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This topic comprises 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5
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Author
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Topic: What is good enough?
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Brad Miller
Administrator
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Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 12-25-2003 01:15 PM
To bring this topic into a more suitable thread...
Steve has some excellent points in the post from the link above and I would like to expand further on this for various opinions. While the link above happened to be in a "purchase SMART equipment or not" discussion, the real point to be taken leaves out SMART alltogether:
Theaters that "cheap out" on their presentation are not providing what the customers paid for. In it's simplest form:
- 1. Proper projection equipment
- 2. Proper sound equipment
- 3. Proper auditorium design
- 4. Proper maintenance
- 5. Proper operators
1. Why would anyone open a new theater with outdated technology? By outdated technology, I mean if the equipment is 20 years old, even if the "technology" is not out of date...the equipment is 20 years old! That is just asking for breakdowns and unnecessary expenses via your technician and disappointed customers when the movie stops or is cancelled due to equipment failure. Plus even if the "technology" is not out of date, few items (unless it has been fully rebuilt and parts are still readily available) will perform like new. Let's take a lamphouse for example. Why buy a used Christie CC-40 on the used market to light a given sized screen when you could purchase a brand new SLC-30 for maybe $5000 more? Is your operation really hurting THAT bad? How about the bulb expense in operating costs? A 3000 watt current Christie lamphouse will FAR outperform a 4000 watt out of date Christie lamphouse with more warranty hours to boot! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math. 2. Steve touched on buying proper SR decoding cards. Why people cinch on their sound system is beyond me. Sound is half of the movie. I hear quite frequently "I can't tell the difference, so none of the customers can." WRONG! That's like saying "I like McDonald's burgers, so everyone must like them." Just because something sounds fine to you does not mean that the paying customers will find it acceptable, or worth paying you money to come and listen to your sound system on a movie that they will otherwise decide to wait for the DVD release of. With home theaters becoming the big thing these days, theaters HAVE to put on a better show than people can get at home, or they will find themselves out of business. I can honestly state that almost every system I listen to in the D/FW area sounds lousy due to either poor auditorium design, poor equipment choice or a lousy calibration job. 3. So let's say you have quality projection and quality sound. What good is it if your auditorium design is crap? It amazes me that theaters are STILL being built with top masking! A properly designed auditorium (yes, even with stadium seating) can have side masking with excellent sightlines and good acoustics. There is simply no valid reason for top masking unless it is used in conjunction with side masking to maximise the screen area for both formats. Another point to bring up here is the bleed-through factor. Turning down the bass in the auditorium is NOT the solution! Build the walls properly in the first place and bleed-through is not an issue no matter what is exploding in the next auditorium. 4. Proper maintenance is crucial. I don't know of any tech that has time to kill (whether he is a company tech or a hired tech). There is always something that needs to be done! When one thing in a complex fails, the operators can overcome it by doing that task manually until the tech can fix it. When two things fail, again the operators may be able to do that task manually. But if maintenance is not kept up, before you know it there are so many things broken that the booth becomes a nightmare to operate and soon the tech will NEVER be able to catch up. This is true of many theaters, all because the corporate guys who sit behind their desk all day don't want to spend the money because it does not affect them and they are too blind to see in reality how it does. 5. All of this is worthless without good operators. This by no means implies that union workers must be had. While it is a nice place to start as the odds are substantially better with union workers than people pulled in off of the street, there are union workers who do a piss poor job just like there are excellent non-union workers to be had. It should be normal practice for whoever is in charge to look at the presentation on the last day of the run of a movie before shipout, and I do mean to sit in it through a reel change. Is there ANYTHING wrong with the print? (This includes dropouts in the digital track, any scratches or dirt.) If so, then your booth staff needs to be properly trained or fired. There is no acceptable excuse for damaging a print in any matter and "it's just a little dirty" is damage. If it is found that staff at $6/hour doesn't fit the bill, then bump up the hourly rate to something where a professional can afford to work for you. (Really, how many multiplexes don't even pay $10/hour for a competent operator to run ALL of those screens? How cheap can people be?) Remember, those customers of yours are coming for the movie, not your overpriced concessions. Screw them with the presentation of the movie, and they will screw you back by not returning. This happens every single day, which is why DVDs and "home theaters" are flourishing. Once you get these 5 things down, then you can deal with how to be friendly to the customers. Simply being able to say "we have excellent customer service" is meaningless if the presentation is crap. I know I am leaving out a ton of examples and important points, so please continue...
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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster
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Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 12-25-2003 08:12 PM
Actually the ultimate exact color temperature has little meaning in every day cinema application. There are at least several other factors such as the position of a lamp in a given reflector, port glass, dirt on the port glass, type of lens coating, cold mirrors, and the exact color of the screen surface. Attempting to keep the color temperature dead on is a fruitless thing to attempt in most cinemas...it would have to be tweeked daily in most cases!
For critical use accurate screen color temperature is needed. But I can't say I've ever seen a given house with the light so far off as to be very an objectionable shade of a blue, yellow, or red.
In new installs I too think the Christie console or lamphouse is probably the best bang for the buck, but there are at least several other decent contenders out there to consider that are either more or less expensive.
I also pretty much agree with what Bradsaid on all but one of the points. Forst I'll bring up one spillover from the Cat 280T thread. I would gladly keep the curtains off the sales ticket in order for my customer to have the proper sound equipment. Now thats 10 to 15 grand per screen for curtains that will last any length of time. Dam, thats 80 grand in an 8 plex and it would be better put to use on on purchasing finer seating, projection equipment and sound gear. It will keep his mortgage lower, allow him to pay off his loans faster and hopefully he might even use some of what would be on the paymnent to increase his employees saleries. I can't think of a theatre owner that would even consider curtains in any location excepting special single screen locations or other special puropse locations. Every owner that I've done work for is EXTREMELY concious of how much he is spending on a given site, most leep traqck day by day! In this day of on screen advertising with most slide projectors already having given way to digital ad projection by almost all of our customers, very few of our customers would ever use curtains. Those curtain systems that were installed typically now sit idle for the sake of the on-screen advertising. Now I absolutely HATE on screen advertising but the income from that can also help pay for other proper equipment, or upgrades to be installed. From the theatre owners standpoint(and his accountant)its simply smart buisness and I believe its a decent tradeoff for their bottom line to become better. Many make 25K to 50K a year for ten screens of advertising. The majority of our customers, and all the owners I've delt with in 22 years, hire, and train their own operators. Training operators and keeping track of them is definately not within any dealers or techs normal boundries other than the training on a new install location, or new equipment that is installed during an upgrade. Although I am certainly happy to train anyone on any piece of equipment or installation as it is requested. Keeping tab on weather the operators at the 400 plus locations we service would simply be impossible, so Brad, you're not quite on the mark including this one on the list. It is in reality the owners responsibility to keep good operators at his sites.... Some do and some don't and we have to live with that unfortunate thing in life.
Indeed being on friendly terms and keeping ALL of our customers happy, and properly informed is the first priority at hand and should be any companys first priority. I also can state that we don't have a single customer that needs to or even wants to just "get by". Many of our customers do lots of upgrades, some are major, each year as they have found that it pays to do it.
As for Gords statement as to a market dictating what is best...in reality there is no "Best anything". I would rather think that a market would dictate what is correct but one should still stick with some general principals and one of mine thats near the top is proper SR decoding and the best "A" chain available. In reality it should be tough to tell when a digital system reverts.
Even poorer, slower markets ALWAYS recognize a class operation and thosr cistomers too will return. Returning customers are extremely important to any location, many will also bring their friends back with them. Mark
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Kevin Wale
Expert Film Handler
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Posts: 167
From: Guymon, OK USA
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted 12-25-2003 08:30 PM
I tend to lean in Brad's direction. I don't mind the idea of getting used stuff and some pieces of equipment seem to be timeless(Older projectors for instance. Some of them are still reliable today if regular pm is kept up on them.)
On that note though, I'm tired of the it'll get us by mentality. It seems to me that keeping up with problem equipment costs as much in time and labour as just getting something good would cost over the same period of time.
The SMART argument in the other thread, I'm just not um, knowledgable enough to get into(I found that rather difficult seeing as I'm normally up for a pun). I do tend to lean in Steve G's direction which I suppose comes much from my music background where my guitar tone and keyboard sounds are concerned. Samples that have obvious loop points are often not heard by listeners, but they make this annoying click sound that drives me batties. Solid State guitar amps sound mostly junk to me. The new digital modeling amps do a fine job for scratch track recording(and as an amature I will use them, but never if I was doing it for a living...hopefully that day is comming) but not really for the real deal.
I guess to me the equipment in a theatre that is a no charge theatre(i've never seen one or heard of one but if there were...) it would be ok to go with substandard equipment.
Where I see Gordan's points is that just like in the music world, some people find solid state acceptable and actually prefer it. But, the big difference is that in the theatre industry we are tyring to faithfully display someone else's vision released in a format that he is expecting to do just that. In that case it SHOULD be about the filmaker's vision and not what is acceptable to me or any customer. This is where the the idea of touring acts comes in. I may get royalties if someone else records and performs my song, but it's likely not the way I would want it. It becomes thier interperetation of my work. Which is fine. It's flattering most of the time, but that's not the business we as exhibitors are in.
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