Cinerama Hollywood

Wow, Mark, sure looks bizarre, doesn’t it? Red masking? Is that a real picture or a simulation of what the masking may have looked like? The red part clearly defines the odd shape caused by the throw angle.

You’re on target about the masking, the further down the picture goes, the more distortion there is, which is why you want to keep the picture closer to the top of the screen than the bottom, and not use the entire width like they try to do now.

Evita looked okay but strange… in order to have a flat screen they needed to bring it forward so far that at least a third of the orchestra level was behind the screen, and and to reduce the keystoning, it was up so high that the only decent place to sit was upstairs. This made the screen feel a little too “in your face.” Not an ideal situation at all.

No I meant the downstairs of the old Warner theatre after it was converted in 68 to the Penthouse/Cinerama/Orleans. They ran regular movies on the Cinerama screen for years until it was torn down about 20 years later. I saw National Lampoon’s Vacation there in its initial run. No picture distortion because the booth was in the back of the auditorium.

Again, don’t blame the screen. Cinerama screens in places like New York, Washington DC, Seattle and Omaha, have all shown standard movies on a reduced area of a Cinerama screen for decades with very popular results. Tilting a curved screen upwards is problematic and doesn’t really solve the problem as much as change it.

Evita’s flat screen happened because Alan Parker freaked out over the throw angle making her coffin looking like a wiener. Disney engineers came in and turned the Dome into a black box. Flat ceiling, flat screen with no curtains, looked like a cheesy multiplex. I was there to see Evita. I can’t tell you how many people went down and peeked behind the flat screen to make sure the curved one was still there.

Except for using a low-gain sheet in place of louvers, the screen at the Dome is a Cinerama screen. Check with American Widescreen Museum http://widescreenmuseum.com/index.htm for more information on Cinerama. There were not really a hard set of specs for the screen. Could be 146 or 126 degrees, curved sides like a cylander or flat sides like a bowtie. A lot depended on the venue.

Later processes like Todd AO and D-150 tried to imitate the Cinerama screen, and AWSM has a neat illustration about D-150 and the areas allowed for each format. You were never supposed to blow up 35mm to the full size of the screen because you lose to much light and sharpness… but the Dome does now, and you can see the result.

As for the current geometric distortion at the Dome, ArcLight’s insistance on using the entire screen for everything magnifies the distortion, and the enormous task of closing up the place to build a new frame with a flatter or tilted screen makes much less sense than simply building another booth in the rear mezzanine where it should be. It could be done in stages without missing a single screening, and the result would be a nearly straight throw to the center of the screen, eliminating any horizon sag. And since a straight line is a shorter distance than a diagonal line, the shorter throw means a brighter sharper picture. Louvers could be put onto the existing screen frame in a couple days if they had the right people working on it. BTW, 3 strip Cinerama hasn’t much problem with horizion sag becaust it’s 3 projectors, aimed directly at left, center and right, so they can stay where they are.

I should’ve added that it probably wouldn’t/doesn’t matter much if the screen in the Dome isn’t technically a Cinerama screen. As long as it’s huge and somewhat curved and the sign on the building says Cinerama then I think Joe Public will be satisifed.

Supposedly the picture at the Dome was worse before the Arclight addition. The focus across the screen wasn’t as uniform as it is now.

Wouldn’t angling the screen upward help as well? How does the projection angle compare to Grauman’s or the Village? Also, for those that were there how did Evita look when the temporary flat screen was put in? Was it hung higher to avoid the distortion?

The thing is that there isn’t a Cinerama screen in the Dome. It’s a D-150, which is too curvy for anything shown on it nowadays.

Mark, as I’ve said, the screen is not the problem, it’s the location of the projector. Taking the CInerama screen out of the Dome would be like taking all the Chinese decoration out of Graumans Chinese. Put another booth in the back of the mezzanine and the picture would be brighter with no dip in the horizon line. Make the screen out of properly aligned louvers and the brightness and contrast would be much better. But Pacific/ArcLight folks just don’t think that way.

JS is the onePacific/ArcLight folks should be listening to. I’ve met RB as well. Just don’t ask him what ArcLight means…

Hey, I have an Arclight shirt around here somewhere. ;–)

I’m curious what advice Cinerama enthusiasts were suggesting. A proper strip screen would elminate the cross reflections, of course.

Pacific doesn’t want the Cinerama name and brand, they think the ArcLight brand is going to be as popular as The Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood. Delusional, huh? With only one or two exceptions, (good people who aren’t given enough clout by the owners) the Pacific/Arclight folks in currently charge have never had any knowledge, interest or respect for the Cinerama name or the process.

Actually the CInerama stuff sold just fine. They really took a bath on the ArcLight branded merchandise, because really, who cares about that name?. Cinerama is one of the more recognizable names in entertainment history, and it actully means something, while the ArcLight name (“borrowed” from a foreign theatre chain that sued Pacific over it) means nothing. Ask one of the employees what ArcLight means. They have no idea. I once asked someone in middle management there, and the answer was comically clueless.

Adding the 3 Cinerama projectors was not corporate Pacific’s idea at all, it was the result of much prodding from Cinerama enthusiasts, and Pacific chose to ignore much of the expert advice about how to get a good picture on the Cinerama screen, which is why movies at the Dome are generaly dim and fuzzy.

Seattle and Pacific aren’t the ones who wanted to restore any or all of the Cinerama movies, and they aren’t willing to pay for it all. And by the way. none of the films has been “restored” They just struck new prints of two features and that’s all. The costs were shared by special arrangements. Again it was the Cinerama enthusiasts (many of whom are employed in entertainment and know how to do it right) that prodded these theatres into doing what’s been done so far, and both theatres' execs resisted fully installing the screen and process, so the screen image in both Seattle and the Dome are not as effective as they could be.

If Seattle execs really cared for Cinerama, they would have listened to the experts and permanantly installed a proper Cinerama screen (with the strips anchored to the front) instead of rolling it up behind a flatter screen. Their designers were so enthralled with making that showy new ceiling that they neglected to allow for the full size of the Cinerama screen. The ceiling obsturcts part of the picture, so the screen has to be masked down from its full picture size because of the ceiling.

The Cinerama name and process was not really being kept alive by the corporations in charge of Pacific or Seattle, it was some vocal and resourceful enthusiasts and experts who prodded both into action, and in both cases their expert advice was not fully carried out and the installations are compromised.

Cinerama inc. is a very small division of Pacific, and has maybe a three person staff consisting of the two experts mentioned before and a secretary. Again these are good people who know showmanship, and if they were in charge of things, the Cinerama Dome experience (and the rest of the theatres) would be far superior to what it is today. The execs only listen to money.

The ArcLight is running “Hairspray” Sing-A-Long version now. Enjoy!

Mark, actually the El Cap did not discontinue the curtain show. All 3 curtains are still there, I’ve seen them all used in the usual manner within the past few months, and the management has confirmed they’re all still in operation. The curtain opening is preprogrammed, and if they have the screen in front of one of the curtains (as was the case for a couple of the 3-D features) or the stage show set precludes use of all three curtains, if one of them is being cleaned or replaced, or whatever, then they can’t do it. The Pirate movies had their own curtain show, (and their own curtain).

I never said I despise ArcLight, just that they don’t live up to their hype. One is just as likely to be bothered by inconsiderate people there as anywhere else, and though they make a big show of staying inside to check on things, they really don’t monitor the audience for disturbances, even when they are in there. The new seats AMC put into Universal are way more comfortable than ArcLight’s. (though the new Uni lobby is hideous) For the record, ArcLight happens to be the closest plex to me.

Mark, I know what you mean about the Bruin, but the Majestic Crest is designed opulence from the marquee to the screen, so it beats the hell out of the Bruin. Disney has no need to notice the Crest’s presentation… their El Capitan has a great opening curtain and light show… by the same designer as the Majestic Crest. The Crest is an example of what Joe Musil could do without interference from the Mouse Factory.

And speaking of the ultimate curtain show, Me. Musil’s Musem of Theatrical Design in Santa Ana has a theatre with something like a dozen curtains! Makes the El Cap look like a puppet show. The Crest/Hairspray page you were were looking at has a link to his website. He’s ahveing a show Saturday with clips from movie musicals, and his museum has an entire wall dedicated to designing and outfittng the Crest.

Hwd9, I am no expert but I can recognize fake audience surrounds (it was one of the first surround sound I ever heard decades ago) I have to warn you that the last time ArcLight’s zero decor “Black Box” showed GREASE (with Director Randal Kleiser present) either the print was flat mono (highly unlikely) or the surrounds weren’t even turned on. Sounded like loud mono. Part of the problem is most of the “black boxes” are wider than they are long, so the surrounds are probably too far apart to be noticed. Just don’t expect much from GREASE.

ArcLight is just SO FAR away from being what they say they are…. but more of that will surface elsewhere later.