Troy

John Pytlak RIP · May 24, 2004

I agree with Christian that it is "penny wise and pound foolish" to run a xenon lamp so far beyond it's rated life that it explodes or fails to ignite. If it explodes, you will amost certainly damage expensive components inside the lamphouse. And whether it explodes or just fails to ignite, you are likely to loose at least one or more shows, having to give refunds or have a dark screen.

Here is are some articles that I wrote:

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newslett.../spring98.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newslett.../june2001.shtml

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newslett...march2000.shtml

Alvin Pingol · May 24, 2004

In addition to ruining projector components, wouldn't an exploding Xenon bulb damage the reel, too?

John Pytlak RIP · May 25, 2004

Not likely, unless a quartz shrapnel went out though the aperture and scratched the film.

Phil Rhodes · May 25, 2004

Hi,

I can't believe anyone would ever run a lamp to the point where it was flickering visibly on screen. I've run lamps beyond their rated life, generally only a little, and tend to use the fact that it requires more current to get a decent light as an indication that the lamp is on its way out. Unfortunately the place I used to work would never be willing to simply throw them away at the end of rated life but we would never have run them visibly flickering!

The only other trick is to rotate the lamp 180 degrees about halfway through its expected life, which mitigates the fact that the electrodes slowly droop, increasing the arc length and making starting more difficult and stressful.

I did notice a projection fault during "Van Helsing," in the largest screen at the local Odeon. Alternately, the bottom left and then top right corners of the screen woudl flicker, the effect only being visible in bright areas of the screen. It suggested to me that the shutter was running slightly in and out of sync with the pulldown, since the effect was consistent with the wipe pattern the shutter produces across the beam of light in the gate, but I can't believe they'd let that happen... would they?

Phil

Christian Appelt · May 29, 2004

I can't believe anyone would ever run a lamp to the point where it was flickering visibly on screen.

Funny you mention it - this is how I saw TROY two days ago.

A certain flickering of the arc was visible through the trailers & commercials (shown in 1.66), but when the main feature started in 2.35 where the whole circle of illumination is needed, the top left quarter of the screen flickered really bad.

I got the projectionist, and he said that they would change the xenon bulb the next day, but right now there was nothing they could do. I wrote to the manager abou this, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they squeezed a few more shows out of that dying bulb...that's entertainment! :(

Alvin Pingol · May 29, 2004

the top left quarter of the screen flickered really bad

For me, it was the entire upper half. :(

My question, why is it that [it seems] only a portion of the frame flickers with a dying bulb, as opposed to the entire thing?

Matt Wells · June 8, 2004

I have posted before about the poor quality of projection at AMC cinema in Birmingham UK.

The last time I went was to see Kill Bill 2 - and that was flikering bad - The black and white sequence actually made me feel like looking away at times!

I am going to give them one more go and if the projection is still rubbish I am going to take it up with the manager there. So far I've had, other than the flicker, lots of general dirt and specks on the print (also Kill bill 2), continious vertical scratch (also Kill Bill 2), Diagonal scratching for duration of movie and poor registration.

I am going to give them a go with Troy (although I'm not sure I will enjoy the film, I'm getting a bit bored with overdone digital effects, which I assume Troy is full of)

Matt

Alvin Pingol · June 8, 2004

I am going to give them a go with Troy (although I'm not sure I will enjoy the film, I'm getting a bit bored with overdone digital effects, which I assume Troy is full of)

They're there, yes, but not overdone. Well, not in my opinion, at least. ^_^

Matt Pacini · June 13, 2004

I laughed out loud when I saw that first zoom, when Achilleis is teaching his nephew to swordfight.

I have no idea what they were thinking. That was preposterious!

There's just no way that people are not going to associate a quick zoom like that these days, with 70's movies, or "The Streets of San Francisco" TV shooting techniques.

I was expecting to hear the soundtrack go into a "guitar-through-a-wah-wah-pedal" sound any second!

Ridiculous.

The second time I laughed, was hearing the actors struggle with the wild character names, like "Agememnon". (Say THAT five times really fast!), and Brad Pitt going in and out of a "kinda" British accent.

He must have watched Kevin Costner in Robin Hood a bunch of times to get that down.

Which reminds me:

Why is it, that every film about ancient Rome or Greece, all the characters speak with British accents?

There was no such thing as the English language back then.

Wouldn't it make more sense if they spoke with Italian or Greek accents?

Not a bad movie. Not a great one though.

At least they didn't do the overused and already worn-out "narrow shutter-angle Saving Private Ryan battle scene" look, like Gladiator did, which was also really out of place, I thought.

Matt Pacini

Roy Dallas · July 5, 2004

So far I've had, other than the flicker, lots of general dirt and specks on the print (also Kill bill 2), continious vertical scratch (also Kill Bill 2), Diagonal scratching for duration of movie and poor registration.

Lots of dirt and specks: Dust happens no matter how hard you attempt to keep your booth and projectors clean. However it sounds like you describe excessive amounts of it.

continious vertical scratch: Black or Green? Either way, bad threading on the projectionists part on a previous run.

Diagonal scratching: Happens when a operator tries to flatten a coned reel. They should know better than to flatten a coned reel.

Not sure what you mean by registration. Not a term I've used in 3 years of projection. Going to assume you mean intermitant timing however. Never had that issue with my Kinoton PK-60E's :P

Christian Appelt · July 5, 2004

"Bad registration" is just another expression for unsteadiness of the picture where the image weaves vertical and/or horizontal, and it can be caused

- by camera defects (least likely, because production equipment is usually better serviced and treated better than average projection equipment);

- by improper dupe printing (especially when labs are forced to deliver huge print numbers in just a few days, so they have to make dupes very fast. In that case the image weave is on all prints from a certain negative, and there's nothing to do about it;

- by improper release printing, when contact between negative and print stock is not perfectly maintained, sharpness will suffer and unsteadiness is caused by the changing degree of slippage between Neg./Pos. films;

- by faulty projection (not enough tension in the film gate, malajusted or worn intermittent movement or maladjusted/not serviced electronic intermittents - and yes, even Kinoton E-movements can look really bad in that respect.)

Roy Dallas · July 5, 2004

Aaaah, so "Bad registration" is what I call Jump and Weave. Learn something new everyday.

BTW, havn't seen Troy yet. We didn't get any prints of it as our one and only competitor in town got it. Also we don't do 2nd run prints. Only first run. Looks like a DVD Rental for me.