Future of theaters and quality control

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

An all-digital 13 screen theater opened in my area recently. Both the sound and focus are phenomenal. But when I saw The Happening last night, the projecter was skewed, and so everything was at a 10 degree angle.

I enjoy the quality, but it sometimes feels like watching a REALLY big screen TV instead of a film.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

there are several problems with trying to "standardize" sound levels.

1. A "seat" in the auditorium is designed to have the absorption characteristics of 33% of an average human. An empty house will be much "louder" than a full house. Or, a full house will be much quieter. Take your pick.

2. As long as there are power-amplifiers accessible anywhere, the volumes will.. vary as different people monkey with the controls.

3. Studios themselves aren't particularly consistant about how they master things - look at trailers and advertisements, often vastly louder than the features.

As far as "maintenance" of the picture, well, digital "prints" won't degrade as fast as the film-based ones. (I've heard that officially, a print is only supposed to be projected about 100 times.) But what about the rest of the equipment? DLP pixels do fail over time. LCoS panels do degrade over time. Don't even mention transmissive LCD, even with the inorganic panels. Prism blocks fail; and lamps still need to be replaced on time.

Some projectors are more expensive than others. Some have much higher maintenance costs than others. And some theater operators are cheaper than others.

Leo

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

The first thing theatre owners could do is actually bring back real projectionists into a lot of these theaters, instead of having undertrained, poorly paid ticket takers and concession stand helpers operating the equipment. On Kung Fu Panda, I could swear the vertical framing was out. The tops of heads were being cut off and the end credits had the top half of titles being cut off by the top edge of the screen.

The second thing theatre owners could do is make sure that their sound equipment actually works. I remember recently watching a film where the sound appeared to be coming from only the front, right hand speaker. The theater I go to is not that old, so broken sound equipment should be non-existent.

Studios should make sure that they produce high quality prints. I cannot believe how blurry some of the shots look in these prints. Close ups do not look out of focus, but a lot of long and medium shots seem to lack a lot of detail. Kung Fu Panda is a good example: close ups looked good, but a lot of scenes with "wide" shots looked like you were looking through a window coated with gelatin. On a CG animated film like KFP, scenes shouldn't be detailess, blurry messes. I know my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but.....WOW......the PQ of KFP was abysmal.

Edit: Added a comment that came to mind immediately after posting.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

A friend gave me the nickel tour of the theater she manages. I was amazed to learn that a single, open projection "booth" spans all the screens. One, perhaps two, people manage the projectors for all 12 screens at this particular multiplex (one of the big chains). And they are consistently watching all the projectors; there's a good deal of auto-pilot involved. And the manager checks on it periodically. My understanding is that they have trained projectionists: it's not the popcorn kid also doing the movies. But costs are cut by minimizing the labor required for the job.

As for digital projection: there are no prints to wear out and no reels to splice correctly. No physical audio tracks to wear out, lose tracking and drop to stereo from surround. But, as observed, all the basics remains. Simple framing and focus problems are not cured by this. Damaged screens won't go away. Futzy audio connections and blown-out speakers will remain.

It seems it should be an improvement, but no panacea.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

It's easier to screw up film than digital projection, but when done right, film looks better.

If you are worried about the future of theaters and quality control:

• Support the better cinemas in your area, even if it means driving a little farther. If it's a fantastic theatre, buy some concessions.
• Tell others (and take them) to the better theatres. Spread the word! Write reviews of them in the "best theatres" sticky thread at the top of this forum.
• Complain politely but firmly if there is a problem.

Jonesy
MOVIE THEATRE REVIEWS

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

I'd hope there's some kind of improvement in the future. Last weekend I sat thru a double feature of "Prince Caspian" and "Iron Man" in two different auditoriums. Both sounded like the sound was coming from one of those little box speakers at an old drive-in, no surround at all and mostly mono. This is a fairly new theater that supposedly has Dolby Digital in all auditoriums. But this sound issue has been a repeating occurrence with this theater.

I really like the people and popcorn at this theater, and it's in a nicer location, but I think I'll have to start going to the other area theater that has DTS. I've never had a bad presentation there.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

After seeing what the picture looks like at my new local AMC, I cast my vote for digital over film. All 24 auditoriums are equipped with Sony 4K projectors and the images on their giant screens truly have to be seen to be appreciated. Nothing is shown even slightly out of focus, out of frame or in the wrong ratio. This way I don't have to wait for the Blu-ray to see what the movie really looks like.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

That all still depends on maintainance. I remember watching The Interpreter in an 24-screen AMC multiplex a few weeks after the release, and the film print and presentation was perfect. In my experience, AMC knows what it's doing, at least in the Columbus area, except for the older multiplex with no stadium seating.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

I may be in the minority, but I don't think digital is necessarily the answer or the cure-all. Digital does have advantages but it's not foolproof either, and when it comes down to it, most of the problems I experience at movie theaters have to do more with management not caring enough and less with the actual quality of the print itself.

For instance, I see movies misframed or poorly framed all the time. Doesn't matter if something is being shown on film or a digital projector, it can still be misframed. I don't remember which movie it was, but I saw a movie in digital that was supposed to have a 1.85:1 aspect ratio but was being cropped to fit a screen that was masked as 2.35:1. It was misframed because someone wasn't paying close enough attention, not because of the medium it was being presented on.

It's all about having properly trained people who are required/encouraged by management to do a top-notch job. The truth of the matter is also that any business will try to get away with the lowest cost/quality of service while charging the highest prices they can. How often do people complain if the sound quality isn't what it should be, if the movie is misframed, if a speaker is out? Sure, you grumble about it to the person sitting next to you, but the majority of people either don't notice, don't care, or are indifferent, and they're not complaining, which means theaters have no incentive to improve quality.

I'm the exception in that I will complain, but I'm not naive enough to believe that my puny little voice is enough to affect any changes here. But on the flip side of that, when I go to a couple of the independent theaters in my area and see a film properly presented, I try to take a minute or two to email or send a letter to the theater's management to let them know their efforts are appreciated.

Digital might make it easier to standardize further some aspects of exhibition, but at the end of the day, I think a good movie going experience technically has everything to do with the people running the theater and very little to do with what medium the movie is being shown on.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

Ditto. Great post, Josh.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

When you guys say a "digital" theater opened in your area, does this mean HD theater? I recently had an HD theater open in my area and someone told me there are only about 10 in the nation? Is this true? I have not had a chance to go to it yet, because when i say my area, I meant about 30 miles away.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

The "HD Theater" he's talking about is probably 4k projection. Wikipedia states that there are only a dozen theaters with Sony 4k projection equipment.

Digital cinema - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

Agreed. When I saw KOTCS, I saw obvious computer stairstepping on titles. That screamed "it's video!" to me.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

I just came back from seeing Hellboy II and I was quite confused. It seems that it was not properly framed or something weird was going on. Throughout the whole movie I could see about one foot or more of movie above and below the screen frame. You could see part of light scenes distorted on the ceiling. Anyone have any idea what was actually going on? How do I tell them what is wrong and how to fix it?

Note that during the previews they started with Hamlet 2 and it was quite stretched out for a few seconds then they brought curtains in from the left and right and corrected that. I can't remember whether all the previews fit on the screen or not.

Thanks,

Neil

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

When I saw "Signs" in the theater years ago, it was framed incorrectly because boom mikes were visible throughout the film. I complained, but they said it was set up exactly as it was supposed to be. Apparently they thought M.Night screwed up and framed his movie wrong.

I thought the ratio for HB2 was very narrow. I almost felt like it was 1.66, but it was probably 1.85. There was some overlap on my screen too, but not as drastic as you describe.

I don't know the technical details of projection, but it sounds like there was a gate or something that they forgot to close up on your screening, to mask the top and bottom of the frame so it wouldn't project on the ceiling and such.

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

When I was a projectionist, we had one booth with 8 projectors (it was an 8 screen house) We had dedicated projectionists, but one projectionist was handling those 8 projectors.

Honestly with a platter system that is not too big a job for one guy. I would typically go around to each screen about every 15 min and just check the focus and sound. I would also typically do one auditorium check of all 8 screens each night at the start of my shift.

I'm not sure I would be comfortable with one projectionist for some of these places that have 25 or more screens however.

Doug

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

That was probably an 1080p resolution DLP projector. Most theaters now use those for the pre-film advertisements, but some are still calling them "DIGITAL PROJECTION" in spite of them being not much better than what you can get at home.

Doug

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

It sounds like the film was not framed correctly and you were seeing above the 1.85:1 top line in an area that was not intended to be seen.

Films shot for 1.85:1 are actually shot full frame (like old 4X3 movie) and then a mask is used in the projector to cut the top and bottom of the frame off to get he wider aspect ratio. So in this case the film was either framed too low, or the wrong aperture plate was put in the projector. The 1.37:1 plate that is normally used for Anamorphic films might have accidentally been left in.

Doug

Re: Future of theaters and quality control

I completely agree. Saw "HELLBOY 2" this weekend with the same problem of having the top and bottom over projected. I knew the guy who used to be the projectionist, they cut them all back so they didn't have to pay them. now they basically just go in, do a set up, and leave it to the theaters to run the films. It's a real shame.

Old thread, but I just need to vent for a bit about presentation quality in my local theatre and how people seem to have become incapable of recognizing when the presentation is poor. I went to see RIO last night. Before the main feature, there was a short played: Scrat's Continental Crackup. While the short was playing, I noticed that titles were cut off and a shot of the earth had the planet looking like an egg, rather than a globe. Characters looked curiously stretched. I realized that, once again, the movie had been set up so that it was vertically stretched. Since I had seen the short on YouTube, I didn't bother getting up to complain about the issue; however, I wanted to see if the main feature would also be stretched and whether anyone else would notice the problem. The movie starts and, sure enough, it is stretched vertically. It looked exactly like those old films which were anamorphically shot and then played on TV without applying correction for the squeeze.

 

Anyway, I put up with this for about 10 minutes, because I wanted to see if anybody would get up and tell a staff member that there was a problem. Sure enough, true to form, nobody did. I finally figured that for 10.50, I had had enough of watching a distorted image so I got up and told a staff member that they needed to check the projector because the framing was definitely out. Here is the funny part. The guy comes into the theatre, takes a look at the picture and proceeds to tell me there's nothing wrong with it. I told him that if there was nothing wrong with the PQ, why would the Earth in Scrat's Continental Crackup look like an egg instead of a round globe. He proceeded to tell me that he had wondered about that himself which made me wonder how many times had both of these films been incorrectly projected. I told him that I would like it checked anyway because I felt that there was a problem with the film's presentation. He told me he would have the manager check it. About ten minutes later, the manager goes into the projection booth and, *bink* , suddenly the film is in its proper ratio of 2.35:1.

 

What blew me away is that there were families at the film, so some of these people had to have spent at least 50 bucks or more for an evening out and yet all of them just sat there watching a f***ed picture. The whole thing just tells me how people are probably so used to watching badly calibrated and stretched images on their TVs at home that they are incapable of recognizing badly projected images in a theatre. Either that, or people have become so apathetic that they don't care about the quality of anything that impinges on their dulled consciousness. 

As that guy that will go and get a manager to fix bad presentation, my guess is: most people don't really know better.

And going out for help means missing five minutes particularly close to the start. It might also mean disturbing the audience as you leave and return.

Fixing the theater's problems is s bother and requires weighing the value of fixing something to disrupting your viewing.

Thankfully, the only projection issue I've seen was during the previews, and I didn't wait. It was fixed promptly. It was at an independent theater, so maybe that helped. (Arena Grand in Columbus, OH)

I hope it's the former and not the latter, just for the sake of my fragile belief in the basic goodness of humanity.  But seriously.. the last few times I've seen obvious projection errors, I did that same "let me wait and I'll see who complains first" and sure enough, no one did.  I saw a midnight showing of "Taxi Driver" last year and something in the projector was off, and the right side of the image just started disappearing... inch by inch, until after about ten minutes, half of the screen was black!  At that point I realized if I didn't say anything, it wasn't going to get fixed... and I can't believe that I actually had to bring the usher kid up to the theater and explain to him that it wasn't normal for half the screen to be blacked out before he was able to call someone to go to the booth and check it out.  And then, ten minutes later, same thing started again, and I had to go complain again -- I just don't get that.  If you've got a movie running and you know that there was something problematic in the projection, wouldn't you want to stick around in the booth for a few minutes to make sure it didn't happen again?

 

I think people are also used to messed up pictures - can't tell you how many non-home theater/non-film experts I've met where their TVs were set to crop of stretch the picture and that was completely acceptable to them, while having to look at any kind of black bars was completely unacceptable.  I used to get that back when people were all using 20" size TVs, I didn't agree but I could get wanting to maximize the viewing space on a smaller screen, but on these new HDTVs?  I think it's pathetic.  I think it's pathetic that full-screen versions are still being offered on DVD, with companies like Disney coming up with cute labels like "family friendly" for it.  No one's got a problem when an illustration in a book doesn't fill the entire page, but on a TV, if the full image isn't there... sigh... Cable channels routinely crop 2.35 films to 1.78 for HD broadcasts, and I just don't get it - some people will always complain about anything, but I think if they just showed things properly and put that little "this film is being presented as it was originally made" card up at the beginning, if you got people used to it, the complaints would go down over time.

 

(As a depressing sign of the times, I recently spoke with a projectionist who works for one of NYC's most prestigious movie theaters, and he mentioned to me that the projectionist's union hasn't taken any new members in about ten years in the NY/NJ/CT area, because that's how many of those jobs are just gone.  Being a projectionist used to be a respectable career and the last bit of quality control between the filmmakers and the audience.  Now, no one cares.  If you're a studio spending $200 million to make a film, how can you not demand exhibitors keep someone on staff full time to make sure those $200 million movies look right?  Anyway, for anyone living in the Boston area, for my money, the Somerville Theater had the best projection quality of any theater in town.  In NYC, you can always count on the Film Forum to do things right, so if you're going to check out a classic, that's the place to be.)

 

 

I also note: even people who are enthusiasts wait to see if someone else will take care of it. So of course the more casual viewer will certainly not take action. I've long since concluded I'm the only person will notices or cares enough to get a manager. So I wait to see if the problem is persistent and annoying enough to disturb watching the movie to try and get it fixed.

 

 

There's also a psychological factor: The more people that witness a event, the more they each think someone else will take corrective action and the less likely any individual will. So in a crowded theater, as with you, everyone who does notice the problem, is hoping and thinking that another of the hundred people will do something, so no one does.

 

 

 

that sucks bigtime!

 

I wonder sometimes how much overscanning I should be ok with.  It's distracting to see part of the picture projected onto the surround curtains.

I guess to clarify what I was saying about waiting for someone else to say something - like you said, for me, it's as much about not wanting to have to get up and miss part of the movie as it is a sociology experiment.  Especially if it's a movie I've never seen, who knows if I might miss something important.  In the case of Taxi Driver, it was waiting for a moment that I felt I could live with missing, which can be pretty hard to find when you're otherwise completely absorbed into a film.

 

 

 

 

That's a tougher call to make because, to a certain extent, parts of what are on the frame aren't meant to be projected onto the screen or are meant to be cropped off; ideally that's done with the proper projector setup in the booth as opposed to expecting the curtains to cover it up, but yeah.  That I'll usually let go, unless it's something obvious, like the curtains are closed to a 1.85 ratio when they should be opened for 2.35.  I agree that it can be pretty distracting especially when it's more than just a little sliver of picture.

 

 

As far as bone-headed, you can't really complain about it because it's too late, lack of quality control - I saw Thor last night, being presented in one of those Digital IMAX 3-D theaters.  (Does anyone know if it also was released in the conventional, film-projecting IMAX theaters at all?  Wasn't at the one in my town.)  Anyway, five minutes before the movie ended, the house lights came up.  There's really nothing you can do about that - by the time you get up and complain, the movie's over, and they'll pretty much never give you a refund for that.  While it's usually obvious when a movie is being close to finished anyway, I don't need it telegraphed to me in that way - that just reeks of, "We're trying to fit as many showtimes in as possible, so can you please be ready to get the hell out of here the second the first credit rolls?"  It's even worse for a 3-D presentation because you really need the screen to seem as bright as possible (and therefore the room to be as dark as possible) for the 3-D effect to work.  It wasn't even a soft fade-up - it was as if someone flipped a switch all at once.  If it's a film like Thor where all of the titles are at the end of the picture, and the "above the line" cast and crew part that begins the credits have some kind of stylized background to it, the house lights really shouldn't be coming up at all until that part's over with anyhow.  And since all these Marvel movies have little teasers after the credits, they really should have waited.  If they were trying to get people to leave as quickly as possible, it didn't work - everyone knew something was coming after the credits so virtually no one left anyway.  This sort of thing seems to be happening more and more at multiplexes these days, and it really pisses me off.

This forum needs a permanent sticky thread in which movie goers can post their experiences with bad projection and the house lights left on during a screening. Include the name of the film, the name of the theater and its location, and the time of the screening. Describe your complaint to the management and tell us how they addressed the problem.Post the name of the manager or the person you dealt with. Each post should follow the same heading, for instance:

 

Film: Star Trek.

Theater: Harkins,

Location: Arizona Mills Mall, Phoenix AZ.

Date and Time of Screening: Monday 7 PM, 12 December 2009.

Manager or Personnel: Ronald C. Aloonz

 

Then go on to describe the technical problem.

 

Additionally, discuss your problems with unruly audiences, but mainly, identify technical problems.

 

Eventually, the thread will have an impact.

 

What do the moderators think of the idea?

But isn't passivity the way of the world?  I'm always the guy who gets up to advise the staff to turn off the projection room lights (which are reflecting on the screen), or that there's a buzzing in one of the speakers etc. Outside of the theater I'm the guy fixing minor annoyances around the office that no one else bothers with, or sweeping up a broken bottle in front of a neighbors house because they can't be bothered (and I don't want my dog walking through it, or the schoolkids to get hurt), etc.  Chunk of packing foam blown into my yard on garbage day? eh, just leave it.  It'll blow away eventually.

 

The only time I don't immediately get up to alert the staff is when it's a movie I'm excited to see and am hoping someone else will do it.  Never happens.

It's a sad truth.

 

That's why, much as I appreciate the sentiment behind Richard W's post for us to keep a list of offending theaters, I don't think it would make the slightest difference.  That lousy experience I had at Taxi Driver (at a theater that normally gets more right than wrong) or at the end of Thor (at an IMAX 3-D screen where in theory, they claim to hold themselves to a higher standard) goes to show if the places that are supposed to be the best can stumble or cut corners, there's little hope for it being better in other places.  The best I could hope for would be to complain to management, and at best, they'd probably give me a free pass or maybe even a refund.  But they won't change anything.  If you get a sold out crowd (as Thor was) and one person demands a refund, you give that guy his ten bucks back without really caring too much, because it really doesn't make a difference.

 

I hate to sound totally defeatist, but I think keeping a list of theaters that do a great job each and every time would be more beneficial than a list of theaters that have had issues; I bet it's a much shorter list.

 

And the thing is, we're kinda stuck with what we got.  If you're someone who likes going out to theaters, who's willing to put up with the ever rising cost, you're probably going to keep going.  When there's a movie out I really want to see, I'm gonna go see it; I'm not willing to wait three to six months to watch the latest Batman or Star Trek movie at home.

 

In NYC, there was a regulation (not sure if it's still on the books) that basically said, if you get caught talking on a cell phone in a Broadway theater, you can be issued a $100 citation the way you might get a traffic or parking ticket.  I thought it was a good idea, but I never saw it enforced.  The problem with moviegoing these days I'd say is as much the audience as it is the facility.  And what possible incentives do theaters have to do a better job with their technical standards when they see that half the people text on their cell phones throughout it anyway?  As long as audience members have this overwhelming sense of entitlement and believe that they are they only people in the world, that their right to talk during a movie or talk on the phone anywhere they want, or bring their baby anywhere no matter how inappropriate it might be or disruptive it might be to everyone else, it's never going to get better.  And as long as the theater owner makes more money from the two parents bringing their baby or small kids to an R rated film than they do giving me a refund for the disruption those inconsiderate people cause, they're not going to care.

 

So basically, I'm asking all theater-going patrons to respect their fellow audience members, and asking theater managers to respect the patrons and treat film exhibition as an art as well as a business endeavor.  I do not have high hopes that I will get my wishes granted.