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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Things are getting tough for calendar/rep houses
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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-14-2008 04:17 PM
From the San Francisco Chronicle:
On Thursday, when an estimated thousand people pack the Castro Theatre to see a 40-year-old movie - Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo & Juliet" - it will seem like classic repertory programming is alive and well in San Francisco. Olivia Hussey, the film's star, will be interviewed on stage. There will be photos snapped and autographs signed, and in all likelihood, one of those only-in-San-Francisco feelings will pervade the air.
But when it's all over, producer Marc Huestis - after three months of work leading up to the big night - will net only a modest profit. And that's if he's lucky.
For more than two decades, ever since the arrival of VHS tape, San Francisco exhibitors have been scrambling to find a business model that supports classic repertory programming. Exhibitors have devised and revised workable survival strategies, but time after time, those strategies have been undercut by new threats - such as the advent of DVD, Netflix and now downloadable movies. They've tried longer runs, shorter runs, themed festivals, celebrity guests, relatives of deceased celebrities, autograph signing parties and live entertainment, all to less and less effect. Some look ahead to digital projection as a possible panacea, but that's a few years away.
All exhibitors concur that the prospects for repertory in San Francisco have become downright bleak, and that just within the past year business has gotten even worse. In movie-loving, cineast San Francisco, the repertory audience seems to be drying up.
"Last year everything changed," Huestis said. "There was a drop everywhere, whether due to the economy or just the culmination of the new technology that exists right now. The old models are losing audiences. It's really scary."
Just look around. The Roxie Cinema, which in the 1990s had the best retrospectives of any commercial theater in the entire country, has all but given up repertory programming. The Castro Theatre's calendar was once wall-to-wall classics and foreign masterpieces, during the reign of its nationally respected programmer, Anita Monga. Then Monga was let go in 2004, and today the theater relies mostly on its outside festivals and nonfilm events to maintain its profit margin.
Perhaps the most telling example is the most recent. Gary Meyer, a co-founder of Landmark Theatres and one of the savviest and most energetic exhibitors in the area, did his best to make a go of repertory at his Balboa Theater. He gave the Balboa a gorgeous renovation and programmed it with adventurous retrospectives, such as a Paramount pre-Code series in 2005 and a Boris Karloff tribute in 2006. The theater had everything going for it but audiences, and Meyer had to abandon repertory programming by the second half of 2006.
"To have Boris Karloff's daughter there, at the biggest Karloff retrospective in history, with an audience of just 50 people," Meyer said, "that's pretty disconcerting."
Fifteen years ago, that Karloff tribute might have been a success, and 30 years ago, there would have been lines around the block. And that has been the story everywhere. For every "Sing-Along Sound of Music," there are a dozen disaster stories, sometimes involving formulas that were once surefire. For example, in 1993, director James Toback came to the Roxie Cinema and talked to a sold-out crowd following a screening of his 1978 classic, "Fingers." The energy was electric and continued out onto the sidewalk. But in 2006, when Toback came to the Roxie for an ambitious retrospective of his films, the spectacle was downright embarrassing. He stood in front of the house talking to no more than 20 to 25 people.
"In the mid- to late '70s," said Bill Longen, events producer at the Castro, "you could run a Bette Davis double feature and pack the theater - and they didn't even have to be good Bette Davis pictures."
In those pre-VHS days, the business was pretty straightforward. Repertory theaters would show a different double feature every day. Movie lovers kept track by pasting programming schedules of the various theaters on their walls, and these schedules were consulted often: Aside from the Late Show, rep houses were the only means by which people got to see old movies.
This golden era wasn't entirely golden. As Bruce Goldstein, who programs repertory for New York's Film Forum, points out, "Repertory then was bad 16 millimeter prints, beaten to death, with scratches and splices. Studios didn't have classics divisions in those days, and so there were no new prints." But there were audiences, then - made up to a large extent of young people, who'd been exposed to cinema societies in college and were reveling in the buried treasure of classic American film.
The rise of VHS tape exerted the first culling effect. Locally, the Richelieu disappeared and the Gateway converted into a first-run art house. But as Bill Banning, owner of the Roxie Cinema, has said, exhibitors could survive if they were willing to innovate. By the time he took over the Roxie in 1984, Banning knew "you couldn't show straight repertory and make it. You had to show top-notch films, and you had to have a strong theme - film noir, pre-Code. That worked into the '90s."
Another innovation of the late '80s and '90s was the "long-run revival," the creation of Bruce Goldstein, head of repertory programming at New York's Film Forum since 1986. "If you change the bill every day," he said, "the studios have no incentive at all to make a print. So what we did is we'd go to them and say, 'If you make a print, we'll give you a run, and we'll publicize it.' That's our standard for a long-run revival - it has to be a brand new print."
Goldstein's standard became the standard nationally, and following Goldstein's lead, it became common in the '80s and '90s for exhibitors, when advertising a "long run" or "premiere" revival, to talk up the newness of the print. The promise of a fresh print inspired audiences to flock to films they'd seen before - even TV staples, such as "Casablanca" or "The Wizard of Oz" - for the chance to see them projected in pristine condition onto the big screen.
The combination of long runs and inventive festivals made the Roxie Cinema a haven for movie lovers in the mid-1990s. Under the programming of Elliot Lavine, the theater had a Norma Shearer tribute, the U.S. premiere of the Hong Kong exploitation film, "Naked Killer," and a retrospective of the films of Tod Browning and Lon Chaney - and that's just a sampling from one program calendar, from the fall of 1994.
"In the 1990s, you could still do things," Lavine said. "We still had an audience composed of people who'd grown up seeing movies in theaters. VHS was always a consideration. If a movie we wanted to show was on video, we'd pair it up with something not available. But the bad quality of video made theaters in contention."
Gradually other factors started taking a bite out of repertory. "At our westerns festival in 1996, we showed John Wayne in 'The Searchers,' and it did nothing, but other westerns not nearly as well-known drew four and five times that business. Then I looked back and saw Turner Classic Movies had shown it three times in the previous two months. So TCM hurt a little. But the biggest demon that would come down the road - DVD - made it almost impossible. DVD was the nail in the coffin."
Longen agrees. "DVDs have killed the rep business."
The arrival of DVD led to Netflix, which began business in 1999. Meanwhile, the technology for showing movies at home has improved exponentially. Video projectors have come into home use, as well as plasma screens. TVs are getting bigger, and the picture clarity keeps improving. High-definition televisions will soon become the norm, and eventually the DVD as we know it will give way completely to high-definition discs. Already we're seeing a battle for the future play out between two high-definition DVD formats, HDTV and Blu Ray. The latter appears to be winning.
With the home viewing experience suddenly reaching new heights of splendor, what conceivably could be the incentive for seeing classic films in a theater? The answer is simple and not what anyone consciously thought of during the repertory heyday: Other people. After all, in all our memories of transcendent theatergoing experiences, those other people - those strangers watching with you - were part of the experience, too. A big part.
"Movies are a group participation art form, to be in a room with 300 people laughing infectiously," Lavine said. "To see a movie at home, even with a group of friends, is like seeing it under a microscope. These were made to be seen by hundreds of people at the same time."
New Yorkers haven't forgotten this. Under Bruce Goldstein's brilliant programming, Film Forum's repertory is doing better than ever. "DVD hasn't hurt at all - DVD may have helped us," he said. "It has certainly jump-started studio restorations - there are great prints of just about everything now. And it's created a whole new generation of movie buffs."
But just by virtue of being in Manhattan, Film Forum has some advantages that San Francisco theaters don't have - a massive population, cheap and ubiquitous taxi service, a rapid subway system, a tremendous concentration of media, and a tradition for nightlife surpassing that of any other city in the country. If repertory is ever going to be reborn in San Francisco, exhibitors are going to find a formula that can work here.
Longen doesn't see much hope. "I hate to say it, but as the years go on, it's going to die a very slow death, and I love classic films," he said. "I think Gary Meyer proved it (at the Balboa). The audience isn't there."
But Meyer doesn't agree. "It's very difficult at this time," Meyer said. "But I have hope that in a couple of years, when digital becomes more available, we might be able to do it. With film, there are $150 shipping costs, and I have to pay a projectionist $16 an hour to work from noon to 11. Digital would reduce the cost and make it feasible."
"With digital," Lavine said, "the studio could send you a transmission - or a DVD for 41 cents shipping instead of $150. You want a business model? Throw out your projectors and invest in the best video projection you can get. You could even play store-bought DVDs, if you contact the right holder. You could charge five or six dollars admission instead of 10. And you might be able, if you're personable enough, to play this stuff at a very reduced rate. Run the Universal logo on-screen as people come in. Sell DVDs in the lobby. There are creative ways. Exhibitors can either go to bed angry or wake up and change, because this is what it is."
In the meantime, Huestis is preparing for his "Romeo & Juliet" show on Thursday, putting everything he's got into it. "I'm going to hotels, giving postcards to concierges, doing clip reels, arranging ground transportation for the star, answering phones, accumulating the Will Call list, stuffing Will Call envelopes, and making the signage for Will Call and reserve seats," Huestis said. "This one's make or break.".
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/11/MNVVURG40.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-15-2008 12:35 PM
mick lasalle is kind of a populist hack, and no friend of theaters. i actually wrote a letter to the editor about this article. i had to trim it down (severely) to 200 words, so here is the original, long version:
quote:
Re: Audience fading for repertory movie theaters by Mick LaSalle, February 11
There is no disputing that repertory filmgoing has seen better days in the Bay Area, as it has almost everywhere. However, Mick LaSalle is off-base in his facts, his analysis, and his conclusion.
Mick quotes a current programmer from New York’s Film Forum as saying, of the mid-to-late ’70’s “golden age”, that "Repertory then was bad 16 millimeter prints, beaten to death, with scratches and splices… there were no new prints." On the contrary, here’s a quote from Larry Chadbourne, a local film enthusiast with firsthand knowledge of that scene: “In 1976-1978 I managed two rep theaters in New York with daily double bills and frequently looked at all four of the prints showing. We did very little 16 and though there were admittedly some inferior older 35s there were also many beautiful prints available, not just for my theaters.”
In fact, film, properly handled and stored, has a very long shelf life. A nice print, well projected, looks fantastic. One problem is that bottom-line obsessed exhibitors have succeeded in completely devaluing the role of the projection equipment and the film-handler. Even as new products and technologies have been introduced to improve and simplify the handling and presentation of film, exhibitors have failed to embrace them, have ignored maintenance of their projection systems, and have cut the hours and wages of projectionists.
Look at the Balboa. Unfortunately, its “gorgeous renovation” didn’t go past the auditorium doors, where audiences spend 95% of their time. The auditorium interiors are dingy and, worse, films are out of focus and projected onto incorrectly-masked screens with poor sound. A repertory theater must be able to draw audiences from a wide area and the Balboa, way out in the avenues, is difficult and time-consuming to reach. If it can’t deliver a top-notch presentation, audiences will stay away.
In contrast, the Stanford in Palo Alto has always prioritized good projection. It has maintained rep programming for years and pulls audiences from the entire Bay Area. The Castro may be struggling, but there is no lack of repertory programming on its calendars of late.
The notion that digital presentation could be a panacea for repertory is utterly wrong-headed. Of course, the studios push for this so they can avoid maintaining and replenishing a collection of bulky, expensive 35mm prints, while neatly collapsing exhibition into the same digital model as DVDs, where they feel the real money is, and ignoring the serious long-term problems of digital archiving.
But a film is, ultimately, inherently, and inextricably, a film. It is a sequence of analog images, composed of random grain, possessing unique aesthetic qualities. To digitize such a work is to change it, essentially and visibly. Repertory theaters are the museums of the “seventh art”, where people go to see these artifacts of modern culture presented authentically. The counterfeit cinema of digital presentation will alienate the core audience and truly signal the end of repertory.
Even from a purely commercial perspective, digital repertory makes little sense. Video’s great popular success has been in the home, where it is convenient and cheap. Large-scale theatrical digital projection is no more convenient for the consumer than analog, and in terms of hardware, it is anything but cheap. Why would the same exhibitors who struggle to maintain their film equipment (which is less expensive and, despite neglect, will operate for decades) pay top dollar for rapidly-obsolescent video projectors? It’s far more likely that they will settle for essentially consumer-level gear. The same economies of scale that make it affordable will keep viewers at home where they can have the same inauthentic experience at their leisure.
LaSalle fails to mention that one difference between the Roxie’s screenings of Fingers in 2006 and 1993 is that in 2006 it was a DVD. An experience like that will keep people from coming back.
How many times must we hear the familiar saw that the saving grace of a theatrical presentation is the shared experience with a crowd of strangers? Unfortunately, too much of today’s audience is accustomed to behaving as if at home, and cell phones and light-up watches provide additional distractions. Ironically, Mick himself seems to share this sentiment, since he constantly touts the solitary experience of watching DVDs at home on a whopping 8’ screen.
No, what makes a theatrical presentation special is that it’s (hopefully) on film, that it’s the authentic aesthetic experience of the work. Theaters should be shouting from the rooftops that they are running film, not retreating from it and grasping at digital straws. Of course, they have to make sure that their equipment is maintained and aligned, their projectionists well-trained and conscientious. Film still has the power to blow an audience away.
What else can help save repertory? The Stanford does well with its non-profit model, as do the Pacific Film Archive and the Rafael Film Center. The Roxie, now a non-profit, has inherited the financial woes of its benefactor, but at least managed to get out of its staggering debt a few years ago. Perhaps our other remaining and former rep houses should consider going this route.
But ultimately, the public has to support these institutions. Unfortunately, most people believe the received wisdom that film is out and digital is in, and it’s in danger of becoming self-fulfilling. Film “critics”, who should take a leading role in countering this attitude, have been astonishingly silent on the issue.
The local free newspapers (eg The Guardian, The Weekly, and The Express) devote capsule reviews and sometimes whole articles to repertory screenings. Readers of The Chronicle, on the other hand, might be forgiven for thinking that the Bay Area film scene is limited to first run, DVDs, and the odd festival event. Repertory film deserves more from our leading newspaper than an article bemoaning its downfall.
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-16-2008 07:40 AM
quote:
But a film is, ultimately, inherently, and inextricably, a film. It is a sequence of analog images, composed of random grain, possessing unique aesthetic qualities. To digitize such a work is to change it, essentially and visibly. Repertory theaters are the museums of the “seventh art”, where people go to see these artifacts of modern culture presented authentically. The counterfeit cinema of digital presentation will alienate the core audience and truly signal the end of repertory.
I agree with your post Carl and I belong to the audience group, albeit I feel I might be a minority. A film pre-digital era should be shown on film, not doing so is preventing new generations from truly experiencing those films as they were produced. Repertoire cinemas are disappearing and even institutions like the British Film Institute are showing old titles in digital. It is a pity that those who are responsible to preserve film history (and this includes preserving the medium) do not care at all.
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Richard P. May
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 243
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 02-16-2008 10:26 AM
Having had long experience on the distribution end with several of the theaters cited above, it has always turned out that the successful rep houses make an "experience" of the evening's visit.
The Stanford, with its beautiful restoration of a 1925 venue, live organ concert during intermission, and loving programming is a prime example. It is a destination event, where people will go as much for the theater as the movie. Agreed, it takes a lot of money to do this, and run the place with continuing quality.
The Film Forum, NY, is not a fancy place, but with inviting programming and good location has a similar ambience.
I remember the first time I visited the Stanford. They had a very respectable sized audience on a weekday for the umpteenth showing of "Rebecca". Another rep house down the street, with grungy carpets, broken seats, etc., was virtually empty.
Its SHOWMANSHIP.
I agree that "digital" exhibition using commercial DVDs as a source is certainly inferior to film. Theatrical quality digital of the repertory library probably won't happen any faster than new 35mm prints, at around $3000. each on average.
New prints or digital transfers are likely to happen when there is a potential profit to be made. A couple of $250 rental bookings won't do it.
The continuing improvement in the home video quality is going to have an ongoing impact on the marginal rep theaters.
RPM
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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 02-16-2008 03:17 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
I don't agree that it's "film" that makes the theatrical experience enjoyable. It's the size.
Bigger screen
Bigger room
Bigger audience
Bigger sound, especially
Bigger laughs/cries/gasps/screams
there is no definitive list of what makes the experience "enjoyable". that's one problem with the digital advocates. it's easy to take a reductionist view and say "it's about storytelling... digital can do that" or "it's about size... digital can do that." but to many people (fewer since the age of video), it's also about the specific look of film, the authenticity of the experience, how the imagery carries meaning. certainly for me, the way i relate to the image is very dependent on the medium.
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
The majority of the film prints I saw at the 12 screen I installed some digital systems at last month looked worse far than the digital shows they were running.
was this a rep house, i ask rhetorically? a high-speed print from a digital intermediate seems to me to combine the worst of film and digital. the digital version may well look "better", and be more "authentic", having gone through fewer transitions between the analog and digital domains.
some films are still made with an all-analog "workflow". it's a travesty to show such films digitally. same goes for rep.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-16-2008 05:55 PM
Oddly enought, I feel I must chime in here...
Art is never about the media and neither is story telling. The media can certainly play into (or detract from the) art.
It isn't the film persay anymore than music was about a diamond (or steel) needle wiggling about a groove.
However, what is understood about human vision I think is FAR less understood than what is understood about human hearing. Sam said it in another thread that had 3-wing shutters in it...there is a word for how we hear sound...psychoacoustics but we need such a word for vision...psychoptics?
To equate or even quantify digital versus film is an experiment in futility today. Look at the current state of DCinema...sit about a couple of screen heights away from the image and what do you see...first impressions are almost always "boy is that SHARP...assuming it is in focus" and the other is "look how steady that is." Not too far down the list comes the look of the colors.
Well sharp it is (if properly set up and things have not drifted too much...and yes I've seen them drift over time on all machines) but what is sharp? Not the image, the pixels! When I see a digital image, what I see is a VERY flat (2 dimensional) and detailess image. Do other people see that? I know those that have critically evaluated digital images (DPs and those in the business of images) have seen the same thing so I know it isn't ONLY me. I'm wondering if I point it out to someone if it isn't like changeover cues...you never see it until someone shows you...then you can't NOT see them anymore.
With film, the detail appears to be there and with 70mm film, it is like seeing on a clear day. With 35mm film, the grain actually bothers me as I'm always aware of it...perhaps that most of my life I've been focusing on it, literally (I was active in a darkroom LONG before showing movies). One of the reasons I always hated Tri-X (back before T-grain...in the '70s) was that nasty grain.
With motion, both digital and film have their "Tells" and I dislike both. [70mm]Film at 60fps (Showscan) is simply amazing...it is 3D without the glasses, has the best contrast ratio, best color best....well everything that technology has to offer. It is interesting that Doug Trumble did a study in develop Showscan to determine when humans could no longer tell the difference as the frame rate was increased and 60fps was where, by far, the bulk of the people tested found the best image...I think the tests topped out at 72fps but few if any could tell any difference. Yet DCinema went with 24p.....24fps hasn't been good enough for film! And I dislike the stobing effect of a 48Hz shutter...Digital wins there...no strobing...unless you go to a 3-wing shutter for film. Kinoton, starting in 2007 has a 3-wing shutter that doesn't suck ALL of your light (traiditionally 50% of your light is thrown away on a 3-wing).
I think some of this has to do with "imprinting" too. If you grew up in the era of film...then there is something about 16mm film that just screams "documentary." The aspect ratio is right, the grain size is right...there is just something warm and fuzzy (mostly in the corners) about it. Oddly enough, I like 16mm, with all of its challenges (picture and sound). It is unashamed in its delivery of documentaries and instructional films. However, I could see someone that grew up in the video era thinking the same thing about videos though I would hope that VHS wouldn't conger up anything warm...just fuzzy! VHS is some serious crap. 8mm film has far less to apologize for than VHS.
So the big ones are the illusion of sharpness and the reality of steadiness in the digital image versus film (though film need not be a jumping thing, lets be real about release prints). Then again, most film prints for rep use (the ones with a no-splicing policy) are typically well printed. I also tend to see better jobs done for the "art" films than for typical Hollywood fare.
Carl is on the money on the DI for film...the worst of both worlds. You take something with detail, squish it through a crappy 2K DI filter and then high-speed that onto a release print...I've seen "EK prints off digital" and they suck too though not to the extent of release prints. You can tell an EK print off digital in that it is rock steady but the detail and contrast seem to be lacking since the DI stripped them away. If ou look at a true EK print...WOW they are what it is all about. Release prints DON'T have to be this bad...there are ways to have good looking high-speed prints but answer me this...who cares in Hollywood what the RELEASE prints look like? If they cared, they would be inspecting theatres and making sure their films looked proper from both print and projection.
I wish digital would stop using the phoney contrast numbers...they don't have 2000:1 or anything near that...put up a checker board pattern and you are lucky to get 300:1 out of them. I think the DCI spec is 150:1. You need a good meter to measure contrast. With digital, the desired white light reading is 14.0fL. If you meter reads down to .1fL (Accurately) then forget it...if you read .1 on a dark checker...that is already only 140:1 so you better have a meter accurate down to .001 if you want to get some meaningful results. Odds are, the room is going to be a limiting factor in the bottom end in order to keep it safe (exit lights, asile lights...etc). With film going to 16fL it gets an instant boost there since the top end is higher. And just how does our eyes interpret that? A meter will average the shutter's open/close times. Does your eye do the same? Is it a uniform average? Because the white portion is really more like 32fL...does that factor in that film generally is given the nod for overall contrast? For what its worth, at the Samual Goldwyn theatre at the AMPAS, the contrast ratio for film is about 1000:1 (measured) and that room is about as dark as any are in the world...as in most theatres have less than half that with film...for digital it is less if for no other reason than the top end is currently limited to 14fL for 2D and 5fL for 3D (yes I said FIVE, MAX...the "standard" is 3.5 - 5fL).
Color is the other thing...to MY eyes, digital images have a phony color to them...it is like they are over saturated in the way that technicolor is. Some may like this and that is fine but to me, it just looks wrong...perhaps again, that is an imprinting on film because that is what I grew up with...then again, the colors don't look like I would expect in real life either...but are movies supposed to reproduce real life? In some cases yes...like documentaries though it is less important there.
An interesting feature of the USL PSC-100 color meter is that it will give you a specturm of the color in addition to the x,y coordinates (and color temp). If you look at any digital projector, you get 3 humps on white light and that is to be expected...there are only three colors being used to create the rest. That is, for DLP, the light from the lamphouse passes through bandpass filters to get the purest Blue, Red and Green wavelengths and these are then sent on to light up the imagers. The better the bandpass (higher the Q) the bigger the color spectrum recreated and also the less light that will pass. Real world filters are not perfect bandpasses so more light will pass but also less of the visible color spectrum will be recreatable. And in fact, the color space for DLP is less than that for film, which is less than that for humans.
Now if you measure a film projector, you don't get those three humps...with xenon you get one towards the lower wavelengths showing you that Xenon is not a perfect light source. I have not measured Carbon Arc but based on documents I've see, Carbon arc should have a rather "flat" response as it does not have the spikes known to exist in xenon.
I bring this up because, most that have seen film projected from Carbon Arc will claim that it had the best light and I am one of those people...it was warmer, for a lack of better description. It seems to make the film look better (to me). Is it that spike? Was it the color timing? I don't know but just like nitrate, there seems to be a consensus about carbon arc looking better.
Now one can filter a modern film system (Schneider makes just such a kit with many filters that can be attached to a projection lens) to achieve whatever color temp you want if the system is not where you want it to be without filtration. If you filter the system, you are likely to see this spectrum look more flat in that the filter will likely "equalize" the hump down in xenon light and, no doubt, also "correct" other areas not intended (just like an Equalizer may interfere with adjacent bands). If I filter the film image to have the same x,y points as the DLP and the two spectra are NOT identical (or, better yet, the reflector/lens combination happen to match the DLP) and the spectra are NOT identical because the film projector on white light is not being divided up, how can the eye interpret the two dissimilar lights (different spectra, but same x,y coordinates) as the same? Where is the psychoptics on this?
To put it sound terms (since many here are familiar with that)...I can have two different speakers, tuned to the IDENTICAL response but will sound completely different just because the method the speakers use to get the response is completely different. And to make matters worse, I can find people that will prefer one over the other and an equal number of people like the one the first group didn't like.
So at the end of the day...how can one say it is the medium that is the art? It certainly has an affect on the art because at the end of the day, if the story/subject/presentation...etc sucks, the art that was a part of that will also suck...but at some point the art will shine through much of the suckiness of a bad presentation (limitations in technicalities in this case rather than sheer incompetence).
We service quit a number of art/rep houses and many are not government entities in the slightest. It has to do with the market, the booking and the atmosphere created at these venues that they are having good times in 2007/2008. They all run film and have no plans to "switch to digital" at this time BUT, they all have had digital projectors FOR YEARS and have actually upgraded them quite a bit because they are always trying to put on an excellent show and with video (not DCinema), the sources are not always the best. An Art/rep house needs to be flexible in today's market. Just because you want to offer Art/Rep movies at some level does not guarantee "they will come" how you do it, what you offer and your community will dictate the success of that venture. Without a doubt, the successful ones have paid a VERY high attention to the viewing experience...the booth and theatre itself are always the top-priority, not the concession stand...if no one is coming to your theatre, how well can your stand do? That said, attention is paid to the stand but it is the ART (movies) that always gets top priority.
Steve
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