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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: THIS is why the exhibition industry is fading...Part 2
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Arnold Chase
Film Handler
Posts: 41
From: West Hartford, CT United States
Registered: Nov 2013
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posted 10-02-2015 01:12 PM
Last night my weekly film group went to a 10:00pm (MasterImage 3D) advance screening of "The Martian" at the same Bow-Tie cinema complex, but a different house, than part "1" took place in. The trailers started, and immediately things looked VERY weird. The first thing I noticed was a "snowfall" looking grain in the picture, accompanied by what seemed to be only two colors, green and magenta. At first I thought it was just a strange "Welcome to Bow-Tie" message, but then the film trailers started and every one of them was still green and magenta. One of the theater patrons got up and found a manager. A few minutes later the trailers stopped mid-presentation, and there is just a bright green screen.
Up until the continuous green screen I thought they had just selected the wrong color-space, but when the content stopped and there was still the same green screen (almost like a green open gate), I was perplexed. After a minute or two the trailer reel started again from the beginning with a normal color palate.
I thought everything was fine until the "Put your 3D glasses on now" message came on. As the 3D trailers came on, I thought the 3D was really crappy. When the feature started, the 3D still looked crappy to me, and I noticed that other patrons were complaining as well. Now that I knew the problem was universal and not just my glasses, etc., I thought to myself, "Could these fools be showing the film with the 3D polarity switch reversed"??? I took my 3D glasses off, and flipped them upside down and viola, proper 3D.
I told everyone in my group to flip their glasses upside down (which they did but with a WTF attitude at first). Other people nearby did the same. It was a bit amusing to see people wearing their glasses normally, and then flipping them upside down and back again several times out of disbelief.
I feel sorry for the rest of the theater-goers that sat through that entire film with a screwed-up picture, I imagine there were more than a few headaches after 2 1/2 hours of that. But once again the real pity is that once again theater-goers are treated to a true "amateur hour" unpleasant experience.
For the last 70 years the exhibition industry has been fighting off the challenge and lure of home entertainment by innovating and offering an experience that (at the time) couldn't be duplicated at home (color, wide-screen, multi-channel sound, etc.). The reality is that today the "experience differential" has never been closer, and instead of trying to widen the gap the theaters are increasingly presenting an experience that increasingly is WORSE than at home.
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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002
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posted 10-03-2015 08:56 PM
There's several ways to evaluate whether the industry is "fading" or not. The first is the number of theaters and screens. I don't have national stats, but in NYC, we're definitely losing theaters.
Since 2001, we've lost 32% of the theaters and almost 18% of the screens. And we may have just lost 1 more theater and 3 screens as I think the Cinema 1, 2, 3rd Avenue is gone unless they're going through another renovation (they went to lounge seating last year...maybe they're getting rid of it or maybe they're just switching out projectors). No films there this week, only one special showing in their calendar.
I don't think these losses are so much about losing patrons as they are about the high cost of NYC real-estate and the fact that if you sell the theater (or the lease) and let them put up a condo for the rich, you make more in one closing that you could make in the next 20 years operating the theater.
Another way is to look at it is tickets sold, but the numbers vary so much each year, since it's a hit-driven business, it's hard to see whether there's a trend or not. In 2014, in the U.S., there were 23.059 million weekly admissions. That's the lowest since 1995, when there was about the same number: 23.393m, but in 1995, there was much less in the way of streaming, downloading and home theaters, so was 2014 really a bad year? One could rationalize that it was actually pretty good considering all the other ways one can see a film these days. And Star Wars VII alone could make the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 record years.
In 1964, when there was only one way to see a film (aside from regular TV), there were only 20 million weekly admissions, but the population was only 192 million, compared to today's 317 million. The peak year for movie attendance was 1946, when there was an incredible 86 million weekly admissions when the population was only 140 million. The interesting thing about that is that movie admissions fell off substantially in 1947 and 1948 even before TV really took hold.
But having said all that, the fastest way theaters can drive patrons to watch movies at home is to have crappy presentation. And in this digital age, there's absolutely no reason for bad presentation. It's easier with digital than it was with film. But theaters have to realize that they can't have the untrained popcorn kid set the projectors or programming up.
And if they continue to do bad presentation, I hope any given theatre does go out of business. It will be better for the industry as a whole.
Whenever I complain, I either get the "it's supposed to be that way" stupid comment from the manager or they ignore my comment and give me a pass. But if the theatre isn't going to fix the problem, I don't want to go back even for free. But this has been the case for decades, even in the film days. I remember seeing the Fillmore concert movie with a stereo channel missing at the Loews Kings (recently reopened as a concert hall), seeing "E.T." in 70mm, but with 60Hz hum throughout the movie (I think at the Victoria or Movieland on Broadway), having the lamp blow during "Jaws" at the Kingsway in Brooklyn when it was still a large single-screen theatre (almost causing a riot) and many other disasters I can no longer remember. I don't remember the film, but I remember a reel being skipped in one showing although I don't remember how I knew it was missing. I remember complaining and they played it out of order. So "film done wrong" is nothing new. And that's aside from seeing films in second-run theatres or in small towns where the prints were dirty, scratched and had frames missing.
Overall though, while I think theaters display far less showmanship today than in the past and some theaters are operated like slums, I think the overall projection and sound quality is better today, especially in the non-prime theaters.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 10-04-2015 02:05 PM
quote: Marco Giustini
This was happening on a regular basis with 35mm. Probably it was even worse. Digital didn't make it any worse - in fact it made it better IMHO.
The industry has been fading for several years, digital is not relevant IMHO.
I won't argue about 35mm sites with decreasing illumination. How people chose their light levels seems to be hocus pocus, in many locations.
However, a VERY disturbing trend in DCinema was the reintroduction of high-gain screens into the mainstream. It isn't that they weren't there before but they are so encouraged now. They are marketed as essentially free light. When, in fact, they normally reduce your light through misunderstanding their use.
That is, people fixate on that the center light level should be 14fL (which is correct) but they fail to consider that the sides and corners are to be 75-85% of that. Once you go above a 1.3 gain screen, you can't do it without curving your screen. Yet people put in these 1.5 and 1.8 screens (and there are now white screens over 2 in gain). They set the center for 14fL but what happens to the sides? In most cinemas they are WAY WAY down. The distribution of the light is like a gaussian curve (conical) about the center (presuming straight on projection). If you add up all of the light coming back from the screen using a high-gain it is MUCH less than the same center brightness of a matte-white screen with the same 14fL center brightness.
If you put in a 1.5 gain screen and lower your light output by 50% to keep the center at 14fL, it should come as a surprise that you lowered the light into the system by 50% and that you have effectively lowered you light by about 50% overall...what you did was concentrate your light in the middle without regard for everywhere else. Very little action of interest is in dead-center screen anyway. Actor's faces are in the upper 1/3 of the screen and if more than one of them are in the image they are approaching the upper-left/right corners. The spot where you took the light from. It is going to be a dark appearing image.
Also with DCinema was this re-fascination with 3D...which, the predominate system uses a silver screen...again, high gain (2.2 - 2.5, typically). So even 2D moves are now ruined on such screens. If 1.5 gain was bad, 2.5 is MUCH worse and will again, appear darker. If you only have 14fL on your silver screen for 2D...that image will appear VERY dark. If you project 2D on a silver screen at about 22fL, it will appear about as bright as a 1.2 - 1.3 gain screen running 14fL in the center. That is not to say it will be as even but it is to say that the overall feel of the image brightness will be similar. You'll still be down in the "5s" or so in the corners but overall it won't look as bad (dark).
But do people do this? No (unless they just happen to by accident by running their 3D lamp on 2D and their 3D target is 6fL instead of 4.5fL.
You can improve the situation on gain screens by curving them but that brings about other issues like geometric distortions that the industry went out of its way in trying to mitigate. Digital projectors CAN deal with "rectifying" images for keystone and curved fields...A/V projectors do it all of the time...but these tools were specifically excluded for DCinema. Probably a noble move in the 2K world but as technology allows for higher resolution images, a roadblock we need not keep. The extra resolving power of the projector could be used to mitigate the negative aspects of digital keystone while improving the image on keystoned and curved images. We're not there yet. Also, lenses can be designed for curved screens but at the moment, only some high-end Schneider's are for Premium Large Screen theatres.
The other factor in dark images is what to do with Flat versus Scope in constant height theatres? In film, the light needed between Flat and Scope was minimal such that if you were within 16fL on one format, you were probably in the ballpark on the other (Scope being the MORE efficient format). Not so for DCinema. The light needed for Scope is a LOT more than for Flat. Does that mean constant height theatres are the proper way for DCinema? No...that still means that your most panoramic movies (Scope ones) are now smaller and less panoramic. It defeats the purpose of making a move in scope.
With current technology, anamorphic lenses mitigate about half of the difference in light levels and should be used. Their $10,000 price tag has been a big deterrent as have the mis-information about them not being DCI compliant (they are compliant).
So if you have a constant height screen...how do you set the light levels? Some have used the SMPTE specification of 14fL +/3 fL for cinemas to its maximum and set flat to 17 and scope to 11. I can assure you that no movie is checked at 11fL to see if it looks good enough. It was an arbitrary number that was deemed achievable by the "typical" exhibitor. There was no big study, that I am aware, that verified 11fL was really good enough.
So, as a patron, it is crap shoot as to what you get now, even within the same cinema...it may be 17fL one day and 11fL the next if you happen to see a Flat movie the first time and 11fL the next time.
Projector manufacturers don't make it easy all of the time either. Barco allows one to set actual fL (or cd/m^2) on a format by format basis. Christie lets you create a SINGLE calibration (that really isn't a calibration it is an interpretation of a range between bright and dark). But if you apply a lamp file to scope, "fL" will not read right if it reads right for flat. When I set up a Christie, in the lamp file's name, I put the calibrated light level that file refers to so regardless of what the internal fL meter is reading, so long as its target number is reached, the light output should be right. I do similarly for NEC projectors.
Note jacking the levels wildly between flat and scope don't do the lamps any favors! Again, something that wasn't required in the film days because flat/scope were so similar (except in constant width theatres...where scope was uber-bright).
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