Digital How the West was Won?
fur...@mail.croydon.ac.uk
> I'm confused. They have the print. They have the 3-strip setup.
> They have the curved screen. They had a bunch of large-format film
> fans in attendance. Why, then, would they go to the trouble of
> putting in a DLP setup? It seems like a significant amount of
> effort to produce a demonstrably inferior result.
Sorry this is about eight months late; I've only just read the
original thread. Google Groups won't let me reply to something that
old, so I've had to start a new thread with the same name. Scott, I
think the reason for showing it digitally was to let people see how it
looked that way. Many, possibly most, of the people in the audience
that day would have previously seen HTWWW on film, but nobody had
previously seen what was presented that day; a public screening, on a
proper Cinerama screen, of the digital version. It was advertised in
the Festival programme booklet as being a digital screening, and that
fact had also been made clear by Thomas in answer to a question from
myself, either here or on Film-Tech, I can't remember which, some time
before the festival. I didn't hear anybody complain that they had
been expecting it to be on film, and were disappointed that it was
digital.
From memory, the screening was not completely sold out, but there were
a large number of people there, and the screening was generally well
received.
I think that most of the people who attended that screening did so for
the same reason that they attend other screenings during the
Widescreen Weekend; to see something that they cannot see elsewhere.
I don't think I'd say that it was 'demonstrably inferior'. There were
things that could be improved; I don't think the picture was quite as
bright as the film version, and there was some distortion towards the
edges of the screen, the face of the boy in the scene early in the
film where Linus is with the family, for example. The focus was less
of an issue than I was expecting, I think it was a bit off at the
edges, but you tend not to notice that so much towards the edge of the
field of vision. So, not perfect but an interesting first attempt at
doing this. Maybe brighter, higher resolution projectors can be used
in future. One thing is for certain; the joins, and mis-matched
density and colour between panels were vastly better than any 3-strip
screening that I've seen (two different prints of This is Cinerama,
one each of How the West Was Won and Windjammer, plus a couple of
reels of Opasniye Povoroty and a reel of Cinerama's Russian
Adventure) all at Bradford. I also saw one Cinerama film at the
London Casino, but I was very young, and don't really remember much
about it.
I have to say that I find the joins in Cinerama very distracting, and
at least in this respect, the digital screening was certainly not
inferior.
> It would have at least been interesting if there had been an attempt
> to do three-projector DLP, but that appears to not have been the
> case.
No, it was a standard 2k digital cinema projector. It is one of the
standard projectors at the Pictureville, and was not a special
installation for this screening.
> I've made peace with video projection for material that was never
> made available or intended to be seen on film (I just spent the
> last week at a film festival, running mostly HDCAM and an occasional
> 35mm print), but I have a hard time understanding why older films,
> which were originally intended to be exhibited as film prints,
> would benefit in any way from DLP projection. Shouldn't audiences
> have the chance to see these titles as they were originally shown?
Yes, and they do have a , very limited, opportunity to see them that
way. Bradford normally screens This is Cinerama on the first Saturday
of each month, plus once at the festival each year. One of either How
the West was Won or Windjammer is usually shown during the festival,
as well. I believe the other two Cinerama-capable cinemas show it
even less than this. It doesn't help of course that there are only
three films currently
available, or that one of these is very badly faded, and has a German
track. While there are only three possible venues there's little
incentive to restore more films, or even make new ones, and while
there are only three films, in less than perfect condition, there's
little incentive to build, or convert, more theatres.
If a transportable curved screen were to be built, it could be taken
to other theatres which had a deep enough stage for it to be erected.
It would probably even be possible to use some venues which didn't
even have a proper projection room, and take 'How the West was Won' on
tour; I think it's an idea worth considering.
I also have to say that the digital screening of HTWWW attracted
considerably more people than the regular screenings of This is
Cinerama.
Yes, I do believe that people should be able to see the film in its
original form, but I have no objection to them being able to see it
digitally as well. I was pleased to be able to attend the digital
screening at Bradrord this year to see how it looked. It wasn't
perfect, but it's early days yet.
Last year (2008) two other films were screened digitally at the
festival; Blade Runner has been mentioned, and was said to look good.
I didn't see it as it was shown late in the day and I was very tired,
so I decided not to go. The other was The Great Escape, which I
thought looked poor. To be honest, it looked as if somebody had taken
an old library print of the shelf, and scanned that. I've seen it
look much better on film. That was the sort of digital screening that
I cannot see any point in, unlike HTWWW.