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Author Topic: Alita Battle Angel 3d light level verification Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 01-21-2019 04:33 PM                        Fox is requiring that any theatre that is planning to play Alita Battle Angel in 3d has to verify that your light level is at least 4.5fl, else you will only be allowed to play the 2d version. Real D has a system set up to do this verification where you take a couple of pictures of your screen while playing a test dcp and upload them through a web form. The pictures have to be taken with an iphone, and only an iphone. I don't have one of those things. The cell phone dealer here is a friend of mine, though, so I borrowed a "display" iphone from him this afternoon to take the pictures. Never used an iphone before, so I'm just kind of hoping that I got the thing set the way they want it for the pictures. My wife said, "Geez, next thing they're going to tell you that you have to buy an iphone."  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 01-21-2019 06:30 PM                        Funny. I'm looking at iPhones tomorrow.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 01-22-2019 06:41 AM                     They probably want a limited set of phones/cameras in order to control the exposure parameters more tightly. iPhones use a limited set of components and identical software routines to create photos. With 'any' phone/camera, you simply don't know what you get. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 01-22-2019 10:39 AM                        I don't know a lot about photography but isn't there about five miles of metadata that comes with a jpg out of a phone that will tell you far more about the picture than you ever want to know?  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 01-22-2019 11:07 AM                     If that was my theatre, and they sent me that demand, they would have gotten one of two answers: 1: You want me to take a picture with a specific device, YOU provide it at YOUR expense. I'm not going through the wasted time and/or money to do something special just for a one-off request. (Or YOU pay for a tech to come and use a real light measuring instrument to do it right.) 2: Just send me the 2D version. (My most likely response.) The situation is starting to get out of hand. Since when can the studios place such demands? I do realize that for special premiers or limited showings, the practice of having a tech come in and check sound, do a "B" chain, and maybe ask for a lamp to be changed was common....but for a regular run? Get real. (or reel.) The real issue is the classic case of "give them an inch, they'll take a mile." Want to bet that this will become a common practice if enough theatres agree to it? (In that case, I'd have no issue if they did item one above. But they would be also paying for the TIME involved.) And where is the line drawn? Will theatres be required to have tests done before getting ANY content? Who's gonna pay for it? As a real world example, I run the city water system. One of the state regulatory agencies MANDATED that everyone who has a well install specific brands of flow meters to measure usage. (None of them were cheap, ours were over $3,500 EACH (plus installation) and we had to install two.) There was nothing wrong with our existing meters, and they were still accurate. They made us do it at our expense, and our city is not that financially well off. (In fact, that cost destroyed my maintenance budget for the next year.) The main reason the newer ones were mandated is that they can be read remotely (by SCADA, Telemetry, etc.) by the agency. But they are not doing remote reads yet, it is still done by logging and quarterly (or in my case, semi-annual) reporting. Since I do monthly readings, it is no big deal to send them the totals when they ask. Problem is, a county agency (which has no direct jurisdiction and was not the mandating agency) is now demanding they WE provide photos of our readings to them every six months. The mayor has already said if they want them, they can pay for them. (Since they are not the primary agency, and can get that info from the primary agency themselves, I agree.) Back on topic: Digital is already controlled enough. Thankfully the KDM situation is far better than when the rollout started, so it is almost as streamlined as the old film days as far as getting the show set up to run. I feel that theatre owners have enough costly demands made on them to appease the studios. This latest request is over the line, IMHO.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 01-22-2019 01:43 PM                        The movie companies hold all of the power in this relationship, though. "No movies for you" would put us little guys out of business, but it wouldn't make even a blip on their end.  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 01-22-2019 10:32 PM                     ^^^^^ This, my friends, is the problem in a nutshell. There is a rule in business that essentially boils down to this: Don't bite the hand that feeds you, and if you break enough fingers, you won't have a hand left to feed you." That is what I feel the studios have been doing for a long time, and the whole digital changeover has accelerated the breaking of the fingers. Sad really, but I'm grateful to have at least been involved in the industry before things started getting really bad.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 01-22-2019 11:49 PM                        IMO, a photo taken by a phone is completely worthless to judge light levels. The phone software is going to attempt to find a proper exposure. You can prove it for yourself. Take a photo in a dimly lit room. The image will have the light level boosted. Now if they told you to take a photo with a DSLR or equivalent in manual mode and told you what ISO to shoot at and what exposure to use, that might be somewhat useful.  |  IP: Logged Frank Cox Film God Posts: 2234 From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada Registered: Apr 2011 posted 01-23-2019 12:11 AM                        Again, I don't know a lot about photography, but these are the settings that are included in the instructions for creating the photos: quote: iPhone Setup Before conducting the test, it is very important that the iPhone is set to preserve non-HDR images. To do this, go to “Settings” and select “Camera”. Make sure “Keep Normal Photo” is turned on. The camera should be set to normal Photo mode, turn the flash OFF, turn HDR off, and turn live mode OFF.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 01-23-2019 04:14 AM                     quote: Martin Brooks IMO, a photo taken by a phone is completely worthless to judge light levels. The phone software is going to attempt to find a proper exposure. You can prove it for yourself. Take a photo in a dimly lit room. The image will have the light level boosted. I suppose you can manually control the exposure by software. If that is the case you can set a fixed exposure and compare the output with a known 4.5fL screen brightness. Maybe it won't tell them if you are 4.5 or 4.4 but I would not be surprised if it would be able to tell them "it's 1.5fL". A picture would also be able to evaluate the brightness throughout the whole screen - and not just on the hotspot.  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 01-23-2019 06:47 AM                     They can look at the EXIF data and find out exposure settings, then judge from there. It's not a screen brightness meter, but a camera with known operating parameters can be used to get a decent idea about screen brightness. Harkness offers a screen luminance meter app for iPhones. By the way, I haven't seen any of this communication first hand - but from what Frank writes, it appears as if FOX is asking for decent 3D screen brightness, while it is RealD who offer (or demand) pictures to be taken with an iPhone to verify. Now, what's so bad about a studio taking care about screen brightness, or, generally speaking, presentation quality? In my opinion, cinema operators should know about their screen brightness anytime anyway. At least what their system is able to achieve when setup properly with a new bulb, or, 'on average'. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 01-24-2019 05:10 PM                     Fox should send out light meters if they want 4.5fL on this presentation. Gee. an eyephone is well over 1100 bucks: 1000 is on the camera and 100 is on the phone itself!  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 01-24-2019 06:17 PM                     Obviously, it is cheaper to expect exhibitors to either own an iPhone, or to borrow one of the zillions circulating. - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Marcel Birgelen Film God Posts: 3357 From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands Registered: Feb 2012 posted 01-26-2019 06:59 PM                     There are already a zillion iterations of iPhones alone floating around... Not only the major generations but also sub-generations. Heck, I'm even lost on the latest generations... XS, XR? XS MAX? iPhone 8? iPhone 8 Plus? Most of them have a different camera design. I'm pretty sure they will never be able to account for all of them... Shooting a picture with a random iPhone and trying to neutrally determine the light readings from this is pretty much b.s. Since 3D is almost always major suckfest anyway, I'd just give Fox the finger if they made me do something stupid like that: No 3D dollars for you.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-26-2019 08:22 PM                        We got our 3D fixed a couple of months ago (after it had been "down" for about 18 months and we were waiting for our tech to make his periodic trip this way). I have mixed feelings whether (and when) to use it again. And I hate to start using it on the fear that it'll crash for no reason again like it did the last time. The upside is, virtually nobody is asking about 3D anymore. And it's easier not having to deal with the glasses.  |  IP: Logged

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