hanshotfirst1138

On the subject of which, apparently Tarantino went on a major rant at Cannes this year because they wanted to do a DCP screening for the 20th anniversary of Pulp Fiction. It's "television in public," and "the death of cinema," or at least that's what he keeps saying over and over and over. Apparently having the best job in the world that many of us would give anything to have, still being able shoot film, being offered huge artistic freedom, and being financially successful isn't enough for him.

But yeah, I would appreciate it if older films on DCP looked better.

Matthew Chmiel

The problem is most studios aren't going back to remaster the films when they make DCPs. For an older film to get a great looking DCP, they need to be mastered into 4K. Most DCPs are still getting encoded at 2K. Depending on the elements the original film stock is in, a studio is still looking in the low six-figures to put out on what will ultimately be a risky return on investment. If the shell of Miramax isn't going to properly remaster Pulp Fiction to make a great looking 4K DCP, why bother? Might as well utilize a beat-up 35mm print as it'll still look better.

Sony and Warner are the only two active studios really going back to master "key" titles into 4K alongside releasing 4K DCPs to cinema.

I just wish AMC would upgrade the Rave theater they took over here in town and replace all their shitty Christie projectors from the middle of last decade and replace it with either Barco or Sony 4K projectors like every other fucking theater here in town has.

Alan Smithee

Another thing that cracks me up about digital projectors- the first generation of those are already worthless (heard about one being sold for scrap metal recently), while film projectors could be used for DECADES. The theater I worked at the longest had projector heads dating from the 50s that were bought used, but as long as the lenses, lamphouses and sound readers were kept up to date they could show any movie new or old, at least until the studios started cutting back on making film prints.

Totally agree about the "Television in public" thing. When I go out to a movie, especially at the prices they charge nowadays, I want something bigger and better than what I can get at home, and most new theaters ain't it. Problem is that many people have likely never seen film presented properly.

joliom

And that's why the general public will never take up the cause. It's like trying to convince a 17-year-old that digitally compressed music sounds like shit. They simply have no frame of reference and don't care to develop one.

Why So Blu?

I'm in Idaho right now visiting people and I've seen two movies in the last 2 days here at the local Carmikes Cinema 10. The picture (DLP) and sound have been stellar but general admission really sucks balls.

hanshotfirst1138

Agreed. I'm sure DCPs can look great, but for older films, I'd bet it's a lot of work that stuios probably don't want to spend the time or resources on. I think that part of the problem with it too that there are simply so many films which will never get even scanned as DCPs. I mean even if studios wanted to, it's very impractical to think that many more obscure titles will ever get more than releases on DVD or Blu if we're lucky, much less frame-by-frame restorations. DCPs for newer films which use DIs look great, because they were designed that way in the first place.

And that's for 35mm, nevermind 70mm. Plus with the condition of many elements, there's also probably an extensive restoration process involved. When I saw a DCP of The Ten Commandments, the end credits actually listed it as a 6K restoration, but it looked like it was being projected and decidedly less, and the quality was subpar. Although since I was by myself in the theater, it didn't matter much, I'm sure.

Aren't most DIs-for film and digital-still largely 2K as well? Simply upscaled to 4K?

That's the thing; making a DCP costs money and with my generation's attention span, it's hard enough to get someone to watch a film which is a week old, much less 70+ years. The distribution costs are considerably less, but the cost of making the thing is way higher. I asked a local indie cinema, as I tend to be pretty disappointed when I found I'm just watching a DVD or even a Blu being projected on the big screen, and I asked management about it, and he said they clear the rights with the studio and sort of get what they get.

Tarantino should also make some noise about it too, but since he thinks all digital is just "television in public" and he probably doesn't know the difference between 1080p and 4K, I doubt it. He may not like digital distribution, but he should at least make sure that if they're going to do it, do it properly.

Assuming that the theater even still has 35mm projectors and a projectionist who knows how to run it, and you can find an increasingly elusive print. QT apparently had to kick and scream to get his film shown that way for the 20th anniversary at Cannes, and even guys like him and Nolan aren't going to have that clout for long.

It's a very expensive process, so good on them for gambling on it.

A few theaters in my AMC have a big-ass Song Digital Cinema 4K logo which comes up beforehand. The projectionist who e-mailed me was nice and quite intelligent, but the guy at guest services was clueless. I asked him if it was a DCP or a Blu, and he said "Um, what? It's digital...."

Digital moves so quickly that formats become obsolete faster than ever. Remember when a ZIP drive was cutting edge? Laughable now. And that's not even counting the storage issues. Granted, with the way digital is moving along, I'm sure they'll find ways around that, but still, automation is only great when it works.

I think at least to some extent for QT, it's about the nostalgic value. He probably saw all of those beat-to-hell prints in old grindhouses, sometimes on grainy 16mm dupes, and there's an aesthetic about that.

Digital CAN offer that, of course, but when the general public just pays for a ticket and takes what they get, why spend the extra money to have actual high-quality equipment. Meanwhile, the smaller cinemas with clientele who do care are hurting. Sadly the biggest 35mm joint in my neck of the woods is also in a rougher part of town.

My generation grew up watching things on phones and computer screens. We have so much to answer for. I have friends who remain mystified why I would buy a movie I already own on Blu-ray when upscaled DVD "looks the same." Hell, I try to be a holdout, but I usually scan my CDs into lossy iTunes so quickly that I'm wondering why I bother sometimes. Granted, it also comes down to cost; lots cheaper HDTVs don't look as good, and not many people can afford a plasma. But even then, I remember reading an article which said that a lot of people bought HDTVs and then never actually bought Blu player or used them to their full 1080 extent anyway. It's kind of sad, it's easier than ever for the average view to be informed these days too.

Matthew Chmiel

CASE CLOSED!



Regal Cinemas: What a bunch of cocksuckers.

Also, man, the USPS sucks as I just received that letter today.

My Other Self

So that was a corporate decision? Wow.

I wish we had more of a variety of theaters there that the Bay Area and LA has.

Matthew Chmiel

I shot off this email based upon what was contained in the letter:

Why So Blu?

Wow.

Giles

@ Matthew: I'm a little confused - "top and scissor pull masking" I've never heard that description before ... I'm drawing a complete brain fart to what you actually saw - they cropped the 1.85 image of 'Dawn' to 2.40 ?

ReduxGuy

The Regal I used to go to back home in Houston, TX, has become a somewhat disappointing place, too.

I don't know why, but whenever they show a movie in the RPX, it's ALWAYS shown on a 1.85 screen (so watching "Gravity" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" was basically practice for owning the Blu-Rays). Not to mention their screens don't seem to be updated. It's become sad because I loved going there all the time when I was a kid.

Matthew Chmiel

No.

They projected Dawn natively in 1.85:1 on to a 2.40:1 screen (that has masking coming from the left and right), so it ended up with black bars on both the left and right of the image.

Giles

Yeah but the RPX experience of Gravity was at least 7.1 sound... The bluray is standard 5.1

Giles

And this is a new corporate decision well I guess I won't be seeing anything on screen 10 at Bethesda where they did vertically masking on a set 2.40 screen

Alan Smithee

Jesus Christ- Regal fucking sucks. Glad I quit working for them when I did, though they obviously didn't get any of the message I was trying to send about their shit being unacceptable. If I want to watch a letterboxed movie, I can do that at home!

hanshotfirst1138

Yeah, it cripples many theaters and probably most any that aren't giant multiplex chains. Probably hardly matters to them as long as they get get cheaper and cheaper distribution.

No, and many of us probably never will , at least not at big multiplexes. The fact that Digital Cinema can be of a significantly higher standard than my HDTV probably doesn't matter if people just keep paying for whatever they're given.

I actually put one of my CDs into my Blu-Ray player and ran it through the HDMI connection on my HDTV. I was really blown away by the fullness of the sound quality, I had indeed listened to my iPod for so long that I hadn't realized how significant the difference really is. I have to get me one of those Pro-Ject turntables, I hear they're it...

That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. They don't have screens for 1.85 and 2.35? Or curtains they can close? My local AMC's screens actually change size. Though when I went to see It's A Wonderful Life there, it was still pillarboxed. Maybe there's a limit to the size. I asked the guy at the desk about it and if it was a DCP or a disc and he looked at me like I'd asked him a physics problem and he said "Um, it's digital. What do you mean?" You know, I get that John Q. Public just buys whatever HDTV the clerk at Best Buy tells him to, but is it too much to ask that if you work at a cinema, you actually know what the hell you're talking about?

Incidentally, when I saw The Ten Commandments there, there was a a very subtle pillarboxing with what looked like diagonal black bars. I was totally perplexed, though not as much as when the credits for a 6K restoration came up for a poor-looking DCP. And when I saw Ben-Hur on their smallest screen, they projected a letterboxed imagine into a 2.35 screen, so at least someone knew what the hell was going on. Though it looked like the bottom letterbox was weighed down in the center, the bar was slightly bigger on the left and right, it was fricking bizarre. I'm inclined to blame the DCPs, since it doesn't seem to be a problem with newer films.

You know, Tarantino may have a point....

I get if the DCP you get isn't great, you can't help it, but the scope format has been around for half a century, and you don't have the equipment to differentiate between widescreen formats? What the hell kind of upper management makes such a stupid decision?

Alan Smithee

You just gave me another reason NOT to ever get an iPod- not that I ever had any reasons to get one in the first place.

Yes, it absolutely is. And when a cinema makes a major mistake of hiring someone like me, you have to get rid of them as soon as possible!

The kind that believes theaters exist ONLY to make money, and nothing else.

Sounds like 'keystoning', where the projector is aimed at an angle at the screen. Seen this a lot lately on material with side bars (such as scope-formatted trailers for 1.85 movies that have black side bars.) Sometimes stuff like that is unavoidable even at the best theaters, flatscreens at home have gotten us much more spoiled about perfect geometry now.

I got some Regal passes a while ago at a job I no longer work at for being "employee of the month" (I joked that they were booby-prizes), I'm inclined to use them now to check out the theater I worked at and see just how bad it's gotten by now. At least they're not mis-handling film anymore...

TomOpus

The whole point of an iPod is portability not quality. I discovered a good pair of earbuds can give more richness to the sound. Will it sound like a home system? Of course not. That's crazy talk.

hanshotfirst1138

Being able to put tons of stuff on my iPhone or iPod for when I go on a long walk or to work is a pretty hard thing to argue with; especially when it's audiobooks which don't exactly use a lot home-system juice to begin with. They're ubiquitous devices, pretty much everyone has one. Ideal it's not, but for massive convenience, it's pretty hard to beat.

TomOpus

Exactly. When I fly it's great to listen to music, watch a movie or listen to an audiobook. Makes the flights go by faster.

Tarantino

$18.50 for seating, $26 for premium seats.

Paul_SD

Ok I'm confused.
What you've described is constant height/variable width...which is what theaters have been using for all my life. Unless you are saying that they didn't close the curtains and left the empty screen area exposed?

Blazes Boylan

Hey guys, more bad news on this front. I went to see Besson's LUCY at my local AMC 24-plex today. It's been open since 1997, and I've almost never had problems with their projection, even after the digital switchover.

Well, back in June, I went to see JERSEY BOYS (a scope film) in one of their smaller houses, which is equipped with masking that drops from the top and rises from the bottom to accommodate scope films. When the masking didn't adjust after the first trailer, I asked the service desk if they could fix it. They sent in a 14 year old usher, who told them it looked fine ('cause, ya know, that's the way it looks on the tv at home.) So after a few more trailers, I again asked them to fix it. They said that they'd take a look at it, but nothing changed. I grit my teeth a sat through the film (I took my 76 year old mom, so I didn't want to ruin the experience for her....and I was generally okay, if not peeved.)

So today I stop by to see LUCY in a similarly equipped house. Again, the masking isn't adjusted; again, I politely ask if they can fix it. At this point, the service desk rep. and the manager on duty inform me that AMC's corporate offices have given orders to their theaters to stop adjusting masking on all films. They registered my complaint, and I got my money back, but it just annoys me to no end that another major chain has chosen to abandon one of the simplest steps in projection to save a few bucks.

It's so funny that after decades of the theater industry trying to prove how superior its experience was to tv, they're now increasingly growing content to essentially duplicate the tv experience in their presentation. Sad.

Alan Smithee

The stupidity in the theater business never ceases to amaze me. That's why I had to get out of it- if I had stayed, I'd likely be in jail now for punching a higher-up's lights out (Double that if I worked in TV!)

At least you asked for a refund- unless things have changed, they have to keep a log of all refunds and the reasons for giving them.