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Topic: create your own screen size

Mike Croaro
Master Film Handler

Posts: 394
From: Millbrae, CA
Registered: Apr 2005

posted 09-09-2005 10:30 AM

Hi Folks:

A year or so ago I asked about proper screen size and received a variety of technical answers. I also searched the site for other threads on the subkect but was unable to find any??

Hypotheticaly speaking, what would be a good screen size for an aud 40 feet wide and 60 feet long? I am curious to peoples opinions. Many people like King Kong size screens while other (like myself) like the screens more on the average size.

Thanks,

Mike

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 09-09-2005 11:28 AM

For an auditorium 60 feet long, making the screen height 60/4 = 15 feet high would place the back seats 4 times the image height from the screen, in line with the 2 to 4 times the image height specified by standard SMPTE 196M for screening rooms. Good seats would range from 30 to 60 feet from the screen, although some may be closer. For 2.39:1 scope, your image size would be 36 x 15 feet, for 1.85:1 "flat", it would be about 28 x 15 feet.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 09-09-2005 12:45 PM

None of that top masking crap! [Wink]

Make the screen a fixed height as John suggests. [Big Grin]

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-10-2005 11:30 AM

If you are making this for your own personal screening room, then you pick the screen size that you feel most comfortable with. But for a commercial situation, why go with a screen that patrons will come out of the theatre saying "Gee, that new theatre has a screen that's "average?" Go with a size that will wow them. You've got a big enough room that those who don't like peripheral vision size screens can sit further back. But those like me who want the screen to fill just about to the edges of my vision field, bigger works. And it never hurts to be able to say in your advertising, "...on our giant CinemaScope screen" rather than "...on our screen that's about the size of what you've got in your home theatre."

And of course, common height is absolutely essential for a professional presentation. Movable top/bottom masking is a terrible compromise that only theatre owners are ok with, never directors and cinematographers and was devised only for those boxes which were built before the introduction of anamorphic wide screen; any build that is newer than half a century old should have been designed with a wide enough proscenium to accomodate what it was built for, i.e, to show movies, including anamorphic films without the need for compromise. Wide screen movies are supposed to get WIDER dagmabit, not smaller.

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