Washed out at theater

Hi,
My movie looks great on the moniter (LCD calibrated with Matrox Mini) and on the tv.
When I take it to the theater with 'digital' projectors (not the large Christie's but the other ones) it looks all dark and dull. The blacks are wash out grey and everything else is dark.
Not sure how to fix this and I have a screening coming up on the 16th.
Is there a way to change target gamma in FCP or Compressor or......?
Mike

What is your acquisition and mastering format?

If you're screening it at a theater, you definitely need to compensate for it, so you don't show the 2.2 gamma and Rec. 709 colors. Ideally you should be grading it in DCI as it stores more colors than Rec 709. One way to do it is to run it through an LUT to convert the color spaces. After Effects is able to do that. You would set your project working space to a DCI setting and interp your footage as Rec 709, but then again, the monitors you mentioned, won't be able to display the full gamut of those colors, and you need a proper color management system like Truelight. Then again, if your source was video, Truelight sounds kind of weird. You should send it to a finishing/post house with such facilities.



www.strypesinpost.com

avchd to prores 422HQ

Showing my ignorance here.......

Can I convert to DCI in FCP6?

This is a very low budget short film and I don't think I can spend for a post house on this one......

From my somewhat limited experience, most projectors should be able to display Rec. 601 or Rec.709 color-space content (via a LUT or other system setting/configuration).

Many projectors can properly project video from DVDs and other TV-oriented formats.

I'd discuss the issue further with the "projection engineer" (not the projectionist, unless it's the same person).

Since this is a "one-off" kind of thing (i.e., not a full-blown commercial digital distribution with encryption, etc.), I would hope that you wouldn't need to worry about DCI-DCDM delivery specs, color spaces, gamma, etc.


-Dave

Well I can try to catch the projectionist when he's done making the popcorn.......kidding but only slightly.

All the theatres here (mi) seen to have the same projectors for dvd. The same ones they use for their ads etc.
I guess I'll try to do some gamma adjustments. I just don't know whether to do this in FCP or Compressor or what?
Oh yeah it seems like the filter in Compressor is backwards. When I pull the value down the image get brighter.
Bad news is I may not get a chance to rest the dvd in the theatre again before the screening.....

Quote
Mike
Well I can try to catch the projectionist when he's done making the popcorn.......kidding but only slightly.

Yikes.

How is your movie being played back? Off a regular DVD-Video disc (as opposed to a ProRes file on a data DVD), or from a file on a hard drive (etc.)?

It sounds like you may not be able to get "them" to do a proper calibration, or any adjustments. Do they offer any clear advice on how to prep your content? If you are paying for the venue, I would imagine that they should try to accomodate your needs as much as possible...

The last time I was involved with an auditorium-sized venue screening (it was a friend's event), after seeing a sample run-through of the film (which didn't look good), I convinced the person operating the projector to let me help them "to try to make things look better," especially since we were paying for the venue). Luckily my friend's DVD had a track with color bars, so we were able to do a basic setup, and adjust the brightness and contrast, which made the image much better.

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I hope your changes don't go for naught. What if the projector used for your actual screening is different (model or setup) from the one you used for your preview (and you movie looks different)? Too many variables... they should be able to tell you how to prep your content... or not... popcorn-making notwithstanding...


-Dave

Thanks Dave,
It's on a regular video dvd or blu ray.



We tried to make adjustments on the projector but they don't do much......
increasing contrast to 100% helps a little.
brightness up is just totally washed out.
The people don't seem to knowledgable about these secondary projectors.
They say the projectors belong to a seperate company that manages the ads etc....the theatre doesn't even have a manual.

one theatre couldn't even figure out how to fit the video on the screen....
The weird thing is that it's not a cheesy mom and pop theatre either.
At least now I think I understand why my trailer on ImDB looks like crap.......gamma needs to be corrected for H.264