[Richard W. Haines]

Steve,

The 'dim' image is a probably a burned out Xenon. Attendance is so low today, exhibitors are cutting corners in performance. The Xenon bulbs that illuminate the image are very expensive. There's
a dial on of the lamphouse that indicates how many hours are left on it. If you go beyond
that the bulb is burning out and there won't be enough light on screen. The other possibility is that the theater isn't using a professional projectionist, just a kid they trained to turn on the machine. It's a bit more complicated than that to operate a projector properly. A pro has to know how to focus the lamphouse depending on the format. 1.85 and anamorphic 2.35 ratios require adjustments because the full frame is being projected, not just the cropped part of the frame. They also have to know how to tighten the gate if the image steadiness is poor and run Dolby and Digital sound reels to check for the audio as well as frame the image correctly so it's not off center. Of course they need to change the Xenon bulb if it's no longer operating at full luminance which is 16 foot lamberts on screen. Even this is a bit tricky. Xenons can explode if they're not handled correctly and the operator has to wear face gear and gloves to prevent an accident.


Aside from the poor weekly attendence, theater owners also have to deal with distributors who
take an enormous percentage of the boxoffice take for the blockbusters. Decades ago, it was
a 60/40 split but these days distributors take 90 % of the ticket sales for the first week
of the big movies. The percentage gets pro-rated upwards for additional weeks but if the movie
doesn't perform well or has an extended run, the theater operates at a loss. That's why the
ticket prices are so high and concessions very expensive. Otherwise they would fold. These are
very tough times for exhibitors and moviegoers.


In my judgment, to increase attendence they need to offer something you cannot get at home. I advocate reviving Technicolor (dye transfer prints) and 70mm. Both formats offer spectacular image quality on large
screens that cannot be replicated on DVD. They were major selling points in the past.
"Glorious Technicolor" was featured in the posters and 70mm was listed in the newspaper
ads. In the case of 70mm, theaters that played movies in that format made more money
than those that played 35mm copies of the same title. I also used to see movies
on deeply curved screens at Cinerama and Rivoli on Broadway in the seventies.
It's called Showmanship and it's integral to the moviegoing experience.


It's curious to note industry reaction to competetion over the
decades. In the fifties, attendace was reduced from 90 million a week to 41 million a
week because of the usurping television medium. The studios response was to
invent new processes to 'wow' viewers back into cinemas. Cinerama, 3-D,
CinemaScope and Todd-AO (70mm) did the trick. Now with the home entertainment
competition, the industry seems to be cutting corners and trying to save money
on exhibition which is having the opposite effect. Weekly attendence is a fraction
of what it was in the seventies. But remember in the seventies they played "Star Wars", "Close Encounters", "Grease" and "Superman" in 70mm which
really packed them in and gave viewers their money's worth.