Projecting 35mm motion picture film is a violent, potentially dangerous act. (Dangerous for the film. Not, thankfully--for the humans involved, although it was before acetate film replaced nitrate more than 50 years ago.) Every minute, 90 feet of expensive artwork passes through a complicated, gear-and-sprocket machine. For the purposes of sound, it must move at … Continue reading Methods of Projection
Month: November 2005
The Ratings Game
The MPAA's movie rating system--the one that brands a film R, or G, or NC-17--is very much like democracy. It's only redeeming feature is that it's better than the alternative. The alternatives to democracy and the rating system are totalitarianism and the Production Code that kept movies in line from 1934 through 1968. Not much … Continue reading The Ratings Game
Rufus T. and George W.
If you're a subscriber, I hope you've been getting the newsletter. My Web and mail host, IX WebHosting, had some trouble with one of its mail servers that was finally resolved Wednesday night. I don't know when the problems started (sometime in October) or if if it actually effected the mailings. If you didn't receive … Continue reading Rufus T. and George W.
Great Digital Projection
Call me George Lucas if you must, but I'm ready to embrace digital projection. Chicken Little, in digital 3D at the Sony Metreon, blew me away. Let me explain. Chicken Little, a paint-by-the-numbers studio assembly-line piece of junk that tried vainly to recreate the Pixar magic, did not blow me away. The characters were family … Continue reading Great Digital Projection