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Topic: RAIDERS in L.A.

Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 12-23-2002 03:31 PM

The American Cinematheque in Hollywood has scheduled a one-week engagement of Raiders Of The Lost Ark from December 26 - January 1.

They're advertising a new 35mm print (I'm not sure if it has digital sound).

http://americancinematheque.com

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Mathew Molloy
Master Film Handler

Posts: 357
From: The Santa Cruz Mountains
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 12-23-2002 04:10 PM

All the prints I've seen of this (including the year it opened and a recent 1998 re-issue) I've always been distracted by the color shift from reel one to two. Anyone else ever notice that and know why?

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Dennis Benjamin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1445
From: Denton, MD
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-23-2002 04:54 PM

When I was in Eugene, Oregon a few years back - I watched a very poor print of "Raiders". It was at a old mortuary that was turned into a theatre. The cathedral part of the place was being used as the theatre. Imagine sitting in church pews to watch a movie!!

The print had color shifts amongst other problems.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-23-2002 05:05 PM

That would be the Bijou Art Cinemas in Eugene. It does have real theater seats, but the overall ambiance is definitely "mortuary". Bijou pics here.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 12-27-2002 07:32 PM

quote:
the prints I've seen of this (including the year it opened and a recent 1998 re-issue) I've always been distracted by the color shift from reel one to two. Anyone else ever notice that and know why?

Probably noticeable/distracting because the transition from Reel One to Reel Two in Raiders occurs in the middle of a scene (Indy and Brody's meeting with the bureaucrats) rather than at a scene change, where any color timing differences would likely be less noticeable.

I'll make a point to observe the reel change this weekend when I see it.

Was Raiders officially re-released in 1998? Or just special screenings? I'm aware of numerous screenings and mini-engagements across the country over the past several years. In L.A., where I reside, I've seen the film no less than six times since 1996 (and nine times since it was withdrawn from release in 1983), though none of them were a part of an official re-release to my knowledge. (Was a new poster created?) Print quality has varied at the screenings I've attended, of course; last year's screening at the Long Beach Wide Screen Film Festival was by far the best. A '96 70mm presentation had GREAT sound but image quality was disappointing as the print had faded, was very scratched and was full of splices.

Booking the film doesn't appear to be a problem. Getting it released on DVD...now that's a different story.

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Mathew Molloy
Master Film Handler

Posts: 357
From: The Santa Cruz Mountains
Registered: Nov 2000

posted 12-28-2002 10:46 PM

I don't think it was a re-release, just new prints struck. We ran it as a midnighter.

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Thomas Procyk
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1842
From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-29-2002 12:01 AM

I saw this, and the other two when a theater ran them here in Orlando. (Link to the thread here)

All 3 prints were horrible, and were literally screaming for a dose of FilmGuard. What's more, they ran all three in SR in their EX auditorium, so it sounded like telephone-quality audio coming out of ALL of the speakers at once. [Roll Eyes]

An interesting experience, even with the poor print quality. They claimed their "Raiders" print was one of the newer ones, but it sure didn't look (or sound) like it.

=TMP=

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Aldo Baez
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: USA
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 12-30-2002 01:40 AM

I just got back from watching this. First of all they don't make movies like this anymore. What a great film (the airplane/truck action sequence has to be one of the best action sequences ever filmed.)
I am guessing the film played in digital it sounded like it as I heard lots of sound coming from the rear speakers. But for all I know that could mean anything. They did not play any dolby digital trailers so maybe not.
As for the print quality it was actually pretty good. The blacks were horrible, and there was a sliver of a light blue line in the center of the screen on alot of the movie but it was barely noticeable. Other than that I did not notice color shifts from reel to reel, no scratches or dirt. Presentation quality was very good. They ran one trailer in flat, the hours but did not bother to move the curtains/masking in for it which I thought was wierd.

They also had this great great turn off your cell phone trailer where a cell phone rings from behind you (you think its actually someones cell phone) but its actually the rear speaker, then another chimes in.. then another. It sounds like its actually someones cell ringing, but its not.. then it flashes real quick turn off your cell phones. Man I wish I had this one.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 12-30-2002 02:46 AM

Aldo, the Raiders reprints with the blue processing scratch down the middle were made in the mid 90's and was on acetate filmstock. I remember this batch specifically. This reprint had the best color of all of them, even though the contrast was a bit lacking...but that damned blue scratch!!! [Mad]

Anyway, that was definitely Dolby A. Sounds like the sound system was not calibrated properly and there was mistracking which dumped a lot of sound into the surrounds.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 12-30-2002 12:47 PM

quote:
...they don't make movies like this anymore. What a great film (the airplane/truck action sequence has to be one of the best action sequences ever filmed.)

Definitely agree!

quote:
I am guessing the film played in digital it sounded like it as I heard lots of sound coming from the rear speakers.

The print that played at the American Cinematheque was 35mm Dolby A. I visited the booth and checked the print, not to mention it didn't sound "digital" during the presentation. (The film cans, however, were mislabeled "SR Digital.")

"Lots of sound coming from the rear speakers" has little to do with whether something is digital or not. The surround channel(s) wasn't invented at the same time as digital sound (though modern mixes tend to have more sounds in the surrounds).

quote:
As for the print quality it was actually pretty good. The blacks were horrible, and there was a sliver of a light blue line in the center of the screen on alot of the movie but it was barely noticeable. Other than that I did not notice color shifts from reel to reel, no scratches or dirt. Presentation quality was very good.

Presentation quality has always been top-notch at the American Cinematheque. They have a staff of projectionists who know what they're doing. I didn't notice any major color shifting from reel to reel, either (though I did notice the ten-minute-long scratch in reel 3). I thought the print had a "dupey" appearance. It didn't look anything at all like the outstanding print that was shown in Long Beach last year.

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Aldo Baez
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: USA
Registered: Mar 2001

posted 12-31-2002 05:17 AM

Ok question, how does a movie not "sound" digital?

I mean lets say everyone here knew that there were digital prints of raiders and Dolby A prints, if you went into a theatre not knowing which print was playing, how would you know? Obviously if there was only sound coming from the front speakers, but there were some sounds coming from the rears... Any tips on knowing how to detect this?

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Paul Linfesty
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1383
From: Bakersfield, CA, USA
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-31-2002 09:39 AM

Aldo, first of all, digital mixes may very well have NO surround information (check out Woody Allen's latest films). For one thing, Dolby A optic stereo prints are matrixed, digital formats today are discrete. Optic stereo surrounds won't be as clean sounding (there is leakage from the front). Scratches can cause sound problems. High frequencies don't phase as well as other frequencies, so those sounds (the clicks of a door, the clanging of keys) tend to also get into the surrounds (a reason why Allen now uses DIG, because pleas to projectionists to kill their surrounds for his movies have gone unheeded in every showing i've seen of his). So an extra surround "ambience" is created through this matrix. And of course, no splits are involved. Obviously, a matrixed track reveals how well sound heads are aligned (which is why EX decoding works so well, since the soundtrack is digital and if tracking correctly, the balance necessary for redeveloping the back center channel is dead-on accurate).

i've heard a number of films play back where the DIG drops out for a reel and the sound almost has a "spitting" nature to it, and holding dialogue to the center speaker doesn't always hold. Of course, the American Cinemateche, as Mike Coate attested to, has superior operators who really care about film presentation, so you can guarantee they keep everything aligned properly, since they will have fewer shows in discrete digital than in other formats.

Of course, 70mm mag prints, if properly used, will sound (arguably) as good as digital prints, and many will say SR-encoded magprints will sound even better. I was mainly pointing out some differences between Dolby A analog (stereo optic only, Dolby encoded mag prints did exist) and Dolby Digital for 35mm film presentations.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-31-2002 11:48 AM

I like to think I have a good "ear" for detecting analog vs. digital, but with really good SR, it can be hard to tell. A couple of Regal's houses here sound GREAT in SR; Cinemark's SR is uniformly "blah" or worse. Analog tipoffs are lack of directionality in the surrounds (non-split surrounds), and also the limited freq. response of the surrounds. Distorted high-frequencies, especially spitting sibilance in dialog, or dialog not anchored in the center, are dead-giveaways that it's [substandard] analog. Also "pops" at splices. (Anyone, correct me if anything I said is incorrect. [Wink]

)

"Call me Dave"

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 12-31-2002 04:00 PM

Edits made. Bump.

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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 12-31-2002 04:34 PM

Up to recently, half of the theatres at Pacific'c Kapolei 16 were analogue and the presentations in SR were awesome and as Dave mentioned, many would be very hard pressed to detact the difference between digital sound. All of the theatres at this complex now have digital sound. There have been times even with digital sound at these theatres, some film would be shown in analogue when a Paramount or a Fox film would play in a SDDS house that does not have that type of soundtrack. Now that I have a new Denon receiver that does a fantastic job with pro logic sound, I am once again beginning to enjoy earler analogue stereo films that does not have 5.1 soundtracks.

Regarding the Indiana Jones series, there is a possibility all three of the films will be released on DVD next year by Paramount home video. When it does come out, it will most likely include a remixed 5.1 sound track with split surround that the 35mm and 70mm theatrical prints lacked.

-Claude

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