Turn in your cell phone? Metal detectors? WTF?

Exclusive Advance screening- didn't want people taking photos or tweeting what not.

1st time I've ever had to do it, but I guess its becoming more common - like Jay-Z kicked someone out of the advance listening party for tweeting during it when everyone was asked to shut them off. I think since phones these days do so much they are trying to limit leaks like that photo above.

Oh and that pic is just before a big event does happen - but not that shot specifically.

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Par for the course nowadays. At my theater, for advance screenings, security companies show up (outsourced by the movie studio). Usually a few people in suits, some with an apparent ex-legbreaking background (I think they recruit ex-military, police, etc.,.). They have to see the movie print (or, as it is nowadays, the hard drive) and write down the serial number, then watch us delete the film after showing it. They set up tables near the theater entrance and "tag and bag" cell phones using metal detectors.

Movies are all on hard drives now, really?

I finally saw "Resurrection" the other day, and you could see the bits and pieces of promise the movie held (probably mainly from the writing of Joss Whedon). It wasn't an awful film, by any means. But nothing compares to the "Jaws"-like suspense of the original, or the overwhelming us-vs-them hunting of the second film (with the influence of a post-"Terminator" James Cameron directing).

That's why John Carter was shot on film. Andrew Stanton wanted to shoot on film before it completely disappears.

They're digital. How did you think they arrive, the Film Fairy? They come in either a plastic orange box (Technicolor) or a gray cardboard box (Deluxe), and inside is a hard drive nestled in foam with its own AC cables and USB wire. Films range from only around 25-50 GB for cheaply-made films to 250+ GB for well-made or 3D films. Takes a few hours to download them, either directly into the projector's server with the USB cable (or, on some models, a harddrive port in the machine) or into a main chipserver which then distributes the prints from that server (in which case it's a few hours to download from drive to server then a few hours to download from server to projector).

That's really fascinating.

Exactly what we had- def. Outside security and 2 people from the studio there to bag and tag phones and sign in for the movie. They were friendly and all, and it may be extreme but in this day and age its so easy to leak stuff I get it, and really- I got to see a cool flick before it came out so its not any skin off my back that they don't want to spoil it with leaks because after seeing it I think watching it without knowing what happens is the way to go for this movie.

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Of course like all files, that can be recovered with the right program. :)

so when a theater advertise's a "digital" presentation, not all films are as good of presentation quality?

Exactly, esp when he talks about transferring it to a projector and a server. With all the added security and the fear of pirating, I'm curious why they would allow it to be transferred at all.

So the digital file, is it like an uncompressed MPEG or MP4 or AVI or what?

Whether or not we erase the films is actually pointless, since you can only play a film on a specific projector using a specific activation key they also send you, for a specific time period. (It's not like you can plug it into your computer and watch the film.)

Possibly. I think partly, as it depends on what cameras they used, what resolution, image size, etc.,. But I think some of it might also be because of things as simple as how much black is in a film (i.e. a darker film might take up less space).

Keeping each hard drive at each projector would make more sense but, for some reason, they don't do it like that. (Plus, some projectors can't live-play a film off the drive. They can only do it if the file is on the projector's server.)

It's apparently JPEG2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_cinema). The films are broken down into dozens of file pieces for both audio and video. Somehow the computer knows how to thread them all together and use them on a specific "cue" title (sort of, I imagine, how a computer game can have dozens of files associated but the game plays only if you click on one specific app icon). When I load, say, "Avengers", I create a file named "Avengers" (mostly for our own housekeeping purposes), then drag-and-drop everything off the harddrive into that folder, and then when I use the projector's server's program a new film pops up in the list that might say AVENGERS_FTR_VER1_S_EN-XX_51_DIS_20120413_US_3Di_OV and a whole bunch of other characters, all of which have meanings... feature (FTR) vs. trailer (TLR), version, Scope (S) vs. Flat (F), language (EN=English), sound version (Dolby 5.1 vs. Dolby 7.1), the film company (in this case, Disney), the films specific serial number (which appears to be the date it's created, 3D vs. 2D, etc.,.