Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by DavidLD (A) on November 09, 2008 at 14:52:34

I had missed the regular showing of "Ghost Town" and heard that it was a pretty good movie...But this week it was showing at my not so favorite $1.50 discount house (the Carmike, we also have a 1.50 second-run Cinemrk which is better and more professional.)

Well anyway the projectionist was not the world's best and not only did the film not fit the screen the picture had a wide black band on one side and a narrower band on the other. The projectionist began with a completely wrong lens with stretched people. He straightened that out when the previews started after the mandatory Coke commercial but then ended up with around 1/3 of the picture that was supposed to be at the top on the bottom of the screen as the feature started. Someone got up to tell them that the projectionist needed help and finally the picture was straigtened out, more or less. But, about 20 percent of the picture at the bottom of the screen appeared to be cut off and instead at the top of the screen we got to see part of the film I guess we weren't sposed to see.
In practically every shot we got to see the mike or mikes being used to record the dialog. Sometime just a few inches of the boom mike, sometimes 6 inches or more. In a few shots we even got to see the entire boom holding the mike. Then for some shots this top 20% was black as if the camera had a hood on top for those shots so mikes would not be visible.

I was going to complain some more but at some point I got fascinated by being able to actually see how mikes and equipment are moved around to record sound. There were only about a half dozen people in the whole theater and if they were ok with this so was I. Up until seeing his I HAD NO IDEA that this miking stuff remains on the print of a film sent out to theaters for public view. I guess if the projector is adjusted properly none of this should be or will be visible.

I WOULD review the film but I was so busy trying to guess where the boom mike would go next, that I sorta lost track of the story line mid way through...oh well,it was only $1.50...

My home projection theater works better than the Carmike.
David