Cinerama Hollywood

And yet, as an 18 year old who was not a professional projectionist… I was great at the job (which, btw, was in addition to assistant managing). When building prints I used tricks like overlapping a sliver of the heads and tails of a reel so that you didn’t get audible pops out of the optical soundtrack. I’d use clear tape for reel change and apply a sliver of colored tape outside the sprocket holes so that you didn’t get dropouts in sound or black flashes on screen at reel changes. I insisted on tracking down the DTS cd-roms for Jurassic Park when we ran it a year later before the VHS and LaserDisc release so that we could be one of the only ones running it in 6-track digital during it’s re-release in late 94. I also insisted we put it in our largest theater (which was about 600 seats with a vary large screen) and I made sure we ran the curtains appropriately. We did about 40% of the city’s entire Jurassic business that week.

I’ve seen many a brain wrap at the hands of union projectionists. We had a union projectionist build up Exorcist 3 with reels 3&4 swapped and nobody noticed until Monday afternoon. When I saw The Rocketeer at Arclight a few years ago (it was reel to reel), every other reel was mono (which the projectionist never fixed despite several complaints from me). I was told that they unfortunately had reels from a mono print as well as a stereo print, but anyone who knows anything about optical tracks (especially circa 91) knows that’s not how it works. A “professional” projectionist would surely know that, right? Oh, and take a guess where the only place I’ve ever had a problem with digital projection is?? The Arclight- Once when the projector was flashing purple digital blocks during a screening of Paranorman and once when they had to reboot the projector for whatever reason and start over. So even the underpaid Arclight projectionists there to “handle problems” can’t always seem to.

Quality and presentation has nothing to do with your job title and everything to do with your passion and drive. If the presentation quality of these theaters has deteriorated, it really has very little to do with the job title of the people in the booth and more about the types of people they’re putting in that booth.

Like I said, projectionists the past 20 years have really been more about keeping schedules than anything else. Now, with everything as automated as it is, that responsibility is becoming evermore unnecessary. Should theaters be expected to pay more for someone on site just on the off chance that they might someday have a problem that needs fixing immediately? There’s no more prints to be built, there’s no more projector threading, there’s no more reels to be rewound, there’s no cleaning of projectors between every show. While I understand your romanticism of the projectionist as a symbol of movie-going (I really get it), it’s an increasingly outdated concept (as is the Pony Express).

I’m a special features producer for DVD and Blu-ray and as I’ve seen the market change and the demand for my job shift, I’d had reevaluate my role and decide how to adapt to make myself relevant (and successful) in the future. These guys seem to be clinging to Interstellar as a last hurrah to better their situation because they know it’s their LAST hurrah, for better or worse. It is what it is.

And the idea of putting the theater managers out to pasture because of lack of business is just dumb. 2013 set a new record of $10.9 BILLION in North America and while this year is going to be down (but not by much overall… less than half a billion at this point), next year will, in all likelihood, be even bigger and almost certainly break $11 billion.

Yes United Artist was big on hiring 18 year old kid’s with no experience to thread projectors and push the start button. Where are the United Artist theaters now? Gone just like quality presentation. Focus, framing, presentation all became things of the past when they hired kids with no experience. AMC did the same they had one 18 year old running 20 screens. Digital has not brought the quality that was promised. Most AMC theaters have issues with sound and picture and more now with the digital projectors. All the AMC theaters in Santa Monica have had problems for years. Blown sound channels etc. The baby boom (sub woofer) channel is blown in most theaters. If they need maintenance and technical people why don’t they hire them? Because the theater owners claim to care but in reality they don’t. There are qualified people who could do the maintenance but they don’t hire them.

The presentation picture and sound at the Arclight is very good and the projectionists help keep the quality high. Projectionists do more than just run the projectors they should maintain and repair the equipment. They should go from theater to theater checking sound and picture. Fixing any problem that comes up. Of course when there is a problem you could always wait hours for a technician to show up if the tech is even available. Yes the job has changed a lot the projectionist now has to be a technician and quality control person. Most theater owners have let the quality of their product get so bad people would rather stay at home. The poor presentation in most theaters is just another reason for the distributors to release their films on pay for view. Most people would rather watch the movie at home instead of paying to go see a dim picture and hear bad sound. So in reference to your pony express comment; we can count on putting all the thousands of managers out to pasture when most of the cinemas close because of lack of business because that’s where the business is going.

low pay, 12 bucks an hour and no benefits

and in IMAX 70mm at the Chinese. I’ll have to see it at the Chinese. I won’t go to the Dome until they settle their dispute with the projectionist. I have been waiting to see an IMAX movie at the Chinese since the redo.

Maybe there were exceptions but souvenir programs were a part of being a road show. Even road shows with general seating had the program.

Hello From NYC-

I refer to the Oct. 1955 opening of Oklahoma to the Dec. 1972 opening of Man of La Mancha as the prime roadshow period. so from its opening Nov. 1963 to when the roadshow policy was discontinued the Dome hosted many a reserved seat engagement. to which my question- can anyone remember a roadshow engagement at the Dome that did not have a souvenir program?

Thirty-five years ago today, the Cinerama Dome was among three North American theaters to open Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” in a reserved-performance, guaranteed-seat exclusive engagement. A 35th anniversary retrospective article was posted today at The Digital Bits.

Roger, I agree with you 100% which is why I was so disappointed. The problem is not the screen but rather what arclight has done to diminish the affects of the curve. The issue is the masking on the bottom corners of the screen.

Yes, the Cinerama Dome opened with Mad World in Ultra-Panavision the print being a single 70mm strand with 6 channels of mag sound on the print. The screen has a medium curve. I don’t know the exact angle. Not as curved as the original Cinerama or Todd-AO screens but the screen at the Dome is curved.

Some people hate it and to those who do I would suggest they just go see the film in another theater. There are loads of flat screens in the city. The screen at the Dome does not bother me even the mild distortion that some presentations have. I have seen films at the Dome for over twenty years. When A Million Ways to Die in the West was moved from the Dome to a Smaller theater I decided to wait and watch it in my home theater when it comes to DVD in a week or so. I don’t have a curved screen in my home theater but if someone would find me an anamorphic adapter I would install a curved screen. Some people hate curved screens and some people love the curved screen. I have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey at the Dome and at the Egyptian (flat screen) and it looked much better on the curved screen at the Dome.

The best curved screen was at Grauman’s Chinese in early 90’s. It was a very shallow curve and no one ever complained about that curved screen. I don’t think most people even knew it was curved.

actually the movie was x men dofp not xmen first class.

I finally made it back to the Dome last night after spending most movie weekends since last fall/summer at the Chinese or the Village (or the new Prime AMC Burbank). They finally were showing something I wanted to see that was not in 3D, X-Men FC. Wow, how depressing it was. The masking that they “fixed” the screen with last summer is even worse now. It is as if the screen looks like it is smiling, with the bottom right and left sides of the masking pulled up about 5 feet on either end. The screen looks small and distorted. It is as if you walked into a carved up theater from the 80’s where the screens didn’t really fit the space but they jammed them in.

It wasn’t that crowded so I walked around trying to find the sweet spot and couldn’t find it. From every part of the theater you can see how distorted the screen is. I guess they are trying to diminish the curve, but isnt that why we come to the Dome, to see a giant curved screen? It was hard to tell, but I cannot imagine it to be bigger then 70 feet now. I know it is supposed to be 86 feet wide, but that has got to be used only for 70mm showings such as when I saw IAMMMMW in fall ‘12. It is so bad (IMO) that the screen they used for Evita (when they put a flat screen in front of the curved screen) looked way better then what I saw last night.

I went out and complained and the manager told me that they had to do that since they “no longer show 3 projector movies anymore as they used to when they opened”. I sighed and walked away.

Anybody catch “JFK” in the Dome this past Tuesday night? If so, do tell.