70 mm Dune part two

[Brad Miller]

It's a 2.40 (or 2.39) image that is "windowboxed" (black on all 4 sides) within the 2.20 70mm frame. It is 6% undersized as compared against a RP91 target.

Had the image been printed larger so the left and right side reached the 0% crop lines for left and right, the image would still have a small letterbox to it since the image is 2.40 instead of 2.20, but at least it wouldn't have black on all 4 sides. Shaving off a tiny little bit of the image on each left and right edge to blow it up to a full 2.20 height image would have looked noticeably better in most cinemas though.

BTW any 2.20 OR WIDER image should always reach the 0% crop lines as seen in the below photo of the RP91 target. The area from those lines to the perforations are reserved for magnetic audio tracks 3 and 4 and any picture information there will not be projected (such as with the Wonder Woman picture above). The Dune 2 prints however only reach to just outside the 5% cropping line, which is undersized.

[Victor Liorentas]

I wonder if there is a good reason for printing them undersized?!? Do they think this window boxing helps in some way? Are they just saving money by skipping a good re-size for 5/70?
Also wonder if this transfer from the Alexa to analog film negative and back to digital is happening to all film print formats? I assume it's to get a truer film look out of the Alexa photography but in the case of 5/70, 15/70 and 35mm prints, is it just further degradation being 3 generations away from the master data?
I thought the window boxing of Napoleon looked awful!

[Henry Atkinson]

I wonder if there is a good reason for printing them undersized?!? Do they think this window boxing helps in some way? Are they just saving money by skipping a good re-size for 5/70?
Also wonder if this transfer from the Alexa to analog film negative and back to digital is happening to all film print formats? I assume it's to get a truer film look out of the Alexa photography but in the case of 5/70, 15/70 and 35mm prints, is it just further degradation being 3 generations away from the master data?
I thought the window boxing of Napoleon looked awful!

They've done this in the past to other stuff (the previews that were supposed to run before Oppenheimer got the same treatment and were rejected before they could be run as a result). I'd love to know how/why its happening, it seems like something that you'd get wrong once and then fix, but Fotokem keeps managing to mess it up...

[Buck Wilson]

ask the theater manager to have a tech check the light engine convergence using test patterns, and adjust as necessary. That is easily fixable.

Asking a lot from corporations that don't give a shit. Regal has essentially frozen spending completely, they're not sending a tech out to converge screens. Hell they're barely sending them out for DOWN screens.

[Jim Cassedy]

I had a 35mm show to do last night, and after that, I spent several hours getting the JJ's 70millemeterized, and mounting the print. I didn't want to go on screen with a sold out house today without first running at least 2 reels on screen, and I'm very disappointed with the DUNE print. Not with the photography or color, but the cropped/undersized nature of it. I know we're going to get customer comments and/or complaints abou tit. We have top/bottom motorized maskings, but reprogramming them is a bit trickt, esp when working alone. Earlier in the day, I had already worked two live events, and a 35mm show, and at that point I had put in a 16½hr day - and I was afraid I'd make a mistake and muck up the masking even more. (I was actually so tired, I probably shouldn't have been running the print- - but I NEEDED to do a quick on screen QC.) My 70mm assorted aperture plate collection is useless, since they're all cut larger than the undersized image on the print. in fact, last night I found I could actually run the print without ANY aperture plate in the projector. I wish I had a pair of lenses that were a few mm shorter than what I've got, as they might blow up the image just enuf to fit my screenspace. I did the best I could and finally clocked out at 4:50am this morning.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Makes me think the plate slots needs to be wide enough to accept a plate with black-tac applied to it. LOL.
(Learned it is not today when I tried to make my own pinhole aperture plate, which I did manage, but had to use splicing tape as the only layer taller than the plate itself).

I expect the useless plate, even if oversized, would save the print from a little extra heat exposure?

[Steve Guttag]

Undersizing the image, if that is what has happened, has, effectively eliminated the aperture plate(s). So, any keystone artifacts will show up as well as image centering in multi-projector systems (different image stretch, depending on how off-center the projector is and on which side of centerline they are). What's wrong with people? Do they not think things through?

[Jim Cassedy]

Undersizing the image, if that is what has happened, has, effectively
eliminated the aperture plate(s). So, any keystone artifacts will show up as well as image centering
in multi-projector systems (different image stretch, depending on how off-center the projector is and
on which side of centerline they are). What's wrong with people? Do they not think things through?

> Projectors in my venue pretty much have a 'straight shot' at the screen, so key-stoning is not
issue. I measured less than a 2° slight upward angle, which is negligible on screen. One of the
nice things about running without aperture plates is you don't have to worry quite as much about
getting a 'hair int the gate'! It would have to be something about the size of a cat furball ( or a
whole cat) stuck in the film trap before it shows up on screen. This isn't the first time I've tried
running without plates. But you can't do it with titles that were shot/edited totally on film,
because print-through from the negative splices will show up on screen."Licorice Pizza" and
"Inherent Vice" were two 70mm prints that had obvious negative splices if run without a plate
in the gate.

[Brad Miller]

Jim it's still not that simple though. What are the odds that there is a theater out there with an exact 2.39:1 ratio screen, that has an exactly-matching lens to the exact size the image happened to be printed on the film in their ONE projector (not changeover) to make it so that the projected image just happens to exactly-align with the masking, that has a 0 degree tilt on a flat (not curved) screen? I would say pretty much ZERO. Maybe there are one or two theaters world-wide that are relatively close, but it means either unnecessary (and I'm not counting 2.39 "letterbox" black bars) black around some or all of the image, as well as spillover onto the masking for all the rest. Add a typical projection angle downward, and the problem is made worse. Add a second projector for changeover where neither can be on the center-line and the problem is made even worse. Want to add a curved screen to the equation as well? It's just going to be an awful presentation at that point.

Aperture plates are there for a very specific reason. Bypassing them (and losing resolution in the image) due to making the image smaller benefits nobody.

Perhaps on the Dune II bluray release they can do the same thing. Letterbox the image for a 16:9 monitor (due to the wider ratio image), but make sure the image doesn't reach the sides of the screen, making the entire picture area smaller with black bars on all 4 sides. Can you imagine the screaming from everyone that paid money to buy such a bluray? (I'll bet the digital DCPs were not mastered with a shrunken image and black bars on all 4 sides of a scope container.)

I've heard a few comments already that they are getting complaints from the patrons and may need to start refunding tickets or giving re-admit passes for people angry at the presentation. In the end I guess let's see how many theaters actually complain back through proper channels (theater booker > WB > Fotokem) on this. If the complaints aren't there, this out of spec practice will just continue to happen as it has been for several years and will only serve to hurt film's future.

[Ryan Gallagher]

Part of me wonders if it is an intentional choice that someone considers "the lesser of two evils"? Maybe they are not fond of poorly presented film images that expose the blurry image fall-off at the aperture plate, or start to twitch at the thought of an aperture plate hiding even the slightest bit of their composition, and for god knows what reason, thought having the hard blacks imposed by a smaller image size on the print to be a preferable "look"... even if it meant having some visible keystone or unused screen area in theatres without complete masking control?

I can't say anyone who does this for a living would logically make that choice.... so it has to be something else driving this decision, right?

[Victor Liorentas]

My impressions on running Dune 2 twice today in 70mm is a relief. It looks so much better than Napoleon even with the window boxing. It has bright , sharp and colorful images that really pop! This is at the Varsity Toronto.

[Jim Cassedy]

<edited> It looks so much better than Napoleon even with
the window boxing. It has bright , sharp and colorful images that really pop! .

Perhaps my first impressions were a bit rash, but I was mainly being critical of the 'window
boxing'. I too noticed that the picture and sound quality of the print are both excellent.

But just for fun- - here's a couple of comparison pix:

> The WB Logo At The End Of "Dune-II"
WB_Dune.jpg

> The WB Logo At The End Of "Licorice PIzza"
WB_LP.jpg

You can clearly see the difference between the frame-line width and edge cropping.

[Scotty Wright]

Licorice Pizza was edited digitally, but they cut negative, did a photochemical color time, and then blew up to 70mm. So it seems clear now that the undersizing has got be an artifact of the digital filmout process by Fotokem.

[Jim Cassedy]

CORRECTION TO MY PREVIOUS POST - (The one with the WB Logos)

A friend of mine pointed out to me that LICORICE PIZZA was an MGM release
and wouldn't have had an WB logo at either end. I found that WB logo image on
my phone, and based on the time stamped date it was taken, (Nov, 2021) and
other booth-pix I had taken around the same time, I just assumed it had come
from L-P, since I didn't have any other 70mm features in the booth at that time.
In retrospect, that 2nd WB logo-pic may have come from a reel of 70mm trailers
I keep handy for quick-testing the 70mm projector & lenses, But no matter where
that 2nd WB logo shot came from, it still accurately illustrates the image size
difference between DUNE-II and a 'normal' 70mm print.
Mea Culpa for my error in incorrectly identifying the original image source.

[Brad Miller]

Remember Jim, the extreme left and right edge of the WB logo in your image above would not be projected because that is reserved space for mag tracks 3 and 4. It is fine for there to be a little bit of black just inside the sprocket holes, but not as much as is on the Dune prints.

This image should help clear things up better. It is the RP91 target overlaid onto a frame of the actual print. The image SHOULD have reached the 0% crop line where the tip of the two blue arrows are to be in compliance with the SMPTE standard.