Category Archives: Exhibition

Artist’s Intent Exposed~! See it here first. Where? In the cinema, the temporary home provided by exhibitors.

Movies at the cinema, a cultural phenomena that involves a blend of technology and groups of people, is taking one more step into Inclusiveness. The imperfect solutions for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the Blind and Partially Sighted are more and more part of every cinema facility – either special glasses that present words in mid-air or equipment that places words on at the end of bendable post, and earphones that transmit either a special enhanced (mono) dialog track or a different mono track that includes a narrator who describes the action. [At right: One of two brands of Closed Caption reading devices.]

Work is now nearing completion on a required new set of technologies that will help include a new group of people into the rich cultural experiences of movie-going. The tools being added are for those who use sign language to communicate. As has been common for the inclusion path, compliance with government requirements are the driving force. This time the requirement comes from Brazil, via a “Normative Instruction” that by 2018 (the time schedule has since been delayed) every commercial movie theater in Brazil must be equipped with assistive technology that guarantees the services of subtitling, descriptive subtitling, audio description and Libras.

Libras (Lingua Brasileira de Sinaisis) is the acronym for the Brazilian version of sign language for their deaf community. Libras is an official language of Brazil, used by a segment of the population estimated at 5%. The various technology tools to fulfil the sign language requirements are part of the evolving accessibility landscape. In this case, as often has happened, an entrepreneur who devised a cell phone app was first to market – by the time that the rules were formalized, cell phones belonging to the individual were not allowed to be part of the solution.

The option of using cell phones seems like a logical choice at first glance, but there are several problems with their use in a dark cinema theatre. They have never been found acceptable for other in-theatre uses, and this use case is no exception. The light that they emit is not designed to be restricted to just that one audience member (the closed caption device above does restrict the viewing angle and stray light), so it isn’t just a bother for the people in the immediate vicinity – phone light actually decreases perceived screen contrast for anyone getting a dose in their field of vision. Cell phones also don’t handle the script securely, which is a requirement of the studios which are obligated to protect the copyrights of the artists whose work they are distributing. And, of course, phones have a camera pointing at the screen – a huge problem for piracy concerns.

The fact is, there are problems with each of the various accessibility equipment offerings.

Accessibility equipment users generally don’t give 5 Stars for the choices they’ve been given, for many and varied reasons. Some of the technology – such as the device above which fits into the seat cup holder – requires the user to constantly re-focus, back-and-forth from the distant screen to the close foreground words illuminated in the special box mounted on a bendable stem. Another choice – somewhat better – is a pair of specialized glasses that present the words seemingly in mid-air with a choice of distance. While these are easier on the eyes if one holds their head in a single position, the words move around as one moves their head. Laughter causes the words to bounce. Words go sideways and in front of the action if you place your head on your neighbor’s shoulder.

[This brief review is part of a litany of credible issues, best to be reviewed in another article. It isn’t only a one-sided issue either – exhibitors point out that the equipment is expensive to buy, losses are often disproportionate to their use, and manufacturers point out that the amount of income derived doesn’t support continuous development of new ideas.)]

These (and other) technology solutions are often considered to be attempts to avoid the most simple alternative – putting the words on the screen in what is called “Open Caption”. OC is the absolute favorite of the accessibility audience. Secure, pristine, on the same focal plane, and importantly, all audience members are treated the same – no need to stand in line then be dragging around special equipment while your peers are chatting up somewhere else. But since words on screen haven’t been widely used since shortly after ‘talkies’ became common, the general audience aren’t used to them and many fear they would vehemently object. Attempts to schedule special open screening times haven’t worked in the past for various reasons.

And while open caption might be the first choice for many, it isn’t necessarily the best choice for a child, for example. Imagine the child who has been trained in sign language longer than s/he has been learning to read, who certainly can’t read as fast as those words speeding by in the new Incredibles movie. But signing? …probably better.

Sign language has been used for years on stage, or alongside public servants during announcements, or on the TV or computer screen. So in the cinema it is the next logical step. And just in time, as the studios and manufacturing technology teams are able to jump on the project when many new enabling components are available and tested and able to be integrated into new solutions.

These include recently designed and documented synchronization tools that have gone through the SMTPE and ISO processes, which work well with the newly refined SMPTE compliant DCP (now shipping!, nearly worldwide – yet another story to be written.) These help make the security and packaging concerns of a new datastream more easily addressable within the existing standardized workflows. The question started as ‘how to get a new video stream into the package?’ After much discussion, the choice was made to include that stream as a portion of the audio stream.

There is history in using some of the 8 AES pairs for non-audio purposes (motion seat data, for example). And there are several good reasons for using an available, heretofore unused channel of a partly filled audio pair. Although the enforcement date has been moved back by the Brazilian Normalization group, the technology has progressed such that the main facilitator of movies for the studios, Deluxe, has announced their capability of handling this solution. The ISDCF has a Technical Document in development and under consideration which should help others, and smooth introduction worldwide if that should happen. [See: ISDCF Document 13 – Sign Language Video Encoding for Digital Cinema (a document under development) on the ISDCF Technical Documents web page.]

One major question remains. Where is the picture derived from? The choices are:

to have a person do the signing, or
to use the cute emoticon-style of a computer-derived avatar.

Choice one requires a person to record the signs as part of the post-production process, just as sub-titling or dubbing is done in a language that is different from the original. Of course, translating the final script of the edited movie can only be done at the very last stage of post, and like dubbing requires an actor with a particular set of skills who has to do the work, which then still has to be edited to perfection and approved and QC’d – all before the movie is released.

An avatar still requires that translation. But the tool picks words from the translation, matches them to a dictionary of sign avatars, and presents them on the screen that is placed in front of the user. If there is no avatar for that word or concept, then the word is spelled out, which is what is the common practice in live situations.

There has been a lot of debate within the community about whether avatars can transmit the required nuance. After presentations from stakeholders, the adjudicating party in Brazil reached the consensus that avatars are OK to use, though videos of actors doing the signing being preferred.

The degree of nuance in signing is very well explained by the artist Christine Sun Kim in the following TED talk. She uses interesting allegories with music and other art to get her points across. In addition to explaining, she also shows how associated but slightly different ideas get conveyed using the entire body of the signer.

Embed Code from Ted Talk

Link from Ted Talk

Nuance is difficult enough to transmit well in written language. Most of us don’t have experience with avatars, except perhaps if we consider our interchanges with Siri and Alexa – there we notice that avatar-style tools only transmit a limited set of tone/emphasis/inflection nuance, if any at all. Avatar based signing is a new art that needs to express a lot of detail.

The realities of post production budgets and movie release times and other delivery issues get involved in this issue and the choices available. The situation with the most obstacles is getting all the final ingredients prepared for a day and date deadline. Fortunately, some of these packages can be sent after the main package and joined at the cinema, but either way the potential points of failure increase.

In addition to issues of time, issues of budget come into play. Documentary or small movies made, often made with a country’s film commission funds are often quite limited. Independants with small budgets may run out of credit cards without being able to pay for the talent required to have human signing. Avatars may be the only reasonable choice versus nothing.

At CinemaCon we saw the first of the two technologies presented by two different companies.

Riolte Sign Language System Interface Riole® is a Brazilian company which developed a device that passes video from the DCP to a specialized color display that plays the video of the signing actor, as well as simultaneously presenting printed words. It uses SMPTE standard sync and security protocols and an IR emitter. Their cinema line also includes an audio description receiver/headphone system.

Dolby Labs also showed a system that is ready for production, which uses the avatar method. What we see on the picture at the right is a specially designed/inhibited ‘phone’ that the cinema chain can purchase locally. A media player gets input from the closed caption feed from the DCP, then matches that to a library of avatars. The signal is then broadcast via wifi to the ‘phones’. Dolby has refreshed their line of assistive technology equipment, and this will fit into that groups offerings. Dolby Sign Language System Interface

Both companies state that they are working on future products/enhancements that will include the other technology, Riole working on avatars, Dolby working on videos.

There has been conjecture in the past as to whether other countries might follow with similar signing requirements. At this point that remains as conjecture. Nothing but rumors have been noted.

There are approximately 300 different sign languages in use around the world, including International Sign which is used at international gatherings. There are a lot of kids who can’t read subtitles, open or closed. Would they (and we) be better off seeing movies with their friends or waiting until the streaming release at home?

This is a link to a Statement from the WFD and WASLI on Use of Signing Avatars

Link for “Thank you very much” in ASL thank2.mp4

Exhibitor News

NATO Code of Conduct – Well Done!

April 21, 2018 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

The Prelude to the Policy Statement:

It started last October when a group of women went public with their stories of sexual assault and harassment at the hands of a very powerful movie mogul. The group of women joining the outcry against that one man has grown to more than 70. Investigations and likely prosecutions are pending in Los Angeles, New York, and London. Since October, other movie and television executives, directors, and actors have been implicated in a wide range of illegal, illicit, and inappropriate sexual behavior.

Indeed, no sector of American business and culture can claim to be free of misconduct of a sexual nature. As the public outcry grew over the past five months, more and more women felt enabled to tell their stories about men in powerful positions and the abuse they levied. The movement has called out television personalities, comedians, corporate executives, politicians, religious figures, sports doctors, and more.

Picking up on a technique used previously by social activist Tarana Burke, actress Alyssa Milano used the hashtag #MeToo to encourage other women to speak out and demonstrate the breadth of the problem of sexual assault and harassment. Since then, the phrase has been tweeted and posted millions of times, as more and more women (and some men, though at much smaller numbers) have spoken up.

Although harassment has been happening in silence for years, settlements and secrecy are no longer acceptable. The dialogue that began in October was far from the first time that women have gone public with sexual harassment or assault allegations against a powerful man. However, this was the first time that there were real, public consequences. The nation, and indeed the world, has now been confronted with an ugly reality that demands action in response. Every person and every entity should ask what they can do to make things better.

The first baby step has been taken as a result of the sheer volume and intensity of the victims’ stories—simple awareness. Although many women have been sharing these stories privately for years, this mass disclosure has revealed the true extent of the issue. Positive actions cannot be developed without a better understanding of the scope and nature of the problem to be addressed. And unfortunately, this problem is ubiquitous and universal. In a 2017 poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 54 percent of women in the United States reported receiving unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances.

Another important step depends on our governments. Elected and appointed officials should respond to their constituents by improving laws and policies. For instance, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should release its final sexual harassment enforcement guidance, which is currently stalled at the Office of Management and Budget. A draft of this proposed update was released in January 2017. Final guidelines could not be more timely and more necessary than right now. Employers and employees alike would benefit from modern, useful guidance. In addition, some state and local governments are challenging the use of nondisclosure agreements in settlements with harassers, which silence victims and allow harassers to continue their inappropriate and dangerous behavior.

Our government can also lead by example. The existing harassment complaint system in the U.S. Congress, for example, is overly complicated with confidentiality provisions and built-in waiting periods. Legislation is now pending to hold our elected officials to a higher standard.

But industry and institutional leaders must also act. All employers have a legal and often contractual obligation to maintain a workplace free from sexual harassment. Many employers have responded to the awareness of the current times to revise and improve their policies and practices and to conduct vitally important training involving all their employees. And in some cases, representatives of the employees will be watching. The entertainment industry’s actors’ guild, SAG-AFTRA, recently issued a new code of conduct to better define what harassment is, and what employees’ rights are.

This movement is about more than just harassment. If women are to have true equality in the workplace, it is up to employers to create a culture that supports female employees. Women need to feel empowered to speak out about workplace harassment, and that requires confidence that their employers will listen and that consequences will be more than symbolic.

Here at NATO and CinemaCon, we also want to take action. At NATO, we have long espoused the importance of diversity both on screen and off as not only the right thing to do—but as good business. If we wish to promote a diverse environment, we must support that belief with actions. We believe that policies against sexual intimidation and harassment should not just apply to staff and organizers of events, but should be extended to all attendees. So NATO and CinemaCon have adopted a new Code of Conduct that will apply to all of our events—including conventions, board and annual meetings, and educational summits. The first event subject to this policy will be CinemaCon 2018, to be held in Las Vegas from April 23 to 26. We also followed the lead of Sundance Film Festival’s new code of conduct and decided to establish a call hotline for use by anyone at CinemaCon who feels subject to intimidation or harassment.

Please review the full Code of Conduct set forth in the box adjacent to this column. NATO and CinemaCon will publicize this policy to all delegates and attendees, and it will be strictly enforced.

Exhibitor News

NATO Code of Conduct – Well Done!

April 21, 2018 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

The Prelude to the Policy Statement:

Please review the full Code of Conduct set forth in the box adjacent to this column. NATO and CinemaCon will publicize this policy to all delegates and attendees, and it will be strictly enforced.

Interesting Blogs

European Cinema Industry Sees Further Growth in 2017 – UNIC

April 14, 2018 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Since the UNIC report breaks things down rather well, suffice to say that with markets that were suppressed for decades, and markets which suffered greater and longer in the recent depression, there is a room for adolescent growth, and room for recovering economies growth…and also, there is growth from the actual mature country’s growth because they had more/better local movies.

Here is the link to the report:

European Cinema Industry Sees Further Growth in 2017

Interesting Blogs

European Cinema Industry Sees Further Growth in 2017 – UNIC

April 14, 2018 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Here is the link to the report:

European Cinema Industry Sees Further Growth in 2017

Exhibitor News

EU Cinema-Going Report

February 9, 2017 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

In Finland for example, position 2 and 4 are American studio tentpole movies (Angry Birds and Secret Life of Pets !!! Wait, this just in…Angry Birds is a “National Qualified Production” of Finland), while Poland – with a ±17% increase in box office and admissions – it was Rogue One and Ice Age in positions 3 and 5. Germany had a 12% fall from the previous excellent year, mostly because the local movies didn’t do as well, and there, 5 of the top 5 were tentpoles. The top 5 Films per Territory list is marked provisional, but it makes fun interesting reading…and it is attached to this article.

We have a question into UNIC as to whether the status is generally the same as the US, which is: Pick any set of ten years since the 60s and the trend is always rising, with logical ups and downs within that time.

Another question: This year has been notable in that Chinese and Korean movies are showing up at the top of the International Box Office figures, and showing up, along with more movies from India in the local US multiplexes. Are movies from those countries showing up regularly in the EU?

The attachments follow this press release:

UNIC: EUROPEAN CINEMA INDUSTRY SEES FURTHER GROWTH IN 2016

Brussels: 9 February 2017 – The International Union of Cinemas (UNIC), the body representing European cinema trade associations and key operators hastoday released its provisional update on admissions and box office revenues across Europe for 2016.

While some data remains to be collated and figures for certain territories are based only on initial estimates, the overview provided by UNIC represents the first wide-ranging assessment of the performance of the European cinema sector last year. More detailed final data on the performance of each territory will be released inSpring 2017.

European cinema-going in 2016

2016 has been a positive year for cinema operators in most European territories.Total admissions for EU Member States (where data was available) increasedby1.6 per centcompared to 2015, while total admissions for all UNIC territories* increased by2.6 per cent,totalling more than1.26 billionvisits to the cinema.

While the increase was also the result of a wide range of highly successful local films across Europe, box office was again dominated by strong international titles,including, but not limited to,Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Zootopia, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Secret Life of PetsandIce Age: CollisionCourse.

Once final box office figures for all UNIC territories are available, total box office revenues will be shared.

Increase in France, Russia and Southern Europe; stable results in UK and Turkey

France saw admissions increase by 3.6 per cent compared to 2015 and achieved its second-best performance for the past 50 years. Similarly, Russia enjoyed verypositive results (box office +9.6 per cent / admissions +10.1 per cent), asserting itself as the second biggest UNIC territory with over 190 million admissions.

The Spanish cinema industry reached the symbolic mark of 100 million admissions, bolstered by popular local co-productionA Monster Callsand despite a continuinghigh VAT rate on cinema tickets. In Italy, the local filmsQuo Vado?andPerfetti Sconosciutihelped the industry reach positive results in 2016 (box office +3.9 per cent /admissions +6.1 per cent). Following a highly successful 2015, Portugal again enjoyed a further increase in results (box office +2.2 per cent / admissions +2.2 percent).

While the UK box office increased by 0.5 per cent in 2016 – beating a record set in 2015 – admissions slightly decreased by 2.1 per cent. This was primarily due to theunprecedented success of SPECTRE and Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the previous year. A similar trend was observed in Turkey (box office +2.2 per cent /admissions -3.0 per cent), where the box office was once again dominated by local productions.

Decrease in Germany; varying fortunes in Scandinavia

The German cinema sector suffered a 12.4 per cent decrease in box office and 13 per cent decrease in admissions in 2016, as primarily local films found it hard toreproduce record-breaking performances of 2015. A similar trend could be observed in Austria (box office -2.4 per cent / admissions -5.2 per cent) and Switzerland(box office -9.4 per cent / admissions -7.2 per cent).

Box office and admissions in Scandinavian countries were bolstered by strong local titles, such asEn man som heter Ovein Sweden (box office +6.3 per cent /admissions +4.2 per cent) andKonges neiin Norway (box office +11.7 per cent / admissions +9.0 per cent). Following record performances in 2015 and despite localproductions leading the box office in 2016, Denmark (box office -6.0 per cent / admissions -5.1 per cent) and Finland (box office -0.8 per cent / admissions -1.8 percent) did not share the same fortune.

Significant growth in Central and Eastern Europe

Reaching over 50 million admissions, the Polish sector recorded its best year ever (box office +17.6 per cent / admissions +16.5 per cent), bolstered by three localfilms ranked in the box office top five. Similarly, Slovakia (box office +23.5 per cent / admissions +23.8 per cent) and the Czech Republic (box office +20.5 per cent /admissions 20.6 per cent) enjoyed the most significant growth across UNIC territories in 2016. Several other Central and Eastern European countries experiencedsimilarly positive developments in 2016, notably Bulgaria (box office +5.5 per cent / admissions +3.7 per cent), Hungary (box office +13.1 per cent / admissions +12.1per cent) and Romania (box office +10.2 per cent / admissions +7.5 per cent). Positive results could also be observed in Estonia (box office +13.5 per cent /admissions +6.1 per cent), Latvia (box office +10.7 per cent / admissions +5.5 per cent) and Lithuania (box office +14.9 per cent / admissions +9.8 per cent).

Admissions per capita, European film share, outlook for 2017

Admissions per capita for all UNIC territories (where data was available) came in at 1.6 visits per year, a slight 0.1 point increase from 2015. France and Ireland (bothat 3.3) experienced the highest rates of cinema-going.

Due to incomplete figures for several countries, it is too early to assess the total market share for European films in 2016.

The industry looks forward to a busy and exciting release schedule in 2017, one full of promising European as well as international titles.

Attachments

Table with tentative market performance indicators for 2016 (where available). Chart of top 5 films for selected territories.

Notes for editors

UNIC is the European trade grouping representing cinema exhibitors and their national trade associations across 36 European territories. More information availableonunic-cinemas.org

* Including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel, Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.

White Papers Exhibition

Accessibility Technology Requirements for Cinema

February 8, 2017 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

A White Paper in which Harold Hallikainen of USL/QSC gives the critical information about the most recent United States Department of Justice rules for accessibility equipment in the cinema auditorium.

The deadlines (from last page of report) are:

Assistive Listening Systems are required to be operational now (rules requiring them are more than 20 years old).
Staff Requirements are effective January 17, 2017, if a theater is providing closed captioning or audio description.
Advertising Requirements are effective January 17, 2017, if a theater is providing closed captioning or audio description.
Closed Captioning and Audio Description equipment is to be operational by June 2, 2018. However, if a theater converts from film to digital after December 2, 2016, closed captioning and audio description equipment must be installed within 6 months of the conversion or December 2, 2018, whichever is later.

Exhibitor News

Europe Report and Conference from UNIC

February 2, 2017 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

UNIC – Union Internationale des Cinémas – has presented a new report titled Innovation and the Big Screen. With as many useful graphics as words, with concise summaries of the many various elements that are made possible by the rollout of digital cinema, the presentation offers an overview of the potential for, and need of, cinema(s) in the future.

After stating that digital technology has both established unparalleled and diverse film availability to consumers at more than 38,000 member cinema screens, digital technology has also been key to the strength of VOD [among other distractions for the cinema audience], the report points out:

“The role of cinemas in raising awareness around and providing access to a diverse European film offer is therefore ever more important to maintain competitiveness and diversity inEuropean cinema. UNIC data for a number of territories shows that the level of local and Europeanfilms enjoyed in cinemas has continuously increased over the past years if one takes alonger-term perspective. In this context, sup- port networks such as Europa Cinemas help maintain audience demand for non-national European titles and are the best way to promote apan-Europeean market for local films.

There are other reports available for more in-depth detail of the many interesting segments of cinemas place in the social and financial fabric. UNIC has a few, and Media Sales has kept an ongoing record of the industry.

On the other hand, this report is meant to give a full overview of the current and future well-being of cinema now that the roll-out of digital is complete. It highlights most of the many different enterprises available to commercializing that have been or shall be available to exhibition by means of digital cinema. Many have been successful, but never well integrated or well scaled. This is true throughout the world and the reasons range from corporate miscalculation to technology and standards not being quite ready…and just plain bad luck.

The report seems to be a highlight piece for an upcoming European Parliament Conference on 8 February titled “INNOVATION AND THE BIG SCREEN – The Future of Cinema in Digital Europe“. This 3 hour panel in Bruxelles will review many of these topics, keying on growth and strategies for fostering innovation in cinema. Innovation and the Big Screen conference at the European Parliament on 8 February 2017 | UNIC

It is probably no coincidence that this report is also well timed for the Event Cinema Association event that begins tomorrow in London – ECACon 2017. The growing strengths of that organization will perhaps bring momentum through to CinemaCon and throughout the world.

Celluloid Junkie has an interview article with the principles of UNIC at: CJ + UNIC Cinema Innovation – Interview with VP European Commission Andrus Ansip and UKCA/UNIC’s Phil Clapp – Celluloid Junkie

Exhibitor News

DCP Training Tutorials

January 9, 2017 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Or how about a Festival Runners guide? Well, at least that is a good way started with autoDCP’s Festival Runner’s Guide to DCP’s – AutoDCP Easy automated tool to make a DCP .

There are many other excellently written lessons for the movie or doc maker, among them:

Common mistakes when making a DCP, a must read. – AutoDCP Easy automated tool to make a DCP, or

How to get your trailer DCP to pass Deluxe QC – AutoDCP Easy automated tool to make a DCP, and many others.

DCPs are easy to make now. It takes a few nights figuring out the mistakes and options, then sure enough, it is on your disk. Then a few nights figuring out how to make a drive that can be checked at the theater, and a couple nights figuring out how to straighten out the problems.

And now, the option of uploading your .mov file and getting back a folder full of DCP.

Exhibitor News

CinemaCon/NAB Split

December 23, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

For a number of years one could land in Vegas and within a two week period see CinemaCon and NAB …sometimes one was immediately after, sometimes the other.

The best years where when there was enough time that the European Digital Cinema Forum – the EDF – could put together a bus tour with members and friends to various manufacturers, studios, post and cinema facilities and…studios. Great people talking on a bus. Alas, the schedule in 2016 was too close. One fears that the schedule in 2017 might be too far apart. More as it happens.

This year it is:

CinemaCon – 27-30 March

NAB/SMPTE Weekend of Cinema – 22-23 April

NAB – 24-27 April

White Papers Exhibition

Loudness in Cinema – IBC 2016 Presentation

October 19, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

A Complete Facility Inventory tool with RESTful hooks for an FLM interface is basically working. A Manufacturer’s Product Line Input Tool is in the works.

The Audio Maintenance and Set-up sheets from the upcoming SMPTE Modern Calibration Procedures are laid out and working.

Daily/Weekly/Monthly Checklists are working, but need some detail added.

These are all available for testing at the site: DCinemaCompliance.com

The Projectionist Training site DCinemaTraining.com needs 2 more chapters and a QA pass.

Digital Test Tools, the hardware company, has a developed monitoring product waiting for production financing.

Today’s topic is that major tangent of Quality Assurance, Loudness in Cinemas.

We’re not dealing here today with Fletcher Munson Curve-like loudness. We’re dealing with what it is when the audience member says “It’s too loud.”

We’ll start with the reminder that in a quiet room, the mosquito which generates 20/100,000th of a Pascal is too loud (20 x 10^-6).

The attempt to create a clever Venn Diagram and a Loudness Matrix turned out to be a ridiculous proposition.

Too many tangents.

Every time I interviewed someone else, it was obvious: It’s tangents all the way around.

One thing was clear throughout: The word of the year is “Annoyance”.

We’ll take up the tangents by Stakeholder segment, attempting to include a

What Can Be Done or
What Should Be Studied

for each stakeholder.

We start with this poignant quote from Hans Zimmer, who has taken a lot of abuse in the last couple years, along with Christopher Nolan.

Creative Intent

Not much can be said about this – It is why we chose this field, this technology. For people in sound post production, it means that after years of getting a movie made and locked, music, dialog and effects are forced largely be created and assembled in a few weeks.

A few items on the To Be Studied List is:

whether mixes are actually louder and
why are mixes louder, and
how to communicate better that turning down a mix at the audio processor actually makes the critical dialog more unintelligible.

to separate fact from anecdote are stories that mixers in the EU are messing with the master gain to match what is happening in auditoriums.
(From several interviews at major stages and mix rooms in LA, this isn’t happening there and most engineers sneer at the idea of it.)

Mixers go to a great deal of trouble to get the mix right then check it at other auditoriums – not just premier rooms but other auditoriums where us common people go. But they bring in their own projectors and tune the room. So it isn’t exactly like what us common people see and hear…note to self – Create studies to find:

If any producer or director sits for 15 minutes in dim-ish light with dim-ish music until their hearing sensitizes to quiet, then gets blasted by TASA Compliant but fully compressed, loud trailers (not their own).
Is it the loudness of the trailers that most people respond to as too loud and not the movies

Insert anecdote about how this is what my wife now trusts when I explain it to her while in the theater.

how many of the public is a complainer
how many of the public would choose to hear the movies like the Creatives intended.

A side study would be to

Find out the levels that people are playing these movies (or their music) at when they listen with ear buds on their phones and tablets.

David Monk makes the observation that once he knows what is being said, on his normal TV setup for example, the words are obvious. But sometimes he only finds these obvious words after replaying with subtitles on. Several people interviewed subsequently tell of doing and finding the same thing. David suggests that producers and mixers don’t know what we don’t know, that those words which are obvious to them would be obvious in any circumstance after hearing the words so many times during production and mixing.

For another view of the topic– one which verifies the theory of a prominent studio mixer/exec – I flew in with a women who trained at a major film university, and has subsequently mixed and directed several movies. She wasn’t trained and has never mixed with a VU meter. Instead of building a mix around dialog between -14 to -20 on a VU meter, it is done “at a comfortable level with the peak meter never hitting red.” She has never considered how this could create a big difference in movie loudness.

Tangents and Edge Cases

One horrible stat is that 60% of recent US war veterans have permanent hearing loss or chronic tinnitus ringing in the ears. That’s 600,000 of the former and 850,000 of the latter in the US alone. Add to that, 15% of baby boomers have significant hearing problems, 7.5% of 29-40year olds. UK military and civilian stats are similar in percentage and degree.

The vets problems areorders of magnitude worse than imaginable; it isn’t rare for 25dB loss in one ear and 16dB in the other depending on how they held their rifle or what they typically sat next to. They were instructed to wear ear plugs under their helmets, but the military’s own studies show that finding a target in that condition doesn’t work.

Everyone you ask about cinemas has an opinion on loudness. Not all bad, e.g., one of the scientist interviewed for this segment said that:

The ability to control sound level while watching movies at home is the main reason people like me (no longer teen age) avoid the cinema (movie theaters) altogether.

His idea is to be able to bring and listen through his own bluetooth headphones so he can regulate the volume. Interesting concept.

I spoke to a friend about another friend whose hearing loss is suspiciously at the tone that his wife uses when she is upset. The 2nd friend says that he had the same issue – his wife insisted on tests and his doctor showed the frequency band on his chart where this occurred.

Their loss areas are one thing, but the edge frequencies leading to them are often ‘annoying’. Yet because speaker’s vertical frequency dispersion is nowhere near as smooth as their horizontal dispersion, we commonly place people with sub-prime hearing in sub-prime auditorium seats.

In the practical world, tangents are the all too common edge conditions. Later, we’ll look at some of the impacts that edge conditions might cause in our efforts at building a great room of sound.

Here’s the deal. All vertebrates can regenerate the damaged hair follicles that allow hearing and other sensing (such as the microscopic hairs on the bottom of a fish that senses variations in water currents.)

All vertebrates, except mammals.

This is one view of the sets of hairs that are inside the Organ of Corti, which is part of the cochlea of the inner ear of mammals. We see the longer hairs and other views will show shorter adjacent hairs.

There are about 18-20,000 interconnected hairs. They all contain an even finer stereocilia that does the delicate touching on various parts of adjacent hairs, and which then help convert the stimulus into electrical signals using a transfer of potassium ions from the tip to the base of each hair.

This is an electron microscope view of a frogs hair which work on the same principles but when damaged by trauma, will regenerate. It is in the power of the nerve and its adjacent helper cells to recreate them using a gene factor called ATOH1. There is something in mammals blocking this function.

Another view of good working hairs. You’ll have noticed several in a chevron shape. These are tonotopically organized from high to low frequency.
If you start thinking of ⅓ octave EQ sets, you won’t be too far wrong.

Shown here (at the asterisk) are missing and damaged hairs. After damage the hairs and helper cells seem to maintain some viability for 10 days. Noise-deafened guinea pigs – given 60-70 dB hearing loss by simulated gunfire – can get substantial improvement if the Atoh1-based gene therapy is applied during that time period. Suffice to say, that’s a bumper-sticker statement for a complex decade of study.

Again, good on the right and damaged in the center and left. We’ve all probably heard of missing limb phantom pain? There’s a working theory that these stragglers or the missing hairs themselves initiate a missing limb-style effect, which causes tinnitus.

Yehoash Raphael, the scientists who wants to use his bluetooth headphones in the cinema, makes the unequivocal statement:

There is no viable biological treatment for hearing loss yet.

Dr. Raphael also mentions that current science indicates an important negative outcome of acoustic trauma named Synaptopathy, that is, hidden hearing transmission issues at the nerve itself.

There are hundreds of researchers and many grants funding the laborious process of finding what works and what doesn’t, many using a friendly virus as a carrier for a gene factor.

That’s as far as we’ll follow this tangent. Supporting documents will be put in the package of this presentation on the EDCF website. (Please acknowledge their copyrights if you republish this!)

So, what is the To Be Studied or done in the audience stakeholders domain. Education? Discovery?

What percentage actually complain, but this time, what is their history, and what exactly are they complaining of? Myself, if I get wax build-up, I will hear crackling sounds at loud piano recitals.

Instead of damaging the audio balance and intelligibility of the dialog by turning down the dial, could we map the auditorium for the audience? Would they understand if the cinema manager said that the sound won’t be turn down but that they would guide them to a seat that is less loud, or less loud at various frequencies?

Another tangent: The two reasons that broadcast world’s Loudness science doesn’t apply in cinema; the audience doesn’t have a remote control, and LUFS technology needs modifying for the length of movies. Thus the argument that goes: If I come to the theater and it is too cold, I put on a sweater. If it is always too loud, I put in my ear plugs (or in some pluperfect future, I shall have put on my bluetooth headphones).

Exhibition is very reticent of long drawn out studies becoming a red flag for sensationalists. They are the ones which stand to be most impacted by hyperbole and dissemination of partial truths. Recently, such hyperbolic betrayal came from within the technical community.

Here is what they are afraid of.

Adding to the already complex structure of a cinema facility, the region of Barcelona passed a law that requires a back channel to the mayor’s office giving loudness data and the logs of the limiters as they kicked in during overages! Only because they were convinced by a certain company that the equipment is not available – such as a 64 channel limiters for an ATMOS system, or even an 8 channel for a 7.1 system, did the enforcement get dropped.

Just as there are no SMPTE or ISO police, there is no NATO or UNIC enforcers. The exhibition community response reverts to the basic premise that there are many commercial decisions that can’t be enforced by fiat. There are benefits and drawbacks to that. As an extreme example, as late as 2007, I installed digital cinema servers into rooms that were just converting from mono.

On the other hand, France, the largest EU market by many industry metrics, does have an enforcement arm that monitors exhibition facilities. The CNC normalized the ISO/SMPTE documents, and made them the law of the land. Alain Besse of the CST has begun taking his research project into Loudness all the way back to distortions created in production – microphone choices and placement among other things. He is planning a December symposium to study these and other matters.

There is one other important thing that Alain points out to those that grouse about loud sports and other entertainment venues. Communities are investigating sound not because of cinemas per se. There is fear of an epidemic of destroyed hearing from loud sound – especially low frequency sounds – in public venues, and cinemas are just another public space on the list.

On the To Be Studied List for exhibition is whether short term exposure to 85 and 90 and even 100 dB bursts of sound destroys ears. There is generalized info but not rigorous data. Mothers complain about children who come out with ringing ears, but are those kids also wearing ear buds listening to constant barrages of even louder sounds?

It should be clear that this is not an excuse for badly implemented sound in the auditorium, but what is the reality?

Time, of course.

…and biting off more than can be handled.

The SMPTE group that developed the new digital pink noise standard started nearly 3 years ago. The documents were released many months ago. But for something so primary, there is little public knowledge and very little implementation. The SMPTE store still doesn’t have a standard tone package available for download. A pink standard was Building Block Number One of a list that needs to be done before Loudness can be tackled. Not pointing fingers, but rather pointing out that there is only so much that a volunteer group can do with their spare time. The long-term arc is great, but short-term progress is slow, and expecting engineers to be good at socializing is probably a good source for an oxymoron joke.

People new to the field always ask, “How about transcribing old standards for hearing loss in the workplace?” Well, it turns out that workplace laws – OSHA and the like – were draconian, not in the sense of being onerous for the facility owner, but onerous in the sense of only caring whether the worker still had the bandwidth available to hear a conversation at the end of their work day and at retirement. A worker was considered to have a material hearing impairment when his or her average hearing threshold levels for both ears exceeded 25 dB at 1, 2 and 3 kHz.

And finally, no group wants to walk the path that gets near the briar patch of liability. Societies become litigious for a reason, and despite the extremes that are used to mock the rules on either swing of the pendulum – with real or imagined anecdotes – we as practitioners of the technological arts can’t allow a vacuum to pull in a problem without being ready to correct it with real science in the face of legislators who hire an over ambitious engineering group to “Save The Children”. If we do allow our heads to be put in the sand, we’ll get laws like in Flanders mandating that children’s programs have to be played at essentially 4 on the dial, and adult fare at 5 on the audio processor dial.

Our new contribution to this Quality Assurance situation is a website that offers free DCPs and a comprehensive checklist for non-technical managers.

This Manager’s Walk Through Series gives the facility manager some method and knowledge against the impossible task of judging their auditoriums and communicating with their tech staff.

Each DCP is different, but each has high and low tones played in sequence around the room, with distorted and muted tones for comparison.

There are graphics included to get the managers used to sensing the problems and the quality potential of their rooms. One DCP uses faces as the empirical standard to judge colors by. Another uses a cool educational graphic from the xkcd.com website, and there are more to come with lessons that fill them in on what they should expect as they build their talents. There’s also a nice dose of the new SMPTE pink noise for sweeping a room and a 2Pop DCP that puts a sync pop into different speakers every 2 seconds.

Download these from cinematesttools.com, password: QA_b4_QC

We look forward to helping you advance the trend of quality assurance in the cinemas. Thank you.

What there was no time to say in a 15 minute presentation:

A mythos has been created that there is a trend toward loudness laws because two, maybe 3, county level (not country level) groups have created laws that regulate audio levels in cinemas. In fact, the Flanders section of Belgium and the Municipality of Barcelona in Spain are the highlights and limits of that trend, and they did so 3 years ago (and only one is, or can be, implemented).

Not to say that there isn’t a good purpose in studying audio levels, but there is no need for the science, fact-based groups to use hyperbole any more than the “gee, we must do something to save the children” or the sensationalist press groups to use hyperbole. Likewise, there is no need to demean the low-knowledge groups as just did, since many are, in fact, properly working in a difficult area – clubs, concerts, sporting arenas, auto racing…) where there is a need to regulate due to entertainment industries that do deliver long and repeating exposure of +110dB levels. That cinemas, which might use brief periods of plus 100dB levels as part of the storytelling experience, get lumped into the same category is all the more reason that the area needs to be examined with the talents we have and not rely upon hope and namecalling.

If Annoyance is the buzzword, it is Distortion that is the hidden hole. In the field of projection we know that there was a long trend of installers specifying projectors down to the level that they just barely made the luminance levels for the size of the screen. This turned around to haunt the industry when exceedingly lower light level 3D became the norm, a norm that could only deliver a set of distortions, from horrible contrast to minimal stereoscopic separation. Those human visual system distortions developed horrible pictures that developed headaches and complaints and eventual collapse of a technology that should have improved but couldn’t due to under performing equipment.

Likewise, under-spec’d (and old) audio equipment delivers distortions of their own, and amplify distortions that are inherent but might go unheard in better systems that correctly play to the sensitivities of the human auditory system. From inexpensive first generation converters to speakers aimed above the heads of the audience, there are numerous potential points of failure that need to be put into a matrix and studied alongside the numerous potential points of failure in the hearing system of the varied audience members. The study that is required is one of a grand scale, and get even grander if there is any attempt to quantify subtle factors dialog intelligibility, loudness and room size (and image size?), their relation to annoyance, accommodation, and audience engagement, and differences between pre-show material and the movie itself, or (shudder to even type it) studying the actual limits for safe listening given the variations of human structure and past listening habits.

It will require a huge conclave of the various sciences. There are many existing groups which have different pieces to match the needed scope of the problem, many which are encumbered by the same time and access problems that SMPTE has, and the political expedient of self-regulation that is demonstrably incapable of reliably playing back movies at the level of artistic intent. Perhaps just creating a group that can generate a public venue to even create an outline of this kind of shared open project would be a first good step.

Finally, more at hand, there are methods that use current tools in the cinema field and variations of new tools developed as a solution for the broadcast field as a beginning for study and development of a valuable metric and algorithm and technique for use, instead of the silly and quite arbitrary Flander-based rules. Mr. Allen has developed a moving time window technique with L_eq and Mr. Leem has put forth LUFS-based ideas. These studies, and others as they present themselves, should be open-sourced so that peer review can be done in a more modern and expeditious manner. The first step might be to describe these procedures well onto GitHub.

Good luck to us all.

Interesting Blogs

Wrapping Up Our Thoughts On CinemaCon 2016

June 22, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Participating in this impromptu conversation are (in alphabetical order):

Charles ‘CJ’ Flynn – Executive Director, DigitalTestTools
James Gardiner – Technical Director, DigitAll and Founder CineTechGeek
J. Sperling Reich – Executive Editor, Celluloid Junkie
Patrick von Sychwoski – Editor, Celluloid Junkie
Mark Waldman – Cinema Technology Specialist

J. Sperling Reich: I know we each have our areas of focus while at a show like CinemaCon and NAB. I, for instance, attend the studio presentations to know what titles will be hitting theatres over the next ten months, whereas I realize not everybody who attends the show does that. Even so, what were your takeaways from this year’s conventions.

CJ Flynn: My three takeaways from this year’s CinemaCon/SMPTE/NAB fortnight was Barco’s apparent runaway commoditization of the laser driven projector, the vibe that Event Cinema finally has eroded the barriers that have kept it at bay and finally, that subtle things can trump exquisite nuance. By that I mean, for example, the SMPTE HDR demos will be remembered for the odd circumstance that that ceiling lights – there to subtly wash the walk paths in the dark – were tied together with the adjoining theaters so that they couldn’t be turned off. They didn’t blind you, but you knew they were always in your peripheral field there and they were always there disrupting the contrast. Just like during the next day’s panel, when questions were asked to better define HDR and the moderator always twisted them to what turned into a Dolby commercial instead of saying the obvious – “We don’t know whether 6000:1 (Barco) or 8000:1 (Sony) or 1,000,000:1 (Dolby) meets the requirements, except we know that we can’t get around the seeming constants of glaring disruptions of exit lights or odd port windows or clever floor washes”.

J. Sperling Reich: So that’s a perfect example of what I was referring to. I know you CJ spent a lot of time looking at the technology being presented at this year’s shows. Patrick I know you on the other hand, like me spent a lot of time during CinemaCon in the Coliseum watching the studios sales pitches. What did you think?

Patrick von Sychowski: It was interesting to hear every celebrity go up on stage and say that there is nothing like the big screen experience, “in YOUR theatres.” None of them mentioned the Screening Room, but it was the elephant in the conference room for the whole show. So a proposed technology for the home – which at the moment does not have the FULL support of ANY studio or exhibitor (AMC apparenty has a LOI, but that’s all) – sucked the oxygen out of pretty much all other technical discussions. Does it mean that we have reached a technical plateau in cinema and that higher dynamic range et al is not as exciting as the promise of yet another home platform, this one contingent on collapsing the day-and-date window? My personal wish is that there had been more time devoted to discussing big data, audience analytics and insights. This too me is the true next frontier of Digital Cinema 2.0 – the Cloud.

But further to your point about the house lights, CJ, I wish that someone had stood up and said, “The cinema is the best possible movie experience, but don’t neglect to clean your toilets. Or replace your dim projector bulbs. Or shield the screen from the EXIT and house lights”. The existing digital cinema installations could be made so much better in most cinemas if only cinema owners exhibited it to its best potential. We don’t actually need HDR to have a better cinema experience if exhibitors did the best with what is already there. The best thing about a Dolby Cinema, is that they have taken care to optimise everything, not just the dynamic range, but the seating, the ambient light, the sound in the auditorium it’s in.

J. Sperling Reich: It’s kind of like the difference between going to someone’s home and they have a great stereo system and they haven’t calibrated the speakers or audio levels in the slightest. You look at all the expensive equipment and think, “Boy that music could really sound better, if they just tweaked the treble a bit”.

James Gardiner: I must admit, after reading all this and looking at it from a pragmatic point of view – I get the feeling the studios are looking into the fact that with HDR consumer electronics displays looking so good, and a large portion of the population not able to get to the cinema, etc. They may be playing with the idea that bypassing cinema in some regions with day and date release on these new technologies may be worthwhile. The emissive displays just look sooooo good, even compared to Dolby Cinema. The 108nit peek luminance looks great and is as good as I have ever seen cinema but…. Yes, the lack of leadership on HDR for cinema is getting extreme. I get the feeling they wanted to ignore it and just stagger forward. But I don’t feel they can in this environment.

J. Sperling Reich: I don’t know if I agree whether the studios are in such as release to completely collapse the theatrical release window. It earns nearly $40 billion in revenue per year, not all of which would be made up by releasing films directly into the home.

CJ Flynn: I suppose it is partly a presumption that there is a ‘they’ out there and that they really have time to explore and develop options, when it is probable that they are just reacting to options as they cross into potential viability. There are so many companies which are really just small, overwhelmed business units fighting for some share of the corporate pie to simultaneously develop something good/better/great and also react to their competitors as they throw products over the convention or business model transom.

But I marveled at how J.J. Abrams stood up in front of all those exhibitors and kept talking about investigating new technology and being willing to accept change…in his full Showman of the Year glory (…and I say that with the deepest respect for his many talents) walking as close to the line and almost crossing it by saying that we have to keep looking at new things and advancing and…just when I think that he is going to use the words “Screen Room”, he wraps everyone in the room into a giant moment with the words…you have the full quote, don’t you Patrick?

Patrick von Sychowski: Yes; he said, “Much has been said of other technologies that threaten the theater experience — and of course I am no expert, and I’m open to all points of view and good ideas to keep theaters thriving — but we need to do everything we can in this age of piracy, digital technology and disruption to be thoughtful partners in the evolution of this medium. We have to adapt. It’s going to be required of all of us. We need to meet that challenge with excitement, and create solutions — not fear.”

J. Sperling Reich: I think J.J. Abrams may have been the only member of the industry to talk at all positively about Screening Room at CinemaCon this year, at least publicly. Everyone else seemed to speak out against the whole idea in one form or another. Many exhibitors seemed to be down on 3D too, and yet the companies in the space seem to be continuing to innovate, or at least try to, from what I can see.

CJ Flynn: Yes, I agree. In fact I am going to try to spend some time with Pete Ludé at RealD and Richard Mitchell at Harkness to figure out what I am missing about high gain and aluminum-ized screens. It is obvious that the new RealD technology is beyond impressive, but I can’t get around the fact that a white line going from left to right will be one color …seemingly white…at one section and will be several shades towards black at another. It is supposed to be no less than 10 or 15% of 90% off center white at the extremes, no more. People in the future will think of our pictures the same way we do of sepia with vignetting portraits from the past. To me, that violates standards that are meant to protect us all. As an exhibitor, everyone has an even playing field…either we tell our customer, “This auditorium shows a picture that is within the standard”, or we say, “This picture is several shades off but we’re trying to fool your visual system anyway with 3D”, we may as well try to fool you into thinking that the green over there is the same as what the director thought it would be presented at…even though it ain’t…and even though this is a 2D film.”

Barco went to a great deal of trouble to get some incredibly beautiful ARRI demo material for their Flagship 6P system, and looking in the center from my middle position you got great views of the forest greens and deep contrast, but a third of the picture to the left and a third to the right were darker green and had less contrast because of the vignetting of the high gain silver screen. This is the same for Christie and for any 6P system – are we being fooled by these 60,000 lumens numbers? Are they really not grand enough to light up these palaces without a high gain screen? What I really don’t get is that if the AMC chain isn’t going to show 3D in the Dolby Cinema rooms, why not have a clean low gain matte screen. The same goes for the two 6P rooms at LA Live; give my eyes a white screen. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a DolbyVision and Atmos and Barco fanboy, but we’re supposed to be serving the art and slaves to the standards.

I can possibly be convinced that for 3D there is a reason for being underpowered and use 10-bit color, but why is a 2D image allowed to be so destroyed? I don’t mean to be picking on Barco or Dolby, or Harkness or RealD, or any of the others since this is the way of the world, except in France. It’s just that the new DCI pronouncements are a Recommended Practice, and go a giant step toward guidance, but there is a logical step missing.

James Gardiner: I agree, you would expect the use of these 6P laser projectors would mean they could move away from high gain screens and the problems that they bring. Maybe it is a misunderstanding and the “not thinking” with installers going with what they typically need for such large screens. I have seen amazing pictures with laser, but then again they have been in model installations that didn’t represent the real world.

Pragmatically CJ, I understand you have all these issues in terms of what is being done with silver screens and how it falls outside of what is SMPTE spec in many situations. But a picture on screen and lack of care to these standards are not unexpected due to the limitations of 3D. I’m far more in favour in moving away from silver 3D in general, apart from what is possible with colour differential or what people like to call Dolby 3D.

J. Sperling Reich: I didn’t get a chance to go this year, but did any of you get a chance to see the Barco Escape demo?

Mark Waldman: Just as with 3D, the Escape format can truly be amazing, if content is created by the right director that knows how to use this new tool. I assume that many people will expect that action movies would work best on this format, but I believe that alternative content can also work, especially after seeing previews of a Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett concert in the main square in Brussels.

J. Sperling Reich: Well given the overall direction this conversation has headed, I’m going to assume you were all, unlike myself, at the high frame rate, high dynamic range demo Ang Lee gave at NAB. I think it was 4K, 3D at 120 frames per second and caused quite a stir. Now I wish I had been there to witness it because I don’t know if it is even possible to project the demo again. At least not in the near future. No cinema is capable of playing the content that way.

Filmmaker Ang Lee at the 2016 NAB Show’s Future of Cinema Conference in Las Vegas. (Photo: Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage/Getty Images)

CJ Flynn: Ang Lee was funny. He broke the 4th wall by telling us that often he’ll just go silent to let others presume he is stoically thinking so that they’ll figure out a solution to some problem or take on more than they’ve offered in the case of a manufacturer who has to commit to some back-breaking need. I don’t know if it is true what he said, that they want to take on the back breaking work and wouldn’t do it if they didn’t want to. It reminds me of the trope about James Cameron, who supposedly said that he didn’t do his job as a director if he didn’t put at least one post house out of business during the making of a movie. Having been a manufacturer in that position, it is a trap to have such an honor. It is great when you pull off the impossible, but letting go of employees…not so much.

Patrick von Sychowski: Let’s not forget that VFX artists were furious with Ang Lee for forgetting to thank them in his “Life of Pi” Best Director acceptance speech – prompting one to post a picture of Ang Lee with his Oscar Photoshopped out [see below]. Not long after the VFX house that worked on “Life of Pi”, Rhythm & Hues, did go out of business, so Ang Lee is obviously a visionary and busness match for Cameron!

Ang Lee Oscar – with and without VFX (photo: source unknown)

But looking at the quality of what we saw in the “Billy Lynn…” demo, there was no question that what we saw was the birth of something new and wondrous. I call it end-to-end reality on the big screen. I’m not saying that Ang Lee will get it 100% right, because who managed to get sound or colour completely right on the first film it was used? But he has opened a new chapter.

What impressed me equally was the humility with which he approached this new cinematic language. Trumbull’s “UFOtog” impressed, but it takes a visionary artist like Ang Lee to find a compelling story to tell with it. And you’re correct Sperling, the only shame is that there are right now zero cinemas in the world that can display the film the way we saw it. How many more will there be by the time the film premieres?

James Gardiner: My biggest take away from the Ang Lee demo is that Ang is a far better showman than all that have preceded him in terms of turning up the technology and image quality. Ang is right – we are fighting a perception of what people are comfortable with, and when it is simply an image on the screen with little emotional impact, the critique is always negative. All they see is “difference” and not better. Change is BAD in general when no perceived benefit is seen. Ang was clever enough and talented enough to make the demo not only about the better technology but about how to use the better technology as a tool in the creation of the art form used.

The real test would have been to see it again in the 2K 3D 60 frames per second that most DCI projectors are possibly capable of and see if it had the same impact. That would be very telling in terms of what is creating the buzz. The super high quality itself, or the combination of the two; art form used correctly with new, cutting edge technology.

Mark Waldman: When the clip of “Billy Lynn” appeared on the screen, all I could say was “WOW!”. It really is amazing but just like 3D and Barco Escape, I agree with what everyone has said – the right director will be needed in order to properly exploit this format.

J. Sperling Reich: Well since we seem to be sticking with technology, rather than talking about which of the trailers for upcoming films we liked, one thing I noticed at CinemaCon this year was a new wave of software for theatre owners. It’s as if the industry got the technical aspects of digital cinema down and now they are going to see how technology can improve their marketing and operations.

CJ Flynn: I must admit to being baffled by all the nuance in the software available for the exhibitor between booking all the way through to the TMS. There must have been 20 companies at CinemaCon showing their wares. I’m going to have to build a matrix and a system flowchart and a few Venn diagrams to get it all straight.

I’m also glad someone had a presentation concerning the hard of hearing and visually impaired, you know deaf and blind community problems. The solutions available are a few years old now and need a revisit to see if they meet the task. I saw the Sennheiser system in their booth and would like to see how customers meet the challenge of mounting the iPhone solution it uses. Somehow Sennheiser seems to think they don’t need to answer that question, just leave it up to the user. How will seat neighbors deal with the extra light in the room? The Dolby/Doremi and USL systems try to inhibit light pollution but I still receive stories of how the necks on the drink-cup holders they use eventually get weak. And that’s are lady a marginal solution given that the user has to focus on the screen, then focus on the words then focus on the screen and keep flipping back and forth. Note to self: check out a cinema with the Sony glasses and see if they are still as cool as they seemed when they were released. It was interesting to hear that Hawaii has mandated several open caption viewings for all movies. Patrick, does Celluloid Junkie have budget to send me to Hawaii to see how that is going?

Patrick von Sychowski: I’m assuming you’d want to fly rather than row to Hawaii? But seriously, it is encouraging that individual states and cinema chains are taking a lead on the issues of access. Too often we forget the technical advances that digital cinema enables for most viewers are incremental quality improvements, so to certain groups of people, they make all the difference between ever being able to enjoy a film in the cinema or being disenfranchised from it. But there is definitely unfinished work to be done here in Digital Cinema 1.0 before we jump to 2.0 HDR, 120 fps and so on. With populations in developing economies aging rapidly (heck, even in China this will soon be an issue), maybe the greatest technological advance will be the ability to bump up subtitles to 1.5x their normal size. I’m not saying we don’t need further advances in many areas of cinema, but let’s not leave important tasks half-finished in the technologies that have just come on line.

J. Sperling Reich: So like large type books for senior citizens, you’re suggesting large type subtitles. Actually, though I said this to be funny originally, it might make sense.

CJ Flynn: Before we completely wrap up our thinking on this year’s CinemaCon, I don’t want to forget to nominate the AuroMax earplugs as the Swag of the Show, just for its cleverness. It also puts forth more proof that this is the era of subtleness, the time after the heavy lifting. AuroMax is the concept of an object oriented Auro system, which was presented several years ago as a coming tool at the SMPTE/NAB Future of Cinema Weekend. Then, 18 months ago, Barco got the assets of Iosonno to incorporate into what they are now calling AuroMax. They are “showing” this technology but saying it is not available until the standards are set at SMPTE later this year.

Come to think of it, the second generation of digital cinema technology is taking a lot longer than the originators anticipated. RealD, for instance, presented the well worked out technologies of their new screen technologies in SMPTE papers in 2012, and released the embossed versions a couple years later, which is what MiT and Harkness have available. But the new technology that they showed at CinemaCon this year took until now to productize. Laser technology is similar, taking nearly a decade before finally blossoming this year … and even that is only from Barco. They’ve finally got what they call the Flagship in dozens of facilities and are finally able to give a price for retrofitting.

Mark Waldman: Well if we’re wrapping up I want to go back to one of your initial points CJ. You said that event cinema, or alternative content may finally be finding some success. I think that the experience of watching theatre, opera, ballet and concerts in the cinema, is really special because they are directed just like a movie. You can really see the details in the scenery, the costumes, primary as well as secondary actors. Because of this, I actually think that it is a better experience to watch alternative content in the cinema than in the actual theater, excluding the fact that venue for a live performance is usually quite beautiful and historic. Unfortunately, and here’s where we may have differing opinions, many cinema goers just don’t know that this programming is available in the cinemas. And many cinemas don’t seem to understand how to market alternative content properly to reach a new type of audience for the “cinema”.

Patrick von Sychowski: Hey, how come I didn’t get an AuroMax earplugs?! Forget the Screening Room and 120fps – swag is what these trade shows are ultimately about, aren’t they?

Interesting Blogs

Wrapping Up Our Thoughts On CinemaCon 2016

June 22, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Participating in this impromptu conversation are (in alphabetical order):

Charles ‘CJ’ Flynn – Executive Director, DigitalTestTools
James Gardiner – Technical Director, DigitAll and Founder CineTechGeek
J. Sperling Reich – Executive Editor, Celluloid Junkie
Patrick von Sychwoski – Editor, Celluloid Junkie
Mark Waldman – Cinema Technology Specialist

J. Sperling Reich: I didn’t get a chance to go this year, but did any of you get a chance to see the Barco Escape demo?

J. Sperling Reich: So like large type books for senior citizens, you’re suggesting large type subtitles. Actually, though I said this to be funny originally, it might make sense.

Patrick von Sychowski: Hey, how come I didn’t get an AuroMax earplugs?! Forget the Screening Room and 120fps – swag is what these trade shows are ultimately about, aren’t they?

Exhibitor News

The Palette at the Exhibition End of the Artist’s Intent

April 6, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

Three years after DCI was formed with a million dollars from 6 studios, and combined with the continuing input of the technology groups of the American Society of Cinematographers, NATO, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, …and most relevant for this story, the Entertainment Technology Center of USC which set up a theater in Hollywood for the testing of the ideas that became the DCI specifications in July of 2005.

Ten years later, the hard physical and financial slog of the transition was announced at CinemaCon 2015 as being basically completed. A year later, several major ideas are still in transition, just as obvious now as the move to digital was back then: SMPTE-Compliant DCP distribution and satellite distribution are still in their trial stage, Immersive Sound, introduced as a proprietary format by Dolby is being led down a variation of the ‘open’ path of most D-Cinema technologies, and projectors with laser light engines – two years after the public demonstrations declaring them working, stable and ready for purchase – are numerically fewer than digital projectors were the year that Star Wars Attack of the Clones was released in May of 2002.

It is under this condition that events are unfolding now, slightly different but with a strong echo of the past. Unless you have been a manufacturer you might not be able to appreciate the ability to have a facility to refine your basically working – so to speak, productized – ideas. Last year at this time the Canadian company Imax opened their two screen Los Angeles home in Playa Vista, next door to YouTube…with their own variant of digital projector (a customized Barco system.) And Dolby Labs have recently begun showing equipment and movie events at their new Vine Street technology showcase in Hollywood.

But the real great feeling as a manufacturer is when a client allows the use of their facility to assist with the innovation of ideas and products. This is the importance of the opening this week, just before CinemaCon 2016, of The Barco Innovation Center at AEG Regal LA Live Cinema. The branding is not only at the front door. Barco Red and White Innovation Center messaging overlooks freeway drivers as they pass near the 10 and 110 interchange.

With an impressive array of executives from both the hosting site and each of the show-cased Barco technology divisions, this facility was re-branded and re-launched.

AEG’s Regal LA Live Cinema is part of an extensive multi-venue entertainment complex located in the center of a still forming ‘new’ downtown Los Angeles. To give some perspective, it is 8 miles from downtown Hollywood. It has several adjacent buildings which feature events ranging from red carpet movie premiers, to concerts and sporting events.

Being in this special multi-block AEG owned and operated area, the cinema is also special in that it is the only Regal Cinema directly owned and managed by the parent company AEG. AEG itself has many varied entertainment groups both in and outside of the movie industry, examples being the AXS Event Ticketing Service and AEG Live, which promotes the shows that are normally present at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, among a thousand others, and of course, the 7,334 screens of Regal Entertainment’s theater chains.

And thus it was that four different AEG and Regal executives spoke of the process and promise of having such a technology center in the midst of their customers, all on the basic message of the potential of using technologies as they mature, with personal anecdotes from their own perspectives. For example, Mr. Robert del Moro, Chief Purchasing Officer for Regal spoke to the ability of monitoring the actual value of savings in air conditioning, electricity and other benefits that a complete facility of laser-engine projectors will bring to their decision processes.

Wim Buyens, from his position as CEO Entertainment, Barco, spoke of the company’s mantra of “Creating Moments and Compelling Experiences” for the audiences that they serve, and being appreciative of having a partner which allows the investment of their space and time. In a later conversation he made a tangential point in a similar fashion, stating that it wasn’t up to them as a manufacturer to set standards for the industry but to meet the standards and goals that are set by the studios and their customers and their customers.

The presentations included the Barco Lobby Experience, which coordinates all of the lobby and aisle displays on a timed plan so they can deliver a single message throughout the facility. As with the other two deliverables, this system was first presented as a working concept at CinemaCon 2014. The Experience begins with a recognizable tone to grab people’s attention, then tones and a hip countdown clock are followed by a special videos/audio mix of studio supplied assets. The software sets the volume level so it is above the ambient noise in the different areas.

The intention is to grab and present the lobby audience with an intense exposure to future presentations. Future software add-ons will add social media tools that facilitate ticket purchasing and other add-ons. Further along, they will integrate the software from a newly purchased group which will even allow some monitor displays to deliver age or gender specific material, depending on who is standing in front of that section. [Remind us to do an ROI article in a few months when all these potential items are incorporated.]

In what seemed like a CinemaCon pre-show practice run, a low-key presentation of the Barco Flagship Laser projector was used to demonstrate a full range of 2D and 3D material at the full SMPTE spec of 48 candela/meter2. A special piece of demo material for one of ARRI’s new Alexa cameras was used to show the artful blend of increasing brightness without washing out contrast. Unlike many demonstrations, this material was slow enough to stare into the dark and the light areas, and appreciate what is being attempted. One imagines that this would be a great opportunity to try alternatives to silver screens with the Barco Flagship Projector, perhaps using a quality RealD Precision White Screen to see if eliminating the vignetting brought by the 1.8 gain silver screen would add to the pleasure of the gorgeous material being sent from such a high quality 4K delivery (60,000 lumen~!) system.

With 2 of the Flagship Laser Projectors in the facility now, it was announced that by the end of summer, Barco blue phosphor lasers will replace the rest of the projectors in the facility.

Todd Hoddick, Chief Executive Officer of Barco Escape, showed the latest iteration of the Barco Escape system. Todd is enthusiastic about breaking the preconceived notion that we have to live within the original confines of a glorified sheet on the wall. The thrust of his remarks have to do with the efforts to get Hollywood content, for which he announces 4 movies in the next year, doubling again soon thereafter. There will be a similar coordinated effort with a partner in China. He also plans on nearly 2,000 installs in the coming years (over 1,000 in the US and EU, and 1,000 in China.)

The system itself has continued evolving since the first exposure at CinemaCon 2014. Perhaps the most relevant info is that it is now a fully DCI compliant system. We take this to mean that the 2 side-facing projectors are chosen from Barco’s arsenal of DCI compliant projectors and a clever bit of security software keeping sync. In addition to quoting a price per auditorium of $100,000 ($15,000 higher than quoted at CineEurope…is this a euro to dollar confusion?) plus a $10,000 fixed price per movie (or other entertainment package) which, he said, by putting the onus on Barco to supply material to cinema customers shows their dedication to the idea. Several anecdotes were told of box office success along with several concert and film clips, most seen before, although a clever commercial was shown.

Two Auro Immersive Audio system accompany the two Flagship Laser Projector System, and AuroMax systems are promised before the end of the year.

Thus finishes what can be considered a nice soft launch into the coming rigorous weeks of CinemaCon, the SMPTE Future of Cinema Conference and NAB. The equipment, while all cool and advancing the arts, was not the story. The story was a level higher than that, the relationship and the potential of the palette at the exhibition end of the artist’s intent.

Good luck to them and good luck to us all.

Exhibitor News

The Palette at the Exhibition End of the Artist’s Intent

April 6, 2016 Like Tangents In The Rain Leave a comment

With an impressive array of executives from both the hosting site and each of the show-cased Barco technology divisions, this facility was re-branded and re-launched.

With 2 of the Flagship Laser Projectors in the facility now, it was announced that by the end of summer, Barco blue phosphor lasers will replace the rest of the projectors in the facility.

Two Auro Immersive Audio system accompany the two Flagship Laser Projector System, and AuroMax systems are promised before the end of the year.

Good luck to them and good luck to us all.

DCinemaTools

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The Palette at the Exhibition End of the Artist’s Intent

The Palette at the Exhibition End of the Artist’s Intent

…Like Tangents In Rain