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Idea & Info: Cinerama 70mm '2001' preservation. Is it possible? — Page 10

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poita said:

Oh and if you could wait in the alley after the 70mm presentation and mug the projectionist....

 I would like to remind the more impressionable members that mugging a projectionist is not cool.

They're an endangered species to begin with. ;)

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So far some things I'll be looking for is if the moon is brown or has a green tint to it.

If HAL says, "I read you."

If HAL's voice pans throughout the speakers or is static to one channel.

If the crew members voices come through seperate speakers.

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When did a 2001 70mm print come out? Aside from the Cinerama print is there a standard 70mm for 70mm screens or am I going to be seeing some newly remastered print from recently? It would be a treat to find out this is some old original rare print.

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kaosjm said:

So far some things I'll be looking for is if the moon is brown or has a green tint to it.

If HAL says, "I read you."

If HAL's voice pans throughout the speakers or is static to one channel.

If the crew members voices come through seperate speakers.

 Please pay attention to the color timing keeping in mind the screenshot you can find in this topic: e.g., the red of the chairs, the "white" lights inside the ships (are they bluish?) - and the moon, of course.

Regarding the sound, please consider how much the dialogue is panned (from which speakers does it come from?). You should hear HAL's voice coming from all the speakers including the surround. Is the surround carrying other sounds as well (e.g., music, breathing, the low sound of the ships)?

Thanks a lot!

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valien said:

kaosjm said:

So far some things I'll be looking for is if the moon is brown or has a green tint to it.

If HAL says, "I read you."

If HAL's voice pans throughout the speakers or is static to one channel.

If the crew members voices come through seperate speakers.

 Please pay attention to the color timing keeping in mind the screenshot you can find in this topic: e.g., the red of the chairs, the "white" lights inside the ships (are they bluish?) - and the moon, of course.

Regarding the sound, please consider how much the dialogue is panned (from which speakers does it come from?). You should hear HAL's voice coming from all the speakers including the surround. Is the surround carrying other sounds as well (e.g., music, breathing, the low sound of the ships)?

Thanks a lot!

 Noted. I will be jotting down notes during the film when I observe those things since I don't want to rely on my memory alone. I am going to be sitting on a balcony level dead center towards the back right next to the surround speakers so I should be able to discern what's in the surround channels pretty well.

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kaosjm said:

 Noted. I will be jotting down notes during the film when I observe those things since I don't want to rely on my memory alone. I am going to be sitting on a balcony level dead center towards the back right next to the surround speakers so I should be able to discern what's in the surround channels pretty well.

 A HUGE thank you in advance!

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 (Edited)

Also note that the 70mm presentation should have 5 front speakers, one for each of the 5 front channels, and various surround speakers carrying one single surround channel. 

Please ask the theatre information about the copy if possible. When was it printed?  Is it the restored version?

Thanks again! 

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suntech said:

I was lucky,  I saw it in Cinerama when I was 16 years old at the Palace Theater in Tampa Fl. I was on my 1st unchaperoned date.   I remember it like it was yesterday.  I would love to see it on a very big screen again.

 Wow... 2001 on a date? I'll admit that I too made a date sit through this movie, but that was in my younger, less wise years... haha

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SilverWook said:

poita said:

Oh and if you could wait in the alley after the 70mm presentation and mug the projectionist....

 I would like to remind the more impressionable members that mugging a projectionist is not cool.

They're an endangered species to begin with. ;)

 Okay, replace the word 'mug' with 'bribe' then.

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ww12345 said:

suntech said:

I was lucky,  I saw it in Cinerama when I was 16 years old at the Palace Theater in Tampa Fl. I was on my 1st unchaperoned date.   I remember it like it was yesterday.  I would love to see it on a very big screen again.

 Wow... 2001 on a date? I'll admit that I too made a date sit through this movie, but that was in my younger, less wise years... haha

 She and I both enjoyed it because it was "Far Out Man! Really Groovy" and "Real Trip!"  After that date we ended up going steady for a while. A great first date!

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I saw it in 70mm twice, once in 1968 when I was 8 years old, and then in 2001 at the Castro theater in San Francisco when an apparently newly-minted print began a multi-year tour around the country.  It was pristine at that time, but after a couple of years I heard it started getting really grungy.  Glad to hear that there is a new, clean print starting to make the rounds?

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In theater now. Projectionist says it's an old mag print.

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Intermissions now

Notes: HAL's voice comes out of all speakers. The moon is brown. The scene where Floyd sits in the res chairs there is a noticeable tint of yellow on all of the whites in the room. The chairs are a darker red with a touch of purple. I'll try to find a reference picture later. The beginning with the apes had a lot of saturated red to it. The movie started with an original MGM logo in white against a blue background and an image of a lion within a circle. I had never seen that logo before. There was an overture before everything.

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All the pictures from post 90 seem accurate so far

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 (Edited)

What a great experience. This movie is simply breathtaking on the big screen. I will be happy to answer any questions. I've got some pictures to post too of the event. The projectionists were nice enough to let me in to their area to take pictures of the reels and setup. I am still in awe of this movie even though I've seen it so many times. I've had Gayane Ballet Suite on repeat for a while now.

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Thanks for the write up. Can't wait to see your pics. Interesting to see the ld was most right. Did the ending bed scene look more white, blue or green like the bluray?

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 (Edited)

I didn't realize the white/blue MGM logo has always been there. I guess I never paid close attention before.

PDB: I did take notes on that particular scene. When the room first appeared it was definitely white with tones of blue but then when Dave walks in to the next room where he sees himself eating there are tones of green. Here are some pictures. My notes are there too written on some food order cards. Please excuse them as I tried my best to write in the dark of the theater and couldn't see too well at times.

More notes: When COMPUTER MALFUNCTION sounded it came through all speakers. Whenever scenes were outside the space ship HAL's voice came out only through the front channels but inside the space ship it came out of all channels.

Also, there were 2 projectionists. The one I spoke with was Josh. He was very nice and answered all my questions. You can probably inquire about the print by contacting the theater directly:

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I am watching the bluray right now and noticed the MGM logo has a yellow tone to it. In the theater is was clearly white against a blue background.

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Could it be that the color differences are due to print degradation (being it an old copy)?

I'm thinking of the "tint of yellow", the "saturated red", the "white lion"...

As for sound, did you notice whether the subjective breathing sound of Poole and Bowman comes from all the speakers or not? What about the low sound of the Discovery? In the MGM DVD, the former comes from all the speakers, while the latter does so only in the computer malfunction scene, if I remember well.

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 (Edited)

The breathing and spaceship sounds came from all speakers. The thing is, I'm not sure if the projectionist had the audio set to some kind of surround emulator similar to what Dolby Pro Logic does in order to get the audio to come out of all speakers but I was sitting right by the rear wall on a balcony level right by some of the surround speakers and heard the breathing coming from there.

Also, when the astronauts attempt to take a picture with the monolith the sound that it emits was deafeningly loud. Everyone in the theater tried to cover their ears after enduring a few seconds of it. It was pretty cool!

Another detail I noticed is that whenever you see the HAL computer he has a greyish hue around him but on the film it was definitely more of a brown than it was grey. Now whether that is due to film color degradation I wouldn't know for sure.

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I don't suppose you noticed whether the peas on the box of Floyd's 'space food' were green like the BD or brownish-green like the LD?

From your observations thus far, I would assume the LD to be more correct.

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George destroys Star Wars.
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 (Edited)

Sorry I did not catch the scene with the peas when Floyd was eating. I don't recall the colors.

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Well thanks again for the write-up kaosjm. That really helped solved some long standing question.