The State Of British Cinemas
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:42 pm
As per Voor's blog which went up today:
I have to agree on the appalling state of the Cineworld Trocadero. Not so much the ambience of the place itself (although that doesn't help) but the low level of quality control in the projection department. I am fed up of having to constantly leave the cinema in the first 30 seconds of the film to find some clueless drone and inform that the film's badly projected in some way, and indeed it's rare to find a screening which isn't being messed up somehow. With regard to the Cineworld Troc, that means belting down two or three flights of stairs.
Righteous Kill was started off in the wrong ratio entirely. Mesrine Part One was started off without sound and with the house lights full on. Dr Parnassus was shown at such low volume I had to go and demand it be turned up. Countless films are shown too high or too low on the screen so either subtitles are off the bottom or the top of the image is visible at the bottom of the screen. No Country For Old Men was shown out of focus despite having informed the blueshirted gonks outside. It should be obvious from the trailer reel - and it always is, every time - that it's not wrong but they will never fix it until it's actually the film that's badly projected. I really shouldn't be having to do that in an allegedly professional organisation. What's really sickening is that no-one else appears willing to complain: they sit there, unable to see the subtitles, unable to make out the image because they haven't turned the house lights off, and meekly accept it.
All it needs is for one employee to stand there at the start of every screening and just tell the projectionist how to finetune the image. Even better would be for the projectionist to do it themselves. Sadly, in most multiplexes they've got one or two people up there for all ten or fifteen screens and they're constantly starting and stopping the procedures by simply pressing control buttons. In fairness, it's not their fault: the projection problems are a system weakness of the modern methods. But in the whole of the six years I went to my local two-screen Granada I think I had to tell them once - once - that the movie was out of focus.
My most recent annoyance has been with the house lights not being switched off. Turned down, but they're still bright enough for me to read the idiotic house magazine by - and I've been told this is due to health and safety legislation in case some halfwit trips over and sues them. Frankly, I'm calling bull**** on that one. Many other cinemas - including some Cineworlds - manage with the house lights off. It's a cinema, it's supposed to be dark. If you fall over and hurt yourself, it's your own fault. I've done it myself. Know why? Because I couldn't see where I was going properly and didn't take care. House lights - specifically a faulty one - has been my repeated complaint against the Cineworld Haymarket 3 (their big screen is fine), where the purple filter on the ceiling safety light has broken, exposing a standard 60W bulb which is on the entire time; a major nuisance if you happen to be seated right next to it. "It's supposed to be like that," they said, which is patent rubbish. What they mean is they can't be arsed to climb a stepladder and put a new filter on it.
At £10.40 a ticket it just isn't good enough. Okay, I and many others have the Cineworld Card which absorbs much of the costs, to the extent that if I didn't have the card I really wouldn't bother. The Troc also annoys me by having open masking - everything's shown on a wide screen whether it's in that ratio or not, so that there are vast areas of unused screen. Apparently it's the way it's done in France (where UGC originated), which is no excuse - so is driving on the right, surrendering to the Germans and regarding Jerry Lewis as a cultural icon but that's no reason to do it here.
I have to agree on the appalling state of the Cineworld Trocadero. Not so much the ambience of the place itself (although that doesn't help) but the low level of quality control in the projection department. I am fed up of having to constantly leave the cinema in the first 30 seconds of the film to find some clueless drone and inform that the film's badly projected in some way, and indeed it's rare to find a screening which isn't being messed up somehow. With regard to the Cineworld Troc, that means belting down two or three flights of stairs.
Righteous Kill was started off in the wrong ratio entirely. Mesrine Part One was started off without sound and with the house lights full on. Dr Parnassus was shown at such low volume I had to go and demand it be turned up. Countless films are shown too high or too low on the screen so either subtitles are off the bottom or the top of the image is visible at the bottom of the screen. No Country For Old Men was shown out of focus despite having informed the blueshirted gonks outside. It should be obvious from the trailer reel - and it always is, every time - that it's not wrong but they will never fix it until it's actually the film that's badly projected. I really shouldn't be having to do that in an allegedly professional organisation. What's really sickening is that no-one else appears willing to complain: they sit there, unable to see the subtitles, unable to make out the image because they haven't turned the house lights off, and meekly accept it.
All it needs is for one employee to stand there at the start of every screening and just tell the projectionist how to finetune the image. Even better would be for the projectionist to do it themselves. Sadly, in most multiplexes they've got one or two people up there for all ten or fifteen screens and they're constantly starting and stopping the procedures by simply pressing control buttons. In fairness, it's not their fault: the projection problems are a system weakness of the modern methods. But in the whole of the six years I went to my local two-screen Granada I think I had to tell them once - once - that the movie was out of focus.
My most recent annoyance has been with the house lights not being switched off. Turned down, but they're still bright enough for me to read the idiotic house magazine by - and I've been told this is due to health and safety legislation in case some halfwit trips over and sues them. Frankly, I'm calling bull**** on that one. Many other cinemas - including some Cineworlds - manage with the house lights off. It's a cinema, it's supposed to be dark. If you fall over and hurt yourself, it's your own fault. I've done it myself. Know why? Because I couldn't see where I was going properly and didn't take care. House lights - specifically a faulty one - has been my repeated complaint against the Cineworld Haymarket 3 (their big screen is fine), where the purple filter on the ceiling safety light has broken, exposing a standard 60W bulb which is on the entire time; a major nuisance if you happen to be seated right next to it. "It's supposed to be like that," they said, which is patent rubbish. What they mean is they can't be arsed to climb a stepladder and put a new filter on it.
At £10.40 a ticket it just isn't good enough. Okay, I and many others have the Cineworld Card which absorbs much of the costs, to the extent that if I didn't have the card I really wouldn't bother. The Troc also annoys me by having open masking - everything's shown on a wide screen whether it's in that ratio or not, so that there are vast areas of unused screen. Apparently it's the way it's done in France (where UGC originated), which is no excuse - so is driving on the right, surrendering to the Germans and regarding Jerry Lewis as a cultural icon but that's no reason to do it here.