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Thursday, May 26, 2011

SIFF The Neptune Will Be a "Bona Fide Movie Theater" By Tomorrow Night

Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:40 PM

Carl Spence, the artistic director of SIFF, says that the festival has been listening to audience complaints about the poor quality of the filmgoing experience in the renovated Neptune space and they've been working to fix them. (I wrote about my Neptune SIFF experience here.)

The first thing SIFF did was address the complaints about the sound system. "We did a full acoustic analysis," Spence says, and they determined that the new space "wasn’t producing an ideal filmgoing experience." When the Neptune was a movie theater, there was a sound wall behind the screen to improve the acoustics. As Seattle Theater Group prepared to transform the building into a live music venue, the wall came down, leaving a "cavernous" space that diffused the sound. A sound wall has been reinstalled, along with other nerdy A/V tweaks—apparently, the white noise levels have been checked and re-checked on every speaker—to tune the system up to Dolby specifications.

And as of tomorrow morning, the folding chairs will be no more: SIFF sent a driver to Park City, Utah to pick up temporary theater seats on loan from the Sundance Film Festival. Spence calls this "a really good solution." The seats are used at film festivals like Sundance and Telluride to modify a non-traditional venue "into a bona fide movie theater." Though the seats will be flat on the ground, Spence says "the [seats] in the front row are angled more and as you get further back, they’re angled less," providing improved sight lines. They'll also help with sound absorption as well. "By Friday showtimes, everything is going to be exactly the way we want it to be," Spence says

Comments (12) RSS

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So glad I opted out of going with the family to see "Thief of Bagdad" tonight at The Neptune.

Posted by the film's just as good with "Scheherazade" as soundtrack on May 26, 2011 at 2:57 PM

Folding chairs? Temporary seats? Makes me not look forward to seeing Tim Minchin in June.

Posted by Akbar Fazil on May 26, 2011 at 3:01 PM

Saw page one last night. The folding chairs are terrible.

Posted by SeattleSeven on May 26, 2011 at 3:03 PM

Glad it will be ready in time for the Asian Crossroads films!

Posted by Will in Seattle

on May 26, 2011 at 3:14 PM

Hard to believe that taking a perfectly good theater and ripping out all the seats and everything else in the room would result in a worse theater. Go figure.

Posted by Fnarf

on May 26, 2011 at 3:22 PM

Until you've watched Trainspotting at the Egyptian while stoned out of your mind, you don't know from lousy acoustics.

Posted by seandr on May 26, 2011 at 3:46 PM

It was bad enough that they could have figured this out before the festival started. The acoustics aren't the only problem with the sound - it also helps if the sound is turned ON when the movie starts. And if the projectionist pays enough attention to make sure the film it hitting the screen correctly. The new seats aren't going to fix those problems.

Posted by $11 without a head on May 26, 2011 at 3:54 PM

I was just at the Neptune last night to see Page One (great film) and was reminded just how fucking weird that place is. It has to be the most dangerous theater I've ever been in--the floors are all wonky and have crazy grades to them that seem really inaccessible for anyone less than perfectly healthy. And the restroom has a fun-house weirdness to the layout that makes you question your own senses.

Posted by Carollani

on May 26, 2011 at 4:36 PM

@2 to be fair, they are padded folding chair, and they aren't too bad, assuming you're there for one film and sitting in the right place.

I've sat on far worse chairs at Showbox Market comedy shows.

Posted by stinkbug on May 26, 2011 at 6:10 PM

So I guess that they had no idea that SIFF was booked in there or that they had promised to be a multi purpose venue. WTF didnthey think that acoustic wall did? But hey, STG has never done anything decent with the Moore, like say, have heat, so no big surprise.

Posted by Oops I caught an STG on May 26, 2011 at 6:44 PM

where do i click to give this entire internet a 1 star out of 5?
outraged!

Posted by derrickito on May 26, 2011 at 10:15 PM

I saw "Page One" last night and headed straight to the balcony thanks to Paul's warning. Thanks Paul!

That's going to be an interesting live venue, with the tiers on the floor. Might be great. Might kill some folks.

Posted by DOUG.