Comments

Grazie wrote on 8/14/2007, 5:24 AM
Vic, I kinda realise you post this as to see just where it might go ..

For my money - it's along the lines of: "plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" ..

We started with handheld flicker books. Thence via widescreen and Lawrence's camels, we ( not me!) are now intrigued by tiny screens - again.

And guess what? We still will be hankering after the "over-powering" image to "envelope" us.

" . . plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose . ."

Grazie
DataMeister wrote on 8/14/2007, 12:23 PM
I would agree that digital (internet) distribution in all channels is where things are headed. But I think this guy's effort to promote the large movie theater screen as hugely different than home television is overlooking the fact that screen size is rarely what gives you that feeling of being there. While extremes in both directions (IMAX, iPod) make it necessary to change the rules slightly just about everything in the middle is ruled by something else.

The audio is where most people will gain the feeling of actually being there. The visual mind will normaly tune out the surrounding information and just focus on what's important in the scene, whether it's displayed on TV, iPod, a large Cinema Screen. Unless the image is to small to see important details then screen size will be mostly ingored by your brain once it is involved in the story.

Of course, he is right that the iPod can't give that eveloping experience when viewing movies, but it's more true because of the lack of deep powerful sound than because of it's screen size. Even with great earphones you still won't get the vibrations through the body that a large THX level sound system can provide.

The only exception when a big screen size comes into play seems to be when it is large enough to extend beyond your peripheral vision, as you might find in an IMAX theater. However most of the entertainment created today is shot for small screens and will usually be more distracting in an IMAX theater. When you have to turn your head to see both eye's during a closeup it tends to pull you back out of the story.

I know this wasn't the main point of the guy's esay, but it just seemed to be a misstep to me in this one area, where he made interesting points pretty much everywhere else.

However, towards the end he does try to make his case for large screen over a midsized-small screen -- keeping the sound experince similar to each other. While it seems like he could definitely feel a difference between the theater and home systems, I wonder if it that was more from internal reasons that the external stimuli. For one, in his home theater screenings he is watching most of these movies for the second time. For me that is almost always a sure bet that any story flaws and quirks will jump out. Second, I image he was trying to make note of his experince while he was having it. That's kind of like telling someone not to think of a pink elephant.

BrianStanding wrote on 8/14/2007, 1:34 PM
Nice article, Vic. Thanks for posting it.

We recently had an interesting debate on this topic over at the DVInfo forum. Here's the link:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=95903
CVM wrote on 8/14/2007, 1:59 PM
Grazie... never figured you for a Rush fan...
Eugenia wrote on 8/14/2007, 3:45 PM
Also discussed here
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=101169
Serena wrote on 8/14/2007, 7:42 PM
The New Yorker essay nicely describes the "film look" that we talk about, and not a mention of 24fps cadence (which, as you know, I think irrelevant).

But, to the matter of the viewing environment. It is recognised in teaching that there are 3 basic "types" of students: those who best learn visually, those who want notes, and those who copy (monkey see, monkey do). I suspect there are many other divisions in how people process their environment, and in our business we often hear that the auditory environment is paramount and a phone screen is quite sufficient for complete involvement in a movie. I always react by saying that is complete rubbish, that the visuals are paramount and the audio is an accompaniment. On aircraft I often watch the in flight video with the sound off, partly because of the offerings and largely because it's such a poor viewing environment. Now we can pick through scenarios to illustrate where one or the other has to be paramount, but that isn't the point.
I am quite positive that screen size and image quality are prime contributors to involvement. I can watch on an iPod to see what happens, on commercial TV (with commercial breaks) to see what happens, but not to get involved. How anyone can watch a Hitchcock film with commercial breaks puzzles me greatly, because to me that destroys the careful construction of mood and atmosphere. So I avoid viewing in environments that I find unconducive to involvement. I do watch non-commercial TV (TV size set) with Hi-Fi sound system, but there's always at least 20% of me that could be doing something else (cup of coffee, read a magazine, look out the window). In the movie theatre (or my own theatre) I'm 100% involved, no coke, no popcorn and couldn't care less who might like to be inviting me to a wild night out.
Yes, audio is important to atmosphere and narration. The use of under-layering sound in "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover" powerfully amplified the miasma of threat, but it was support not prominence.
So people vary. There are the classifications mentioned in the New Yorker article, and there's mayhem for males and substance for women. I would add superficial viewers and immersive viewers, but that means different things to different people and clearly we mustn't assume that everyone likes what we do ourselves.

I deduce that movie houses in the US could do with improvement, because here the standard desired by the author is the norm. In addition there are "club lounges" and "director's suites" seating 20 where waiters creep around serving wine and food, so I've every desire to avoid those but have friends who think them wonderful. I don't want an usher telling me about a film I'm about to watch, and I'd be annoyed (and tell them) if the projection wasn't of a high standard.

I suspect that "hear" people may outnumber "see" people. Could this be because of the crummy TVs people watched as children? Music research claims that "everyone" is born knowing perfect pitch, but as children experience hearing the same songs in different keys they learn that only relative pitch matters. Children who take up a musical instrument after age 7 almost never have perfect pitch. Maybe in the visual world children watching TV learn that image doesn't matter in telling a story.