Mobile screening room with DP75 for film print dailies on location

[Jonathan Smiles]

Christopher Nolan's latest Tenet shot on 65mm 5perf and 15perf IMAX. A new mobile screening room fitted with a DP75 was used on location for film print dailies projecting on a Harkness coated white screen just over 8ft wide. The booth was quite snug with the DP75 having it's full size lamp housing.

Another DP75 was modified to break down into 4 flight cases for use in larger temporary venues. A Sondor 35mm is another option.

I am involved with the screening room when in digital mode with a colleague looking after it in film mode, but I am getting lessons to project film!

The website currently shows the mobile screening room in digital mode with a Barco 4K HDX P3 PQ HDR Xenon projector, will update thread when film mode pics are added.
https://www.duntonpfx.com/screening-room

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

A DP-75 would be my last choice for location screening. Its a pig of a projector and not really all that good of a projector with that funky gate. I'd have used a Century JJ with a SN of less than 500 as those were the best ones. Its light weight and actually far steadier than a DP-75 is.

Mark

[Greg Routenburg]

I always liked the DP75. Having said that, I only ever ran them with 35mm. If the gate parts didn't get too worn, they put out a very reasonable picture.

[Steve Guttag]

Got some numbers to back up your steadiness claims Mr. G? The DP75 was certainly not Kinoton's best offering (yet is essentially the mechanism that Ballantyne copied). The pad shoes were...well...what were they thinking? It is clearly a machine where someone took the 35 -> 70 swap (or vice-versa) as the MOST IMPORTANT thing. Or perhaps format changes in general and everything else takes a lower priority. It certainly has the best spindle exchange mechanism of all time (takes about a second and is rock solid). Gate/trap swap done is a couple of seconds...that pad thingys also a second or so and the lens shift was a push/tug of the "I'm gonna cut your arm if you get too close tab." The picture steadiness was surprisingly good in spite of its gate/trap design. The framing coupling, like most mechanical Kinoton projectors is the biggest contributor to vertical steadiness. I was also not a fan of putting the mag tracks against the film stabilizers.

For portable work, I would agree with Mark (shocker) that a Century JJ would be FAR easier to move about. The column of the DP75 is so tall that it doesn't fit most elevators when on a smallish dolly so moving them can be a challenge (and leang them back on an appliance truck also makes them hard to fit elevators. They are also heavy to move. With the Century, you break it down to its bite-sized manageable pieces.

[Sean McKinnon]

I would use a JJ or if you were going to lug around something large then a MP/SP 75E