Just got back from seeing The Break Up at the $1 show. Not a bad use of two bucks, except for the appearance of the boom mic in half the scenes. What the hell? How could that possibly slip by over and over again unnoticed?
One time you think, eh, did I just see that? Probably not, back into the story.
Second time…oh, yep, I guess I did see that, there it is again. Wow, that’s sorta unusual, I mean this isn’t some little indie-on-a-credit-card flick, right?
By the third time, there were giggles and comments thruout the audience. I can’t ever remember seeing an accidental “oops, the boom’s in the shot” that many times, even on live stuff. What the heck is up with them releasing it with that many obvious screw-ups?
It’s not the boom mic guy. The theater is supposed to mask the top and bottom of the frame to match the film to the screen. The $1 theaters are not notably diligent about doing it.
Acording to a few of Roger Ebert’s mailbag columns, this situation is usually due to the projectionist at the theater framing the projection incorrectly. Films are shot with more head space than is intended to be in the picture that is displayed on the screen.
Did you notice that sometimes stuff at the bottome of the screen was missing. Like is someone is holding a newspaper or something.
As a former projectionist who owned and operated a sub-run theatre, I object to the automatic low reguard for the skills of the projectionist based on what theatre he works at.
Some theatre care about quality projection/projectionists and some don’t. How much they charge for admission doesn’t seem to be any indicator.
And sometimes it’s not the theater but the individual - I also worked projection at a $1 theater a while back, and I was always careful with the framing and focus.
Then there was the assistant manager who thought he knew how to work projection but somehow always ended up with a brainwrap that he would “fix” by randomly splicing out some segment of film for us to take care of later. Usually he would cut in the middle of a frame.
Brainwrap = film not feeding properly into the projector from a horizontal platter, winding tightly around the pick-up point until it snaps.
The totally useless THE OMEN remake had the same problem with boom mic’s, not only from above, BUT ON THE SIDE!
I don’t buy the “projectionist’s fault” excuse. It’s just a way for the film editors to avoid blame. I particularly think THE OMEN was a rush job to get it released by the appropriate date.
Note the difference between the 35mm camera aperture (yellow), and the 1:1.85 projectable image area (green). The standard image ratio for theater projector apertures and screens in North America is 1:1.85.
Why do theaters show an image area smaller than what is possible (1:1.37)? An aesthetic decision by the industry since the 1950s to have a widescreen image visually distinct from the television image.
The viewfinder on most 35 mm cameras has these various image areas outlined on it, so that the director of photography and camera operator can keep the important elements within the picture, even when the film is eventually shown on television.
I’ll agree if it’s from the side, but what do you mean “I don’t buy” the argument? It’s quite factual that some projectionists do not project the movie properly.
I saw Hamlet(the one with Ethan Hawke) and it was clearly projected wrong and I saw the boom mike many times. On DVD, it’s nowhere.
I saw the same thing with House of Wax when they showed it as a sneak preview at my school. I just assumed that, being a preview, they didnt give us the properly edited version or something.
Why not? They “cut things out,” put things in, and change things all over the place. Is every single composite or bluescreen frame ever composed of a lower quality than other footage, so that they can’t cut out parts of non-special-effects frames without lowering the quality? I can’t watch today’s movies and believe that we don’t have the technology to make part of the image black. I don’t understand.
Seriously, did Fight Club teach you anything? We all know that projectionists are capable of just about anything, including forming revolutionary anarchist movements and splicing single frames of pornography into family films. I think they could do a little framing, if neccesary.
