interesting news I found ....
I think the Southern California screens are some of the most critical (and yet fiercely-fought over) territory for exposure of such a movie in the country. So, as of the moment, no one (that I know of) has yet seen anything "official" about who gets it. The battle of H8 with Star Wars for screen space out here could be the subject of the next epic movie!
Yes, the Dome would be "interesting", and they already have a Kinoton 35/70 installed; another one that could/would be fun would be the so-called Big Newport, in Newport Beach. Again, I have seen nothing to indicate that it will be one of "the chosen", so this is wishful thinking. But it was historically a nice place to see big screen epics, so might lend itself to such a movie. Possibly the powers that be are trying to keep the local 70mm "winners" quiet (for some reason), but soon enough word will leak out as projectors get put in.
Meanwhile:
I was speaking with Chapin Cutler (of Boston Light & Sound) last week, and he discussed a few of the details about this project. So, in no particular order, a few things that might be of interest:
► all 70mm prints (for platter houses) will be shipped out entirely assembled, none will be assembled in the venues. The prints are being built up by a selected crew working near Magic Mountain (Santa Clarita), CA.
► the prints will be in one single transport case, custom made for the show. A large, flat case, similar to those sometimes used to transport Imax 70mm prints, back in the day.
► even though the show will have an intermission, there will be only ONE ROLL of film. In other words, the intermission is built into the movie, with 12 minutes of black film (and DTS [Datasat] timecode printed in it) in the middle of the built-up platter print. There is no audio during the intermission, but there is a 45-second "entr'acte" music bit at the beginning of the second half of the show.
► the film print itself weighs about 220 pounds.
► with the shipping box, the total shipping weight is 350 pounds.
► the total running time is a little over 3 hours, including the intermission.
► BLSI tracked down about 120 projectors, including 20 from Cinemeccanica and some Simplex XL 70’s. About 90 of the machines are Century JJ’s.
► all the platters are Christie AW 3 R’s converted to 70 mm.
► the projectors being sent out are 70mm ONLY. Most 35mm-specific parts for allowing them to run that gage are removed and stored. This was to minimize the chances for accidentally flipping a roller (etc.) into a 35mm mode, or have a too large / too small loop hitting somewhere, as potential causes of scratching. All the systems will have an on board PTR film cleaner.
► Larry Shaw from BL&S had to commission about 125 different parts as they are no longer being made by the original suppliers.
► they had to commission a significant number of new primary lenses, taking an educated guess at the number of specific focal lengths which would be needed.
► they also had to have over 120 of the 1.25X anamorphic attachments built; some are based on the design of the anamorphic lens developed for d-cinema by ISCO, but are not identical. There is another design for longer throws and can be used in the reverse direction, i.e. as in the "reverse anamorphic" mode sometimes used by drive-ins with long throws.
► lamphouses are all from equipment sent into premature retirement when the digital juggernaut hit a few years ago. New reflectors were made for many of them.
► all the equipment that is shipped out to venues is on temporary install basis. The gear is scheduled to be taken out following the run. (This does not apply to venues which have pre-existing 70mm projection equipment, obviously!)
► FotoKem is producing the prints.
► BL&S is lining up projectionists to work through this run. They are contacting folks with film projection experience by approaching local Unions to see who might be available.
And no, Chapin did not give me even the slightest hint on which So. Calif. screens might get the show, if he even knows!
credit to filmtech