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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Apocolypse Now: Final Cut Poor 4K Presentation
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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 08-27-2019 02:14 PM
I went to see the DCP presentation of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut at the Alamo Draft House in Yonkers last week. There was a snipe before the feature indicating that it was being presented on a Sony 4K projector. Quite honestly, the presentation sucked. The black levels were poor (varying degrees of grey, never got to black), and the colors seemed washed out for the first half of the movie. Very anemic bass sound, but that I suspect was just the equipment at the venue.
My question is, was the projector mis-calibrated, was the projector incapable of producing a reasonable black level, or was the DCP just poorly mastered? I vaguely remember complaints here a few years ago regarding poor black levels for 4K presentations, but this is the first time I have seen this to the extent that it hurt the presentation. Most 2K/4K theatrical presentations I have seen over the last few years actually looked very good. This was the first that made we wish I had stayed home and waited for the Bluray.
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Cristopher Elie
Film Handler
Posts: 2
From: Hopewell Jct., NY, USA
Registered: Mar 2018
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posted 08-27-2019 06:39 PM
Hey Mitchell, I'm really sorry about that! I'm the projection manager at the Yonkers Alamo, so I hate to hear it, but it looks like this falls at my feet. I only lurk on the forum from time to time but my friend sent me this way today. I have a few explanations/clarifications I can offer. I do really hate it when anyone's presentation experience is ruined though, my bad. It's no excuse for bad presentation, but we've been so swamped with the 35mm run of OUaTiH that I haven't had as much time as usual to keep a close eye on the other theaters and I haven't had a chance to watch through all of Apocalypse Now myself.
So to clear it up, your show was indeed a 4K DCP on a 4K projector. According to the Sony contract, that snipe actually only indicates that it's a presentation coming from a 4K projector, so it actually has to play on 2K content too, but not in this case. The snipe doesn't play on alt content like 35mm or blu-ray.
Your show was either in theater 2 or 3, so I'll take a close look at those two projectors to try and see if anything's wrong. Those are both Sony 515s, but from the issues you mentioned I initially assumed you saw it in Theater 1 because they sound like Sony 320 problems. I'm actually generally really happy with the 515s and it seems to me like Sony's bad reputation mainly comes from 220s and 320s, who don't tend to light super evenly and have wonky blacks. I'll double check those two screens for sure, but it would surprise me if there were something wrong with the colors on the projector unless there were something seriously broken with the optics. I really trust the picture of the 515s a lot. The 515s have halogen lamps that have a relatively cool and even color temperature, but they do get a little bright, so the blacks aren't perfect, but generally they're pretty good. One other possible contributing factor is that theater 2 is a silver screen, so that wouldn't have helped if you saw it there.
As for the sound, that was the main thing I was checking for in my tech screening, and I decided to play it on the loud side of normal since it's a war movie. In fact we've been getting a few complaints about how loud it is, but I think it's appropriate so I kept it where it is.
We actually just did a full EQ of all our theaters about 2 months ago, and I haven't messed with the levels, so the bass should be exactly to spec. We also did colorspace and foot-lamberts during the same tech, so I'd hope they haven't drifted, but it's definitely more likely for optics than sound.
So as much as I'd like to/lean toward placing the blame on the DCP, I'll report back to you when I get back to work the day after tomorrow. Sorry again about the show though.
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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 08-30-2019 02:54 PM
Hi Cristopher,
I saw it on Wednesday 8/21/2019 at the 6pm show. It was in theatre 2. It's a long drive from Northwestern NJ, so I have high expectations.
In any event, I was at the Ziegfeld 70mm reserved seat screenings in 1979, and the one thing I remember is the awesome subsonics. You could feel the helicopters, mortars, and bombs in your chest. The theatre shook. The prior Bluray recreated that, knocking the dust off my home sub base cabinets. I realize theatre sound mixing is a different animal, but I have heard some really impressive digital theatrical sound in the last few years. However, the sound was not really a complaint, but the picture issues definitely are.
I have been to a number of your 35mm presentations over the last few years, and most have had no issues. I was at the first Saturday matinee of OUATIH on July 27th, and the projection was perfect. I am still somewhat miffed that because I went to the bathroom before the start, your staffed skipped over me when they gave out the souvenir film strips. I did not find out about them until we were on our way home and my friends mentioned they got one.
In any event, thank you for keeping 35mm alive.
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Cristopher Elie
Film Handler
Posts: 2
From: Hopewell Jct., NY, USA
Registered: Mar 2018
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posted 09-02-2019 06:35 PM
Ok, let's see what I can address here. All of the lamps in Theater 2 are (and were at the time) within warranty hours and functioning normally. Because of the harsh dropoff on that silver screen, I bump them up a bit higher than spec, so that the screen is about 18 FL in the center and 10 on the edges. I hate silver screens, and I suspect that a lot of the visual issues you had may be associated with that screen itself.
Just did a pink noise test in 2, and all of the speakers are at reference level, including the subs. So since we were playing the movie at reference on a QSC DCP-100, and the speakers were calibrated at reference, I think that's as good as we can get with that DCP.
We have our projectors serviced 4 times a year, but it doesn't include gamma and uniformity since our technicians don't have a PCAB. So we do a gamma and uniformity adjustment on an as-needed basis since we have to spend hundreds of dollars bringing in a Sony technician and thusly may end up having to replace a T-Core/Optical Block.
I still haven't gotten the time to watch through the movie (it's hard to get up early enough or stay up late enough to watch a 3 hour movie when there isn't anything else running in the theater), but I'd like to check it out.
The "film strips" were just a promotional thing with images from the film and an Alamo logo printed on a piece of plastic that... resembled 35mm stock. We gave away most of them, but I just asked one of the managers and he said he'll try and dig one up for you if you like!
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