Let’s face it - with higher and higher ticket prices, crowds, inconsiderate patrons hitting your seat, people talking, sticky floors, concessions that cost two-week’s salary - wouldn’t everyone be better off investing in a nice home theatre system and watching films in the comfort of their own living room? Recently my dad went and up-rooted his money tree, hauled it off to Circuit City, and proceeded to buy…
- A 52″ HDTV
- A 22″ HDTV
- A new TiVo with 180 hrs. capacity
- A Playstation 3
Couple that with his amazing surround sound system and dad has his own home theatre (He just became my new best friend). I might find myself visiting good ‘ole mom and dad a little more often.
But this trend is something that theatres and studios are battling. “How do we keep people coming?” I will say that the new digital projectors in many theatres today is an incredible exhibition improvement over the grainy, scratchy prints of just a few years ago. But there can be a downside too. Consider Scott Simmons recent experience watching The Dark Knight, as noted in his blog, The Editblog.
The Dark Knight was a very good film. Amazingly well made and a very complex story to boot. It took quite a while to actually see the film last knight though. We arrived for the 4:15 show at our neighborhood Carmike theatre, they have digital projection and a matinee price that is $6.75 and doesn’t end at 3:00 pm like Regal Cinemas, and I noticed something strange during the trailers. I looked as if the picture was scaled up about 25%. Besides all the noticible film grain, the dead give-away was the trailer for Step Brothers. Will Ferrell’s credit looked like this:
I went out and told the kid taking tickets and he said he would tell someone. So the movie starts and it is the same way. I go back and and tell him again and he seems frustrated they haven’t fixed it and leaves his post to tell the manager. About 10 minutes into the film it is still not fixed so I go out again and he informs me that is the way it is supposed to be. “It was filmed in IMAX so that’s the way it is on a regular screen” he says. I proceed to tell him that the director didn’t intent for his character’s chins and forehead to be cut off and to have framing so poor that one character be half-way off screen when talking in conversation. He says I should talk to the manager. She begins by telling me the same thing and that that is part of digital distribution. When I explain the above reasons to her she finally admits that they have a tech scheduled to look at that projector and we can move to the 5:00 screening, which we did. It was better except for the 2 kids who talked the whole time.
Couple things like this with all of the people who check their brightly-screened cell phones during a movie these days and it is no wonder many people prefer to watch at home in their own home theaters. It’s sad that so much care is taken during the production and post of a big feature film only to have so little care given to the exhibition. When I was in film school we once had a speaker, a retired gentleman who had owned a small theater chain and donated the seating for the schools screening room. He spoke at length about how exhibition was one of the most under-appreciated and misunderstood parts of the filmmaking process. When he owned his theaters he checked the picture and sound quality of his screens on an almost daily basis. But he sold the chain when the costs got too high. Now all that most of these chains care about is selling concessions. That 100-inch LCD can’t come along soon enough!
What do you think? It used to be that people went to the theatres for the experience of a big screen and big sound, sitting with other movie fans. But has the romance worn off, due to today’s home theatre technology? Are theatres worth the price of admission?
no comment until now