Posted by John Harkness on 10/24/05 17:28

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.

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. When someone brings you a pristine 35mm print
of All That Heaven Allows and tells you that Douglas Sirk will be in
the audience, you make damn sure the print runs unscathed and in
focus. Or when a privately held print of Vertigo shows up for a
clandestine screening back when Vertigo could not be legally screened
publicly, you make sure the owner gets it back the way he sent it.

The theatre chains seem to have a death wish -- by driving out union
projectionists to save money in the 80s and early 90s, they guaranteed
the degradation of the movie going expierience.

John Harkness

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