fark Michael Bay for attempting to address both viewer complaints, and an epidemic of lazy projectionists not bothering to do much of anything for the benefit of anyone not a projectionist.

Not adjusting the brightness properly, leaving the dimming 3D filter on for 2D movies. And I think there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of the people being asleep on the job half the time.

But yeah. Let's band together around any group that gives an unsolicited response to the guy attempting to get the audience what they pay for.

I swear, the Michael Bay hate has become as moronic as any religion. The dude made The Rock. He can shiat robots for the rest of his career and still deserve a healthy amount of respect.

Bay's memo seemed reasonable. The response seemed like an immature halfwit attempting to wow everyone with how smugly clever he could be.

Smug, butthurt projectionist is smug and butthurt.

Simpsonscomicbookguy.jpg

Stupid, moronic fake response. Nobody would ever write that and expect to keep their job afterwards.

Seriously, what's wrong with Bay politely communicating with the people that are going to be projecting his multi-million dollar movie? The fact is, projectionists have been farking up their jobs lately, not even bothering to swap-out the 3D rigs when showing normal films, making them dark a mud as well.

No wonder nobody wants to go to the theatres anymore.

Also, I'm confused. A few of you have referred to The Rock as if it's a good movie. What is this I don't even.

BaronBarracuda: Hey, guys! Miss me?

That was the best farking movie, ever (was my first real kiss and first time I touched the boobies). Jaws 3 in 3d will always have a special place in my heart.

Well,

I don't watch many movies. I haven't seen bad boys (just figured that out from the thread content), and I don't know what other movies Mikie has done other than the two transformers movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the 1st - so much so I even watched it with the director's commentary and found it amusing and Bay's commentary interesting.

The 2nd transformers sucked more balls than Jenna Jameson - although I never REALLY counted the number of balls she sucked - hyperbole I guess.

The letter in the article seems to be capitalizing on the Bay hate cliche and it's really stupid. Even more stupid than that 2nd transformers movie.

I'm going back to reading books I guess. Slaughterhouse 5 has been staring at me for a while.

Max Awesome:
No wonder nobody wants to go to the theatres anymore.

no-one wants to go to theatres anymore? interesting statement given the multi million dollar revenue these films generate....from theatres.

archie leach: T.M.S.:
That said, I would live to see the letter Kubrick wrote about Barry Lindon.


Variations of letters like these are included with many films, even today. Although most of today's are strictly memo boiler-plate. There is a Tree of Life letter 'from' Malick circulating right now. The only difference between it and every other Fox release, like Mr. Popper's Penguins, is that one of the bullet points mentions a lack of opening credits.

THX used to send out a two or three page letter detailing everything for a release they handled (I have one for a mid-90's Star Wars release).



Also, those of you biatching about projectionists should direct your ire much higher up the food chain to the upper management/ownership level.

Much of the time, the reason for low lighting level 3D presentations has nothing to do with the projectionist and everything to do with the quality of the equipment and the auditorium setting - neither of which they control. The sad fact is that in many auditoriums it is impossible to reach optimum light level, even before adding on 3D polarizing filters.

Thank you for that. It was an interesting read.

Anyone who put their soul into a "product" should have that "product" displayed correctly.

I'm wondering what % of this thread will have seen Transformers 3 by this upcoming Sunday.... high 80's? Low 90's? Tough to say.

museamused: No explosions and a million times better than anything Bay's ever done. And it features a projectionist!

Cinema Paradiso. The way movies should be.

Great movie. A sad movie. But great.

I think there's more than meets the eye to this story.

At one time, being a projectionist was a very hard and challenging job.

Back before safety film became popular in the early 50s, cellulose nitrate was the film stock of choice. Nitrate is VERY flammable, only slightly different in composition than 'smokeless gunpowder', and will even burn underwater. Consequently, 35mm projectors had all sorts of complicated fire-proofing equipment from fire shutters to enclosed magazines, and were limited to only 1,000-foot reels. If you ever saw Cinema Paradiso, it has a scene where an old projectionist is severely burned when a film on a non-fire-proofed projector ignites.

Because of the fire risk, reels were limited to 1,000 feet, which meant that projectionists had to switch over reels every 9 minutes or so. Not only that, but most jurisdictions required that the film be rewound in a separate room from the projectors. As you can understand, most theaters had at least two projectionists on duty, and those projectionists had to be well-trained in fire fighting.

Switch-overs were also a pain in the butt. You ever see the circles that appear in the upper right corners of films? There's two cues, one about 10 seconds before changeover, and one right before the film goes black. (BTW, they're not really called 'cigarette burns' despite Fight Club; it'd be insanely stupid to burn holes in nitrate with a lit cigarette.) Switchover was usually a complicated procedure involving switching the sound equipment, shutters on the projector ports, and the projectors themselves. Those numbers you see at the head of movie leaders are there to help synch the switchovers--each projector had a 'motor number' that was determined by how fast the motor got up to speed (90 fpm for sound) and that was the number of the film leader that would be showing in the aperture before switchover.

Then there were the lamps. Part of the fire hazard was that the lamp housings usually used an electrical arc between two carbon rods. It was like a miniature furnace in there and all projectors had a really complex cooling system using forced air or even water. If the film slowed down too much, a fire shutter would drop so that the film itself wouldn't ignite from all the light. What really sucked about the carbon rods was that they had to be trimmed after every reel or two or they wouldn't work right.

And, of course, each film had to be inspected when it came from the distributor. A bad splice or torn sprocket holes could not only cause a film break, it could potentially cause a fire. Also, since 35mm has four sprocket holes per side per frame, a bad splice could throw the picture out of frame. And before the Hays and Breen codes, every jurisdiction had it's own censorship code which meant that shots had to be spliced into and out of films every time it reached a particular theater.

You can understand why there was a projectionists' union and a grueling apprenticeship program which required fire certification and a thorough knowledge of optics and electricity (and later, sound equipment). Not only that, but many projectors in the silent era were hand cranked--yes, hand cranked--and if the projectionist fell asleep, the film could ignite. Throw in some gimmick like Kinemacolor or 3-D, and the projectionist's job got even worse...

Nowadays, some pimply-faced kid throws a switch, and some monstrous platter system feeds the film to six screens simultaneously. In a few years from now, somebody in the concession stand will simply call up the movie on a high-speed Internet connection before re-greasing the hot dog machine...

Marcintosh: Remember, you can't polish a turd.

Sure you can.



That is a polished turd. QED.

I'm still surprised people liked Transformers 1. Probably the worst movie I've seen in the theater since the 90s. Seriously. The plot was retarded, the "comedy" wasn't funny, and the worst part is that the action was often incomprehensible. The frenetic, shaky-cam shiat works on Jason Bourne because he's a human and 6 feet tall. The robot fighting was some of the worst action I've seen, which is a shame. That part could have been awesome at least. Zoom out and focus on one goddam camera angle for half a second, you hyperactive moron. While watching I felt like "ok, there's a blue metal thing whizzing by... that must be Optimus. There's a yellow piston or something, must be Bumblebee. Ok, there's a silver shiny thing, that must be EVERY OTHER farkING ROBOT."

And for some reason I rented the second one. I turned on the lights and started doing chores I was so bored, and I'm REALLY farkING LAZY. I didn't make it anywhere near the end.

People still go to theaters to watch movies? I mean who wouldn't want to pay $20 to eat $10 popcorn and sit in a crowded room with a bunch of obnoxious morons while having to miss parts of the movie every time you need to take a piss.

How quaint. I guess the 80's really have come back.

Michael Bay: "... to be played in auditoriums capable of 6-foot lamberts of light on the screen ..."

Those are some damned tall lamberts.

/Awesome rant.
//Michael Bay makes 'splosion porn for retards, and only retards - by which I mean genuinely developmentally-disabled people - remain undisgusted by his work.

untaken_name: Marcintosh: Remember, you can't polish a turd.

Sure you can.



That is a polished turd. QED.

I've seen plenty of those at the theatre.

/whoppers

Max Awesome: Seriously, what's wrong with Bay politely communicating with the people that are going to be projecting his multi-million dollar movie? The fact is, projectionists have been farking up their jobs lately, not even bothering to swap-out the 3D rigs when showing normal films, making them dark a mud as well.

Well, now I am outraged! Outraged, I tell you!

/go dark a mud

Dear Projectionist:

I apologize sincerely that Megan Fox was not allowed to be in this new picture of mine. We got a reasonably hot Victoria's Secret model to take her place, but the chemistry just does not exist between her and Shia. So bascially, in an effort to make this flick, just a little less sucky......

Tibbs Drive-In Theatre

Only $10 for adults, $5 for kids
See up to 4 movies, occasionally even 5
No fuss over beer or smoking
Playground
Good food with big portions
Meet people in a casual environment
No shiatty 3D

Definitely the best way to go out to the movies... I wish the trend of 3D would die and the trend of drive-ins would come back

vodka: People still go to theaters to watch movies? I mean who wouldn't want to pay $20 to eat $10 popcorn and sit in a crowded room with a bunch of obnoxious morons while having to miss parts of the movie every time you need to take a piss.

How quaint. I guess the 80's really have come back.

For various reasons, including that my favorite film-going companion is too busy working to see movies, I haven't been going to too many theatrical films lately.

What's really weird, is that this has been a good time in my life for seeing movies. I'll catch the occasional recent film like "Coraline" (excellent, BTW) on a date or seeing my brother's huge collection of DVDs and Netflix films. However, I've been seeing a lot of classic movies lately either through the library or downloaded from places like the Internet Archive. Really serious cinema-buff films like The Toll of the Sea (first theatrically-released Technicolor feature), or fluff with Doris Day or Esther Williams. Or I'll see movies on YouTube--for example, some guy released a huge collection of early Stan Laurel comedies and I've been working my way through them.

Places like the Internet Archive also have all sorts of recent films that don't get theatrical release. From experimental computer animation by film students to masterpieces like Sita Sings the Blues to all sorts of politically-incorrect documentaries that they'll never have on broadcast TV.

I really don't like theaters much any more. They're over-priced especially the concession stand, too many advertising films and coming attractions, too many idiots on cell phones, no real sense of showmanship. Makes me yearn for the drive-in theaters of my childhood.

BTW, I think 3-D was an untenable gimmick the first time it came out in the early 50s. A lot of people are stereo-blind like myself and even those who have stereopsis, it tends to cause too much eyestrain. Not only that, but true stereo only works to about (IIRC) 50-70 interocular distances or about 7-10 feet. Anything beyond that is basically 'flat' unless a larger baseline is used on the cameras--and then you have mountains that look like model-train mountains. Omnimax films, 70mm 15 perf, are pretty cool when they're projected on a dome, though...

**wife corrected me... see up to 3 occasionally 4 movies, typically 2 or 3

Apache Drive-In


/worth it

Psycat: You can understand why there was a projectionists' union and a grueling apprenticeship program which required fire certification and a thorough knowledge of optics and electricity (and later, sound equipment). Not only that, but many projectors in the silent era were hand cranked--yes, hand cranked--and if the projectionist fell asleep, the film could ignite. Throw in some gimmick like Kinemacolor or 3-D, and the projectionist's job got even worse...

Yeah, all that stopped in the 70s, just like most other professions their ceased to be a need for unions decades ago, yet it still persists and is a big reason why ticket prices are so high in northeastern cities.

monsatano: Apache Drive-In


/worth it

Worth living in Arizona?

The All-Powerful Atheismo: monsatano: Apache Drive-In


/worth it

Worth living in Arizona?

If Phoenix was the armpit of Arizona, Globe would be the butthole.

/short answer
//no

Wow, nothing like a Transformers/Michael Bay/movie-tech snob to really bring out the Aspies. But the anti-union poli-troll is my favorite.

I thought new movies didn't have cue marks other than occasionally for the look... certainly the 3D projectors probably use horizontal platters so no cigarette burns...

strife: BaronBarracuda: At least he apologized for Revenge of the Fallen. And decry it all you want, it was still a hell of a lot better than Armageddon andPearl Harbor.

He did? Personally I think he just needs to go back to the editing room with ROTF. Didn't hate it like everyone else, but there are some "WTF?" moments.

/like going into the National Air and Space Museum and exiting to a airplane bone-yard in god knows where
//I never liked the love-story either
///still going to see DOTM regardless

The boneyard. No, I mean literally, THE boneyard (new window).

But I'm pretty sure that the two locations aren't anywhere near each other.

In regards to "cigarette burns", they aren't. They're circular marks at the beginning and end of the shorter reels that make up the one big reel that is a full film. Fight Club made up that term for those marks.

35mm movie prints still come to the theater shipped "broken-down" on 2K reels. A 2K is approximately 18-20 minutes worth of film. A projectionist has to splice the 2K reels together to make a single large "platter" reel to thread through a single projector. Every time a movie plays, they just turn around and re-thread the film to play back through the projector from the take-up platter. They still have to have certain marks on the side of film that are sound and light cues to make the projector itself recognize when the lights should go down, come up, curtains should open, etc. instead of the projectionist. The cues are now part of the automation instead of being the old-school mark to make the projectionist aware they need to change over to the second projector and reel like the old days of dual projectors.

Unless we're talking about digital, and then it's just a giant hard-drive that gets loaded (ingested) onto the projector's hard drive and then all you have to do is punch a start button. And you can set most of them up to be accessed anywhere by internet. A fully-automated digital theater can be run from the other side of the globe by a computer program, other than counting the cash receipts and selling sodas & artery-clogging "food".

UncleFriendly: I'm still surprised people liked Transformers 1. Probably the worst movie I've seen in the theater since the 90s. Seriously. The plot was retarded, the "comedy" wasn't funny, and the worst part is that the action was often incomprehensible. The frenetic, shaky-cam shiat works on Jason Bourne because he's a human and 6 feet tall. The robot fighting was some of the worst action I've seen, which is a shame. That part could have been awesome at least. Zoom out and focus on one goddam camera angle for half a second, you hyperactive moron. While watching I felt like "ok, there's a blue metal thing whizzing by... that must be Optimus. There's a yellow piston or something, must be Bumblebee. Ok, there's a silver shiny thing, that must be EVERY OTHER farkING ROBOT."

And for some reason I rented the second one. I turned on the lights and started doing chores I was so bored, and I'm REALLY farkING LAZY. I didn't make it anywhere near the end.

I swear I must be the only person with the eyesight, unlaziness, or simple ability to follow the action on a movie screen. Seeing it for the very first time I could tell apart the robots and follow what was going on. shiat, it seems like people want everything in slow motion and big blinking subtitles underneath every character with their name, age, statistics, favorite food and number of sexual encounters.

And too bad about the Decepticons scanning military vehicles, which are generally drab earth or metallic colors so they can be camouflaged on the battlefield or in the air, but if they were the same gaudy colors they were in the cartoon people would wonder why Brawl was a rich purple and if the Blue Angels had built a giant robot.

Trey Parker's opinion bears repeating:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pM8PrqY5Rg

In a matter of a few minutes, Stephen King can turn words on a few pieces of paper in to a three dimensional character. Why Michael bay can't develop a character or a storyline in three torturous hours of video?. It's pathetic. Gheezuz are Bay's plot lines borish.

EdNortonsTwin: In a matter of a few minutes, Stephen King can turn words on a few pieces of paper in to a three dimensional character. Why Michael bay can't develop a character or a storyline in three torturous hours of video?. It's pathetic. Gheezuz are Bay's plot lines borish.

And in just a few more minutes, he can utterly destroy any respect he had by turning his writings into stupid movies (Maximum Overdrive) and allowing others to turn them into stupid movies (Sleepwalkers, The Langoliers).

Not to mention his hate-boner for kids, Christians, Maine, and characters who aren't stupid or grating douchebags.

sidcart42: fark Michael Bay for attempting to address both viewer complaints, and an epidemic of lazy projectionists not bothering to do much of anything for the benefit of anyone not a projectionist.

Not adjusting the brightness properly, leaving the dimming 3D filter on for 2D movies. And I think there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of the people being asleep on the job half the time.

But yeah. Let's band together around any group that gives an unsolicited response to the guy attempting to get the audience what they pay for.

I swear, the Michael Bay hate has become as moronic as any religion. The dude made The Rock. He can shiat robots for the rest of his career and still deserve a healthy amount of respect.

The Rock was Jerry Bruckheimer's movie. Look at Bruckheimer's films from the early 90s. Every one of them, no matter what director, had the same look, style, and for the most part decent plots.

I still contend that Jerry could have hired Tony Scott to direct The Rock, and it would have come out 95% the same as Bay's version.

The Rock and the first Bad Boys were very good action movies, but did you notice the more creative control Bay got, the dumber and worse his movies became? That's why the quality nose-dived after Armageddon.

He can direct an action sequence, no question, but I think he won't have another decent movie until he gets someone looking over his shoulder again.

Dear Union Projectionist,
You'll soon be out on the street as digital 'films' will no longer need your services.
Bummer for you.

BaronBarracuda: EdNortonsTwin: In a matter of a few minutes, Stephen King can turn words on a few pieces of paper in to a three dimensional character. Why Michael bay can't develop a character or a storyline in three torturous hours of video?. It's pathetic. Gheezuz are Bay's plot lines borish.

And in just a few more minutes, he can utterly destroy any respect he had by turning his writings into stupid movies (Maximum Overdrive) and allowing others to turn them into stupid movies (Sleepwalkers, The Langoliers).

Not to mention his hate-boner for kids, Christians, Maine, and characters who aren't stupid or grating douchebags.

There you go on the mindless hate wagon.

steamingpile: It always disturbed me that there is a projectionist union, its the easiest farking job in the world yet for some reason they act like its rocket science.

It used to not be. They didn't have a computer do all the work, or have the timing of modern projectors. You used to have to splice the film a lot. Splices take precision to do right, lest you end up inserting an image of "Deep Throat" at the wrong time.

HeartBurnKid: Zombie DJ: Things that are old:
Headlines with "wait, what?", "You've already clicked the link haven't you?" and "Michael Bay sucks."

Criminy, man up and take the stick out of your nerdy, basement dwelling butt. "Wagh! I didn't like Transformers 2.".
Get over it. You weren't going to do anything special with those 2 hours anyway.

Wow. White-knighting for Michael Bay.

Tell me, just how pathetic is your life, that it's come to this?

/he's not going to blow you up

Nothing pathetic in my world about saying something over the "bandwagon of hate" that I see from a Buncha nerds who feel they're forced to see a movie they hate.
How bad is YOUR life that you felt the need to add to the butt hurt?
/he'd blow me up if i were a car.

Snot Monster from Outer Space: You forgot boobs.

There are no boobs in Bay movies. Just the illusion of them.

HeartBurnKid: BaronBarracuda: EdNortonsTwin: In a matter of a few minutes, Stephen King can turn words on a few pieces of paper in to a three dimensional character. Why Michael bay can't develop a character or a storyline in three torturous hours of video?. It's pathetic. Gheezuz are Bay's plot lines borish.

And in just a few more minutes, he can utterly destroy any respect he had by turning his writings into stupid movies (Maximum Overdrive) and allowing others to turn them into stupid movies (Sleepwalkers, The Langoliers).

Not to mention his hate-boner for kids, Christians, Maine, and characters who aren't stupid or grating douchebags.

There you go on the mindless hate wagon.

There you go on the mindless drivel. Pointing out known facts about King's writing style and tropes =/= hating.

stoli n coke: sidcart42: fark Michael Bay for attempting to address both viewer complaints, and an epidemic of lazy projectionists not bothering to do much of anything for the benefit of anyone not a projectionist.

Not adjusting the brightness properly, leaving the dimming 3D filter on for 2D movies. And I think there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of the people being asleep on the job half the time.

But yeah. Let's band together around any group that gives an unsolicited response to the guy attempting to get the audience what they pay for.

I swear, the Michael Bay hate has become as moronic as any religion. The dude made The Rock. He can shiat robots for the rest of his career and still deserve a healthy amount of respect.

The Rock was Jerry Bruckheimer's movie. Look at Bruckheimer's films from the early 90s. Every one of them, no matter what director, had the same look, style, and for the most part decent plots.

I still contend that Jerry could have hired Tony Scott to direct The Rock, and it would have come out 95% the same as Bay's version.

The Rock and the first Bad Boys were very good action movies, but did you notice the more creative control Bay got, the dumber and worse his movies became? That's why the quality nose-dived after Armageddon.

He can direct an action sequence, no question, but I think he won't have another decent movie until he gets someone looking over his shoulder again.

Batman Forever
Batman & Robin

I rest my case.

BaronBarracuda: stoli n coke: sidcart42: fark Michael Bay for attempting to address both viewer complaints, and an epidemic of lazy projectionists not bothering to do much of anything for the benefit of anyone not a projectionist.

Not adjusting the brightness properly, leaving the dimming 3D filter on for 2D movies. And I think there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of the people being asleep on the job half the time.

But yeah. Let's band together around any group that gives an unsolicited response to the guy attempting to get the audience what they pay for.

I swear, the Michael Bay hate has become as moronic as any religion. The dude made The Rock. He can shiat robots for the rest of his career and still deserve a healthy amount of respect.

The Rock was Jerry Bruckheimer's movie. Look at Bruckheimer's films from the early 90s. Every one of them, no matter what director, had the same look, style, and for the most part decent plots.

I still contend that Jerry could have hired Tony Scott to direct The Rock, and it would have come out 95% the same as Bay's version.

The Rock and the first Bad Boys were very good action movies, but did you notice the more creative control Bay got, the dumber and worse his movies became? That's why the quality nose-dived after Armageddon.

He can direct an action sequence, no question, but I think he won't have another decent movie until he gets someone looking over his shoulder again.

Batman Forever
Batman & Robin

I rest my casefail.

/Joel Schumacher

untaken_name: Marcintosh: Remember, you can't polish a turd.

Sure you can.

That is a polished turd. QED.


Ok but, can you pick it up by the clean end?