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The 70mm Trailer Anomaly |
Read more at in70mm.com The 70mm Newsletter
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Written by: Brian Walters, Brisbane, Australia |
Date:
17.04.2016 |
Richard
Gere in "Breathless" NOT released in 70mm. Frames from a 70mm trailer.
In the hey day of
70mm theatrical presentation
from the mid 1950s to 1970, when you saw a trailer in 70mm then you would
have the opportunity to see that feature film in the same format, as you
would expect. However when 70mm made a
resurgence in the late 1970s until
almost dying out again in the early 1990s this was not always the case, and
so you had this format anomaly of perhaps seeing a trailer in the
70mm
premium film format, that may never have a feature film release in the same
format. The reasons for this were mainly operational ones due to changes in
cinema design.
When the video boom hit cinemas in the mid 1970s and large, often 70mm
equipped cinemas were playing sessions to a handful of patrons the cinema
industry had to come up with strategies to keep cinemas profitable. This led
to the idea of the multiplex and then megaplex where patrons could have the
choice of multiple film titles in up to thirty auditoriums at the one cinema
location. This type of cinema needed a different type of film projection
system to make it possible for fewer projection staff to run multiple
screens for them to be profitable. The then recent film technology
advancements of xenon light sources, long play platter systems, single
turreted film projectors and automation systems made this possible. While
this labour efficient system worked well, it would bring a range of
restrictions, some economical and some presentational. In many cases it led
to the end of the classic single screen 70mm cinema whose real estate foot
print had become too valuable for only one screen to occupy and so were
converted in many cases into multi screen complexes or sold off for their
real estate value.
In North America especially, because of
limited advertising in cinemas, the film programme usually consisted of
trailers and the feature film only. In automated multiplexes which were now
generally equipped with a single film projector coupled to a long play
platter system, as opposed to dual projectors doing change overs reel to
reel, it made it impractical to play 35mm trailers and then a 70mm feature
due to the need to convert the projector from one format to the other. To
have two projectors and a platter system in multiple auditoriums so this was
not necessary was far too expensive apart from the most prestigious of
cinemas, so this led to the practice by film distributors of supplying
trailers in 70mm film format for cinemas playing a 70mm feature so there
would be no need for projector conversions from 35mm to 70mm and vice versa.
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More in 70mm reading:
70mm Clip Gallery: The 70mm Trailer Anomaly
Around The 70mm World In
Thirty Seven Days
The H8 Down Under
in70mm.com's list of films
blown up to 70mm
70mm Engagements
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Odd
sized "Around the World in 80 Days" pillar boxed 70mm widescreen trailer.
Approximately formatted to 1,5:1 with a mosaique of scenes from the film.
Click to see enlargement
So this situation of 70mm trailer advertisement came into being, even if
many of the feature films would not ever be released in the 70mm format. Was
this false advertising ? In the true sense of the word I guess not, as they
were not advertising the film as a 70mm release, but more an operational
necessity for multiplex cinemas where film distributors still wanted to play
their trailers before 70mm feature film presentations. This practice would
however have led to a certain amount of disappointment for a patron seeing
and hearing 70mm quality when watching the trailer and then being dished up
35mm picture quality and stereo optical sound rather than the dynamic six
track magnetic sound of the trailer, as 35mm digital sound formats would not
appear until the early 1990s. Some of the excellent sounding 70mm trailer
examples were for “The Fly“, “Commando“ and “Full Metal Jacket“, all
wonderfully dynamic sounding trailers that far exceeded the sound of the
feature presentations which were to be in 35mm stereo optical sound only.
The picture quality of these trailers, even though only blow ups from 35mm,
was also usually superior because of the improved brightness, picture
stability and improved definition from longer focal length lenses employed
with 70mm projection. The existence of these trailers also creates confusion
for researchers and film historians of the 70mm format.
Bill Kallay and Mike Coate have created the
excellent 70mm blow up list which can be viewed on this web site, it lists
all known 70mm blow up feature film releases. There could be no harder
evidence you would think, no better exhibit “A“ than a frame of 70mm film
of a film to prove that it was indeed released in the 70mm format. But
misleadingly the frame may have come from a trailer of which there was no
feature film ever released!
Examples of these are “Purple Rain“, “The
Best Of Times“ and “Wild Cats“ and many others. Further confusion
created by 70mm trailers is the fact that sometimes they were not printed in
the original aspect ratio of the feature film release.
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Odd
sized "Around the World in 80 Days" pillar boxed 70mm widescreen trailer.
Approximately formatted to 1,5:1.
Examples of this are
trailers for “Top Gun“, “Ladyhawke“, and “Dune“ all pillar boxed to
wide screen aspect ratio for their trailer release, but all released as full
frame 70mm feature presentations. The opposite occurred for films such as “The Karate Kid“ which was a spherical wide screen 35mm release but the 70mm
trailer was full frame and cropped in its height. These are just examples of
film distributors seeing trailers as mere advertising and having an “anything goes“ attitude to their release format, but it is cause for
misleading evidence when individual film frames are viewed, as it is
virtually impossible to prove if a single 70mm frame came out of a feature
or a trailer.
Listed below are some of the films advertised
in 70mm trailer format that never had a 70mm feature release:
•
D.O.A., Fast Forward, Darkman, Yentl, Revenge, Working Girl, Cocktail, Times
Square, War of The Roses, Old Gringo, Tremors, Land Before Time, The Body Guard,
Commando, The Fly, Harry & The Hendersons, Wild Cats, Legal Eagles, Pick Up
Artist, Purple Rain, The Best Of Times, To Live & Die In L. A., Revenge Of
Nerds 2, Full Metal Jacket, The Never Ending Story, Hello Again, Ruthless
People, Turner & Hooch, Young Einstein, When Harry Met Sally, Superman IV,
Breathless, Twins, Ghost, Youngblood, The Karate Kid, The
Karate Kid III, Fatal Attraction, Back Roads, Young Einstein, The Falcon And
The Snowman, Once Upon A Time In America & Frantic.
• 70mm Clip Gallery: The 70mm Trailer Anomaly
This anomaly lasted for a relatively short fifteen year period leading into
the temporary demise of the 70mm release format due by and large to the
advent of the various 35mm digital sound formats. It is ironic however that
70mm continues to survive today due in part to the application of the
DTS / Datasat digital sound technology time code to the release print. This
cheaper to produce sound format that has now replaced the expensive
magnetic
oxide sound tracks on 70mm release prints, had initially helped to kill off
70mm as a release format years before, after it was first applied to the
35mm release prints of “Jurassic Park“, but has now proved a saving grace
to the 70mm release print format.
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Go: back - top - back issues - news index Updated
21-01-24 |
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