Cinema Rant

[dortamur]

Why is it so hard for a massive cinema complex to maintain a base quality standard in film audio-visual presentation?

Being Cheapass Tuesday, and currently kid-free, we decided to splurge and blow $20 on "Fast and Furious". We ended up going to Hoyts Carousel, where the screening was in #1 (one of their large La Premier cinemas).

The trailers buzzed

Comments

[angriest]

The biggest problem with the multiplexes is that they don't train their teenage projectionists properly and then put then in charge of as many as 12 projectors at once and expect them to just magically do their job properly.

Cinema projection requires skill and talent - a really good projectionist can focus on maybe four films at once, provided *none of them* start at the same time.

Since I used to manage a cinema, stuff-ups in sound and picture piss me off even more.

[dortamur]

I don't know the particulars of the job, but I would imagine setting sound levels & balance would be something you'd do with an empty cinema, periodically. The projectionist shouldn't have to fiddle with volume dials (for separate channels) every movie, should they?

There was a point where there was sound only out the right, and it could be heard faintly, so it wasn't an absolute no-signal.

[angriest]

If you're doing your job correctly you would check sound levels for every film, because the sound mix for a light romantic comedy is a very different beast to the sound mix for Transformers.

You'd also check the focus length for every print, because depending on the age of the print you need to set your projector to pull it through looser or tighter because 35mm can both stretch a bit after a few screenings as well as grow brittle over time.

The rookie mistake that drives me so crazy that I don't go to Greater Union Innaloo any more is aspect ratio. The number of times I've had to go outside and get an usher to run up to the projectionist and make them change the project from Academy to Scope or vice versa is insane.

[dortamur]

Don't get me started on aspect ratios. ^_^

I haven't seen it much in Cinema theatres though. Mostly on people's new-fangled Widescreen TVs - and those Foxtel demo stations that seem to always show crappy 4:3 content stretched across expensive 16:9 flat-screen TVs.