIRK. (Which I think is also the last time I ran platters)

I think one reason I asked is that I've seen some booths that could do 70mm
platters, but they lacked the a re-winder or make-up table that can handle the heavy
reels.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess having a 70mm film shipped in on a platter requires a compatible platter system, otherwise you're stuck with one big platter and another puzzle of how to load that onto your platter system. Maybe such a system did exist at one time?

I know that IMAX has those big crates they can ship entirely built features in on a platter, at least their 40 minute documentary movies. They also have a 70mm platter storage system and a crane to lift and swap them, I doubt your average 5/70mm booth has anything close to that. The difference is also: You'd usually be lucky to run one movie in 70mm.

I think one reason I asked is that I've seen some booths that could do 70mm
platters, but they lacked the a re-winder or make-up table that can handle the heavy
reels.

How do they handle 70mm at all? They do one show in changeover and then you have to take all the reels back to a location with a rewinder? Or those locations always only do one show and they don't care about rewinding the reels before sending them back where they came from?!

[Javier de Blas]

Very nice! One question: Was the print sent to you in one piece on a big 'platter
reel' or something similar, or did you have to assemble it on the platter yourself?

No it did not. It came in 9 reels (by film-tech by the way) that I assembled on two platters. We used the cinemaccanica 35/70 platter.

[Javier de Blas]

Based on what you said about the damage and costs involved that makes a perfect
sense that they are not being used any more. Since, as you know, I generally avoid
taking platter jobs, the last time I saw and used one of those was 2017, when I
was in San Antonio for DUNKIRK. (Which I think is also the last time I ran platters)

I think one reason I asked is that I've seen some booths that could do 70mm
platters, but they lacked the a re-winder or make-up table that can handle the heavy
reels.

We do have a classic table rewinder and a platter rewinder that have done a really great job mounting and unmounting the copy.

[Jim Cassedy]

I guess having a 70mm film shipped in on a platter requires a compatible platter
system, otherwise you're stuck with one big platter and another puzzle of how
to load that onto your platter system. Maybe such a system did exist at one time?
<edit> How do they handle 70mm at all? !

Back in 2015, a number of theaters that hadn't run 70mm in years, or had never run it all, were equipped
with platter projection systems specially built by Boston Light & Sound so that they could run Taranteno's
HATEFUL 8. I guess to make things as "easy" as possible, the print was shipped on a giant "Platter Reel",
which held the whole movie. So the theater never had to make-up or break down a print. Here 's some pix:

This should give you some idea of how big the shipping case was. I believe the whole thing
weighed close to 400lbs. Union rules wouldn't let me move it (not that I could) so we had to hire
a team of 4 professional movers to get it up into the booth. Aside from having to lug it up a steep
stairway, making the turn from the narrow hallway into the booth was a logistical challenge.
PlatterReel1.jpg

Once unpacked, it looked like this. The hub in the middle, and the top reel flange were removable.
PlatterReel2.jpg

With the hub and top flange removed, it took 3½ people to lift it onto the middle platter. The movers
were only hired to get the film INTO the booth. I had to rely on several 'theater kids' to get the film
onto the platter. I decided the safest thing to do, both for the film and for everyone's back muscles,
was to remove the top platter deck and put the film onto the middle deck. As you can see, with
the center reel-hub removed, you could install the platter-brain in the middle.
PlatterReel3.jpg

The first show was run off of the reel. After that show, you removed the (now empty) bottom half of the reel
from the platter, and ran all the other shows as normal. For the final show (pictured below) you put the bottom
half of the reel on the platter, and put the hub-piece back in the middle and the film took up on that. Once the
show was over, you put the solid reel-hub back in the middle, and once the show was over, you put the top
reel flange back, and got 3 or 4 people to help you lift it off the platter & get it safely back into the shipping box.
PlatterReel4.jpg

The same arrangement was used in 2017 at many locations for DUNKIRK. (and that's the last 'platter job' I've undertaken.)
So, when you had one of these platter-reelthingys, you didn't need a make-up table or re-wind bench, and of the 3 theatres
I ran HATFUL 8 and DUNIRK at, the only extra piece of equipment they had was a 70mm splicer. But no make-up table or
rewind bench. There was a much smaller version of the platter reel that was used to mount trailers. It worked the same way.

Plata-Trivia: As far as I know, there has never been a picture of me taken standing next to a platter. A friend
claims to have one he's going to blackmail me with some day, but I'm not sure such a photo actually exists.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Thanks for sharing, great info!

I'm pretty sure that every single cinema around here that did 5/70mm over the last decade or so, did either build their own prints or ran them in changeover. The concept itself is great and if 70mm would be more prevalent, I'd say it would be more than worth it to work out the kinks, like the insufficient take-up winding strength causing issues during shipment that Brad mentioned.

[Brad Miller]

We built a clip on contraption we refer to as the Platter Loader which converts the platter itself to it's own MUT. This is how films are loaded these days.

Most prints only need 1 or two splices at the theater to assemble the entire print.

(The yellow flags were placed outside the picture area there to help the projectionist find the breakdown point.)

PLloading.jpg