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Topic: Mini-Film Night

Nick Catalano
Film Handler

Posts: 30
From: Whitefish Bay, WI, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 05-26-2004 07:15 AM

I am a High School student planning a mini-film festivel to showcase some of the up-and-coming talent that our school has to offer. We are in the Milwaukee area and will have the Dean of the Film School at UWM there to watch some of the clips.

This will be in an auditorium with a mono system designed for midrange/voice. When musicals are done in the auditorium the sound is very lackluster. There is a center group of speakers near the stage (2 horns I believe and a general midrange) and then two midrange/standard delays about 50 feet back and slightly higher up (based on the curve of the auditorium's roof). The facility holds 1,200 people. There is NO lowend in the auditorium.

This audio system is very sub-par for any sort of professional theatrical presentation, and the school has SOME seperate monitors and a few amps, yet is it worth it to setup another sound system to offload the audio to and then setup the main system at a very low volume to support the main system and fill the auditorium? We will probably be viewing some DVDs aswell (just don't tell the distributors).

Also, the screen is about 20ft by 20ft (it is a 1:1 if put down all the way. Since most of our clips are in 4:3 and this is a very expensive automated screen, what is a good option for masking it? We would use a cherry-picker to get to the top of the screen, yet what is a good temp adheasive, and how would I get the black? Black fabric? Paper?

We will be displaying the movies from a laptop, probably, because our primary "movie" is a 7GB iMovie file and I would much rather put it on a laptop instead of a VHS. Plus we can display it at the projector's native res.

Also, the school has offered up their projectors, but from my experince with them they are, at best, 1500ANSI Lumens. I have seen a 5000ANSI lumens progressive scan projector (Sanyo PLC-XF20) for the listed price of $650.00 / day (I would assume I could get this down to $500).

Is this worth it? We charge $3 admission and MAY offer foodstuffs to purchase, but it is mostly just an event to showcase one of our great student's 30 minute film.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-26-2004 08:11 AM

Try playing the "film" soundtrack through the existing system and see how it sounds. If it sounds bad, you'll want/need to rent a better sound system. Expect to spend ~$200+ for a small console, amplifier, and speaker(s). If it sounds decent, rent a better DLP projector. You probably want (just guessing here) 3000-5000 lumens for a good picture on a matte screen.

Where is the screen mounted? I'm assuming that you have a theatrical fly system. If you have a black "teaser" on a pipe in front of the screen, you should be able to just fly that in to mask off the top. You could do the same if you have a "guillotine" (as opposed to "traveler) main curtain. Otherwise, you'll have to improvise, preferably with dark cloth. If you have a perf screen, be sure to fly in some sort of dark backdrop behind it (with speakers in front of it) to avoid reflections from metal objects backstage.

If you must run the "film" from a laptop, I strongly suggest having two of them running simultaneously (one driving the projector, one as a backup in case something crashes).

I'd suggest renting a popcorn machine, too. You can probably do a very good concession business if you have the "magic smell" of fresh popcorn in the lobby.

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