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Posted by Bill Vermillion on 10/30/05 02:55
In article <1k5ql1h02u721mc1eft8aev1k20ei834ks@4ax.com>,
John Harkness <jharkness@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>On Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:52:04 -0700, "Curtin/Dobbs"
><curtin-dobbs@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>"John Harkness" <jharkness@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
>>news:d03ql1ts00kck1kon3u7t0qofup2mp49km@4ax.com...lm is going through.
>> If they use a print to screen for critics in Boston or NY,
>>> they're not going to box it up and ship it to Peoria to open it.
>>Why not? It's just lying around. Why waste it? Those hayseeds in Peoria
>>won't complain.
>They'd just send it to a suburban multiplex locally -- it's cheaper.
>>> It's not that you're more likely to get better prints in L.A. or NY --
>>I can't vouch for NYC, but I would bet that Grauman's Chinese, The Egyptian,
>>El Capitan, etc. are never sent bad prints.
>>> it's that you're more likely to have a theatre that's properly run --
>>> that has audiences which bitch about out of focus shows and non-synch
>>> sound.
>>Agreed.
>What you've got of course, is the inevitable decay caused by the
>automation of the projection process in the multiplexes.
>I trained on 35mm back in the 70s, when it was a craft -- when you had
>to learn how to inspect and fix a print, you had to know how to do
>reel changes, you had to be in the booth to project a film.
But even then there were those who didn't care.
I was watching 2001 back in the late 1960s after seeing it out of
town I went to see it again at a local theatre.
When there was a lot of black space - such as the long shots of the
ships where all you could see were the lights in the windows -
there were veritcal light streaks. The shutter was out of sync and
the film was being pulled down before the shutter closed.
I went up to the front and the assistant projectionist was there.
I told him what I saw and he asked if I was a projectionist -
thinking perhaps that only those in the know would understand the
problem.
He said he had told the head projectionist about this and was told
it was too hard to adjust and no one would notice.
It's the 'no one would notice' or today 'no one cares' that I think
has led to the degradation we see so often.
>Lord knows that there were sloppy projectionists in the old days, but
>there were a lot people who took pride in the showing films, and
>making sure that the one thing people in theatres were NEVER aware of
>was the projectionist.
Which brought to mind the time I was watching a foreign print at a
local theatre that had a lot of them - being down the block from a
university.
A reel change came up and the picture had the sound track on the
left side of the screen - and I don't recall if we got the sound
of sprockets on the right. I figured it would get stopped almost
instantly. But after the reel ran this way for about 20 to 30
seconds I got up out of my seat - in the front 1/3rd of the theatre
- past everyone who was just sitting there - and complained
to the people up front.
The film got stopped and got fixed. I understood the projectionist
was fired over that - and I had no intention of that happening.
But he had to work to get the film reversed this way, and then LET
IT RUN. He obviously did not even look at the screen after the
changeover.
I talked the manager who was in charge of the only two theatres in
the small town I grew up in - to let my best friend and I in to
both projection booths to see how they worked. That had to be
about 1950. And one of the two was really old - built in the early
1930s, with the big 'smoke-stacks' coming out of the arc lamp
housings and going through the roof. The other was built in 1947
so was fairly modern.
I always loved film from the time I was quite young. My parents
took me to The Wizard of Oz for my first film on it's first run.
Bill
--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
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