The Man Behind the Curtain
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 09:36.
In the September 1st Report we featured a story about a big event to kick-off the release of a new DVD celebrating the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz. On September 23rd, National CineMedia’s Fathom division presented the movie in theatres across the country for one night only. It was, the company said, “the opportunity to experience this family classic for the first time in high definition on the big screen.” “See it like never before,” said the ads. Sadly, that event was met with widespread criticism: more on that in a moment. Meanwhile, in this Report we have the story about the fourth sold-out season of NCM Fathom’s award winning and widely acclaimed New York Metropolitan Opera, live in HD in many of those same theatres. The question arises then: how can seemingly similar events in similar theatres by the same company end with such different results?
The answer, it would appear, can be boiled down to some basic technology differences and, perhaps more important, to some good, old-fashioned hard work.
First: The Wizard of Oz in HD.
Negative chatter started on the Internet even before the event was held, much of it seemingly from the kind of film purists who may never accept the idea of digital presentations of anything in a movie theatre. To me, much, if not most of that criticism can and should be dismissed or at the very least be viewed skeptically.
As noted above, the ads promised The Wizard of Oz “on high definition on the big screen” and, unfortunately, that’s what was delivered. In most theatres NCM Fathom simply presented the new DVD using an E-Cinema projector and not a DCI-compliant 2K projector. The results were mixed at best.
The Wizard of Oz event on September 23rd was sold out and, presumably, the majority of people had a good experience and enjoyed the show. However, many of the online comments came from people who saw the movie in HD and who were very disappointed with what they saw and heard and many of them seemed to be objective.
One man wrote: “I was so disappointed at what I saw, I left after 45 minutes. [It] was blown out in spots and the color was less than impressive during the feature. The icing on the cake was it was out of sync! The audio was early, and with the lack of vibrant color made it too much for me to take. I'm glad I'm not the only one that was unhappy with what they saw. The presentation I saw looked like they had [a disconnected] video cable somewhere: whites blown out and horrible colored ghosting. It looked better (with less multipath) on the family's Sears Silvertone console in 1970. Plus the screen door effect on the projector reminded me of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. We were treated to the Windows desktop, too. I sure hope the Blu-ray is a better experience, as the Fathom presentation did a terrible disservice to the people who (presumably) worked hard on the restoration.”
Another wrote: “Last night’s high definition screenings of the beloved classic The Wizard of Oz in over 400 theatres nationwide leaves one questioning if they were really privileged to be part of this 70th anniversary celebration, in spite of reported sell-outs in nearly every location showcasing the enhanced print. With a flat rate of $10 a ticket, including for even the youngest kids, the price point is comparable to what moviegoers are being asked to cough up for the recent spate of 3D versions of summer fare, much of which hasn’t measured up to the hype.”
He continued: “The 10:00 P. M. screening last night at the AMC multiplex in Clifton, New Jersey featured a print no better than any DVD of the film that has been released to date, and particularly disappointing sepia tone bookend sequences that failed to bring out the ’sharp detail’ that was promised by distributors. While the larger image is of course a special treat for fans, it accomplished nothing by way of compositional enhancement or color saturation, two factors that motivated many to attend in the first place. True, the audio mix was lively, and the minutest orchestral cues were decipherable, but it’s a glass half-full. With this kind of shoddy execution, one can’t help but question the build-up and the motivation behind this aggressive promotion of a film that needs little publicity or marketing.”
Recently I asked a friend, one of the top video engineers in the business, what might have gone wrong with The Wizard of Oz presentation. He asked that I not use his name because he would not like to jeopardize his chances of working for National CineMedia someday.
"The Wizard of Oz is a movie, shot (and previously distributed) on film,” he said. “Film is a glorious medium, and it is what most movie theatres were built to display. It seems to me that transferring that movie to HDTV (which doesn't match its aspect ratio), compressing that HDTV for distribution to movie theatres, and then projecting it as a special event is something like taking a photograph of the Mona Lisa, blowing it up to full size, and inviting people who visit the Louvre museum to buy a special ticket to look at the photograph.”
Given all of that, then how to explain the fact that The Met: Live in HD broadcasts, now in their fourth season, have been one of the biggest success stories in the short life of alternative content digitally projected in movie theatres?
The explanation probably starts with opera fans themselves and the fact that they can be some of the most discerning people in the world. That only added to the pressure on the people who decided to broaden the opera audience by showing performances live in movie theatres. Hindsight is always perfect but the fact is, when National CineMedia and the Metropolitan Opera announced their joint venture, The Met: Live in HD, many people – inside and outside both organizations – predicted disaster. Add to that the fact that The Met: Live in HD was one of, if not the very first, high profile alternative content events and you can begin to see how high the stakes really were.
The Met's technical team took the challenge very seriously and the end result – which show no signs of doing anything but growing and flourishing – is a program that has won a host of awards, the last one of which came last month when The Met: Live in HD won this year’s very prestigious International Honor of Excellence, the highest award bestowed by the IBC. The series has also won an Emmy and a Peabody.
Mark Schubin, the engineer in charge at The Met was in Amsterdam to receive the award. Met general manager Peter Gelb was also on hand to accept via satellite from New York.
Their success did not come easily. “The Met takes great care in preparing for its transmissions,” Shubin says. “Our testing started months before our first transmission, and we identified many problems in transmission and presentation that required attention. We have frequently gone to theatres (as far afield as one 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle) to see what the results look and sound like, and, when necessary, we have made changes. We have worked with equipment manufacturers, distributors, and exhibitors, as well as our own crews and creative team, to improve the process, and we have no intention of resting in our pursuit of the highest quality we can deliver.”
Shubin, well known in professional video for the many articles he’s written and for his many presentations and speeches around the world gives a talk about the experiences troubleshooting the technology setup for The Met: Live in HD. Here are the titles of that PowerPoint presentation:
The satellite got lost The engineer got locked out The frame-rate issue The hex-conversion issue The strange-receivers issue The sold-out theaters issue The March Madness preemption issue The frequency-coordination issue And all of that took place before the series ever began.
The Met launched its live HD transmissions of performances in December 2006 to a handful of theaters with an English-language version of The Magic Flute. Last year’s HD series was shown in more than 800 theaters in the United States, as well as Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, and Sweden. Many of them were sell-outs and the series set a record with the sale of 1.8 million tickets. This year, more than 900 theatres in 42 countries will carry The Met: Live in HD transmissions.
The HD opera productions are transmitted to participating digital cinemas and projected in HD with 5.1surround sound onto big screens.
All Mobile Video, a mobile video company in New York, handles the remote production and transmission. AMV uses two For-A FRC-7000 units in the transmission: one situated at the Met in an uplink truck and one at its Gateway Teleport in Carteret, New Jersey. The operas are captured on 14 Sony HDC 950/1500/1000 HD cameras in 1080/29.97i.
The experiences of The Met: Live in HD and The Wizard of Oz in HD provide many lessons for exhibitors about the state of digital cinema both today and in the future.
The first lesson is that exhibitors need to better understand the new technology in their theatres. A movie theatre is not the same as a home theatre system and there are no guarantees that simply popping a DVD into a player will deliver great results. Bigger does not automatically mean better. Beautiful images and sound are magnified on a big screen but so are problems.
The second lesson is to better maintain expectations. The public needs to be better educated about what a digitally equipped theatre can offer and what it can’t. Exhibitors can't promise something they can't deliver.
The third lesson involves the man behind the curtain. In Oz it was the Wizard and we all know how that turned out; in exhibition it’s the people in the projection booth. In too many cases those people are undertrained, overworked and underpaid. That’s been a longstanding and recurring problem in theatres projecting film and it’s an even bigger potential problem in the digital era.
Dorothy had some movie magic to help her get home again but magic isn’t the answer for exhibitors. As The Met: Live in HD demonstrates, when you combine the right technology with hard work and skilled people the end result is a shelf full of awards and theatres filled with a growing new audience providing you with a new revenue stream.
The answer, it would appear, can be boiled down to some basic technology differences and, perhaps more important, to some good, old-fashioned hard work.
First: The Wizard of Oz in HD.
Negative chatter started on the Internet even before the event was held, much of it seemingly from the kind of film purists who may never accept the idea of digital presentations of anything in a movie theatre. To me, much, if not most of that criticism can and should be dismissed or at the very least be viewed skeptically. As noted above, the ads promised The Wizard of Oz “on high definition on the big screen” and, unfortunately, that’s what was delivered. In most theatres NCM Fathom simply presented the new DVD using an E-Cinema projector and not a DCI-compliant 2K projector. The results were mixed at best.
The Wizard of Oz event on September 23rd was sold out and, presumably, the majority of people had a good experience and enjoyed the show. However, many of the online comments came from people who saw the movie in HD and who were very disappointed with what they saw and heard and many of them seemed to be objective.
One man wrote: “I was so disappointed at what I saw, I left after 45 minutes. [It] was blown out in spots and the color was less than impressive during the feature. The icing on the cake was it was out of sync! The audio was early, and with the lack of vibrant color made it too much for me to take. I'm glad I'm not the only one that was unhappy with what they saw. The presentation I saw looked like they had [a disconnected] video cable somewhere: whites blown out and horrible colored ghosting. It looked better (with less multipath) on the family's Sears Silvertone console in 1970. Plus the screen door effect on the projector reminded me of a corporate PowerPoint presentation. We were treated to the Windows desktop, too. I sure hope the Blu-ray is a better experience, as the Fathom presentation did a terrible disservice to the people who (presumably) worked hard on the restoration.”
Another wrote: “Last night’s high definition screenings of the beloved classic The Wizard of Oz in over 400 theatres nationwide leaves one questioning if they were really privileged to be part of this 70th anniversary celebration, in spite of reported sell-outs in nearly every location showcasing the enhanced print. With a flat rate of $10 a ticket, including for even the youngest kids, the price point is comparable to what moviegoers are being asked to cough up for the recent spate of 3D versions of summer fare, much of which hasn’t measured up to the hype.”
He continued: “The 10:00 P. M. screening last night at the AMC multiplex in Clifton, New Jersey featured a print no better than any DVD of the film that has been released to date, and particularly disappointing sepia tone bookend sequences that failed to bring out the ’sharp detail’ that was promised by distributors. While the larger image is of course a special treat for fans, it accomplished nothing by way of compositional enhancement or color saturation, two factors that motivated many to attend in the first place. True, the audio mix was lively, and the minutest orchestral cues were decipherable, but it’s a glass half-full. With this kind of shoddy execution, one can’t help but question the build-up and the motivation behind this aggressive promotion of a film that needs little publicity or marketing.”
Recently I asked a friend, one of the top video engineers in the business, what might have gone wrong with The Wizard of Oz presentation. He asked that I not use his name because he would not like to jeopardize his chances of working for National CineMedia someday."The Wizard of Oz is a movie, shot (and previously distributed) on film,” he said. “Film is a glorious medium, and it is what most movie theatres were built to display. It seems to me that transferring that movie to HDTV (which doesn't match its aspect ratio), compressing that HDTV for distribution to movie theatres, and then projecting it as a special event is something like taking a photograph of the Mona Lisa, blowing it up to full size, and inviting people who visit the Louvre museum to buy a special ticket to look at the photograph.”
Given all of that, then how to explain the fact that The Met: Live in HD broadcasts, now in their fourth season, have been one of the biggest success stories in the short life of alternative content digitally projected in movie theatres?
The explanation probably starts with opera fans themselves and the fact that they can be some of the most discerning people in the world. That only added to the pressure on the people who decided to broaden the opera audience by showing performances live in movie theatres. Hindsight is always perfect but the fact is, when National CineMedia and the Metropolitan Opera announced their joint venture, The Met: Live in HD, many people – inside and outside both organizations – predicted disaster. Add to that the fact that The Met: Live in HD was one of, if not the very first, high profile alternative content events and you can begin to see how high the stakes really were.
The Met's technical team took the challenge very seriously and the end result – which show no signs of doing anything but growing and flourishing – is a program that has won a host of awards, the last one of which came last month when The Met: Live in HD won this year’s very prestigious International Honor of Excellence, the highest award bestowed by the IBC. The series has also won an Emmy and a Peabody.
Mark Schubin, the engineer in charge at The Met was in Amsterdam to receive the award. Met general manager Peter Gelb was also on hand to accept via satellite from New York.Their success did not come easily. “The Met takes great care in preparing for its transmissions,” Shubin says. “Our testing started months before our first transmission, and we identified many problems in transmission and presentation that required attention. We have frequently gone to theatres (as far afield as one 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle) to see what the results look and sound like, and, when necessary, we have made changes. We have worked with equipment manufacturers, distributors, and exhibitors, as well as our own crews and creative team, to improve the process, and we have no intention of resting in our pursuit of the highest quality we can deliver.”
Shubin, well known in professional video for the many articles he’s written and for his many presentations and speeches around the world gives a talk about the experiences troubleshooting the technology setup for The Met: Live in HD. Here are the titles of that PowerPoint presentation:
The satellite got lost The engineer got locked out The frame-rate issue The hex-conversion issue The strange-receivers issue The sold-out theaters issue The March Madness preemption issue The frequency-coordination issue And all of that took place before the series ever began.
The Met launched its live HD transmissions of performances in December 2006 to a handful of theaters with an English-language version of The Magic Flute. Last year’s HD series was shown in more than 800 theaters in the United States, as well as Britain, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, and Sweden. Many of them were sell-outs and the series set a record with the sale of 1.8 million tickets. This year, more than 900 theatres in 42 countries will carry The Met: Live in HD transmissions.
The HD opera productions are transmitted to participating digital cinemas and projected in HD with 5.1surround sound onto big screens.
All Mobile Video, a mobile video company in New York, handles the remote production and transmission. AMV uses two For-A FRC-7000 units in the transmission: one situated at the Met in an uplink truck and one at its Gateway Teleport in Carteret, New Jersey. The operas are captured on 14 Sony HDC 950/1500/1000 HD cameras in 1080/29.97i.
The experiences of The Met: Live in HD and The Wizard of Oz in HD provide many lessons for exhibitors about the state of digital cinema both today and in the future.
The first lesson is that exhibitors need to better understand the new technology in their theatres. A movie theatre is not the same as a home theatre system and there are no guarantees that simply popping a DVD into a player will deliver great results. Bigger does not automatically mean better. Beautiful images and sound are magnified on a big screen but so are problems.
The second lesson is to better maintain expectations. The public needs to be better educated about what a digitally equipped theatre can offer and what it can’t. Exhibitors can't promise something they can't deliver.
The third lesson involves the man behind the curtain. In Oz it was the Wizard and we all know how that turned out; in exhibition it’s the people in the projection booth. In too many cases those people are undertrained, overworked and underpaid. That’s been a longstanding and recurring problem in theatres projecting film and it’s an even bigger potential problem in the digital era.
Dorothy had some movie magic to help her get home again but magic isn’t the answer for exhibitors. As The Met: Live in HD demonstrates, when you combine the right technology with hard work and skilled people the end result is a shelf full of awards and theatres filled with a growing new audience providing you with a new revenue stream.
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