I'm not sure if it was just the reel the theatre got but in almost every shot you can clearly see the microphone above the actors' heads. The audience was cracking up. The shots were obviously too high but how the hell could the editors not see this?
shareDefinitly a framing problem. I saw none and normally pic up on that type of thing easily. I'd complan to the theater manager if I were you.
shareA lot of times the booms are positioned just outside of shot so as to get the best sound possible. It's not the best practice to do so as it could make for some interesting cropping problems later on but it's still a common thing when shooting 1:85:1 it seems. Now, as much as I'll defend the film for not actually having these booms in their shots (but rather in the spaces above and below the frame which are essentially there to fit the film to the print and aren't considered a part of the shot itself...however if a bad projectionist dosn't do their job right, these bits are shown on occassion) it's still pretty unprofessional to do so. People looking to nitpick the film for this will see otherwise when it's released on dvd. Bad projectionist equals bad looking film at times. I know I haven't really explained this the best but I'm sure there's a place to look it up.
shareI posted midway up the thread. I saw the film the first night and there was the boom mic in the majority of the shots. At first I thought it was an error by the projectionist, but thinking about it some more, i realized it was a problem with the print. Some shots in the movie looked normal, mostly outside shots of buidlings. If it was a framing problem, ie the film was not zoomed in enough, then all outside shots would have looked really small, but they didn't, they looked normal. That night I complained to the manager, he brushed me off. I emailed Cineplex Odeon, they got back to me and said that they called the film distributor and there was a problem with some prints that were sent out. Some theatres had the proper print with no boom mics, while other prints contained scenes that hadn't been properly cropped in editing, and the theatre I was at had a bad print. They are sending me some free passes. Its too bad that the manager and staff that night ignored me, because everyone should have received passes or their money back. I told staff during the movie and afterwards, but no one took me seriously.
shareAh, see I've never heard of that but I guess it makes sense. Damn that's lazy on their part.
share"At first I thought it was an error by the projectionist, but thinking about it some more, i realized it was a problem with the print. Some shots in the movie looked normal, mostly outside shots of buidlings. If it was a framing problem, ie the film was not zoomed in enough, then all outside shots would have looked really small, but they didn't, they looked normal."
Did you notice the boom shadow behind Cusack midway through the garage scene? I'm wondering if that was also an error found in the bad prints.
Wow, that's interesting, I'm gonna email Regal Cinemas in Florida, I saw the movie last night (Dec.06) and the mics were sooooooooo annoying, not just tips but the whole piece!! But since the movie was crap anyway, I didn't bother the manager about it. But I will contact Regal.
Thanks for that.
From Roger Ebert
"Many projectionists lack the skill or the equipment to properly frame movies in their original aspect ratios. This problem is more common than you might think. When you see a boom microphone dipping down from the top of the screen, especially more than one in the same picture, the odds are overwhelming that the fault lies not with the filmmakers, but with the projectionist right there in your theater, who is showing the film in the wrong aspect ratio and allowing you to see more than the intended visible picture area."
In short, framing, not filming.
Yep sure makes a lot of sense, I can just see it now, projectionists all over North America emailing each other saying: "-Hey, Dude, make sure you misframe this movie".
Oh, maybe it was a modern form of Alien attack, think of it, Aliens sending subliminal messages to cinephiles all over the continent via "Ice Harvest", hey, maybe this is news that needs to get out to the media!!! I can just imagine that headline: Aliens attack brains of "Ice Harvest" projectionists!
After seeing 250 movies/yr, all over north America, for the past 30 yrs, and in the case of the particular Regal Cinema where I saw Ice Harvest, which I have frequented 1-2 wk for the past 4 yrs. To view half the movie with mics in frame HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE and all of a sudden, it happens to me and thousands of others accross the entire continent. I think you're suffering from a little reality problem, but hey, it's your hell, not mine baby, may you live long in your bliss ;-)
Gee... it must be great to be so clever. I wish I could be that clever. It's clear cut. The projectionist must frame each print to the screen in it's proper aspect ratio. You show a 1:85:1 at 2:35:1 and it's going to look wonky right off the bat. Now I'm not quite sure what Ice Harvest was shot in. but going in, I could tell right off the bat it wasn't shot terribly wide. If the projectionists are not used to showing that ratio, then yes it's not only plausible most also likely that they'd mess it up.
Damn I hate defending a movie that i only mildly enjoyed so much lol...but I just can't stand people jumping up and down on filmmakers for mistakes they didn't make.
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I've seen a lot of movies, and obviously Ebert has as well, but I've never seen this kind of screw up before. If it was simply sloppy projectionists, I'd have seen this kind of goof a hundred times over, because I personally know those sloppy projectionists, and know that they're not exactly on the ball. This was a screw up, and lets just accept it as it is. I've seen the tips of boom mics before, alright? However, out of all of the movies I've seen, I've never seen the entire length of the boom mic pole, along with the apparatus it's self, in a shot. Ever. This was a mistake of the director. I've never seen the boom mic in nearly every shot of the movie. Ever. That cannot be because no movie I've ever seen has had a good projectionist at the projector.
shareWe saw the film last night. I first thought I noticed a mic in the scene where a nervous Cusack goest to see Thornton in the restaurant, early on in the movie. After that, you could expect to see one in nearly every 2-shot interior.
Hilarious, and very distracting. Unbelievably sloppy. Too bad, 'cause the movie could have been excellent.
Wow...reading really is dead isn't it?
sharejust saw it and the boom was EVERYWHERE!! there's no way it's the projectionist...it has to be a bad batch of prints. either way, someone dropped the ball...sloooooooopy.
...and oh yeah, this movie was just a failed attempt by harold ramis to make a coen bros movie. do us all a favor and stick to comedies egon.
Just saw it tonight and there were no bbom mics in it at all....It is curious that the visible mics were so many showings of the film yet in so many others they didn't show....wonder what that means. I certainly trust Ebert's analysis in general...I wonder what he would say about this scenario.
shareI saw it tonight and didn't see any boom mikes. I was a projectionist for a brief time once in another lifetime and don't remember being taught to look out for this, but then again it wasn't a very good movie theater (although I did get to see Blazing Saddles a few dozen times, so that made it worth while).
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Gang, I've actually seen Ice Harvest about 6 or 8 times, at 3 different theatres, since it opened here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. No booms or microphones. Except I'm not dead sure about that reported shadow in the Cusack/Thornton garage scene.
Interesting thread though. I had no idea what's involved in framing.
Well this is kind of an old thread, but what people aren't mentioning is that films do show you what lens to use on the feeder section before the actual footage begins - it will say 'SCOPE', 'FLAT', etc... and so if there were so many projectionists allowing the mikes on the screen, I wonder if the film wasn't properly tagged for use with the FLAT lens.
Most people stringing together the 4-6 or so cans of film onto the turntable (plus the preview/trailers as well as any ads, concession stand spots, theatre intros, "be silent during the pic", "turn off your fricking cell phone jackass!" and the other random bits they tack on before the film proper begins) assume that modern films are presented in a "SCOPE" format, as most are - if the film didn't clearly indicate on the leader which lens to set up, kids do tend to assume.
If they forgot to tell the kiddies what lens to use, I can easily see most of them guessing wrong - although they're doing a bad job if they don't audit their work before they run off to sell more popcorn. :D
I have this magical ability that allows me to never see a microphone hovering over actors' heads.
- I am a meat popsicle -
I just watched the movie and I didn't notice that.
shareFor those who ask how many projectionists can get it wrong , i have news for you. That is because the average proejectionist is unqualified. Chains like AMC won't even use the term projectionist so they can pay someone 7 bucks an hour to be a projectionist.
The movie was filmed flat. It's not great practice to film something so tight wiht the boom mikes just above the intended frame. But it happens. I saw this boring movie on TV. not a single boom mike.
i saw the film on tv and it wasn't a single shot with a mike in it. but i encountered this problem when i saw"The Terminal" at the cinema. it's projectionist's fault.
shareOld thread but good point...
Yeah when they use the "flat" mode, they're using a standard lens and actually filming a 4x3 uncompressed frame on the film, so the film actually captures a large section above and below what eventually will be shown in the "letterbox" format at a theater.
Once this type of film is displayed, they need to use the correct flat lens, and they also need to adjust an upper and lower plate that cut off all of the "extra" viewable area, and only show the intended inner letterbox portion.
This of course is different than Scope prints where the entire 4x3 (ratio) of the film stock is exposed in a compressed (sideways) format with the Cinemascope and similar lenses. Although it's a "wierd" lens, it actually yields a slightly better finished quality when projected with the correct lens, as the director can have a very wide aspect movie that can be produced with the exact same cameras and projectors as "basic rectangle" aspect ratio films use.
I just blame it on the studios, why people kept seeing microphones in this and other films. If a film is intended for "flat" presentation, why doesn't the studio or the director choose the desired height for the cropping of the top and bottom, so they can have it done while they're making copies for the theaters.
That part just baffles me that in this day and age, the projectionists still have to do this manual mask setup for each film as they're transferring the multiple cans of film to the turntables to be spliced into one long piece of film (setting up the trailers at the start) and then install the correct lens and manually setting the mask sliders - instead of having the upper and lower edges masked ONCE when the studio was having the distribution prints run off.