my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Film Handlers' Forum   » What is good enough? (Page 1)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1  2  3  4  5

Author Topic: What is good enough? Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 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 Why would anyone open a new theater with outdated technology? By outdated technology, I mean if the equipment is 20 years old, even if the "technology" is not out of date...the equipment is 20 years old!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 Plus even if the "technology" is not out of date, few items (unless it has been fully rebuilt and parts are still readily available) will perform like new.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 A 3000 watt current Christie lamphouse will FAR outperform a 4000 watt out of date Christie lamphouse with more warranty hours to boot!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...  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 12-25-2003 06:18 PM                     I don't mean to sound stupid, but all these points (all good BTW) cost money. And in several areas, the public have low standards, and so accept whatever is offered.  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-25-2003 07:20 PM                     quote: Theaters that "cheap out" on their presentation are not providing what the customers paid for. You'd have to be able to prove "what the customers paid for" is truly what you describe. My experience tells me that you are ignoring other valid reasons: (1) Get out of the house. (2) Get into an airconditioned environment. (3) Pass the time. (4) See a movie before it comes on video. (5) Be around other people. (6) Sleep. (Yes! I've known guys who did this.) (7) Popcorn. And then there are those who want to see the movie at someplace that's closer to home, regardless of whether or not the presentation is perfect. Please don't construe this as an endorsement of substandard presentations. I believe that it is possible to provide a reasonably good presentation despite less-than-perfect operational conditions. I'm just making the point that many patrons have other things on their mind than the quality of the presentation or even the movie. As for those who come to see the movie, I seriously doubt that they believe they are paying for perfect presentation. Minor presentational defects go unnoticed all the time. Not all patrons are theatre checkers.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-25-2003 07:25 PM                     You have valid points, but I still disagree on the quality standpoint to a certain degree. I think customers expect a certain level of quality when they pay top dollar to go to the movies. If they get a better show at home, then somebody is not doing their job right. Nobody said everything has to be "perfect", it's just that the industry as a whole is testing the waters to see how much they can get away with.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-25-2003 07:25 PM                     Well in many cases some of the older equipment is by far superior to some of the newer stuff Like I would never install a new christie lamphouse they have far to high of colour temperature of light output. Somepeople my like the blueish tinge but that isn't what the prints are timed for As for SR decoding well any of the DSP based ones have always been poor emulation at best some even go out of sync when processing complex passages Each market dictates what is best  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-25-2003 07:27 PM                     quote: I would never install a new christie lamphouse they have far to high of colour temperature of light output WHOA! You mean you will install a processor (I'm not going to continue to pick on SMART, so I'll choose a different example) such as a dts6-AD which has horrible SR emulation, but color temperature which hardly anyone notices you refuse to install? I've got news for you Gordon, the prints may be timed to be projected at a certain color temperature, but the soundtracks are also encoded to be played back with a certain kind of noise reduction. You are contradicting yourself. ...and if Christie's reflector was so terrible, why did everyone who got to see a direct comparison a few years back here unanimously agree the 3K SLC looked phenomenally better than a 4K Strong Highlight running the same section of a trailer in a loop and in side by side identical auditoriums? You must be smokin' some of that I-30 stuff.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-25-2003 07:47 PM                     Check the specs christie is the only manufacturer lobying to raise the colour temp standard from 5400K WHere it rightfully should stay. There light is excessvly blue and some prints loose a lot of the deep reds and warm tones with them  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-25-2003 07:53 PM                     Gordon, I have two Super Lume X lamphouses in my screening room. One came with a 5200K and the other with a 5600K reflector. The 5200K (left projector) looked awful compared to the 5600K (right projector). Later I was able to get ahold of a 5400K reflector for the left projector. Even still, the unanimous (not majority, "unanimous") vote on everyone asked is that the right machine with the 5600K reflector looks better. So feel free to whine about the 5600K average in an SLC all you want. Now how about explaining your contradicting statements regarding audio? Why is it not acceptable to "compromise" (if you want to call it that) on the picture, but it is fine and dandy to compromise on the audio?  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-25-2003 08:01 PM                     There is some debate on compromise. Bottom line the SLC's Itested were all around 6000 -6200K Some people like the blues And in a lot of cases I don't think I compromisse on sound either  |  IP: Logged Matt Zeiner Expert Film Handler Posts: 146 From: Windsor, CT USA Registered: Sep 2003 posted 12-25-2003 08:09 PM                     I think we all would like to see the industry improve. For most of us, this is our art, and as such we are all unhappy to have to compromise it, and sign our name on a substandard presentation, which we are all called upon to do on a regular basis. Want to improve the situation? Change the fact that movie theatres have become glorified hotdog stands. Force the studios to start kicking some of that money they are making on the openings of their movies back into the theatres pockets. Not gonna happen. ever. And so we limp along dissatisfied. Merry Christmas. Hope you are feeling better, John.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 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  |  IP: Logged Kevin Wale Expert Film Handler Posts: 167 From: Guymon, OK USA Registered: Aug 2003 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.  |  IP: Logged Manny Knowles "What are these things and WHY are they BLUE???" Posts: 4247 From: Bloomington, IN, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-25-2003 08:54 PM                     quote: I think customers expect a certain level of quality when they pay top dollar to go to the movies. If they get a better show at home, then somebody is not doing their job right. Actually, I think they are paying top dollar to see the movie at home. A movie ticket costs somewhere around $8 whereas a DVD of a new release may cost three times that amount. A lot of us are watching DVD's alone.  |  IP: Logged Kevin Wale Expert Film Handler Posts: 167 From: Guymon, OK USA Registered: Aug 2003 posted 12-25-2003 09:11 PM                     quote: A movie ticket costs somewhere around $8 whereas a DVD of a new release may cost three times that amount. Yes, but in some theatres it's a lot more than 8 bucks, and you have to pay it again and again and again if you want to see the movie more than once. You buy a DVD once and can watch it for years and years and years. Also, if the DVD is defective you get it replaced and can watch it over and over. If the movie is just poorly exhibited, you might get a refund or a pass, but there is still the one time only, and your pass brings you back to the inferior theatre(as most won't give refunds at all.)  |  IP: Logged John McConnel Expert Film Handler Posts: 118 From: Okmulgee, OK USA Registered: Nov 2003 posted 12-25-2003 09:12 PM                        Regarding colour temperature, I prefer a picture projected with light from a carbon arc, which is going the other direction in color temperature. On another vein, is there a relationship between color temperature and the sharpness of focus? I also prefer follow spots with carbon arcs. Maybe it's just my eye.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 5 pages: 1  2  3  4  5

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.