My theatre is a single screen with 1152 seats. There is a balcony with 362 seats and 790 seats below it.

My screen size is :
Width - 51.6 Feet (Not possible to stretch further)
Height - 21.5 Feet (Not possible to stretch further)

Most theatres in INDIA refuse to play 1.85 : 1 format films. Obviously because 100 % of Indian theatres are designed keeping in mind only the 2.39 : 1 format film.

But then, with my theatre playing more and more AMERICAN films and with DISNEY and SONY mostly releasing most of their films in 1.85 : 1 format, I wonder if it is possible to stretch the width of the image from a 1.85 : 1 print without significantly distorting the image characteristics.

Screen coverage on a 1.85 : 1 print is as under :

WIDTH - 39.75 Feet
Height - 21.50 Feet

So, I want to know if I can extend the 39.75 feet to cover my complete screen width.

I have 3 Westrex projectors. I use SANKOR lens which as a focal length of 85 mm. We have currently ordered the new SCHNEIDER SUPER CINELUX INTEGRATED ANAMORPHIC lens for our projectors.

If you literally want to "stretch" your image using an anamorphic lens, then I would say that there will not be any way to avoid distortion.

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The other solution that was used in Bakersfield was to run flat cartoons in scope if the feature was in scope. On theplus side, the pre-wide screen cartoons could be seen with all their image intyact (instead of beibng cropped to 1.85). The negative was that you had a badly DISTORTED image.

Stretching the image would be a bad idea as others have said it would distort the image significantly. The best thing to do would be to add side masking and make the screen smaller for 1:85 so that image looks like it fits the whole screen.Maskings are common in most US theaters.

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We did play SPIDERMAN and are currently playing MEN IN BLACK-2. A remarkable feature about the trailers for both these films was that they were presented not in 1.85 : 1 format but some other that they looked great with an anamorphic lens.

For all 2.39 : 1 prints, we use a back lens and a front lens attachment. For all 1.85 : 1 prints, we use a single (but a separate and distinct from that used for 2.39 : 1) back lens.

The trailers of SPIDERMAN and MIB-2 were played out on 2.39 : 1 lens and they looked more impressive than even regular 2.39 : 1 trailers like MINORITY REPORT or AUSTIN POWERS.

So, how was this done at all ? I believe the answer to this question could help thousands upon thousands of movie theatres in INDIA.

To the question whether my projectors are run on carbon, the answer if yes. We always wanted to change over to XENON but an unique feature in INDIAN theatres is that prints are shifted between theatres.

To illustrate, the city of BANGALORE has 135 single screen theatres. There are no multiplexes here. Yet. MIB-2 plays at 15 different theatres with 6 prints. Each theatre is allowed to screen only a maximum of 4 shows in a day under the Law.

So, if my theatre starts a show at 1.30, another theatre which starts at 3.00 will receive REEL 1 and 2 from me and so on..

However, with assurances from distributors these days that I will be given a separate print for all future films, I am planning to go in for a KINOTON FP 30 E with a XENON 5000 watts projector ( 2 numbers)

I also forgot to mention that our screen is curved and the measurement of this curve is quite like the RECOMMENDED type (so described in the SCHNEIDER LENS SELECTION SOFTWARE).

That some doubts were expressed if XENON projectors are suitable for screens of my size, will somebody please clarify if XENON projectors are not suitable for larger screens.

There are theatres in BANGALORE with screen sizes like 72 or 80 feet in width and featuring 1400 or more seats. They too want to switch over to XENON after they see I do it. FYI, there are no XENON projectors anywhere in my STATE. BANGALORE population - 7.5 million. STATE POPULATION - 50.5 million.

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when did india stop producing flat films? all the satyajit ray films i've seen are flat, and he worked into the 90's (although the most recent one i've seen is from the 70's). i suppose ray's films were intended for the international market though, unlike most bollywood product.

i saw lagaan not too long ago, and yes, it is scope. interestingly, it had no cue marks, even though most indian theaters, as we just learned, run changeover.

When the supply of cartoons dried up, the cinemas ran for a few years on single and double bill re-runs, continental and sex exploitation movies.

On the closure of the Jacey, Trafalgar Square, all the seats and equipment went to the Regal Cranleigh. The seats were later specialist refurbished. I also took the Italian Fedi projectors with RCA sound from the closed Jacey, Leicester Square, and sold them to a cinema in Africa. I also managed to sell 350 old seats to a cinema in Iceland.

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
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The best theater in Eugene in terms of presentation is house #3 at Regal Cinema World 8. This is a decent-sized room: 480 seats. But the screen is quite small. I've eyeballed it at 24 feet flat, 30 feet scope (common-height, movable side masking). When it's masked for flat, I've heard customers comment that "the screen is too small here". Well, duh, sit a little closer and the screen will look larger. Actually, the relatively small size of the screen really helps improve 35mm image quality. Sharpness and detail can be amazingly good. "Signs" was extraordinarily sharp on that 24' screen. I also saw "Signs" on a 36-foot common-width screen (movable top masking) and the image quality definitely suffered in comparison.

Anyway, my point is that if Regal suddenly decided to stretch the flat image out to make it "bigger" on that screen, it would be an unforgivable abomination. I would never go there again if they did something like that. Not saying they would ever do it, in fact I'm sure they wouldn't. But they could, and the result would be completely unacceptable.