Star Light, Star Bright

Here's Lancer on why Wing Commander was so dark in US theaters...

I thought I might add a comment as to why so many US people commented on how dark the effects were in the film.

this came to light recently when I visited a film SFX house at shepperton studios two weeks ago, they are working on the new Bond film BTW.

anyway, they had done the SFX start for Lost in Space last year and they told me they had to re-render a lighter lit version of the opening ten minute sequence for the US as the original version was playing too dark on US screens.

it played fine on the UK screens they tested it on and couldn't figure out why.

the explanation is actually quite simple once they looked into it.

Projectors can run at varying light intensities. and they have set light hours they are supposed to run between maintenance.

British Projectors in Cinemas are run at full intensity and stick to the schedule for maintenance.

As it turned out a lot of US cinemas intentionally choose to run their projectors at about 75% output light power, giving them longer gaps between maintenance and down time. economic sense but something that plays havoc with film companies. the effects work and shots are mixed and printed on the premise that projectors run at 100% intensity like their supposed to, so when run at 75% intensity like a lot of them are in the US, the film comes out darker than it is supposed to. it probably explains why watching it on DVD is a lot clearer.

I think Wing fans might find that of interest, particularly after the film got heavily criticised for dark effects work by the so-called critics.