8mm Forum: Is it time to bring back the projectionist ?

This is topic Is it time to bring back the projectionist ? in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 27, 2015, 08:05 PM:

Interesting article for enthusiastic cinephiles. Please don't fight over it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/digital-christopher-nolan-quentin-tarantino/ [Eek!]

Posted by Steven J Kirk (Member # 1135) on October 27, 2015, 08:57 PM:

Great article in fact. And let's not forget the curtains, either...

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 28, 2015, 02:26 AM:

I am afraid when 35mm was sent to the scrap, most projectionists went with it [Frown]

I hate saying this, but the film companies, the exhibitors and about 99% of the folk that go to the cinema really don't give a "hoot" about film. Film companies and exhibitors are only interested in one thing ...$$$$$$....so these days I guess "film" is only really produced for actual filming or archive work, but not for 35mm projection in a cinema... sadly those days have well and truly gone. [Frown]

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 28, 2015, 03:46 AM:

A digital print will not get scratched.
As I understand it, some cinemas with many screens still employ projectionists, otherwise the extra load on management for down-loading would be overwhelming.

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on October 28, 2015, 07:35 AM:

Have to agree with Graham -- we have to face today's reality. Ultimately, it has to make sense business- and economics-wise (as it should).

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on October 28, 2015, 07:45 AM:

Sometimes in our anti-digital statements, we may forget the 70's..film still in flower, but presentation was abandoned...even worse than now. Large cinema's divided and subdivided ...screens shrunken....sound leaking from the adjoining theater....films out of focus...shown with the wrong lenses. Curtains? A trivial matter. Films scratched and dirty with terrible mono soundtracks. Seats ...dirty and uncomfortable. Pre-made popcorn that was in worse shape and harder for the viewer to digest than the films themselves.

With today's well designed theaters...and, in many cases, excellent, but expensive, food....I find going to the movies a much more pleasurable than in those dark 70's.

True...I prefer the brightness and quality of a film presentation and I do love the very few theaters for which showmanship is important, but things are better than they were at one time.
And...running theaters and making films was,is and always will be a business, and the people in the business are IN business to make money. If they don't make money, there WILL be no theaters and no movies to watch.

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on October 28, 2015, 08:25 AM:

Very well said, Gary! -- couldn't agree with you more.

Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on October 28, 2015, 11:46 AM:

Hi Gary

totally agree - and very well summed up by observation (especially my experience of the late 70's in the U.K....curtains were non-existent...I remember this awful " kaleidoscopic colour wheel" that used to be projected on the white screen before performances..horrible [Wink]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 28, 2015, 01:17 PM:

"A digital print will not get scratched."

While true, where is the fun in that? I see a film digitally, I know it's digital ... period.

Digital has it's own place, like everything else ... in a landfill!

(haha! OK, I'm just kidding, simmer down all of you digital lovers!)

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 28, 2015, 06:46 PM:

"A digital print wont get scratched" [Roll Eyes]

"A film print wont get scratched either", if its looked after [Big Grin]

In the past we sometimes would screen a film for months...the longest I can remember was about 5 months, without any scratches showing up. If a cinema employ people who care about film not to damage it, plus have good clean projection equipment that have regular maintenance, 35mm film can run forever. [Cool]

...even on a 87 year old projector [Wink]

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 28, 2015, 07:47 PM:

Cinema curtains oh how I hate them and it is personal. I remember when was I building my home cinema I was convinced against my better judgement to install motorised curtains and footlights. Most home cinemas have them and watching armchair odeon cinemas I remember some collector even had seven sets of curtains at his set up. At first, I experimented with a pulley system which was not successful . Eventually I gave in to temptation and bought a spondon electric curtain motor unit or a £150 odd hernia unit as I called it. I weighed a ton like a old car battery only smaller. It's was a bollocks to install but somehow I did eventually get it to work properly. At the start, it behaved itself very well with only occasionally non opening or once opened it started a bungee job noise that wouldn't settle until I ran out to adjust it not really the showmanship experience. Fact is it would always be fine when there was just me only playing up when I had an audience. I got the better of it by opening it and just turning off the power socket
but of course when you turned the power on at the end of a show it never performed or had a seizure by grinding away in the background.

Anyway when I was remodelling for installing the Epson I needed a bigger screen which left no room for anything except for dummy curtains . I had to uninstall Christine (my pet name) for her!! I had thoughts of resale on eBay but unfortunately I had screwed her in too well and by the time I had lifted her heavy ass out she had a few blemishes and marks and was beyond sale and considering her unreliability a mercy killing was the only option.

Even hitting her with a big sledge hammer didn't do her much harm . It made me feel good! I believe the bin truck had a little indigestion that week.

Anyway I am curtain less in my present set up and to all you curtainphiles out there. I don't give a damn! [Big Grin]

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 29, 2015, 02:14 AM:

Mike

I remember that chap from the Armchair Odeon days.....those seven curtains opening to a certain sequence was to say the least, very impressive. [Eek!]

There was a collector here who used to have motorized curtains and when the film finished they closed on you so quick [Big Grin]

you didn't want to get in there way that's for sure. It always made me smile though as if to say that's it folks..."wham"...The End.... [Eek!]

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 29, 2015, 04:22 AM:

Hi Graham

It's funny but by accident more than design I avoided the speed issues most collectors had with curtain motors. I had opted for red velvet curtains rather than the light flimsy designs so by pure chance the weight of the curtains I chose I got the speed right. It did however cause the tension problems I encountered which could really have only been resolved by remodelling the auditorium and moving a stud wall by about six inches which might have resolved the motor issues.

I was alway told I dimmed the footlights too quickly but I never had the time and they looked okay to me. [Big Grin]

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 29, 2015, 09:20 AM:

When the trend for cinemas without curtains became a trend I thought the screens looked so blank, these days I have got used to the idea although after the organ had been played it was nice to hear it at the curtains opened.

Smiling at you digital post Osi!

My oldest 8mm B&W Derann feature from the 70's has survived well probably as we check everything before we start a show. [Cool]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 29, 2015, 11:02 AM:

Digital may be scratchless, but I have over 70 year old film in my collection, on standard 8mm and otherwise, and I can still play them and except for the occasional "scratch", they can still be enjoyed just as much as when they were first screened ...

How much do you want to bet that there won't be a single DVD, Bluray or videotape that I'll be able to enjoy much beyond 30 years? In fact, far less time, (though I do have a few palmcorder VHSC that are still playable, with lines, oops, what was I thinkin?g ... SCRATCHES!!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 29, 2015, 11:14 AM:

Time will come someday that you will not be able to collect "films" on digital.

You won't own media at all. If you want to see a movie or hear a song you will pay a fee to stream it and have nothing but the memory until you pay again. (-for a change it will be NICE to have a song stuck in your head!)

I think there will always be broadcast radio because you don't want to spend a half hour putting together a playlist before you drive to work, but it will certainly change broadcast television. There has to be news of course, but you won't turn on the 'tube and ask "What's on?", but instead "What's available?" and get to choose what you see from a vast menu.

Kind of scary if you make your living from a given TV show: you aren't competing against other shows in a time slot anymore, but potentially every show that has ever existed!

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on October 29, 2015, 02:06 PM:

I haven`t been to the cinema since 2001 and for the years before that, I was the only person who generally went to ask them to focus the film, and scope ones were a nightmare, in at the edges or the middle of the film, but never both.

I used to go and sit back down, and maybe 1 out of five times they would put it right if you were lucky, or even make it worse one of the odd times they bothered !!!

There never seemed to be a realisation that after the adverts and trailers and at the start of the film the focus needed re-setting up, or being checked periodically through the show.

I think the very best thing they could and should do now is shoot in 65/70mm negative and then take that to digital.

The meld of the large film gauge benifits and look and digital would be brilliant and make any screening even digital superb, and blu rays etc even better.

A great Harmony of both film and digital.

I`m surprised its not happening. Superb film backed origins and lovely in focus images !!!

Best Mark.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 29, 2015, 11:26 PM:

https://vimeo.com/37568683

Posted by Paul Barker (Member # 4318) on October 30, 2015, 02:28 AM:

loved that little clip.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on October 30, 2015, 05:10 AM:

Films with a scratch can still be enjoyed, a digital file that gets badly corrupted can be impossible to show at all. As that article says maintaining a film for decades as a file can cost a lot more than keeping a film.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on October 30, 2015, 12:36 PM:

Brian's comments remind me of that trnd from about 20 or less years back, that still continues today ...

You'll have family that will bring they're standard 8mm and super 8mm films to a telecine "expert" and then, after having them put on a DVD, will toss the films!

... but then, alas, most or all of these people are never informed, (as there are dollars to be made), that a DVD, even the best of them, have a limited life span. Even the best of DVD's (that are supposed to be good for, what, 100 years?), can only remain that way under certain circumstances and storage.

Quite frankly, I don't see how those estimates for long life DVD's can be accurate, as there is no real way to gauge that.
Different "ingredients" which make up a DVD, decay at different rates, (much like the Cyan layer on Eastman prints, GRRRR!), so, even if the rest of the DVD would be fine, one element decays quicker, and the DVD will not play.

There are quite a few DVD's in my collection (soon to be tossed, as soon as I find out as to whether the "data" on them can be rescued), major studio DVD's, that are pristine, not a mark on them, no bad storage (humidity ect), and yet, they won't play.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 30, 2015, 03:53 PM:

quote:
There are quite a few DVD's in my collection (soon to be tossed, as soon as I find out as to whether the "data" on them can be rescued), major studio DVD's, that are pristine, not a mark on them, no bad storage (humidity ect), and yet, they won't play.

Exactly Osi, and its called 'Disc Rot', and it can happen almost overnight. A perfect playing DVD one day, that refuses to play the next. I have had many in my collection, all from the major studios, and some only 5 years old.

Posted by Mark Todd (Member # 96) on October 30, 2015, 05:28 PM:

Can`t say I`ve ever had any dvds, like that, bar ones that were mispressed or whatever from new and pulled.

I wonder if blu ray is more resliliant, they are scratch wise better in that sense.

I ahve had many memory stick issues though.

Best Mark.

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 30, 2015, 05:41 PM:

I have had bad DVDs that didn't work from day 1 and burned DVDs usually with labels stuck on that have caused problems but I have yet to have a bought DVD that worked initially and failed on me or rotted. I did hear similar stories 20 years ago that videos would instantly turn to dust after 20 years but recently transferred a lot of film documentaries from video to DVD. One being a South Bank show on Walt Disney and another on Stan Laurel from 1987 and 1988 without any problems. I remember reading one time that 50% of all films ever made before 1950 have already been lost and 25-30% of films made after 1950 have either been lost or been allowed to decay. Even Star Wars had significant damage to it and had to be restored before it could be rereleased to cinemas for the 25th anniversary in 2002.

Maybe that why Hollywood keeps remaking movies they know something we dont know!

I will keep you posted when I get my first DVD rot. I also have some woodworm in my basement but whilst I treated it my father in law says it will never goes away but not to worry as I will be horizontal by the time it becomes a problem.

On this happy note Happy Halloween!

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 30, 2015, 06:41 PM:

I have had bad DVDs that didn't work from day 1 and burned DVDs usually with labels stuck on that have caused problems but I have yet to have a bought DVD that worked initially and failed on me or rotted. I did hear similar stories 20 years ago that videos would instantly turn to dust after 20 years but recently transferred a lot of film documentaries from video to DVD. One being a South Bank show on Walt Disney and another on Stan Laurel from 1987 and 1988 without any problems. I remember reading one time that 50% of all films ever made before 1950 have already been lost and 25-30% of films made after 1950 have either been lost or been allowed to decay. Even Star Wars had significant damage to it and had to be restored before it could be rereleased to cinemas for the 25th anniversary in 2002.

Maybe that why Hollywood keeps remaking movies they know something we dont know!

I will keep you posted when I get my first DVD rot. I also have some woodworm in my basement but whilst I treated it my father in law says it will never goes away but not to worry as I will be horizontal by the time it becomes a problem.

On this happy note Happy Halloween!

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on October 30, 2015, 11:07 PM:

I always thought curtains were to protect the screen from being damaged by some of us unruly theater goers. I remember popcorn used to be in a box-like container, not like the round tubs of today. Once the popcorn was done we would fold the box and throw them across the theater. BAD BOYS! I actually miss Technicolor prints when the color was dripping off the screen, many Doris Day-Rock Hudson movies were Tech, and black and white movies. And I mean real black and white on black and white film. None of that today. I find the digital projection is not as colorful as it was in the past.

Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on October 31, 2015, 05:33 AM:

Hi all

never experienced "DVD" rot...at all.

I am currently playing DVD's and recorded DVD's from well over 10 years plus...no problems or issues at all, EVER with any of them. And I own thousands. Some from the very time they first released DVD - all play perfectly...

If they are well looked after I cannot see how it can happen - so Osi if it is "true" as you say - and you do make me chuckle with your "insightful" and knowing posts ...it must be just bad luck on your part if you are having to dumps DVD's "pristine" etc, that do not work! But there is no way can you make a statement as to how long "DVD" disc will last.

Also just to add. I believe that whilst the world is turning to streaming video, etc. We will, certainly for a long time be able to buy and own "hard" copy movies and media - whether DVD or another version, etc.

[Smile]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 31, 2015, 10:33 AM:

If I recall correctly, DVD Rot is caused by oxidation of the reflective layer of the disc. To make the discs as cheap as possible, manufacturers use an aluminum reflective coating on the disc. But of course aluminum gradually oxidizes and becomes dull, non-reflective, aluminum oxide. There is a very thin transparent plastic layer over the disc for protection, but oxygen molecules can still permeate through that layer. So its all a matter of how long it takes to oxidize, but eventually all discs with aluminum reflective coatings will fail. The answer is to use a gold reflective surface, but that would up the price of discs tremendously.
If the surface of the disc looks like a coffee stain, it is a sure sign that disc rot has started.

Posted by Mark Silvester (Member # 929) on October 31, 2015, 11:45 AM:

Hi Paul

thanks for the info.

10 years plus ...and still going with not one occasion is great by me...and I will be quite happy to pay another £5 - 10 in the future...should/if it happens. Everything will break down eventually as we know...It is just that I don't quite get Osi's..."apparent" issues [Wink]

Posted by Mike Newell (Member # 23) on October 31, 2015, 12:20 PM:

Reading the DVD / Blu Ray forums on this issue it has been discussed with some experiencing DVD rot whilst most haven't. The problem seems to be in the manufacture process rather than the product itself with Universal and Liongate releases being identified as culprits. Rates quoted as being affected vary from 0.1% to 1%. Storage, sunlight temperature variations and fingerprints are mentioned as possible reasons for non playing. Longtivity is generally given as 30 to 45 years on average.

Media discs have actually been around from late 1960s but only started being used commercially from 1995. I don't think Rod Taylor with his talking discs in "The Time Machine " counts lol. His technique is sadly lacking.

As Mark says, if I identify a DVD as not playing I would simply replace.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on October 31, 2015, 12:50 PM:

And of course Osi was referring to DVD-Rs which are dye based. They are burnt using a laser and if left out in sunlight the become unplayable as the rest of the dye reacts to the light.

Some of the pressed DVDs to rot were due to bad sealing of the "sandwich" of the aluminium between the plastic layers.

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