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Star Wars Prequels Media Movies

TPM movie reel stolen 171

Posted by Hemos from the you-want-jar-jar-that-much? dept.
A whole slew of people pointed out the news that an entire reel of The Phantom Menace was stolen off of the projector over the weekend. Hmm...I wonder how long before it shows up on eBay?
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TPM movie reel stolen More

TPM movie reel stolen

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  • However, with this reel, the theif (or whoever it

    "reel" is rather a confusing term, what people
    appear to mean is an entire print. In which case
    then it's more likely to be thieves rather than
    a thief. A single person would have difficulty
    carrying the entire print.
  • Your average darkroom hack could make a hell of
    a good poster from a 35MM frame.
  • I saw Phantom in Colorado on Thursday. On Sunday (7am) I landed in Malaysia. By noon, I had a copy of The Phantom Menace on Video CD. Cost about US$2.50, with a professionally pressed and designed CD and sleeve. Talk about a fast pirate! Of course, it was shot on camcorder, you hear the audience throughout the movie. I went out on the street on Tuesday in Malaysia to find out there is already a 2nd generation version that is supposed to be "clean" (no audience). Hell, they have movies on Video CD out here that aren't even in theatres yet in the US!

    ---gralem
  • Direct video broadcast? Just what sort of quality is this, and what sort of bandwidth does it require. And an even more relevant question is the data link encrypted? ;]
  • That's right, you can get your own copy of TPM in New York City for only $5. I saw one guy last Thursdaywho was actually playing a copy of the movie on a little portable tv/vcr combo machine and selling the tapes for 5 clams. The picture was good and the sound was ok. Might have to get me a copy.
  • Launching a satellite is pretty far fetched -- he'd need to buy a piece of the radio spectrum he could use, and it'd have to be a fairly high power transmission, all things that are very unlikely to be allowed. Low power (DSS-like) transmissions are too prone to signal fade during rain and things like that -- and no theater owner in their right mind would risk being unable to show a film during a rainy day (when it seems to me to be the best time to see them!)


    Actually, current transmisson methods would work quite well for movie theaters. How do you think HDTV gets into your house now?

    He really wouldn't need to launch his own satellite (That is hard to do since nearly all of the parking spots in orbit are bought, taken, or useless). He could buy transponder space from a C, Ku, or DBS sat currently in orbit. There are many free channels to spare. And satellites basically just relay whatever is fed to them.

    DBS (DSS, EchoStar...) would be perfect for it. It has HDTV capability, MPEG-1 Transmisson and can handle Dolby 5.1. All is needed is a upgrade to Mpeg-2 (In the works), and massive encryption, and you would have a pretty reliable system for delivery.

    Rain Fade can be nearly eliminated with the use of large (10'-20') dishes instead of the puny 18" ones.

    As I see it, he could do it right now if he wanted to by just implementing some high level bit encryption and one [random, unknown to public] broadcast. The theatres can store it on a large computer and hit play any time they wanted to.

    RB
  • The actual laws vary by state, but the statute of limitations for robbery is usually 10 years.
  • I saw it the night before it was released at 9:00 EST. My sister works for a movie theater chain in the area. They had an employee screening. I called all my best frends and we hauled up there. There must have been 50 seats out of 500 filled in this huge theater with a huge screen and a HUGE sound system. We had Starbucks and Blimpie cater us and we invited some of their employees as well. Unlimited subs and unlimited frappucinos + Star Wars = GOOD. Saw it the next day too. :)

  • Re:Not hard to steal reels of film... (Score:3)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @08:28AM (#1880546)
    This is true. When I was working in the theater as an assistant manager, I was 19 and in total charge of the theater at least two nights a week. Everyone else there, except for the general manager, was closer to 16. Theft of all kinds, including the re-selling of tickets and the nefarious practice of "cupping" (if you don't know what that is, you don't want to), were almost impossible to eradicate. I knew of a couple of other theater managers in the city who not only tolerated but actually organized some of these things to their immense personal profit. So it hardly follows that individual theater managers are scrupulously honest.

    Private, illegal showings of films were pretty common. Whenever we spliced a new film together, we were obligated to run it through the projector at least once to make sure it worked, i.e., no weak splices, all of the film oriented properly, and so on. It was customary for the theater employees to invite all of their friends to post-midnight previews of new films on these occasions. In an 8-plex with a fair number of employees, this sometimes ran to over a hundred people. No outsider ever offered me money for a private showing, but I don't necessarily know that I would have refused it. It would have been pointless to do so, though, as most theaters will gladly rent a private showing -- in such a case, the distributor does get royalties.

    The original poster on this thread does have a good point, though. When we were shipping films out, we left the cans right by the door, or just inside the box office. Under those circumstances, they'd be quite easy to steal for someone who knew what they were after.

    It never did occur to me to steal a film, though. I can't imagine what I'd have done with it.
  • there are a couple locations that will be 'demo-ing' the new digital format, but it won't be wide spread (at least for star wars movies) until episode II, which will be completely digital, from 'filming' to the audience. and as for the second bit, why call it a movie when its a 'talkie'? it's just more convient/ingrained in us.
  • In 20 years, that reel will be worth less than a pile of dog poopoo.

    Lucas has used special degrading film for his trailer, and has done it as well for those reels.

    He plans on making some changes during the year to the movie, like correcting some shots (the sand shots where Jar Jar Binks doesn't leave any trace is lame). So using long-lived film doesn't make any sense at this point.

    Besides, they have the entire movie digitized on disks, so why botter with the life span of film?
  • This sounds not really likely to me since it would at best double the number of reels necessary, since non-English countries would still need their own copies, be it because subtitles are added or because theyre redoing the whole vocal part in their own language.

    Would it be a great enhancement to give JarJar a new voice by the way ? This would be the only case where Id actually think about watching a Germanized movie :)
  • > If this isn't a publicity stunt, and the reels were really stolen, it would almost have to be an inside job.

    > And my memory may be failing me, but a seven-reel film loaded into cans weighs closer to sixty or seventy pounds.

    ...which is why, had you bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that it reads: "The size and weight of the film have police thinking more than one person stole the movie. There were no signs of forced entry, police said.".

    Ta-da! Inside job, with enough people to distribute the weight.
    --
    - Sean
  • Because duplicating films is very expensive. At present once the film has started dying down in the U.S, the reels of film are cleaned up and then sent to other the other countries and so on.

    I don't know exactly how expensive, but I'm guessing tens of thousands of dollars.
  • Wow, this took place no more than fifteen minutes
    from my front stoop. Hey, with any luck, whoever
    swiped the film will edit out the Jar Jar scenes
    before he cuts it to VHS.

    By the by, don't movies like this usually consist
    of two or more reels? Meaning that this guy could
    have only 1/2 or 1/3 of the movie...

    ----

  • Digital broadcasts (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ppl have been commenting on the digital projection methodology and how it relates to piracy. I was wondering, would the digital copy be encrypted, signed and then broadcast. If the projectors were designed right, and contained a chip with the key to decrypt the copy on the fly, then the digital format would be more secure. Of course, I am stating that each projector had a unique key such that the "film" could only be shown on that projector. Any comments?
  • Simple. You provide a standard carrier signal, then modulate the amplitude of said carrier in proportion to an audio signal. AM radio.

    Or, you can break an image into scanlines and modulate the frequency of the carrier to represent the brightness of the line as an analog wave. Throw in colorburst signal on a different carrier during the sync period, and you have NTSC. (for all you non-video geeks, that's the American standard for Television.) PAL and SECAM follow subtly different rules, but the basic idea has been the same ever since Philo T. Farnsworth's Image Orthicon Eye.

    I suppose it depends on what you mean by data. If you mean computer data, it's pretty impractical to use analog signals to represent digital data. Which isn't to say it can't be done. For example, you could use a DAC to convert bits to a voltage level, then use an ADC to convert back. Analog data is much more succeptible to interference, though. If I send a digital signal, the reciever knows for certain that its either going to be 1 or 0. But if I'm transmitting analog data and my roommate turns on the vaccuum cleaner, there's no way for the recipient to know whether that 60 Hz hum is me or a stray EMI field.

  • Wow. I had not even considered doing that. I'll bet that is worth a fortune.

    10:1 lucas is moderately annoyed by this.

  • That's what I figured...since something like, what, 80% of the entire imagery is rendered, it makes sense to digitize the whole shooting match and edit electronically. I was alluding to an earlier Slashdot thread where many people expressed concern that movies captured digitally would have much lower picture quality than film. I just don't see how that would be the case. IFF a very high data-rate transmission method is found (a VERY thorny problem to begin with), digital recording, editing, and distribution seems like it would be orders of magnitude cheaper.

    Wonder if he could do the transmission with lasers....

    Your point about film students is an excellent one. I think we're on the cusp of a whole new bunch of imaginative, high-quality Indie movies. That'd be a Good Thing.
  • Huh? As if satellite feeds (pay-TV programming) would not already be pirated...
    what makes anyone to think this would not be the case with movies, too?

    As I said in my previous post, if they used an analog rather then digital signal, it would be very easy to guard against piracy. Videocipher scrambling was not broken until an engineer at General Instruments leaked information on how to descramble it. Analog, having an infinite range, is much harder to break then digital, where you have a fixed size. It's equivilent to the time difference between knowing a password is exactly 8 characters and a password is as few as 3 or as many as 8 characters.
  • And proving the film was stolen will be somewhat difficult at best

    Say what?? Any copy of the film found any place other than 1)Lucas' vault or 2)the projection room of a theater which rented a copy is obviously stolen.

  • Yeah, you could just dub Jar-Jar's dialogue. Maybe paste in a new actor for Anakin, cut out the extra stuff...

    Of course, even better would be the editing room at ILM...

  • I briefly thought about working as a projectionist several years back -- it was something my father did when he was in college, and he loved it. Of course, things have changed. Now-a-days, the person running the projector is a "Projectionist/Manager" and there are only two or three of them in the building at a time. (This is coming from Showcase Cinemas in Connecticut)

    These people are quite familiar with the operation, splicing, and showing of the films, but are frequently more concerned with the profit margins of their snack bar. They are in the projection booths just long enough to start the movie and walk to the next booth to start the next movie. These people are not necessarily paid very well -- seniority counts, don'tcha know.

    Several people have made some very good points before me, such as:

    The difficulty of handling the film correctly

    The weight of the film

    Knowing where to de-splice the film (If this isn't done right, it destroys the value of the print!!)

    Getting a very bulky and obvious package out of a movie theater -- past surveillance cameras, yet!

    These Projectionist/Managers are expected to make a reasonably automated theater work through a lot of their own sweat. There aren't the infamous "no-alone-zones" of military circles here, so it's very probable that a manager could have walked into the booth after the last showing of the evening, boxed up the film, and walked out with it later (perhaps in a mis-labeled set of film canisters), knowing all the time that he (or she) would run a very low risk of being discovered in the act!

    I'd also point out that these would be the same persons who would know exactly where the cameras do and don't cover! They could also easily explain their fingerprints being in the projection booth, and on the film canisters, should they be recovered.

    A final thought -- (In line with the earlier thread) this isn't something that can be stored for 20 years and then sold. Remember what happened to the original prints of Star Wars? They were in awful condition just due to age! The effort required to restore them after just 20 years was phenomenal. I suspect that whoever swiped this print either has a "business plan" or a buyer lined up already. Just having a print won't even be good for bragging rights...

    "Hey, I have a print of Episode One!"

    "Really, That's cool!!" [How much can I get for turning this yutz in...?]

  • Actually, odds are more likely 1:1... And it would be worth a fortune, if you can find someone who'd buy it. I think the bootleg VHS or whathaveyou will be the more likely route. I mean, how many people would have a copy of TPM projector film?
  • I've been twice, the first at 4:25 on Wednesday, and both times the theater wasn't full. The only one's that sold out were the 12:00 AM ones, and the 7:30 show. And we only have 5 screens showing it, so it's been REALLY easy to get a ticket. And then when I went again on Friday night, the theater was only about 3/4 full. I just figure with the biggest theater's showing it in their biggest rooms, and with their 5 screens, the demand just isn't reaching the supply.
  • >Any bets as to whether some employees decided to >"acquire" it?

    No doubt. Proj rooms usually have a door locked
    to a stairwell and another locked door to the proj. room. Sorry, I didn't really read the article. I must learn whether the print had
    already been spooled on the platter.

    All kinds of things can happen from the moment
    the film is delivered until the (stoned, horribly
    underpaid) projectionist puts it together (usually
    at 3:00 AM on thursday nite)... Not all of them
    are malicious.

    Where I wroked, somebody put "Raising Arizona"
    with a reel out of order.

  • "An entire reel" isn't a whole bunch - (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @02:36AM (#1880572)
    there are *seven* reels for the phantom menace, in two cans. just a little film terminology education.

  • Why? (Score:1)

    by Ellis-D ( 19919 )
    Just wondering, what kind of person would do this...... Why can't people steal something useful now adays, like bread...
    "Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.

  • If the movie is to be changed, then the original version would be that much more of a collector's item, wouldn't it? Sure, they have digital copies, but nobody else does, until whoever did this digitizes it. Even if the film degrades (which I heard from you first), if these guys are smart they will have a pretty high-quality digital copy of the movie in its original form. Later, when the movie starts playing on TV and/or becomes available on DVD or whatever, people will go nuts over being able to play them side by side and spot the discrepancies. Even if Lucas also releases the original in a "Collector's Edition", the bootlegged version will have a certain "vintage" appeal to it, I suspect.

    Also, you said:

    So using long-lived film doesn't make any sense at this point.

    This seems to imply that the degrading film is simply more practical, like if it were cheaper, but how much difference could there be? Besides, you called it "special" degrading film, which sounds more expensive. I would have assumed that it was specifically intended to make the original version harder to obtain. You probably meant this, but it was not explicitly clear. Is that right?

    By the way, someone else has discussed the legalities of possession of stolen property, statutes of limitations, etc. What about possession of digital copies of stolen property after the statute of limitations for the original theft has run out, and the original stolen property has been destroyed? Might they be able to squeeze through a loop-hole here?

    David Gould
  • Hopefully they have the expensive machinery to dub that onto a video tape. I guess if it was an inside job where a few people are involved, they could pull it off. Although if they get caught the FBI is going to nail them.

    I actually use to help deliver the movie printings... they are 2 heavy octal metal cases per movie. A bitch to lug around.
  • Can anyone give any good reason, why for example in the UK, films show up 2 months later????
    There is no technical reason for that, I see no marketing reasons as well (only that people get extra anxious and book trans-atlantic tour -- airlines conspiracy?).

    Granted lack of the film, people will be more tempted to use MPGs floating all over the net. Effectively, they are pushed to pirate.

    AtW,
    http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
  • Les Miserables summarized:

    A man steals a loaf of bread and never hears the end of it.

  • this is front page news... (Score:4)

    by jhoffmann ( 42839 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @02:45AM (#1880580) Homepage
    at least in out local (twin cities) paper, that is. then again, so is some wrestler dying in some pay-per-view wrestling stunt, so take it for what you will. anyway, the article in our local paper is a lot longer than the abc one. here's the url [pioneerplanet.com] it basically confirms what everyone else says: that 40 lbs. isn't even close to the actual weight (more like 60 lbs.), plus it was spliced together on a 3 ft. reel at the time. it also suggests an interesting use of the film: selling frames at $20 a pop (x 190,000 frames)
  • If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to steal the Phantom Menace, he and all his family will eat finest fish at every meal all their life long.

  • This doesn't make sense (Score:5)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @04:09AM (#1880586)
    I used to be a projectionist during my college days, and this story doesn't make much sense to me.

    Movie theatre projectors are not like the little 16mm projectors they use in schools. They are man-sized machines that hold the film on a set of three platters that are about four feet in diameter. The film arrives in hexagonal metal cans, each containing three or four reels. The film is removed from the reels and wound onto the platters, pausing to splice each reel to the next. The film is actually shown from the platters; the reels are just used for transport.

    The process is fairly time-consuming, and removing the film from the platter to put it back on the reels is no less prolonged. Unless the thief grabbed the reels while they were still in the cans, he would have had to gain access to the building after hours and be familiar with the equipment. If this isn't a publicity stunt, and the reels were really stolen, it would almost have to be an inside job.

    And my memory may be failing me, but a seven-reel film loaded into cans weighs closer to sixty or seventy pounds. I remember having to lug those damn things up and down the stairs...
  • Jar Jar: Someone must love Jar Jar much to think he stole one reel of Phantom Menace just to see my pretty face.

    Yoda: Consume him, it did. {razzes Jar Jar}
  • We had equipment like this at my high school. Of course, it wasn't ultra-high quality or anything, but the video was very watchable. Equipment consisted of a film projector, a Digital Video Camera [*drool* I wants one [sony.com] (-;] and the "mounting bracket". The mounting bracket was quite simple. You had the projector at 90 degrees to the Camera, and there was a mirror that reflected the output into the input. I can't remember if there was a scrim to diffuse the light before it went into the camera or not, bit I do rember that it worked. Like I said, not ultra-high quality, but very watchable.

  • Re: Easier Piracy (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Remember that /. story on the piracy of movies?

    I was just thinking about it as I read this... George Lucas was so worried about people digitizing and pirating this movie over the Internet... He was even enlisting the FBI to help him bust the pirates.

    Why bother with 1-gig downloads and possibly poor quality pirate copies? Why not just steal a copy of the film from a theatre?

    Man, I'm not surprised. Not surprised at all!

  • In 20 years, that reel will be worth less than a pile of dog poopoo.

    Lucas has used special degrading film for his trailer, and has done it as well for those reels.

    Unless freezing causes the film structure to crack or crystalize in an undesired way, chemical reactions can be negligible for decades. Nothing quite like a fresh film out of a hibernation time capsule. Figure your costs of freezing, about an average of 60 watts to keep the freezer going, 8 cents per kilowatt hour, per month, per 20 years. That would be about $829.44. Would it be worth it?

    (considering if you not defrost it as to let water condense all over it!)
  • It's probally what someone would pay on the black market of movies. Sorta like old SW action figures, they are really only worth maybe $3, but people are willing to pay a lot more than that for them.

  • Re:The Phantom Ticket (Score:4)

    by dface ( 26059 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @01:51AM (#1880595)
    Hey man, i don't think that sneaking into movies is such a great thing to do. Look at all the time and effort that went into the creation of this movie. Given, it's already made a crapload of money... but that doesn't mean it's not deserved. Mr. Anonymous Coward, it's time for you to face up to responsibilities.
  • See Above
  • Of course it's much easier to get a copy of the film recorded to other media this way and you'd be able to build yourself a nice DVD copy months before anyone else has one. Of course you have to be crazy enough to by DVDR, but if you're gonna pull this off you might as well pull it off nicely.
  • According to the story, the entire 40 lb film was stolen, not just a single reel, which is only like 20 something minutes of film.

    Yeah, it does make you wonder just how bad someone had to have their Jar-Jar fix. From the story it looks like it was an inside job, and I imagine the perpetrators will likely be caught, especially if they try to sell it.

    Personally, if I were the one who stole it, I'd just set it up in my living room (not that I have THX sound or anything) and just run it continuously. ;-) (I saw the film for the third time last night in case you can't tell. And it was better the third time than the second time.)

    Boba Fett is in Episode I [slashdot.org]

    So are E.T. and even better, Wookies! [slashdot.org]

  • The theatres that I worked at (seven years as a projectionist putting myself thru college) all used Xenon bulbs. It has been too long for me to remember all the specifics, but I used to have to wear a protective (think X-ray) vest and a blast-mask when I was replacing bad or rotating old bulbs. I had the opportunity to watch several bulbs blow up too. Not dynamite but impressive nonetheless. As far as being able to walk off with a print - I don't think it would be a problem. Sure, the cans are heavy when full, but I lugged them around all the time. I moved prints from one platter to another all the time as well, lots of time by myself. And I'm no Jesse Ventura. The security at the theatres where I worked was a joke. Anything that wasn't bolted down could be(and often was) stolen. Could a person screen a movie at home? Sure. I knew a technician who built himself a home-theatre system (35mm projector and sound) from old and spare parts, a bit at a time (like Radar sending a Jeep home one part at a time in M*A*S*H). I knew another technician who machined a rig to convert 24 frames/second movie prints to 30 fps for dumping to video. As a teenager! Now there's a hack for the record boks.
  • IANAL, but I watch Law & Order :)

    Even though the statute of limitations may have expired for the original robbery, you could probably still be charged with possession of stolen property. If that charge is viable, then the original robbery is part of a continuing criminal conspiracy, and you could still be prosecuted for it, n years later.

    peter
  • Our local theatre has been intentionally causing lines.. refusing to sell tickets in advance, and closing the box office until about an hour before the next showing.. But despite the build-up not all the shows have been selling out.. however in some of the larger theatres in adjoining cities things have been a bit worse. I went Sunday to see Trekkies at one such theatre and every showing that day had sold out. 3 screens, and another in the same town had already sold out all the prime time showings (and this was around 1pm).
    So the fanatacism I guess is relative to location.
    As for me? I got my midnight screening ticket on the 18th.. and they were available till about 7 or so despite a week of being on-sale. A bit disappointing.
  • 1) know how to break down the movie and put it back on reels

    Why does the film have to be broken down? I've helped move a full platter of film before. You clamp down the film so it doesn't sprawl all over the place while you're moving it, and then you pick up the film. Simple, easy.

    It is a multi-person job, but it's not very hard to do. Then you just walk the film out of the building. (It would get a little hairy through the doorways, but ...)

  • I read somewhere that this movie was going to be the first distributed in digital format, and that the theatres would need digital projectors...

    Anybody know whether that's true? And if it's digital, why are they calling it a film?

  • It's only about 14,000 people. Nice little town with some great trout fishing and the Twin Cites nearby...
  • An entire first-run reel of the Phantom Menace? If those thieves have an ounce of brains, they'll store the film in a very safe place and take good care of it. It'll be worth a fortune someday, I'll bet.

  • guilty-feeling thieves. (Score:5)

    by goaliemn ( 19761 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @05:06AM (#1880610) Homepage
    According to this St Paul paper article [pioneerpress.com], the did get the whole film, and are now feeling guilty. They contacted investigators via an attorney to return it for misdemeanor charges.
  • Heh, they probably realized the theft was pointless. "Hey, we have a film now, but there's nothing we can do with it."
  • I can't cite the article, but I read somewhere that Lucas actually did use some digital photography for some parts of Episode 1, and he defies anybody to figure out which shots. The context implied that he is not talking about one of the many fully-rendered scenes, but some photography of meatspace actor types.

    As far as the digital filmmaking question goes, I must be missing something. Obviously, several scenes in Episode 1 were rendered at sufficient resolution to be almost indistinguishable from film, so I'd argue there's no reason why the entire movie couldn't be captured digitally. I guess the question would be what resolution would be sufficient for high quality digital projection of the movie...that'd have to be a MONSTER datastream.

    Lucas launching his own satellite and using that for delivery of the next films does not seem awfully far fetched.
  • I see copies of the Matrix floating around on the net already. It won't be long until TPM is also available for download. I'm surprised that Lucas wants to make digital films in the future. Wouldn't that make it easier to bootleg the movies?

    If Lucas was smart he would station a guard at each movie theater to watch over the film. When I saw the TPM press junket in NYC two weeks before it was released he had guards watching over the film 24/7. His list of stipulations for movie theaters showing the film it surprises me that he never added "armed guard" to the list.

    Finally, a brief comment about the film:

    If you are going to build a star destroyer, why put the main reactor in the space port? I mean, some kind of malfunctioning robot or messiah force utilizing kid could blow it up.
  • heh. it took 3 years to get N64 emulation up to good speed playing commercial games. Someone would've figured it out by now.
  • Sorry, I didn't really read the article.

    The article is only five sentences. Very short and concise.

    I must learn whether the print had already been spooled on the platter.

    The article was not that specific.
  • While the economic reasons for trying to keep the number of prints down might hold to some extent, it is something they are just going to have to get over. Piracy is not a real issue (or it is, but not the extent it is to the big league Music industry) for the movie bis' even when we get the bandwidth for copying 4-5 gig DVD ISOs, since even the best home theatres are nothing compared to the real thing.

    But by this sort of action, they are INCITING piracy. I don't want to watch a crummy Camcorder version of TPM, but if my options are a trip to the US that I can't afford and waiting until late August, you can bet your ass I will.

    Also, movies here are subtitled (yes, it is annoying) so they need new prints anyways, right? (Some movies come pretty much right away, so I know they can handle subtitleing fast).

  • Re:Not just a reel, the entire film - inside job (Score:5)

    by Deega ( 41540 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @02:20AM (#1880620)
    The films come in these big metal cases. Each case holds 4 reels of film.. Average reel length=20 minutes. Average movie length=120 minutes. These 6 reels are "Built up" on a platter (great big flat sruface that spins the movie out and in). So when a movie is in the theater and may be shown anytime in the near future, it is on this platter, all six reels in one really long piece. To take this movie out of the theater you must 1) know how to break down the movie and put it back on reels 2) Get out the door with two big heavy film cans that are probably painted neon pink 3) be able to do this in the 30 minutes between the showings. Impossible. Inside job, it HAD to be a projectionist, or someone who knows a projection booth who has the trust of theater management and janitorial staff to be allowed inside after hours.
  • Why does the film have to be broken down? I've helped move a full platter of film before. You clamp down the film so it doesn't sprawl all over the place while you're moving it, and then you pick up the film. Simple, easy.


    if you're even more adventurous, you don't even need to clamp down the film. Just unscrew the platter, and carry that.

    (the reason one would need to move a full platter's worth of film is to move it from one projector to another in a multiplex... On Thursday nights it is quite common to have to move an older film out of the largest theater to a smaller one, to allow a new blockbuster to get the larger theater. Also, one might show a movie in different theaters during a single showing day. (Kids' movie in large theater for the afternoon while R film in smaller theater, evening have kids' movie n small theater with R (adult) film in large theater.)

    Another need to move films whole is to send it from your major first-run theater to the second-run across town...

    It is a multi-person job, but it's not very hard to do. Then you just walk the film out of the building. (It would get a little hairy through the doorways, but ...)


    Not necessarily a one person job, but it is a heck of a lot easier to do. If you're a weakling like me, then you'd need at least one or two people to also hold on (make sure the film doesn't fall out of the middle somewhere). Doorways just require the film to be held horizontal (doesn't fall out as easy as diagonal). *Stairs* are the worst. (as the stolen print was in a first floor booth, this wouldn't have been a problem.)

    another BTW: here are pictures of a platter system [kluge.net] and shipping reel cans [kluge.net] (with two sets of DTS disks in their shipping cases)
  • Don't worry about witnesses... just wear a Darth Vader mask.

  • Not enough supply? What are you talking about??

    With most multiplexes showing this movie on multiple screens there is a show around every half-hour during the day. The merchandising industry is in full swing and you would be hard pressed to walk into any major store in a mall and not be inundated with Star Wars crap. And if that isn't enough..just run on down to your local KFC or Taco Bell and pick yourself up one of their promo tie-ins. Have a Pepsi while you're at it. No..actuall I think there is too much supply of this. Having half empty theaters at every show since opening night is not doing wonders for the marketing department...they have to fend off critisisms from the media that the film *only* made $100mil in the first 5 days.

    "Yeah..but the theater was half-empty...aren't you disappointed George?"

    Or did you mean that there isn't enough illegal bootleg copies of the movie so all the warez kiddies can feel 3l33t on irc?....In that case, you're right..there isn't enough of that sort of supply. But who cares about warez kiddies on irc?

  • Digital (rather than analog) data is a boon IFF you're trying to transmit it. You have to be one hell of a lot smarter than me (which is, admittedly, a feat accomplished by many pieces of lawn furniture) to conceive of a way to transmit data in an analog format. It's absolutely a compromise, but it can be a terribly cost effective one. (EG DVD, which when done well, provides SUPERLATIVE quality.)
  • I have Satellite TV at home (Sky Digital) I get 100 digital channels from one satellite.

    Now taking a nominal resolution for TV as 640x480 and film res as, say - 4000x2000, then (just by scaling up) you'd need about 25 times the bandwidth. So, just using a similar satellite as the Sky Digital one, you could transmit 4 movies at once in the space of 100 channels.

    Of course, I'm not sure how well mpeg scales up, but it's obviously not out of the question.

    cheers,

    Tim

  • Yes (Score:1)

    by Larry L ( 34315 )
    >Security is generally lax because there aren't >people who'd steal film solely to keep as a >trophy.

    Yes, but now with vcd's emerging, this will happen more frequently. There's incentive to steal one, rip it to mpg, and distribute it all over china at 2 bucks a cd. Since the rules there are lax, you could probably make 2 bucks a copy (2 cds).
  • I'd make it more like a 1E6:1. My interpretation of "10:1 Lucas is annoyed" is "I'll bet my $10 against your $1 that Lucas is annoyed - winner gets $11". You only make bets like that when you're certain you're right (or at least, wrong less than one time in eleven). My bet would be my $1E6 against your $1. You'd stand to win a lot if you won, but you wouldn't win.

  • Re:Stolen (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://pioneerplanet.com/docs/home1.htm answers it. The media cost is about $3k, and $60k is basically a lie. (It's worth that much because it's rare. Rare? But isn't there one for each screen it's being shown on?)
  • "If Lucas was smart he would station a guard at each movie theater to watch over the film. "

    So you wouldn't mind BillG stationing a guard
    in your network room? (He's smart too!)

  • Re:Star Wars Future (Score:5)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @04:33AM (#1880631)
    There are in fact several theaters showing it. It had been talked about for the last year or so leading up to the release, and in my understanding (which is just from industry rags I've read), its only two or three theaters showing it, and its very limited showings (ie, not around the clock)

    The resolution used isn't terribly high, less than HDTV resolution, but higher than DVD. (1280x768 sticks out in my head, but that might not be right..., but its not even 1080i HDTV resolution)

    The explanation was that with the sharper focus, brighter image (no shutter used), and lack of garbage on the film, viewers wouldn't know the difference. I'm not sure they're projecting it onto a very big screen though -- that resolution seems low for 500 person megatheaters and the like.

    LucasFilm's intent over the last half-dozen years since I first read about some of the talk about the prequels, was Episode I would be shot on film, with test digital distributions. I *think* I remember reading that those test distributions are on custom hardware, basically on a high-rate DVD -- twenty to thirty minutes worth, much like a film reel -- although that may have changed, because I've seen gossip about the satellite stuff. I've lost the list I had of the theaters that were showing the digital Episode I, unfortunately.

    Episodes II and III are supposed to be shot digitally, without using film. Aparently Lucasfilm has been spending a lot of time developing digital film cameras that can push data off the camera and onto a high-speed storage system fast enough to do film quality recording without using film. 24fps is obviously the low end, I'm not sure how much bandwidth they ended up with for running at higher frame rates.

    Some of the reasons I'd read for the move was a significant drop in cost over time (a lot of arthouse films are being shot on mini-DV and other digital formats like Digital BetaMax, because $30 for a tape sure beats $100 for three minutes of film...) The most interesting feature I read about was the ability to prerender the effects and do the compositing in realtime at the camera -- so the monitors show the finished shot, and alignment issues and problems with actors not fully interacting with effects can be taken care of immediately. Also read rumors of experiments to do real time digital character rendering, so an actor in a motion-recording outfit can be in front of the camera, and the camera would end up recording the CGI character in real time.

    Anyway, I digress. Episodes II and III are supposed to go out for larger digital releases, with more of a push for them to be digital on III than II. That's why there's been talk about big theater chains arranging financing so they can do low-rate financing for their member theaters to be able to spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars it will take to put digital systems in megaplexes.

    It'll be interesting to see if theaters end up using a direct broadcast method of displaying movies as they shift to digital, or if they go with a multi-disc optical solution like a high bitrate DVD-based format. Personally I'd think DVD would be the way to go. They're cheap to produce, even as one-offs. There's no reason you could build military-grade decryption hardware into the playback units and key the distribution discs to that particular unit and theater. Steal the discs, its not of any use if you don't steal the reader. If the reader has to verify keys against the distributors system, then even stealing the unit won't help.

    Satellite seems unlikely because of all the differing times a show can play, and the expense of the satellite time.



  • It depends on what audio format is used. All reels have a 2-channel analog stereo track on them for backup purposes, but additional digital audio tracks are handled differently for each format:

    DTS: A seperate CD is included with the reel that has the DTS 5.1 encoded audio on it

    SDDS: 2 highly compressed digital tracks (identical, in case one breaks) are run along the rings of the reel, making this format highly susceptible to being damaged. Allows up to 8 channels (5 front, 2 surround, 1 LFE).

    Dolby Digital: I think this uses a seperate reel in addition to the movie reel, but I could be mistaken. Allows 5.1 discrete channels, Dolby Digital EX uses the same 5.1 channels, but EX processors matrix decode (a la Dolby Pro Logic) a rear-center channel.

  • Re:Story does not wash yet (Score:5)

    by mrv ( 20506 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @04:39AM (#1880633) Homepage
    Having been a (and still am, though no longer practicing) state-licensed projectionist and worked in more than one theater within the last 5 years, I felt I had to comment... Sorry in advance for the long rant.

    A standard 35mm print of a movie costs the studio about $3000. If you add in lab time, transportation, and lost revenue for a stolen print (usually the distributor takes 80% of the ticket sale price for the first 2 or more weeks, with reducing percentages as the run gets longer), then maybe a 35mm print would be worth $60k.

    And a 70mm print these days no longer costs the $10k+, and isn't much more expensive than a 35mm film to print. The extra $6k was for the magnetic striping for the soundtrack. Most 70mm prints struck these days (minus 1996's Hamlet) are 70mm DTS prints, which has the same optical soundtrack sync to the DTS CD as a 35mm print.

    As far as breaking into a projection booth, it's scarily usually quite easy. I've had to shoo away a number of kids who took a wrong turn going out the back-of-theater exit doors after a show, and ended out in the booth... (Usually we'd just forget to lock the door from the outside.) here in MA, it's actually illegal to have the door locked during showtimes (throwback to the days of nitrate (burns VERY easily) film).

    If the booth consists of a large multiplex (usually one projectionist/manager for a booth), one could enter the far end of the (noisy with projectors running) booth, and the projectionist on the other end wouldn't hear you. If the booth is for a small theater, chances are that it's a manager/projectionist, who only enters the booth if there is a reported problem, or to thread or start a film, which leaves the booth unattended for quite some time.

    Let me point out here that film reels, trailers (previews), and frames (sometimes called cells on eBay) are all the property of the studio (per the legal stuff at the end of the credits), not the theater or any single person, and MANY people have been successfully sued by studios to reclaim ownership.

    Oh, and as for the amount of film stolen... A "reel" could be any of a number of things. If it was a shipping reel, then it could either be a 2000 ft. reel (about 17-23 min. of film), or a ELR (Extended Length Reel), which is 6000 ft. of film (approx. 1/2 the movie).

    If the theater is using a dual-projection setup (not likely at a commercial chain multiplex), then the reel could be any of a 2K, 4K, or 6K ft. reels.

    Chances are that the theater had the film mounted up on a platter (plays sort of like an 8-track), in one BIG reel for the entire movie. (all of the shipping reels taped together) with clamps or some form of binding wire/rope/string, the whole movie can be easily transported by 2 people, 1 if strong enough (and slung over the shoulder like a tire).

    of course, knowing how journalists tend to keep things minimalized so that they don't confuse the public, they just used "reel," which could mean a lot of things.

    unfortunately, I do not remember just how much film weighs, only that it is heavy... (when in shipping canisters, even heavier...)

    BTW: a good site for techincal [demon.co.uk] information regarding film projection is the rec.arts.movies.tech FAQ.
  • I'd be more interested in what the theatres for episodes 7, 8, and 9 are going to be like. Digital FED screens with true 3D sound systems? Or perhaps retina projection?

  • Great! (Score:1)

    by Shiska ( 131 )
    I've been waiting for this to happen. I expect to be streaming the movie in a day or two :)
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • Just curious... What type of bulb is in that type of projector?

    I had a digital setup at my univerity where the projector had a xeon bulb that shined through a color LCD onto a three story wall. When the bulb 'went,' it sometimes took out half the power supply. Very hot stuff.

    The THX decoder was cool. I should of kept the 25 page manual on how to calibrate the thing.
  • "...who has the trust of theater management..."

    Or perhaps someone who is IN theater management. Think about it...the owner of the theater will be the one making all the money off the theater. The management will simply be salaried (high salary, but still just salary). Then along comes the most hyped film ever, and the theater manager sees a chance to cash in and retire to the Cayman Islands.
  • Because doing so will get you 19 years in a 19th century French prison.

    (Am I get gonna get flamed for making a Broadway reference?)
  • You had a 70mm projector in your high school?
    Why does this seem unlikely?

    peter
  • I spend my summers between college years back home in Los Alamos, a small town with one movie theater that has three screens. Except for a few adults, the place is basically run by teenagers--people I graduated from high school with, and some who still are in high school. Many of these people would not be averse to taking an incentive payment for grabbing a film--and believe me, in this theater (which is playing TPM right now), it would not be at all hard to break into the projection booth. You wouldn't even have to, since everybody knows everyone else and if you slipped the projectionist a hundred or so, you'd probably have quite an easy time. I'd imagine that many small theaters are like this.
  • A "Reel" (one of maybe six making up the entire
    film) is one thing.

    The article says it weighs about 40 pounds.

    The whole film weighs a hella lot more than
    that... I remember lugging those things up the
    stairs... But the $60K price tag sounds right...
    for all those people wondering why they don't do
    70MM -- it costs a LOT more than that for a 6 reel
    70MM print!!

    Anyway the article makes it sound like "they"
    got the whole movie.

    Makes me wonder if they got just a reel. Also
    bewildering that there are apparently theatres
    that still use the dual-projector open-reel system
    (as opposed to a single-projector platter system,
    which *everybody* has nowadays... Any theatre
    that would be showing star wars... even in a smallish town.)

    Is Menomonie smaller than "smallish" though :-)
  • err... see.
    ----------------- ------------ ---- --- - - - -
  • I can tell you that the bulb used in the Museum of Science and Industry's OmniMAX theater in Chicago is some sort of an arc lamp. As I recall, it drew ~70 amps at ~30 volts, or 2.1kW. As a point of comparison, most conventional lights you see at a concert are 1kW, and most moving lights are in the 600W range. Movie shoots will sometimes use instruments in the 10-15kW range, and the largest I've ever heard of was 20kW.

    Jim Nasby, Freelance Lighting Designer
  • except that the movies play *earlier* in Spain where they have to be dubbed than in Holland where they are subtitled. what's up with that???
  • The article suggests that someone might create a bootleg video from the print. The equipment that would be necessary to create such a copy ( a QUALITY copy ) is very VERY specialized, very expensive, and difficult to use. However, I suspect we'll be able to purchase copies on 42nd street some time in the next week or two. Maybe now, someone will make a bootleg DVD. TO dream...
  • "No signs of forced entry." Of course not, since it was an inside job. The film may be 'worth' $60,000, but they'd more than recoup their losses by bootlegging it.
  • Posted by Rob_Betz:

    Anonymous coward, you couldn't be more wrong. Free downloads would make for even more damages; if he was making money off his pirated copy, Lucasfilm would then go after that money. But offering it for free not only leave Lucas no funds to go after, but it costs his money because people who would have gone to the theatre to see the movie again won't because they have it for free.
  • I saw the midnight showing here in Austin, and there were plenty of seats empty. But then, the movie was probably showing simultaneously on 50+ screens around town, and this wasn't the best theatre to see it in.

  • Has anybody here seen s digital projection of it?
    What's the quality like? Is the resolution high enough? Brightness? Saturation?

    peter

  • This isn't the first time! (Score:3)

    by Mr. Shadow ( 6994 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @02:20AM (#1880657)
    As I recall, "The Empire Strikes Back" was stolen when it came out in Columbia, SC.
  • It's gonna get as bad as PC games - The film gets released in a somehwat 'beta' format and then patches are put up on the LucasFilms website... ;-)

  • The Phantom Ticket (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was actually suprised at how easy it was to get into the movie without purchasing a ticket. After the tickets for the first day's show sold out, I borrowed one from a friend and color copied it at kinkos. It was beautiful :)

  • According to msnbc last night, the film was valued at over $60,000. Whew.
  • I have a sibling in the theater industry and I've heard the same thing about using direct satellite feeds in the future.
    On a side note, I'm not sure if it made the list, but theaters usually get about 30% of ticket sales, with the rest of the revenue coming from the consession stand (which is why they charge $3.50 for a $.10 box of popcorn). Lucas is demanding 90% of ticket revenues, leaving theaters with only 10%.
    My guess is this is one of the reasons why the 2-3 screen theaters are going out of business or doing second-run movies while everyone's building 15-20 screen monster buildings.
  • The final print of the movie was spit out of a computer. Not "several scenes" were rendered by a computer on film. Every frame of the movie was.

    That's not that unusual, by the way. Avid systems and the like have been used pleanty of times for all-digital film editing. Once the images are in the computer, the output quality doesn't depend on whether or not any actual effects were layed into the film -- there was probably a bit of color correction done, and stuff like that.

    This is all the way movies are going to be made in the future. Its easier, and getting to be cheaper to do shooting, and editing in digital, and will soon be the preferred method of presentation too.

    It'll be a godsend for future film students too -- when the camera prices drop enough that digital film cameras are the standard fare at school instead of 16mm Bolex or other type cameras, it'll sure save a lot of $$$.

    I probably dropped $500 a semester or more on film when I was in school. And that doesn't by that much film. :)

    Launching a satellite is pretty far fetched -- he'd need to buy a piece of the radio spectrum he could use, and it'd have to be a fairly high power transmission, all things that are very unlikely to be allowed. Low power (DSS-like) transmissions are too prone to signal fade during rain and things like that -- and no theater owner in their right mind would risk being unable to show a film during a rainy day (when it seems to me to be the best time to see them!)

  • Star Wars Future (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @02:25AM (#1880671)
    The theft only makes the Lucas idea of distributing the Episode 2 and 3 films via direct satellite broadcast to theaters, and not on film, more likely. No risk of loss and total control. I heard seven theaters are showing Episode 1 via this method.

  • Re:It will be on the net in a few days. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    >I'm surprised that Lucas
    >wants to make digital films in the future. >Wouldn't that make it easier to bootleg
    >the movies?

    Depends. You could do a number of things to protect IP with a digital copy that you can't with analog. For example, you could "salt" each frame of the movie with unique serial numbers so you can trace it. Also, my understanding is that the movie houses will download the "prints" using a WAN; presumably they could so some sort of cryptographic protocol that would require the player to connect every time it wants to show the film; maybe even a digital cash transfer might take place.
  • I could seriously sympathise with Lucas if he gets pissed about this, much more so than his concern over someone smuggling a movie camera into the film.

    If you start with a low quality recording, the best you're going to end up with is a low quality recording. It might be better than nothing, but probably nothing worth spending the time downloading for a few days.

    However, with this reel, the theif (or whoever it is sold to) could make any quality recording they wanted, as it won't get much better.

    The article is fairly vague tho, which means the reporter obviously doesn't have a great deal of information regarding the theft. Although supplement articles are likely to appear about this issue, considering it was an inside job (more than likely), the chances of catching the theif are pretty good. I DOUBT it will show up on Ebay. That's just too risky for them.

    -Restil
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Let's be serious. Security in most movie theaters is a joke. What there is of it is mostly concerned with keeping people from getting into the -seating area- without paying. Projection booths are left unlocked, even with the doors open, all the time. Nobody cares. Nobody's going to steal a theater film, because the equipment is ridiculously bulky... people don't use -those- projectors for home theater. (Well, obviously, someone stole -this- film, but, in general it's a pretty useless thing to steal films).

    Widen your list of suspects to anyone who's ever been a projectionist... which includes many, many people who worked movie theaters as their summer/after school job through college. If it were me with this scheme, I certainly wouldn't steal it from the same theater I worked at - it's -easier- to get caught that way (because any witnesses /will/ recognize you). 'course walking into another theater's projection booth and taking the film requires a lot chutzpah, but I think they had that anyway.

    --Parity

  • Menomonie, UW-Stout.... (Score:4)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @05:53AM (#1880703)
    Posted by kewlmann:


    The State theater in Menomonie is such a hole.
    There are four screens, two upstairs I think.
    The upstairs screen has one speaker (or so it seems) that rattles, yes it rattles. And the projection is never very good.

    The security is terrible and the management just stinks. I think there are emergency exits pretty much next to the projection room. Its been a while since I have been there, so I can't be certain.

    On my way to class, I watch them deliver the film cans. Sometimes they are just inside the theatre. I read them through the glass to see what movies will be playing. Sometimes, beleive it or not, they are just sitting on the sidewalk!

    Menomonie is home to University of Wisconsin - Stout (where I go). I would bet that they have the equipment on campus to make the copy. The FBI would surely be watching it though.

    My 2 cents worth....


  • Not hard to steal reels of film... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25, 1999 @04:46AM (#1880704)
    [My main point is that this isn't necessarily an inside job; I'm not trying to teach people how to steal.]

    Most movie theaters figure that the average movie-goer is (1) honest, and (2) clueless about the projection of film. The Average Joe wouldn't steal film, and possibly wouldn't even recognize film or know how much of it to steal.

    In every small theater I've visited more than three times, I've seen an employee carrying canisters of film from the booths to a spot near the door for pick-up. Once left by the door (or under the stairs, or whatever), the canisters are totally abandoned and ignored.

    In every large theater I've visitied, there seem to be only two or three projectionists on hand in case something goes wrong on one of the dozen screens. Booths are usually abandoned between shows.

    And, hey, what can you do with film and not get caught?

    In general, for most movies, the stakes are too high for someone in the movie business to try to swipe a copy. A distributor wouldn't want to lose a contract with a production company, so they wouldn't start renting out an illegal copy; nor would they tolerate an illegal exhibition. A theater owner wouldn't want to lose business with a distributor, so he wouldn't run a secret after-hours show; nor would he tolerate a rogue projectionist. And so on.

    If you're outside the movie business and you've stolen some film, you won't be able to get any insiders to help you project it. If you have some 35mm projectors in your basement, then you probably have some arrangement with a distributor that you'd rather not sour, and you're probably too rich to bother stealing prints.

    Security is generally lax because there aren't people who'd steal film solely to keep as a trophy. When a movie like this comes along, one that makes theater managers quiver in fear, there are too many other details to worry about. A manager won't stop to think: "This is one of the few movies that someone could steal and sell frame-by-frame for cash." Security will stay low, and thefts like these could be pretty easy, either by an employee or by a savvy customer.

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