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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Ground Level   » Hey, Regal... the "FEATURE PRESENTATION" should be the FEATURE! (Page 1)

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Author Topic: Hey, Regal... the "FEATURE PRESENTATION" should be the FEATURE! Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-27-2011 08:47 AM                    The first time I saw this I thought it was just another CineMedia screw up. I've seen so many, I come to expect them every now and then. But I've seen it enough now to realize that it's actually supposed to be playing this way. After the 30 minutes of pre-show crap that is "First Look", we have the newly revamped Regal Roller-Coaster "Feature Presentation" snipe. Which is cool. I always kind of liked it's campy-ness. I especially like the ghostly blue film strip we're riding on now. Is that supposed to be a subliminal suggestion that film is "dead"? I don't know, but it looks cool. But then right after that snipe, which ends with the words "FEATURE PRESENTATION" on the screen, you're greeted with two more COMMERCIALS. And THEN, you have a line up of 6 or 7 TRAILERS. Then, finally, the feature starts about 15 minutes after the snipe that announced it. Regal, I understand you may be a little confused on this. But this is NOT an effective line up. In fact it makes you look incompetent. You should probably either change that snipe to say "Your feature presentation will begin after the following previews" which is what you used to say, or print the feature presentation snipe on film so it can be put in the proper place in the line up, or ditch the roller coaster all together. That would be a shame though, because I actually think it's kind of cool.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-27-2011 10:41 AM                     Mark, You are not seeing the big picture here. It is very common to put "teasers" everywhere. The media start to tell you a bit of news and then they say "coming up in the next segment", or just "coming up". The hope is that you will stay tuned. Perhaps marketing has decided that you will pay more attention to the things following the "feature presentation" announcement as you think each change might actually BE the feature you paid to see. KEN  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-27-2011 11:37 AM                        Mark, you exist to be advertised to. Go out and buy whatever is being promoted or advertised. Just because you paid to gain entry to the auditorium, you think you are good enough to avoid advertising? Do you expect to be treated as well as a patron of Warren Theaters or something? The "feature presentation" thingy is supposed to be shown right at the advertised start time. Then more commercials for crap you don't care about. Then waaaaay too many trailers because if you don't see them in the theater, how else are you going to see them? It's not like they advertise movies on TV or show trailers on the internet, silly.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-27-2011 11:43 AM                        Well, it's Regal who's not seeing the BIG PICTURE when they pull crap like that, be it coming from total incompetence and the presentation savvy of a doorknob, or worse, it's some calculated manipulation to make audiences pay more attention to the gack that they didn't come to see, either way the big picture which THEY don't see is that they are driving their patrons right into the arms of their biggest competitor -- the Home Theatre and just reenforcing that growing montra" "I HATE going to the movies."  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 02-27-2011 12:53 PM                     I would bet Regal put their policy trailer on the video preshow to eliminate the constant $$$ of striking new prints as they get worn. During that decision, I'm sure nobody sat in the conference room and actually viewed the trailer. I'll bet it was an "oops, that doesn't make much sense now" afterthought, but at that point the decision was already made and nobody wants to be "that guy" who fights it with the decision-making money men. Any other guesses? So far that's all this thread is since none of us are Regal officials. FWIW, I still have a couple of theaters running their policy off of blu-ray. We automated into their 35mm shows post-trailers/pre-feature to do a changeover to blu-ray, then back to film.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-27-2011 01:05 PM                        Mark, I agree with you about the excessive trailers and advertisements at Regal theatres. It is not too bad if I had not seen some of the trailers before but to have to watch them more than once is very agonizing. Three or four trailers are fine but to have to sit and watch six or more is very excessive. Regal is very good about their film and digital presentation in my area with state of the art Sony 4K and Real D but they should invest a little bit more money for the video projectors they use for the First Look intermission program. The image quality is terrible. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 02-27-2011 01:37 PM                        I think a maximum of 4 trailers (this includes the "attached") is plenty.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 02-27-2011 02:12 PM                        quote: Brad Miller Any other guesses? So far that's all this thread is since none of us are Regal officials. In the Regal board room... "It's only temporary since we'll be all digital eventually anyway. Then we can place it correctly. Besides...Nobody'll notice except those picky Film-Tech bastards." "Who?" "Say, has anybody tried using Fillmguard as a sexual lubricant?" "What???"  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 02-27-2011 02:59 PM                    Wackiness ensues.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2011 03:50 PM                        quote: Mark J. Marshall Your feature presentation I hate the use of the word "your" all the time. "Enjoy your movie." That is a dumb sentence, unless I'm connected with the movie in some way like starring in it or directing it. Otherwise it is not my movie. I paid to see a show. It should be "Enjoy the show!" If the theatre is talking to me from the screen, then it should say OUR feature presentation. Not "your" feature presentation. If Tom Hanks comes to my theatre to see a showing of Forrest Gump, I'll say "Enjoy your movie!" to him. Otherwise, it's "Enjoy the show!" /rant  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-27-2011 07:55 PM                        and thus it has been said.... quote: Sam Graham ....those picky Film-Tech bastards."  |  IP: Logged Richard C. Wolfe Master Film Handler Posts: 250 From: Northampton, PA, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 03-02-2011 01:46 PM                        Please excuse me if I’m going a little off topic here. First, allow me to agree with those that state that if FEATURE PRESENTATION goes on the screen , it should be followed by the FEATURE and nothing else. As we all know, it is the norm for distributors to place a trailer for their next feature in front of their current one. Even that should never be shown after the Feature Presentation snipe. Either splice the FP snipe between them or don’t show those trailers at all. I as a 2nd run theatre never show those trailers. That would be rather stupid to do as I often will never be playing that feature. It just confuses the patrons who then think that you will be playing it. However, my main question here has to do with show makeup, trailer placement etc. with digital projection. Since I’m still using that antiquated, old fashioned, inadequate 35mm film, and am now pondering investing in and installing that new fangled filmless projection system called digital, I am wondering how it affects show makeup? Running a historic single screen theater, I try very hard to continue my presentation in the traditional way it was always done “back in the day” when all theatres were single screen. I still use daters… such things as: Prevues of Coming Attractions, Our Next Attraction, Starts Friday etc., etc. I also show only one trailer, the next attraction, and no screen advertising of any sort. My question to those of you now well versed in the art of digital projection is: Can you get those daters in digital, and is it easy to place them wherever you want them to be, and mostly… if the feature comes with a trailer attached to the front, can you remove them so you don’t look stupid running a trailer after the Feature Presentation? Last June I posted a question about whether I should at this time invest in digital projection or new seats. Most of you agreed with me that since I am a 2nd run theatre, new seating would benefit my theatre more than digital projection. I have since completed that project that included repainting the interior, refinishing the auditorium floor, replacing all the carpeting and installing 450 new Erwin seats. The following are links to pictures so you can see how it all turned out. http://www.flickr.com/photos/59347695@N03/5432418537/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/59347695@N03/5432368251/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/59347695@N03/5432377905/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/59347695@N03/5432388505/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/59347695@N03/5433007506/ Now I’m seriously preparing for the digital conversion, but I want to be sure that I can continue to program my preshow as I have always done. If I can’t, I will stick with 35mm for a while longer and hope that the changes come to allow me to do that.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-02-2011 01:50 PM                        Richard--I can't answer your question directly, but is there any reason why you couldn't run your trailer program on film and then do a changeover (perhaps automated) to for the feature? (I really need to make the trip out to visit your theatre someday. The auditorium and procenium remind me a bit of the Zeiterion in New Bedford, MA.)  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-02-2011 02:47 PM                        Richard - you can still control your trailers and play any you want to in any order. The feature film is always completely separate from the "attached" trailer so you can play that trailer or not, it's your choice. In fact, trailers are one of the best things about digital. I'm constantly tweaking our trailer mix depending on how busy we are, how many kids are in the crowd, etc. You get at least two hard drives full of trailers every week and you'll never be wanting for a trailer again. In fact, if anything there are too many trailers. As for daters -- there is a company, Cinetize.com, that provides a pretty nice selection for free (or customizable for a reasonable fee). You can view all their samples from their website. The daters are nice, but I wish they were a little flashier in the sound department. I keep hoping some of the "classic" companies like Filmack or Cinema Concepts might issue some of their daters digitally but it hasn't happened yet. I do miss the Dolby "Train" trailer which we used to place ahead of the feature and continue to hope it'll come out on digital but it hasn't yet. Right now, I'm using the Technicolor Digital Cinema logo just ahead of the feature --it has good sound and really shows off the colors and brightness of the picture. If you don't want to do that, Cinetize has several "Feature presentation" logo clips. (Also free.)  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-02-2011 07:09 PM                     Mike, do you need a "Dolby Digital Cinema" snipe? That would be a lot better than running the TDC logo. Richard, WOW! What a beautiful restoration! (Please do upload those photos to the forum though, as off-site links don't work after awhile.) Digital is so easy to change trailers around it is laughable. Everything you want to do is effortless in digital cinema.  |  IP: Logged

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