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Galactic News
Friday April
19, 2002
Homing Beacon
#58
The latest Homing Beacon has arrived, and today we get to talk about THX! It took hundreds of talented people and several years to make Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, but as the film's opening day nears, a small band of specialists takes over, charged with ensuring that the film's audience sees and hears the movie exactly the way as George Lucas intended. That group consists of 25 people within the THX Theatre Alignment Program (TAP), which has provided its quality assurance services on over 1,000 films. But this history-making project is far from routine -- for the first time every theatre showing the 35mm film version of the movie will get a first generation print -- a print with a level of quality that is typically delivered on just a handful of "show" prints.
The mass production of such high quality prints, which TAP is charged with checking, is one benefit that comes with the decision to shoot the movie digitally, because transferring digital footage to film involves fewer duplication steps than the traditional process. "Image quality suffers slightly with each generation in the film duplication process," explained Ted Costas, Sales and Operations Manager for TAP and the Digital Mastering Program (DMP). "Traditionally, there is one original negative, and from the original negative an interpositive is made, and from that, multiple internegatives are created. These are used to produce the prints that are distributed to theatres. But starting with a digital file -- and it's a pristine digital source master, certified by THX -- we can produce multiple original negatives, and then go straight to the final prints. This way, we're releasing first generation prints to all screens. That's never been done before."
To check prints, TAP has personnel at labs in Southern California, Toronto, London, Rome, Mexico City and Sydney, Australia. For the two weeks leading up to the film's debut, technicians will be checking prints around the clock. What's more, TAP personnel will accompany every print on its trip from the lab to the various screening facilities to ensure its safe arrival.
While that effort is underway, other TAP personnel will be aligning theatres -- setting light levels and making sound system adjustments. TAP will also send each theatre an Episode II information package containing a director's letter and service instructions to ensure that each theatre has the information needed for optimal playback. There will also be the 1-800-PHONE-THX End Credit Service that gives moviegoers the opportunity to contact THX about any presentation problems.
Keep checking starwars.com in the coming weeks for more release information.