"Scary Movie Double-Feature": Aftermath (and pics)
I know it's been two days since our Scary Movie Double-Feature, but that was the exact amount of time it took me to recover. The show was cool, the audience rocked, and while there was one major disappointment at the half-way point, everyone had a great time.
For those of you who weren't there, here's what happened:
Mike and I showed up in our costumes. and let me be the first to say that Mike did a great job crafting his Joel Hodges from MST3K costume. Regardless of how many 19-22 year olds thought he was just a Beastie Boy - or even Bob the Builder, who never wore a red Gizmonics jumpsuit that I'm aware of - all the work and time he logged into his costume was definitely worth it.
As for me, I went as Ash from Evil Dead 2. An obvious choice, though not as obvious as say, the Joker, who I would argue has replaced the Crow in terms of the number of people who are going to be dressing up like him this year. My costume was nowhere near as finely crafted as Mike's. I simply bought a blue shirt, a large bottle of fake blood, a toy chain-saw, and a roll of blue painter's tape in order to graft said toy chain-saw over my right hand.
At the 7:05 p.m. mark, there were some worries from theater management that no one besides Mike and I were going to be wearing costumes. I was worried for a minute as well, until I realized that we had five awesome prizes, including Mixed Tape t-shirts, $20-30 dollar gift certificates to various local restaurants, and free movie tickets. If there were no other costume people, Mike and I would have simply cleaned up all the awards, a fact that I was totally cool with until the costumed people suddenly started to show up in droves.
(Sam showed up dressed as Salvador Dali, but I think I might have been one of the only people who appreciated that fact.)
In the end, Over 200 people showed up.
They loved the hell out of The Monster Squad (which was awesome because many people had said they'd never seen it before) plus our insanely cool mix of trailers courtesy of Matt Pennachi. Here are a few highlights:
The Stuff
Teen Wolf
-and-
Cool As Ice
(Excuse the digital watermarks. This was the only version of the trailer I could find)
People were having a great time and The Monster Squad got the roaring cheers and audience affection it deserved when it came out. When the credits for the first film started to roll, we were gung-ho and ready to watch Jason hack and slash in 3-D. Little did I know, it would be one of the greatest disappointments of my life.
Old-school 3-D is a fickle thing. Until the late 80's, 3-D films were shot and presented in an over-under process which requires a mirror box to take two images and turn them into a stereo-vision projection which will be converted into 3-D when viewers wear those nifty red and blue glasses.
(An example of an over-under 3-D image)
We had the glasses, we had the mirror box, and we even had a guy who knew how to work the mirror box. But for whatever reason, it simply didn't work out. I would say part of it had to do with the limited amount of light coming out of the projector. The image was too dark to see anything, and the alinement of the two images was way off. I have to shoulder my part of the blame in this, because when the technician said, "We'll be good to go on Thursday night," in retrospect, I should have pushed to make sure everything would be up and running properly BEFORE the audience showed up, regardless of whatever assurances were given to me.
A few people booed, some walked out, but then Carousel director of operations Rob McHone had great idea of taking a digital 2-D copy of the film (i.e. a DVD), and running it through his insanely hi-rez digital projector. I was very anti, because I hate the idea of projecting a DVD. But you know what? The DVD looked great - especially when compared to the dark, old ass film print of the film we had - and the 85% of the people who stayed for the DVD had a great time riffing on the film MST3K-stlye, feigning shock and awe at all the scenes that were obviously shot for 3-D.
In the end, I learned two valuable lessons that night. 1) Never enter a war zone holding two guns until you are completely certain that the second one will work. 2) The only thing better than antiquated 3-D is a killer audience.
Thanks to everyone that attended.
For those of you who weren't there, here's what happened:
Mike and I showed up in our costumes. and let me be the first to say that Mike did a great job crafting his Joel Hodges from MST3K costume. Regardless of how many 19-22 year olds thought he was just a Beastie Boy - or even Bob the Builder, who never wore a red Gizmonics jumpsuit that I'm aware of - all the work and time he logged into his costume was definitely worth it.
As for me, I went as Ash from Evil Dead 2. An obvious choice, though not as obvious as say, the Joker, who I would argue has replaced the Crow in terms of the number of people who are going to be dressing up like him this year. My costume was nowhere near as finely crafted as Mike's. I simply bought a blue shirt, a large bottle of fake blood, a toy chain-saw, and a roll of blue painter's tape in order to graft said toy chain-saw over my right hand.
At the 7:05 p.m. mark, there were some worries from theater management that no one besides Mike and I were going to be wearing costumes. I was worried for a minute as well, until I realized that we had five awesome prizes, including Mixed Tape t-shirts, $20-30 dollar gift certificates to various local restaurants, and free movie tickets. If there were no other costume people, Mike and I would have simply cleaned up all the awards, a fact that I was totally cool with until the costumed people suddenly started to show up in droves.
(Sam showed up dressed as Salvador Dali, but I think I might have been one of the only people who appreciated that fact.)
In the end, Over 200 people showed up.
They loved the hell out of The Monster Squad (which was awesome because many people had said they'd never seen it before) plus our insanely cool mix of trailers courtesy of Matt Pennachi. Here are a few highlights:
Teen Wolf
-and-
Cool As Ice
(Excuse the digital watermarks. This was the only version of the trailer I could find)
People were having a great time and The Monster Squad got the roaring cheers and audience affection it deserved when it came out. When the credits for the first film started to roll, we were gung-ho and ready to watch Jason hack and slash in 3-D. Little did I know, it would be one of the greatest disappointments of my life.
Old-school 3-D is a fickle thing. Until the late 80's, 3-D films were shot and presented in an over-under process which requires a mirror box to take two images and turn them into a stereo-vision projection which will be converted into 3-D when viewers wear those nifty red and blue glasses.
(An example of an over-under 3-D image)
We had the glasses, we had the mirror box, and we even had a guy who knew how to work the mirror box. But for whatever reason, it simply didn't work out. I would say part of it had to do with the limited amount of light coming out of the projector. The image was too dark to see anything, and the alinement of the two images was way off. I have to shoulder my part of the blame in this, because when the technician said, "We'll be good to go on Thursday night," in retrospect, I should have pushed to make sure everything would be up and running properly BEFORE the audience showed up, regardless of whatever assurances were given to me.
A few people booed, some walked out, but then Carousel director of operations Rob McHone had great idea of taking a digital 2-D copy of the film (i.e. a DVD), and running it through his insanely hi-rez digital projector. I was very anti, because I hate the idea of projecting a DVD. But you know what? The DVD looked great - especially when compared to the dark, old ass film print of the film we had - and the 85% of the people who stayed for the DVD had a great time riffing on the film MST3K-stlye, feigning shock and awe at all the scenes that were obviously shot for 3-D.
In the end, I learned two valuable lessons that night. 1) Never enter a war zone holding two guns until you are completely certain that the second one will work. 2) The only thing better than antiquated 3-D is a killer audience.
Thanks to everyone that attended.
posted by Joe Scott at 7:53 AM
2 Comments:
It's been a common complaint for for two decades now that modern movies are increasingly underlit; not in the sense of how they're shot, but how they're projected. Theaters routinely user cheaper bulbs that produce less light and I've heard claims that the projects themselves are underpowered. A friend who was a projectionist at the Janus back in the 80s says that, when that wave of 3D movies came around, the theaters had to use a more expensive bulb for the 3D films and the bulb pretty much had to be virgin new.
It was definitely way too dark. If I ever do an old school 3-D movie again - and I probably won't - I'll make sure that it's up and working at least two weeks before the show date.
-Joe
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