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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Largest Screen 35mm/70mm
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 12-26-2002 05:03 AM
Joshua asked:
quote:
What is the largest screen you can get with a 35mm setup and still achieve a good quality picture?
I would say about 15 metres (50 feet) for 35mm, Ive never seen a screen large enough that 70mm couldn't cope with it, so I don't know.
For the smaller guages 6 metres seems to be about right for 16mm, and about 3 metres for Super 8. The first two figures are roughly in proportion to the frame size, the last is rather less, due to no 8mm projectors being available which can put out enough light. Only a couple of xenon models were made, and they had rather small lamps. I think you could go somewhat larger without damaging the film, if someone made a projector with a bigger lamp. I once saw Super 8 projected on a screen of about 10 metres, and the image was very dim.
For occasional use with material which is not available on 35mm, I think it is acceptable to use these guages on larger screens with a less bright image; up to about 10 metres for 16mm, given a very good print, lamp, lens, projector and screen.
He then asked:
quote:
Also what is the largest screen you have seen? I assume that that will have been with an IMAX or 70mm setup...
Almost all cinemas I see have screens in the range of 6-15 metres (20-50 feet) and therefore within the range that can be handled by 35mm. This is not to say that I would not rather see 70mm, but there's very little of it around now; but plenty of places in London that could still run it.
The largest conventional screen I have seen was almost certainly at the Odeon Marble Arch, I'm not sure of the size, but it was advertised as being the largest in London, that place has now been divided up, but 35mm was not ideal on that screen. The next largest is probably at the Empire Leicester Square, I think that's about 17 metres, slightly smaller than the Marble Arch one.
The largest IMAX screen I have seen is the BFI one, I think it's anout 25 metres.
The largest screen of any type, not counting images projected on the sides of buildings, was probably a video system, it was, and may still be at the Tracadero Centre in London, a combined shopping and entertainment centre, with cinemas, video games etc. Very noisy, horrible place, it also once housed the 'Pepsi London IMAX Theater'. They had a sort of video wall system, but made up of multiple projected images rather than monitors, sometimes the whole area was used to show a single image, which I think must have been over 30 metres wide, slightly curved, and very wide aspect ratio. I've no idea what equipment it used.
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Adam Martin
I'm not even gonna point out the irony.
Posts: 3686
From: Dallas, TX
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 12-26-2002 02:41 PM
Off the top of my head, I believe that the largest IMAX screen is at the Panasonic IMAX Theatre in Sydney, Australia. It seats just 540, but the screen is 29.6m high by 35.7m wide. It opened in 1996. (1056.72m^2 screen)
The largest conventional cinema screen that I know of was the 40.24m (132 ft) wide screen at the Spektrum (4500 seats) in Oslo, Norway, but that theater is closed now. There used to be a great article about the Spektrum at in70mm, but the page was moved and I can't find it now. (736.4m^2 screen)
The conventional cinema with the largest seating capacity that I know of is The Radio City Music Hall in New York, NY. It originally had 5945 seats but now has 5910. It opened in December 1932, and still shows movies on occasion. The proscenium is only 30.48m wide, so the screen can't be any wider than that.
There is a drive-in theater in Farum, Denmark, with a 36m wide screen, which would be about 118 feet or so.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 12-27-2002 02:59 AM
Lionel wrote:
quote:
On this screen I already saw projections in Scope, 1.85 and 1.66 - the Scope image isn't very bright and the 1.85 projection looks a bit grainy (you really have to sit at the back half of the theatre to get a good quality picture.
In the '30s and '40s theatres were much larger, 2500-3000 seats was common, and some were larger than this; our lagest was the Gaumont State, Kilburn at 4004. In these places the screens were quite small, I wasn't around at the time, but looking at old photographs which show the screens, and comparing to the still-existing buildings, I would estimate that many of the screens of this era, in very large theatres, were only about about 6-8 metres wide. While I would agree that an increase in size was desirable, the old screens must have looked very small from the back of the balcony in a place that big, haven't we now gone from one extreme to the other? this place is a relatively small theatre, 700 seats, in the old days the seats were packed in very tightly, so this is probably comparable in sze to an old theatre of maybe 1000-1200 seats, still much smaller than the old super cinemas; why does it need a screen of this size? I would suggest that it is just so they can say that they have a larger screen than somewhere else, possibly anywhere else. This sort of thing is nothing new, I'm sure that at Kilburn they squeezed in a few extra seats, probably with very poor sightlines, just so they could say that the had more than 4000.
I haven't seen the picture at this place, and I have never seen 35mm film, or even 70mm, projected on a screen of this size, but Lionel has used terms such as 'isn't very bright' and 'looks a bit grainy' to desbibe it, and my experience with screens of 15-17 metres suggests that anything much larger would not look good. Would it not be better to have a somewhat smaller picture, say 15 or 18 metres, but brighter, and less grainy? I know which I would rather watch.
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They don't have Digital Cinema either. On this screen I already saw projections in Scope, 1.85 and 1.66 - the Scope image isn't very bright and the 1.85 projection looks a bit grainy (you really have to sit at the back half of the theatre to get a good quality picture.
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