The Dying of the Light

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/05/the_dying_of_the_light.html

 Roger Ebert's Journal <http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/>
  The dying of the light
 By Roger Ebert on May 24, 2011 9:46 PM | 42
Comments<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/05/the_dying_of_the_light.html#comments>

[image: 1 scream
14.jpg]<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2011/05/1%20scream%20%2014-35028.html>Do
you remember what a movie should look like? Do you notice when one doesn't
look right? Do you feel the vague sense that something is missing? I do. I
know in my bones how a movie should look. I have been trained by the best
projection in the world, at film festivals and in expert screening rooms.
When I see a film that looks wrong, I want to get up and complain to the
manager and ask that the projectionist be informed. But these days the
projectionist is tending a dozen digital projectors, and I will be told,
"That's how it's supposed to look. It came that way from the studio."
 The most common flaw is that the picture is not bright enough. I've been
seeing that for a long time. In the years before digital projectors, the
problem was often that tight-fisted theater owners weren't setting the Xenon
bulbs in their projectors at the correct wattage, in the mistaken belief
that dialing them down would extend the life of the expensive bulbs.


Not true. If you ran a 3000W bulb at 2000W, you'd extend its life by all of
2.3 percent. Yet when Martin Scorsese used people around the country to
actually check theater brightness, he found *most* of the theaters involved
were showing an underlit image. An Eastman Kodak spokesman told me in the
late 1990s: "The irony is that their only real achievement is to cheat the
customers."


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That was then. This is now. Driven by a mania to abandon celluloid in favor
of digital, increasing numbers of chains are installing 3D-ready digital
projectors. As everyone can tell simply by taking off their 3D glasses, the
process noticeably reduces the visible light from the screen. I got emails
from readers saying the night scenes in "Pirates of the Caribbean" were so
dim they were annoying.

Ah, but what if you saw the movie in 2D? As it happens, a lot of people did;
Gitesh Pandya of BoxOfficeGuru.com reported: "less than half of the Pirates
weekend gross came from 3D screens, with more opting for the 2D version." He
attributes that to moviegoers being "cautious with their dollars." After the
weekend, David Poland of MovieCityNews.com ran the numbers and determined
60% of sales were in 2D and 40% in 3D: "Not only is this a clear rejection
of 3D on a major movie, but given how distribution is currently designed, it
makes you wonder whether Disney cost themselves a lot of gross by putting
their film on too high a percentage of 3D screens."


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There may have been a reason consumers shied away from 3D. An expertly
written article by Ty Burr in the Boston Globe reports that some 3D
projectors, particularly those made by Sony, produce "gloomy, underlit"
images of 2D films. His article must have hit a nerve; and I've seen it
posted and referred to all over the web. The newspaper found dark images on
eight of the 19 screens at the high-end AMC Loews Boston Common on Tremont
Street.

Burr wrote: "This particular night 'Limitless,' 'Win Win,' and 'Source Code'
all seemed strikingly dim and drained of colors. 'Jane Eyre,' a film shot
using candles and other available light, appeared to be playing in a crypt.
A visit to the Regal Fenway two weeks later turned up similar issues: 'Water
for Elephants' and 'Madea's Big Happy Family' were playing in brightly lit
35mm prints and, across the hall, in drastically darker digital versions."
His observations indicated the problems centered on Sony projectors:
"Digital projection can look excellent when presented correctly. Go into
Theater 14 at the Common, newly outfitted with a Christie 4K projector, and
you'll see a picture that is bright and crisp, if somewhat colder than
celluloid."


[image: 4 midnight-in-paris-movie.jpg]<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2011/05/4%20midnight-in-paris-movie-35037.html>


He says there is a reason for this: "Many theater managers have made a
practice of leaving the 3D lenses on the projectors when playing a 2D film."
The result is explained by an anonymous projectionist: "For 3D showings a
special lens is installed in front of a Sony digital projector that rapidly
alternates the two polarized images needed for the 3D effect to work. When
you're running a 2D film, that polarization device has to be taken out of
the image path. If they're not doing that, it's crazy, because you've got a
big polarizer that absorbs 50 percent of the light.''


*Fifty percent! * It can be worse than that. I quote: "Chapin Cutler, a
cofounder of the high-end specialty projection company Boston Light & Sound,
estimates that a film projected through a Sony with the 3D lens in place and
other adjustments not made can be as much as 85 percent darker than a
properly projected film." Your best bet is apparently to (1) find a theater
that doesn't use digital at all, (2) doesn't use Sony projectors, or (3)
still projects light through celluloid the traditional way.


[image: 5 bridesmaids-photo-cast3.jpg]<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2011/05/5%20bridesmaids-photo-cast3-35040.html>


Digital projectors have been force-fed to theaters by an industry hungry for
the premium prices it can charge for 3D films. As I've been arguing for a
long time, this amounts to charging you more for an inferior picture. The
winners are the manufacturers of the expensive machines, and the film
distributors. The hapless theaters still depend on concession sales to such
a degree that a modern American theater can be described as a value-added
popcorn stand.

I have an email from a Hollywood professional who writes me: "During the
last awards season, I went to an Industry screening of 'The Social Network'
at Sony Studios, in their James Stewart facility -- what they said was their
best screening room. The movie looked dark and muddy; truly awful. Then I
looked back and saw that the picture was emanating from a twin-lens rig.
After the show, I complained to the projectionist about the image. He
explained that the process of shifting both the lens and changing the silver
screen to a white matter screen, which they were equipped to do, was too
time-consuming. So he told me that his supervisor authorized showing the
movie to Academy voters through the 3D lens, which looked like shit. And
this is at Sony Studios. Just imagine how bad it is in the real world. It is
as if the Industry is courting self-destruction."

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Sony refused to comment on the Boston Globe article. At my recent Ebertfest,
one seasoned director called the projection in the 90-year old Virginia
Theater in Urbana-Champaign "the best I've ever seen." That's because we use
two of the best projectionists in the nation, James Bond, who consults on
high-level projection facilities, and Steve Kraus, of Chicago's Lake Street
Screening Room.

Ty Burr writes: "So why aren't theater personnel simply removing the 3-D
lenses? The answer is that it takes time, it costs money, and it requires
technical know-how above the level of the average multiplex employee. James
Bond, a Chicago-based projection guru who serves as technical expert for
Roger Ebert's Ebertfest, said issues with the Sonys are more than
mechanical. Opening the projector alone involves security clearances and
Internet passwords, 'and if you don't do it right, the machine will shut
down on you.' The result, in his view, is that 'often the lens change isn't
made and audiences are getting shortchanged'."

[image: 7 fast506.jpg]<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2011/05/7%20fast506-35046.html>

The problem isn't with all digital projectors, and seems most common with
the new Sony 4K projectors, which has lenses too difficult to adjust for
most of the (semi-skilled) multiplex projectionists. It is possible to
project a high-quality digital image, and I've often seen that done. But
only if theaters insist on it, and manufacturers like Sony make changes
allowing their lenses to be changed as needed.

The movie industry feels under threat these days from DVDs, cable movies on
demand, a dozen streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Fandor and Mubi, and
competition from video games. Decades ago, it felt a similar danger from
radio (it introduced talkies) and television (it introduced wide-screen).
The irony today is that it hopes to rescue itself with 3D, which is not an
improvement but a step back in quality. The fact that more people wanted to
see "Pirates" in 2D than 3D is stunning. The fact that 3D projectors in some
theaters are producing murky and dim 2D pictures makes me very unhappy.


[image: 8 pirates.jpg]<http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/assets_c/2011/05/8%20pirates-35049.html>


I began by asking if you notice, *really notice,* what a movie looks like. I
have a feeling many people don't. They buy their ticket, they get their
popcorn and they obediently watch what is shown to them. But at some level
there is a difference. They feel it in their guts. The film should have a
brightness, a crispness and sparkle that makes an impact. It should look
like a *movie! *-- not a mediocre big-screen television.

When people don't have a good time at the movies, they're slower to come
back. I can't tell you how many comments on my blog have informed me that
the writers enjoy a "better picture" at home on their big-screen TVs with
Blu-ray discs. This should not be true. Nobody at Ebertfest confused the
experience with sitting at home and watching a video. A movie should leap
out and zap you, not recede into itself and get lost in dimness.

I despair. This is a case of Hollywood selling its birthright for a message
of pottage. If as much attention were paid to exhibition as to marketing,
that would be an investment in the future. People would fall back in love
with the movies. Short-sighted, technically illiterate penny-pinchers are
wounding a great art form.

¶

*What can you personally do to be sure you see an ideal picture? Matthew
Humpries at Geek.com <http://www.geek.com/> writes: *
*

• The title of the movie listed by the theater will have a "D" after it if
it is being shown on a digital projector

• If you are in a D movie, look at the projector window when seated. If you
see two stacked beams of light it is a Sony projector with the 3D lens still
on.

• A single beam of light means no 3D lens, or a different make of projector
that doesn't have the issue
**• If you see the two beams, then get up and go complain. You paid good
money to see the movie, so make a fuss until they either give you back that
money or remove the lens. Seeing as that's an involved and time-consuming
process, expect a refund.*

*Here is the Boston Globe article by Ty Burr <http://bit.ly/jDYjUZ>. *

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*
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