Fascinating Digital Projection Problems

Anne Thompson reports that there is something off-kilter about the digital projections as of late, she says they are causing "headaches" (only indirectly though).

First there was the story of the Landmark Cinema digital screening of the Spanish-language Che without any subtitles at all. Critics prepared to screen the movie were sent home when the projectionist couldn't solve the problem. Then there was a Aidikoff Wilshire Screening Room digital screening of English-language Doubt, which started off with Che's Spanish subtitles. (There had been a Che screening prior.) The projectionist stopped the film and after about three minutes started over again without the offending subtitles.

UPDATE: Thursday night Paramount screened The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at two venues. The SAG screening at the Arclight went smoothly. The "print" at the DGA, which the studio had spent eight hours testing on Thursday afternoon, was missing a color. Magenta. The film was green. And eventually, after about 20 minutes, because the cinematographer and sound mixer called producer Frank Marshall, the projection was shut down. Paramount technicians tried to reboot the hard drive, but couldn't fix the problem. Those of us who sat in the room saw them come close to a full-color projection, but something was wrong with the projector, a Paramount publicist said server, according to Marshall. "On the right setting it was wrong, and on the wrong setting it was right," he wrote in an email. "Welcome to digital."

David Fincher, the original perfectionist, must not have been happy. Marshall and partner Kathleen Kennedy, who had been working on this movie for some 18 years, were distressed; the screening was packed with key critics, press and industry Academy members. Other screenings are scheduled for Saturday. "This would not have happened to Stanley Kubrick," said one wag.

That is very intense, sort of. I could have been at that SAG screening, ahhh. Now I am a little disheartened. Still, I had no clue that the serious screenings had just started. That is a little goofy indeed, but not that there is anything wrong with that. 

Also, apparently, Paramount has decided to show the twenty or so minutes of Star Trek that were screened to the press in New York right here in LA! At the paramount lot, no less, which is pretty damn cool. The footage is rumored to be quite spectacular, and I cannot wait. 

Here is the inordinately misleading (and somehow incongruently related) trailer for The Wrestler: