Stranger than Fiction - Technical Question

Cafe Society
1

My friend and I just saw this last night at a second run theater. We enjoyed it, but…

For about the first quarter to third of the movie, there was a boom mike clearly visible at the top of the screen. I kept waiting for it to have something to do with the movie, since it seemed odd to me that a major motion picture would have such an obvious problem repeatedly (i.e., not just in once scene). Obviously, it was never mentioned, and it went away after a while.

My friend thought that it may have been because we saw it in a second run theater, as she vaguely thinks that she sees a lot more of those kinds of problems at the cheaper shows. I’m skeptical, as I think it would be the same prints, just getting there months later. On the other hand, I checked the other “Stranger Than Fiction” threads, and no one mentioned this, so maybe she’s right.

Any ideas?

2

You’re friend’s probably right.

What’s filmed is not exactly what’s shown on screen, the top and bottom are cut off by the projector. Directors know this, so they’ll often use a good take where the boom or other distracting details are above or below the shot. However, this is trusting that the projectionist knows how to center the film properly.

I wouldn’t be shocked if a second run theater isn’t using the best of projectionist talent.

3

Roger Ebert has a “movie answer man” column in which this question gets asked repeatedly. Menocchio has given the same answer that Ebert does.

If you see this, complain to the management immediately and it might get fixed.

4

The first time I saw “Secrets and Lies” was in a small art house where all the staff seemed to be like the pimply faced, squeeky voiced kids out of “The Simpsons.”

Boom mikes were visible in nearly every frame.

A few weeks later I saw the film in a bigger chain theater.

No boom mikes!

5

I’m guessing the fiml was shot in a format called Super35, which uses the full 4:3 frame. For DVD release they have a ready-made version that doesn’t need pan-and-scan butchery, and for normal widescreen TV (16:9 ratio) and theatrical release (1.85:1, typically) they just grab the appropriate section of the frame.

If it’s not hard-matted in printing for theatrical release, it’s supposed to be masked to 1.85:1 in the projector, so this was a case of sloppy showmanship at the theater or even sloppier work by the studio.