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Projection and Theater Design

Projectors
The projector is the piece of motion-picture equipment that has changed the least. Manufacturers produce models virtually identical to those of the 1950s, and even the 1930 model Super Simplex is still in wide use. The essential mechanism is still the four-slot Maltese cross introduced in the 1890s. The Maltese cross provides the intermittent Geneva movement that stops each frame of the continuously moving film in front of the picture aperture, where it can be projected (or, in a camera, exposed). The movement starts with a continuously rotating gear and cam. Each 360-degree rotation of the gear and cam causes a pin to engage one of the slots of the Maltese cross. The pin rotates the cross, which in turn rotates a shaft, one quarter turn. As the shaft rotates, four of the 16 teeth on the intermittent sprocket advance and engage the perforations (sprocket holes) on one frame of the film. The sprocket moves only when the pin is fully engaged in the Maltese cross slot (see Figure 5, right). This is the "pull-down" phase; in the other phases the curved surfaces of the cam and the cross are in contact and the movement is in the "dwell" position. The Geneva movement is also called a 3:1 movement because there are three quarter-cycles of dwell for every one quarter-cycle of pull-down.

Sound, unlike movie, cannot be reproduced intermittently; sound must be continuous to be realistic. The optical-sound-reading equipment on a projector is therefore located below the picture aperture, and the sound on an optical 35-mm print is located 21 frames ahead of its corresponding image. A light beam (supplied by a direct current for stability) is shone through a rectangular slit and focused by a lens to dimensions of .001 by .084 inch onto the sound track. The sound track's varying bands of light and dark then modulate the amount of light from the beam that is allowed to pass to the optical pickup. In older equipment this pickup was a photoelectric cell that changed electrical resistance under exposure to light. Newer designs employ a solar cell of photovoltaic material to convert light energy to electric energy.

An important element of picture quality on the screen is brightness. For decades the standard light source was the carbon-arc lamphouse, which used disposable electrodes (positive and negative carbon-clad rods) that would be moved together as they burned; the rods needed to be replaced every hour or so. Xenon lamps were introduced in West Germany in the 1950s, and carbon-arc projection is now found only in older theatres. Both carbon-arc and xenon lamps are run off a direct-current power supply in order to minimize brightness variations due to fluctuations in voltage. The xenon bulb replaces the positive and negative carbons with a tungsten anode and cathode in a quartz envelope filled with xenon gas under pressure. Light from xenon bulbs has a colour temperature closer to that of daylight than carbon-arc light does; that is, it is bluer and is therefore particularly well suited to colour films.

Projection techniques

A 35-mm exhibition print is furnished to the theatre mounted on 2,000-foot (22-minute) reels.Thus, a typical feature film consists of five or six reels. For decades, the 2,000-foot reel was the basic unit of projection, and each screening required four or five changes of projector. Circular cue marks printed in the upper right corner of the picture indicated when each changeover should take place. Today the 2,000-foot reel is used primarily in single-screen theatres and in archival and repertory theatres that may present only a single screening of a film. Theatrical exhibition increasingly requires the film to be "made up"--that is, reels must be spliced together to enable the projectionist to make a single changeover between large reels or to use external transports that contain an entire feature without changeovers. For the former, a feature film of six 2,000-foot reels would be reassembled onto two 6,000-foot reels with a running time of about an hour each. The changeover is made by the traditional switching method using the cues at the end of the reel or by attaching a strip of foil sensor tape to the edge of the film, where it activates the appropriate switching relays. Coming attractions ("trailers") and announcements ("snipes"--e.g., "No Smoking" or "Starts Friday") are spliced in sequence at the head of the first reel or may be on a separate reel. Up to three auditoriums may be served from a common booth when large reels are used.

The advent of xenon lamps made it possible to reduce or eliminate changeovers to the point where a single projectionist could operate the equipment for several auditoriums. Although there was an occasional theatre with more than one screen in the days of carbon-arc projection, it is xenon projection that truly began the age of multiplex cinemas. With more than three screens, equipment popularly known as the flatbed, or platter, system is mandatory. The entire film is shown without changeovers and does not need to be rewound. The most advanced version of the platter eliminates the need for rethreading. The last frame of film is spliced to the first, as in the Edison Kinetoscope.

Sound reproduction

Theatre sound systems are divided into the "A" chain and "B" chain. The "B" chain components are the power amplifiers and speakers that, although specially made, are not essentially different from those in other audio systems. The "A" chain components are the optical pickup and preamplifier and employ some principles unique to motion pictures.

The simplest and most common sound system employs a single amplifier channel and one speaker behind the screen. Stereo variable area (SVA), popularly known as Dolby, though in fact made by several manufacturers, employs a split optical pickup for two sets of wires for the left and right channels. Three stage speakers (left, right, and centre) are mounted behind the screen, and an array of speakers is spread along the side and rear of the auditorium for "surround" sound. Most feature films are prepared so that dialogue issues from the centre speaker, music and on-screen sound effects from the left and right, and off-screen sounds from the surrounds. A processor decodes the four channels from dual variable area tracks; information appearing on the left track is sent to the left speaker, on the right track to the right speaker, while information on both tracks is combined in the centre channel. The surround channel is derived from inversion phase relationships between the left and right tracks.

In monaural systems, a treble cut is employed in accordance with the Standard Electrical Characteristic of 1938, or Academy Curve, so that frequencies above 8,000 hertz (Hz) are "rolled off." This practice dates from an era when sound tracks had a large degree of ground noise and vacuum tube amplifiers produced an audible hiss concentrated in the upper frequencies. A treble boost is added during rerecording so that monaural sound tracks sound shrill and sibilant when played without the Academy filter. The introduction of Dolby noise reduction in conjunction with optical tracks made it possible for frequencies to range up to about 12,000 Hz. With the replacement of tube power amplifiers by solid state ones, large wattages are easily obtainable, and theatre sound is generally louder than it was formerly. The normal level for dialogue in a monaural film is 80 decibels (dB) in the centre of the auditorium; the normal Dolby level is 85 dB, or nearly double that.

SVA is a direct replacement for the four-track magnetic sound introduced in 1953 in conjunction with CinemaScope. Today, magnetic sound is used only with 70-mm prints where six tracks are contained in four stripes of magnetic oxide embossed on the film. The magnetic reproducer, called a penthouse, is mounted above the projector. On a magnetic print, the sound displacement is behind the picture (28 frames in 35 mm and 23 frames in 70 mm).

Until recently, theatre speakers were not capable of reproducing sounds below 80 Hz. The standard theatre speaker was a two-way system with a high-frequency horn mounted atop a cabinet containing a wide, shallow paper cone woofer. The impetus given to 70-mm six-track sound by the great success of Star Wars led to the development of the THX system for exhibition. In the six-track system, five stage speakers are mounted in a flat baffle wall behind the screen; each has double 15-inch woofers for low-frequency reproduction down to 40 Hz. For frequencies down to 30 Hz, sub-woofers are connected to a bass extension module that augments signals below 100 Hz on the tracks. At this level, sound is not heard but felt as vibration in the viewer's diaphragm. The THX system delivers undistorted sound up to a level of 108 dB per channel.

Auditorium design

The most crucial consideration of theatre design is the relationship of picture size to the seating area. In the 1940s the Society of Motion Picture Engineers propounded the "two and six rule," which stated that the first row of seats should be at a distance from the screen equal to twice the picture width and the last row at six picture widths. This rule was based on the Academy picture ratio of 1.33 to 1, which is no longer used except for revival showings. The rule is still valid, however, because the wide-screen formats derive their impact from extension of the picture into the viewer's peripheral vision, and proper installation will maintain constant picture height through all formats.

Depending upon the seating capacity of the auditorium, the image may be made larger or smaller by changing the focal length of the lens. The lens size is calculated by multiplying the "throw" (distance from lens to screen) by the width of the aperture and dividing the total by the picture width. Thus, to produce a picture 18.5 feet wide in 1.85 format (aperture width .825 inch) in an auditorium having a 90-foot throw would require a 4-inch lens.

The recommended level of screen brightness is 16 foot lamberts in the centre of the screen (with no film in the aperture), but a level of 12 to 14 foot lamberts is more typical for commercial cinemas. It is difficult to illuminate a large picture, because screen brightness decreases in proportion to the square of the increase in screen size; i.e., the light source used to produce a 30-foot-wide picture will have to be not twice but four times as bright as that for a 15-foot image.

Light from the screen is wasted if it comes back over the heads of the audience, is too low down, or is too far to the sides. Light may be conserved, at the expense of even illumination, by the use of various screen surfaces. The ordinary matte-white screen exhibits approximately the same level of brightness at wide angles as from the centre axis. It is possible to increase the light reflected to the centre axis by using pearlescent screen surfaces that contain a brightness enhancing agent. Such screens conserve light but cannot be used in a theatre with a wide audience area. Another screen surface is the aluminized, or silver, screen associated with old-style movie palaces with very long throws. This screen is even brighter than the pearlescent version but loses its brightness markedly if viewed from beyond 20 degrees from the centre axis. It is mandatory for 3-D presentation, however, because an ordinary white screen depolarizes the light.

Theatre screens are perforated to allow transmission of sound from speakers behind the screen. The perforations account for only about 8 percent of the screen surface and do not substantially degrade the picture.

Reverberation times in excess of one second degrade speech intelligibility from the speakers. Very large, old theatres built for vaudeville and live musical accompaniment of silent films have high ceilings and large interior volumes that produce reverberation times of two seconds or more. Well-designed theatres employ curved, often serrated walls and avoid parallel walls and right angles that can produce short-path reflections.