
Misuse of 3-D digital lens leaves 2-D movies in the dark - justinweiss
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2011/05/22/misuse_of_3_d_digital_lens_leaves_2_d_movies_in_the_dark/?page=full
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noonespecial
_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._

DRM has now made movies suck _even at the theater._ If I was a director, I'd
be cheesed.

~~~
fleitz
As a director you'd also be pretty pissed that your movie went from RGB to
Orange/Blue.

[http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-
poster...](http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/)
[http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-
ho...](http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-
please-stop.html)

~~~
bad_user
Since orange is the complementary color of blue, it's a no-brainer that it's
used to add contrast whenever blue is involved.

Blue is a color omnipresent on earth - water is blue, the sky is blue. Also,
on sunrise and sunset the sun's light gives everything an orange tint. The
combination itself is the easiest for our eyes to tolerate as we can see it
everyday. Other powerful alternatives would be red/green and yellow/purple,
but these aren't so generic having limited applicability and are hard to bring
in harmony (when trying to pick a harmonious color palette, almost all recipes
exclude complementaries). And the reason for wanting complementary colors is
because complements add contrast to your image, being the easiest technique
you can use.

Even though you may be pissed about seeing blue/orange everywhere, the fact of
the matter is that it's a working technique, also used by photographers.

------
ctdonath
New incarnation of an old issue.

\---

Movie Answer Man

Roger Ebert / February 7, 1999

Q. In your recent review of "Virus", you commented: "It didn't help that the
print I saw was so underlit that often I could see hardly anything on the
screen. Was that because the movie was filmed that way, or because the
projector bulb was dimmed to extend its life span?" A dirty secret is that
movies are under-lit in most theaters. Films are produced with the intent that
they be projected at the brightness of 16 foot-lamberts. Field research by
Kodak found that they are often shown at 8-10 foot-lamberts, well under the
SMPTE standard for brightness. To get theaters up to this and other standards,
Kodak is introducing the Screencheck Experience program. The under-lighting of
screens may be acceptable for a few movies--lest you see the entirety of their
badness--but in general it unnecessarily degrades the theater experience.
(Carl Donath, Rochester NY)

A. I've seen thousands of movies and I believe the Screencheck Experience
program would only confirm that "Virus" was severely deprived of foot-lamberts
when I saw it in a Chicago theater not a million miles from the Water Tower.
Martin Scorsese, who travels with a light meter, once told me movies are
projected at the correct brilliance in New York and Los Angeles, because
that's where the filmmakers live, and they squawk. In a lot of other places,
he said, the theaters turn down the juice to save on the replacement costs of
expensive bulbs.

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Anechoic
The sad thing is that the Boston-area AMC multiplexes included THX (and
HPS-4000) certified theaters (but not all screens have the certs). Screen
illumination is part of the THX TAP spec, I wonder if any of the AMC THX
theaters are out of spec.

~~~
pyre
That would be an awesome thing to do. Call into question their certification,
highlighting that they may intentionally be not swapping out the lenses. I
wonder what the reaction at the top would be if they were to lose
certification.

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wazoox
I've seen countless people happily watching horribly stretched 4:3 films on
16:9 screens. In fact, in the past 10 years it even was the norm (now at last
all channels broadcast directly in 16:9). It's hardly surprising that movie-
goers don't even see what's wrong in that case.

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bluehex
I'm a pretty picky movie goer. My biggest pet peeve is when a theater only
dims the house lights rather than turning them all the way down; that can
really wash out the image on the screen. I've complained about this in the
past and was told it was for "safety concerns". I thought that's what the
light strips in the aisles were for. Anyhow, I can't imagine how bad it would
look if they left the 3D lens on and still had the house lights on dim. If
that ever happens to me I'll get up and leave for sure.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I thought I was the only person who noticed that.

If I wanted a sub par movie experience I would have stayed home.

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ck2
Just wait a few years when it will be cool and retro to go back to 2D.

(hopefully just a few years and not a decade!)

~~~
kordless
I asked a bunch of friends the other day if any of them really like 3D movies,
and they all said "NO!". Why exactly we're seeing so many of them when we all
seem to dislike them is beyond me.

~~~
foob
I don't like them more than 2D movies but I also don't dislike them as much as
a lot of people around here seem to. How to Train Your Dragon and Coraline
come to mind as a couple movies that I really loved and particularly enjoyed
the 3D aspect of. I would have still liked them if they had only been
available in 2D but I probably wouldn't have paid to go see them in the
theater. For most people the movie theater is the only place where they can
watch 3D movies. I think that a big part of the reason that we're seeing so
many of them is that 3D draws more people out to the theaters.

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dorian-graph
I saw the new Pirates movie last Friday with a bunch of friends. I don't
understand what was '3D' about it, it was annoying to wear the glasses, etc.

It didn't help that the movie itself isn't that good.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Pirates 4 is terrible 3D from a director that barely knows how to use 2D
effectively. His idea of 3D was all gimmicks, and quite cheesy ones at that.

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SoftwareMaven
I'm so glad we have an amazing local theater chain in Utah. They are
innovating in every way from food to reserved seating (no 3 hour queues for
new movies). In the unlikely event this became a problem, they are small
enough and care enough to fix it.

~~~
whatusername
reserved seating is an innovation? sometimes I don't know how lucky I am.

That's been standard for all the big chains here for years.

~~~
palish
Where?

~~~
batterseapower
Possibly the UK? I've never heard of a cinema here without reserved seating -
I didn't realise it was anything special...

~~~
dagw
Same in Norway and Sweden. The only place that I know of that doesn't have
reserved seating is the smaller indie cinema.

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Corrado
Its just one more thing that is driving me out of the theater. The food
prices, the terrible lighting, the advertisements, oh the ads! All of these
things make me want to stay at home with my big plasma display. Keep this up
and theaters will die. :/

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georgieporgie
Movie theaters made sense when televisions were awful and people needed an
air-conditioned escape from summer heat. A modern home is technologically
comparable and environmentally superior to a theater. Additionally, theater
technology is now well beyond the comprehension or appreciation most theater
managers. I've gotten headaches from blown woofers and glitch-filled digital
audio streams. Complaints typically result in blank stares.

The only theaters I go to these days are those showing third-run movies while
serving pizza, burgers, and beer. :-)

~~~
schrototo
I have to strongly disagree. The experience of watching a film in a movie
theater is completely different than watching it at home, even with a high end
home theater setup.

First of all, the vast majority of people can't even come close to replicate
this "technological experience" of movie theater. The huge screen as well as
the audio system absolutely _do_ change how you experience a film, be it
Avatar or 2001 or Metropolis (the last two of which I've only recently seen
for the first time on the big screen, and even though I have a pretty huge TV,
this was an _entirely_ different experience).

But aside from the technology involved, a movie theater is a completely
different _environment_ than your living room, it is designed to keep you
entirely focused. I find I am much more immersed in a movie when I see it in
the cinema. Also, some movies are just made to be watched as part of a larger
audience (e.g. I can't imagine I'd find Borat even remotely as funny as I did
when I watched it in a small theater packed with a cheering crowd).

On a somewhat more esoteric note, I seem to remember a study that showed rear-
projection (like on a TV) had a different impact on the brain than front-
projection (like on a movie screen). I can't find anything about this now and
it might've been complete bogus, but maybe someone else knows something about
this...

~~~
innes
_a movie theater is a completely different environment than your living room_

This is true - my living room doesn't have somebody eating out of a loudly
crackling popcorn bag, people talking to each other a few seats away, a dude
behind me who accidentally dunts the seat every now and then when he crosses
and uncrosses his legs, a dim slightly out-of-focus picture with the top
chopped off because the projector hasn't been set up properly, or a woman
updating facebook on her smartphone in my eyeshot every few minutes+.

Truly magical.

+okay, admittedly that's a distillation of annoying Cinema crap.

~~~
schrototo
Boy, judging from the replies you guys must have some crappy cinemas...

