I think back to 1998 when RUSH released their 4th live album called Different Stages. The 3rd disc was of songs recorded from a concert performed at this venue during their A Farewell to Kings Tour in February 1978. Oh, to have been there; yet, I was only 8 years old, and hadn't even heard of RUSH yet. But I would. And the products, and the knowledge of that band to come. With that, to now have available the whole show recorded here.
This is just… absolutely disgusting, what they’ve done to this cinema. I’ve never been, honestly, but I have seen pictures and videos of what this cinema used to look like and it was absolutely beautiful before they completely fucked it up. The old auditorium had 1,500 seats just in that one area alone, now it doesn’t even have half that amount. Whoever was involved in refurbishing Empire Leicester Square Screen 1, please never refurbish anything ever again.
The 1962 auditorium had 1330 seats, the IMAX has 723 seats, so slightly more than half. The IMAX seating uses the circle of the 1962 auditorium, albeit with one row added at the back, and another just in front. The new seating is slightly wider (but now there are 3 aisles rather than 5.) Photos and videos of the 1962 auditorium don't do it justice, it was a magical and unique environment. Unfortunately, modernisation was long overdue...
It's actually a Compton, and the only 5 manual cinema organ they built. Comptons were a british pipe organ manufacturer. Wurlitzers were the American counterpart.
Ah! The days of the white marble staircase, the wide promenade, the beautiful auditorium, the George Melachrino orchestra and the Wurlitzer organ.....all gone in the name of progress. So sad.
As all as I can say is a home sub bass system might go down to 30hz , but the IMAX sub bass unit is almost the size of a small car and can go much lower bass of 20hz which produces much more building shaking bass , frequency response is not really mentioned only it's lowest point, because that gives the effect
with how cheap displays are nowadays, im sure you could fill that theatre wall with an array of 4k screens and get a cheaper and better quality picture than the expensive ass imax projector could offer. as for cameras, you would need something quite expensive to record in that quality in a digital format, but its not impossible.
@@gaumontkalee21 imax is over rated. just wait till good high resolution cameras get cheaper and digital storage solutions as well. once that happens, imax will finally die and so will its old ass film format. "0mFg My MoVie Is On ImAx FiLm Im So Much BeTtEr Than EvErTYoNe BeCaUsE iM aS pReTeNcIoUs As A mAc UsEr WhO oNly cUmS fOr BrAnDs I fAnBoY oVeR lIkE a FuCkInG zOmBiE". xD
@@gaumontkalee21 With all the excitement and corporate push for Virtual Reality, I really hope the industry does not neglect to continue pushing forward with very big screens, for group viewing. There's just something very special about watching with people, instead of watching alone, even if those people are sitting right next to you, if everyone is wearing a VR headset, it will lose the 'something special' for viewing with other people.
Thanks for the effort in this Video! I can watch it for Hours. Michael is doing such a fantastic job and created one of most beatiful Booths, i love the Atmosphere
in hyderabad tru imax 3d 70mm 15/70 with 12k watts dd imax sound was there till 2015 and true screen 72/102 which almost 1.43:1 screen format and tilted and curved it was goosebumps experience for every hollywood movie every one will enjoy with every scene😊
The only thing thats a shame these videos cant show due to copyright is how big the image actually looks on that screen. Id love to see Oppenheimer in 15/70 .. but am seeing it in a Liemax as I cant get to London easily. Id love to know what the giant image looks like compared to those in the cinema
yea true. and sadly they remind and scare the Audienence serval Times to not record. Little exaggerated in my Eyes, some Seconds really could show and fascinate the Viewers how massive and big the Image is. But ok, they take the rules very serious. Maybe it would disturbing on Videos too because you have to be aware to shoot in 24fps which most would forget to do ...
As far as I know, the owners want to reinstate the restaurant to be part of the cinema and restore the ticket kiosk and retain the original entrance doors, certainly no tube station as Green Park tube station is not far away
The sound system was all Dolby. The main processor was a CP200, it was fully 70mm equipped and had a external Dolby spectral sound adaptor for 35mm films with that system, also some 70mm films used spectral noise reduction, rather than A type Dolby . Also making its first appearance is a Dolby Digital adapter, with reader head on top of the first projector. Dolby Digital was for 35mm films and killed off 70mm blow up prints very soon after. I saw Back to the Future at the Empire in 1985 and it was a 70mm blow up done for the better sound . Also in the sound system was a THX adapter. I am not sure of the number of speakers, various pictures have been issued in the past. But they floor to ceiling and there were five channels behind the screen. Left , right, centre, left extra and right extra. Hope this helps, I must admit I have never worked in the cinema business, it's a hobby
And still the woefully small screen vs the size of the auditorium...grrr a missed opportunity which will never be rectified..only stalls seating or front circle ( at huge ticket price helps( . And don't ever go to the rear circle as you will feel detached and need binoculars lol..kind regards..BTW love the screen tabs ( blue) I'll give it a try when next I London though x Plus at least the public areas are finally larger too,I've been spoilt since 2010 in Thailand cinemas as they had recliner seats and huge screens then when their 2 national chains opened/expanded ( Major and SFX brands)and refurbished to very high standards prior to Lux etc
Favourite London Cinema to visit on trips. Now I'll stay in Yorkshire where, at least, we have The Magnificent Cinerama Screen still showing original Cinerama & 70mm Films.
It's interesting the overture on your print is printed on black film. The Mag print I ran in the 1970s had it printed on clear film, necessitating the operator keep the dowser closed until the MGM logo passed the gate.
@@gaumontkalee21 Aww..never mind....it's that I haven't experienced tabs for years..although my local independent has them but no swish and glide really lol!! ( Parkway Cleethorpes) Our now closed ABC Grimsby did of course right up to 2004 ..and I understand the Trocadero Everyman does have tabs in some screens? :)
Many thanks for uploading this video, which brings back many happy memories of Empire 1 and the wonderful ("military precision" timing!) showmanship of the presentation as it was then.
Like others I think the previous, enormous, screen 1 was the best screen / auditorium in the country and most likely one of the very best screens in the world. It offered a far better experience than the Odeon nextdoor, with its weird screen tilt and distortion, and the presentation just generally looked better, e.g. the lighting, the curtains, etc. I was really sad to see it go. BUT the way Leicester Sq used to work -- ie as the UK premiere venue -- only some studios showed movies at the Empire and others at the Odeon, and some distributors would want the Odeon for specific film premieres outside the normal split because it had a higher capacity. Commercially, it's hard to see how the Empire could make enough money with a 1,300 seat screen when it was playing, basically, B movies for much of its time while the Odeon was getting everything from Fox, Disney, Warner and the like. There's just not a big enough market for two competing screens with such huge audience capacity if one of them can't show the biggest film of the week. A real shame (personally I'd have preferred to see the Odeon go -- it's big, but beyond that it's an inferior experience), but you can see why it happened.
The Empire was rebuilt in 1927 for MGM with the auditorium block rebuilt/extended to form a 3,300 seat screen, then substantially altered in 1962 to form a 1,330 seat cinema, the auditorium/main foyer of which is/was suspended over the original stalls level, which today is occupied by a Casino. The 1962 auditorium was effectively a new cinema built within the shell of the building. In fact, its circle is less steep than the 1927 one and the projection booth is, I think, about at the level of the rear of the original circle. As we’ll see, this is not a moot point! Under Empire Cinemas, as you say, the Empire could struggle with getting major titles booked, with the Odeon Leicester Square apparently “first choice” (pun intended)-but it wasn’t bereft of them-the last two films I saw in Empire 1 were “Life of Pi” and “Star Trek into Darkness.” Nevertheless, apparently Empire 1 was loss-making, with high maintenance and operating costs. However, into the 2010’s, the OLS wasn’t filling, either. It wasn’t until after Cineworld acquired the Empire (2016) that exclusivity ended-but a refurbishment of the OLS was already due, most recently delayed pending the acquisition of Odeon Cinemas Group by AMC-it finally happened in 2018. It seems likely that IMAX were eager to have a Leicester Square presence. I can’t see how an IMAX conversion of the OLS would have been possible; the Vue West End certainly wasn't. However, recalling that the 1962 Empire was built “within” the 1927 auditorium, which had a dome in the middle of its ceiling, there was just about enough void space at the roof apex to raise the ceiling (substantially) up for a 1.9:1 IMAX screen of almost 90ft. width. You can see the roof structure is “boxed out” at the top of the sidewalls either side of the screen! By some odd accident of history, the 1962 circle stepping then married with this, yielding an auditorium geometry per classic IMAX specifications, with the audience positioned as it should be in relation to the screen size/location. (Except for the front side seats, but these are unavailable for IMAX performances.) There were lots of problems with the old Empire 1 that I can think of other than capacity-the acoustics were dire with a terrible slap echo that made it very difficult to follow fast dialogue in busy scenes of today’s titles. Flat raked stalls. No cupholders in low-backed seats (yes, they were lovely, but…) Competition includes the two Vue Westfield sites (Xtreme screens) and the Cineworld O2 (Superscreen), among many other new(er)/renovated multiplexes. And so on-whichever way you want to look at it, “do nothing” wasn’t an option for either Empire 1 nor presumably the OLS. There are only so many schemes that work commercially and practically within the constraints of the premises-both were multi-million pound renovations. This is not to say that I, like many others, would not have dearly loved for Empire 1 to have been kept as it was-it was my favourite auditorium. Realistically, I’m glad that there is still a cinema there, that the conversion included acknowledgment to the heritage, and the scheme was extremely ambitious (with the building pushed to the limit), rather than a poor quality subdivision… N.B. The IMAX with Laser GT dual projection installed is the Rolls Royce of digital projection, with an expensive optical path which eliminates the prism that compromises performance in all of the competition.
@@srfurley I have seen both. I have seen more laser projections than carbon. I can tell you the quality doesnt disappoint at all. But I get your worry.
Nothing like a nice flickering pair of carbon rods. Brightness changing all the time, needs monitoring and fine adjustments. Give me a xenon lamp any day.
And especially the animation! Also, the UCI logo was done via the SiliconGraphics CGI method, with music done via the E-mu Proteus modules, in Atlanta, Georgia, at Cinema Concepts.
@@DannyMB24 Yep. Cinema Concepts' animation studio in Atlanta, Georgia was involved with the UCI logo and policy trailer, for the SiliconGraphics CGI animation they did, as well as the music from the E-mu Proteus sound modules they also did.
