Special thanks to The Walt Disney Company for choosing PLF Energia Screen for the premiere. Our huge theatre lobby has been transformed into Pandora.
Guests were first treated to WOW experiences in the huge lobby and then in PLF Energia Screen with a special 3D screening, dual projection on Christie Digital Systems 4K digital projectors both with laser light source by CINEMECCANICA SPA, lighting up our 30 meters wide screen, with Dolby Atmos™ immersive sound on largest configuration of Meyer Sound audio system.
Breathtaking Cinema experience on the Big Screen, the way it was meant to be seen.
Our kudos to James Cameron to his amazing 5 years production work which can now be finally screened to audiences worldwide. It is an honor for us to offer to our patrons to seat together, to dream together with their eyes wide opened to the big screen, to let them journey back to Pandora together. Unmissable Unique experience to be remembered for decades to come. 💙 More photos and video on our @arcadiacinema IG page.
CICAE calls for support after Creative Europe – MEDIA cuts funding for the only international training for arthouse cinemas
– The association claims their course for young cinema professionals will not be able to be continued without the main funder
The International Arthouse Cinema Association CICAE is calling for support after Creative Europe – MEDIA cut funding for the only international training for arthouse cinemas. In 2004, the association established an international training course for young cinema professionals from Europe and many other countries to strengthen and build their skills, develop new ideas and create new business models for the cinema of the future in an ever-changing media world. For the period 2023-2025, the MEDIA programme of the European Union has withdrawn its support for this initiative.
According to the association, “Without the main funder, the training course will not be able to be continued. And this at a time when cinema urgently needs new impulses for the future after three years of the pandemic and rising energy costs.”
CICAE has issued a call for action, which you can read below:
“The business model of cinemas is evolving, as is the behaviour of its audience. Events, programme diversity and new marketing strategies are becoming just as important as investments in digital and ecological modernisation.
“All of this is embodied in the Arthouse Cinema Training, which has trained and further educated almost 1,000 cinema operators and film professionals over the years so that they can successfully establish the cinema as a permanent place of encounter in the neighbourhood in a rapidly changing society,” the association adds in their press release.
“Professionalisation, innovation and networking are the keys to the necessary change in our industry. Through the Arthouse Cinema Training, a network of alumni has been created to foster the ideas of the European Union and the MEDIA network in their everyday work, such as increasing audiences’ interest in and knowledge of European films and audiovisual work, and promoting competitiveness, scalability, cooperation, innovation and sustainability in the European audiovisual sector.
“The training programme remains the only international training scheme that is specifically, explicitly and individually tailored to the needs of the independent exhibition industry. Unlike other market participants, such as creatives and producers, there are neither targeted national training programmes nor many opportunities for international meetings for the arthouse exhibition industry.
“With the discontinuation of EU funding, there is a serious risk of losing a painstakingly built network and support structures developed over many years, which strengthened the role of arthouse cinemas, and which contributed to the dissemination and visibility of the diversity of European filmmaking.
“In her State of the Union address in September, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, declared 2023 to be the ‘European Year of Competences’. These are exactly the competences we need for European cinema because the shortage of skilled workers is also affecting movie theatres.
“We need a new generation of courageous cinema operators who also trust in the power of cinema and will stand up for film and art diversity, and thus also for democratic values in Europe.
“We need the Arthouse Cinema Training to continue having exhibitors doing the essential work of showcasing and creating visibility for a rich, beautiful and daring European cinema.”
The information on this page has been transferred and updated at the Training Course page: Where to Judge The Auditorium.
There is no perfect answer for “Where should I be to judge the screen and sound system?”
Actually, we don’t need to be in a “perfect” place. We just need a consistent place – measure from the same place every time. Still…the question is: Where?
One group of experts will say that you should judge from so many “Screen Heights” away.
A screen height is just like it sounds, and a little difficult to evaluate exactly. In the movie theater, if a screen is 64 feet wide, then the height is 27 feet high. Maybe. Because there are two different standards for screens. Continue reading 1a) Where to Judge The Auditorium→
Most of us here on the earth realm have two ears. There may be other realms with more, but with two we can do amazing things with sound.
Knowing the location of where a sound is coming from is one cool example. You can close your eyes and you can tell whether a sound is coming from the left or right or front center or anywhere in between. In fact, you can close your eyes and point with great accuracy to the location where a sound is coming from anywhere in the space around us, even behind, above and below. The science people call all this space, left and right, above and below, in front, behind – all this is called a ‘sound field’. Continue reading Point 1, and Other Speaker Stuff→
Use the link on the line above, or click on the “Routines” pulldown in the Menu above. Select Managers WalkThrough Report Form on your phone or tablet or portable computer. Get settled in the auditorium that you want to check the sound and picture. When ready, have someone start up one of the Cinema Test Tools DCPs …and click away on the online form.
If everything is cool, all stays nice and simple. But if any of the answers requires that you pass information to the tech (for example), the form magically opens up, giving you a place to tell everyone what you saw or heard.
Like the DCPs and lessons, the new Online Form Series is free. We hope you will use it for every theater every week…or more if you want. The Safety and Security Form is just about ready and the Monday CleanUp will also be released soon. Read further to learn about emailing the form and other Q&A. Continue reading Beta Test – New, Online, Managers WalkThrough Form→
Become more aware of sounds in the background,
Become aware of differences in the many kinds of sounds around us. And finally,
figure out what sounds are annoying to you.
Every good speaker designer has to learn these things too. Every good designer of auditoriums need to learn these things. Why? Because sound all by itself is complicated. But to make sound go through speakers and reflect off ceilings and walls (and people!), they can take classes in physics and design, and study angles and study which magnets are the best to use in different speakers that also must focus certain frequencies differently than others – all that science stuff. And, they also need to know the things that artists know. How to observe. How to decide what is pleasant, what is disturbing. Because: Acoustics, designing rooms for sound, is a science, but very importantly, it is an art.
They can design a perfect room. They can set it up with the best equipment to have perfect balance. But when they play their favorite movie scene or recording, they often listen find things that are annoying.
You do not need to know about the 10 or 20 parts for each speaker, or the details about each speaker in each speaker box, or the special wire that connects the speakers to the amplifiers in the best system. You don’t need to know details about the media player and the audio processor and the every part of those.
Putting together all the parts is an art and a science for others.
You should be aware that these things exist. You should be aware that these things can have problems. But mostly, you need to be aware of…to learn how to… listen.
We will work on
1) listening to sound. And we will also learn how to,
2) listen to audience members, and
3) how to listen well enough to fill in the audio questions of the Managers Walk Through Form.
And now, our first real technical word: Frequency.
Frequency is a term that is used when describing both sound and picture. So we will need to get a good idea of it. Let’s do a quick once over to remove a little mystery out from the subject.
Think of a song. Think of the beat. . . . . . . . . . Count that beat for 15 seconds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .For this exercise we are going to use the number 30…30 beats every 15 seconds. That is 2 beats every second. If we counted for 30 seconds we would have 60 beats for every 30 seconds. And, for 60 seconds, 120 beats. 120 beats per minute. 2 beats per second. You can clap your hands that fast. Imagine the beat being 4 times faster…8 times every second…that may be faster than you can clap your hands.
Beats every second is a frequency. Beats every minute is a frequency too. Beats every day is a frequency, but the number may be too huge to count…and your hands would be pretty tired! But, the planet has made 1 revolution around its axis in one day…1 revolution every day is a frequency. And the planet earth will go around the sun in 365 days…1 every 365 is a frequency.
People usually say the word “per” instead of “every” when we talk about frequency. 1 revolution per 365 days. And sometimes we have to be careful – does that mean 1 revolution around the axis or 1 revolution around the sun? But with music…that is, with sound…and color…that is, with light…people understand that we are using seconds.
And, instead of beats we use the word “cycles”. Cycles are a little more fun.
When you clap, your hands go toward each other, then away from each other. They wave at each other going one distance out and then back in.
Waves are like that. They repeat their sequence. You can start counting the wave when the hands hit…the bottom of the cycle, or you can start counting the wave when your hands are farthest apart. Or start someplace in the middle. The important part is the cycle of the wave and the time. Cycles per Second. Cycles per Year. Cycles per Decade.
Cycles. Time. Frequencies.
Sound frequencies are very easy to think of when we consider a musical instrument like the piano. From left to right, the notes start with the low and rumbling sounds and and go all the way up to the twinkling high notes. If you look at the longest strings of the piano as they are hit, you can almost see the back and forth slow motion vibration as they move through the air – and they act on the air – creating those low notes that hit our ears. If we look at the strings a few notes higher, they move so fast that we cannot see them vibrating.
The same is true for the guitar, which is easier to make a video of. Here is a video showing the strings moving in slow motion. Longer and shorter waves for each string…Cool! Longest waves for the bass, the low notes, the low frequencies. Shorter waves for the higher frequencies…but notice, there are more waves on the 3rd string than on the 1st string. Almost 4 waves on the 3rd in the same distance as 2 waves on the 1st. 4 waves per …something, compared to 2 waves per …something. Higher frequency, shorter wave length.
Hmmm…there is something here to study later…some reverse relationship between wave length and frequency. Let’s put that aside for later. It is just interesting, but not important right now.
So, a quick review. Frequency is the number of times that something happens, associated with a unit of time.
I saw my friend quite frequently…about once a week (for example.)
Once per second I am able to type a word…the frequency of my typing is one word per second.
The strings on the lowest note on the piano – the one on the far left – goes back and forth 27 and a half times every second. We say that it has a frequency of 27.5 cycles per second. Some of the notes in the middle of the piano go back and forth over 400 times per second – the ‘A’ note above middle ‘C’ is 440 cycles per second. The very highest strings vibrate at over 4,000 cycles per second.
Now. Why do we need to know about frequency?
Because customers will come to you and say, “The low frequency notes are buzzing.” And you can say, “Ah. Help me to understand more. Do you mean the low frequency, like the rumble of the explosions, or the low frequencies like the man’s voice?”
And your customer will think, “This person is interested and capable of getting this problem fixed – I’ll come back here!~”
Then you can tell the tech – “Yeah, like, the low frequency hits are causing some buzzing in auditorium 7. A customer told me, then I listened and it seemed like the LFE has a cracked speaker. It only breaks up on certain notes.”
The tech can now come into the auditorium with the right equipment, then find and repair the problem in a few minutes.
What was the alternative?
The customer says, “Hey. I’m watching Galaxy 9. Low Frequencies are busting up in auditorium 7.” Your new and uneducated employee falls asleep when the word “frequency” is used and forgets the customer even said an auditorium number. The tech gets a note that says, “Customer says sounds is messed up in one of the auditoriums that Galaxy 9 is playing in.” Tech comes in, has to play a bunch of stuff before hearing which sounds and what speakers are messed up. Spends more time going to get the speaker. Schedules a whole morning 3 days from now to get it fixed. Customers are unhappy.
Part 3 of Sound Basics will follow. But take a few days before you attack that. Listen to sounds again. Judge the difference between low and mid and high frequencies. Listen how most male voices are low, but not as low as many other low sounds. Be aware of your sensation of touch – how often you can feel low frequency tones on the arm of the chair for example.
Take a look at the Managers Walk Through Form. Notice the other sound questions. Get comfortable with the idea of listening for those things, at different places in the environment.
Sound Section of Managers Walk Through Form
If you are really brave, dive into the Lesson: So Now You Want To Measure Sound. Go ahead. It is a good idea to get some physical experience instead of all these theory lessons every time. (Theory lessons per week…frequency.)
And, remember these two things: No one was born with this info. Everyone had to learn it, to experience it, to mess up, to learn again, to get better then mess something else up…don’t get discouraged.
And two, keep it fun. On this path are rocks and sand and dust and great distances between knowledge. Scientists still discover things about sound and hearing, just like they do with light and pictures and vision.
Don’t forget to write questions or thoughts in the Comments or in the Contact Form. Let us know what we could explain better, or didn’t explain at all.
The information on this page has been transferred and updated at the Training Course page: Audio (Sound Basics): Part 1
Sound is all around us. We don’t need any particular talent to use it. Doctors tell us that we can hear sounds in the womb.
Using sound well is a different story. Being able to judge sound, to know if it is the best possible for your clients – or at least acceptable – is another different story.
For a simple definition, “Sound” is what we hear. But actually every sound involves hundreds of steps. These steps begin with a motion that takes place at one point. The drummer hits the drum, and it vibrates, the bell gets hit and it vibrates, we push air up our throats and make it vibrate.
Hey! Hi. This page is was duplicated at the Training Courses site, with new edits, at:What’s It Mean? Distortion?
Please use this new site, since it will be the most up to date and it will come with new features. Thanks!
Let’s do this again. We will go through a term that everybody uses but which has a different meaning depending on who you talk to. Which meaning do we care about? The meaning that will correctly get an idea across to the Tech Team. We must describe a problem so it can solved quickly and well.
Distortion – For our purpose, distortion is the term that describes the imperfect recreation of the original sound of the motion picture. There are other definitions and uses, including the use with picture details such as ‘brightness and contrast problems’ or ‘focus problems’ or different kinds of color and screen problems. Continue reading 9) What’s It Mean? Distortion??→
Quality Assurance Tools and News for Cinema Exhibition
Unmissable Unique experience to be remembered for decades to come. 💙 More photos and video on our @arcadiacinema IG page.
One group of experts will say that you should judge from so many “Screen Heights” away.