|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Author
|
Topic: Bad auditoriums?
|
Thomas Pitt
Master Film Handler
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/4322a.jpg)
Posts: 266
From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Registered: May 2007
|
posted 03-05-2008 03:31 PM
We've had the You Suck topics in the Film Handlers Forum about bad film handlers. Now how about another topic for auditorium architects and/or maintenance staff who don't have a clue about good presentation?
I'll start here with Sheffield Vue (Meadowhall) auditorium 3. Firstly, being a very small auditorium, the hard walls give a lot of echo on the sound - it varies depending on where you sit. Secondly, the centre of the screen is where the aisle between the seats is, meaning you can't sit in the centre, i.e. there are no 'best seats'! Unlike most multiplexes these days, it doesn't have any stadium seating. To prevent people in front blocking your view, the screen is mounted quite high up so you have to bend your neck upwards to watch - causing cramps after a while! Finally, and perhaps the worst aspect, a spotlight has been positioned right at the front of the auditorium above the screen. This particular spotlight is one of those that stays on throughout the entire movie, giving light so you can find your way to seats and such. Unfortunately, it also illuminates the screen, causing low contrast in dark scenes of the movie.
Anyone else have horror stories of bad auditorium design?
NB if there is already a topic about this somewhere, please lock this one
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/248b.jpg)
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 03-08-2008 12:15 PM
A theatre here which shall go nameless was designed by some very famous Japanese architect. The museum (ooops) seems to drool at the mention of his name and they are gushingly proud that they've got a space designed by this famous guy. Yes, it is an interesting room with an undulating ceiling and wooden panel walls. Problem is, this guy never designed a room for CINEMA before. Instead of curtains in front of the screen, he thought it would be a great idea to have huge, wooden panels on tracks that would act as curtains, only MUCH heavier and much slower to open and close than curtains. If you started the first frame of the film and pushed the OPEN button, you'd be 2 minutes into the film while these huge, lumbering panels finished opening.
Worse that this is the fact that the undulating ceiling dips right into the line of sight of the projectionist view of the upper right hand corner of the screen....that's right -- it obscures the change-over cue position (in a change-over booth!). You have to bend down considerably to see the cues.
Next, he thought it would be very sexy to have a booth WINDOW across the entire expanse of the front booth wall so people could see all the high-tech blinking lights and make fun of the projectionist. So you have to work only with little winky pilot lights; you can't have the overhead booth lights on during a show. And you have to talk in hushed tones because this window wall doesn't isolate booth sound from the theatre. There is a REASON 99% of projection booths use PORTS instead of wall-to-wall windows.
AND, the ceiling and walls, other than the wood panels, are painted WHITE. I would say 80% of the surface area in the room is white. White walls = no blacks on the screen and awful screen contrast. And for a new build...well, now 8 years old anyway, the screen size is unimpressive. Architecturally there was much more room for a bigger screen that would have been more appropriate to the space, but I actually think the decision was made for a smaller, ho-hum size screen so that he could get these massive wood panels in front of it to work -- larger and you would need a Mack truck motor to move them. Seems the motors and pulley system for them was custom designed. The things worked for about 6 months and then ground to a halt. They are so massive that the switch to open or close them that they designed the switch to be a deadman-type switch -- you have to hold it for the whole 2+ minutes it takes for them to open or close, the reason being that they could crush someone if he/she happen to get caught between them when they were closing. As is the case with many first-time ideas, they don't have experience testing behind them -- what they didn't think of here is that, yes, it's a deadman switch so the operator could see someone's bones being crushed as the panels closed and he would be able to let go of the switch. Problem is, the switch is on a the wall just PAST the place where the operator could actually see the stage and panels. He would only let go of the switch if he heard someone screaming that they were being crushed.
These panels jammed or otherwise stopped working completely so many times that the original installing company who were called over to service them, finally gave up and won't return calls; now the panels have to be pushed out of the way by a crew of 4 guys.
One of the other "innovative and unique" elements of this design was the fact that the PA part of the system consisted of 24 small, 8in speakers mounted in the ceiling. The idea was that for PA work (mics on stage, music playback other than cinema), this elaborate array of small speaker would be placed in such a way that they would adequately cover the entire seating area. The sound company that designed the coverage, carefully mapped out the on-axis cone of sound from each speaker so that where one cone ended the cone of the next speaker took over so everyone was sitting in an on-axis sound dispersion from a speaker above them. Problem is, the sound company was in the Midwest somewhere and the designers, well, he was in Japan. The sound installer was only given the 2D dimensions of the ceiling but was not told that the ceiling had a 3D component -- WAVES. When the speaker were mounted in these ceiling holes, they didn't aim directly downward, but pointed at various angles, ruining the carefully dispersion for even floor coverage. It was a disaster. They had to go hire another company to go back and re-aim the speaker by putting in shims -- this was done by barely skilled day laborers. I would bet that most of the speaker to this day are not actually aimed correctly.
AND although there were 3 behind the screen JBLs, there were no provisions for surround sound or subbass. None. CP55 surround and subbass output channels ended in a jacks on the patchbay. As a stop gap, I patched that into the house PA so that surround came from above....it did "surround" the audience, but not exactly the way it was intended. To this day they haven't put in surround speakers because that would "ruin the aesthetic integrity" of the famous Japanese designer wood panel walls. After about 4 years of my moaning and complaining, they finally purchased a BGW powered subbass bin, but no amount of whining on my part has gotten them to "mar" the side walls.
And that's just ONE theatre. I have other stories!
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
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.
|