I think they dropped it in 1912, in fact. And no, it wasn't a quick fix. Took them about 73 years to just find it.

Sorry. I had to.

>>"But seriously, seems to me a lot of people have dropped a print of "Titanic" one time or another. Some colleagues at a local multiplex here did that. Apparently it took them most of the night to fix it."<<

Another of my colleagues at said multiplex says that the above is incorrect. The film was not dropped, it was thrown off a platter...

I worked extra at this multiplex when Titanic had finally left the theatre. There was still evidence of it, though: I found a few frames of it stuck behind the gate of a Victoria 5. They still haven't told me how that happened.

Loved the movie, but I had all sorts of trouble with it. Mostly coincidence, really.

Our old failsafes were either not connected or would stick in the up position. Not even one of them worked properly. The old booths are separated so you can't be in the booth at all times; lots of walking.

Anyway, it was quite common to walk in and meet film all over the floor. My brother (manager) and I became experts at untangling film - he had an advantage because he was already quite good at untangling fishing lines...he says it's similar.

Actually, it's wrong to just blame the failsafes...I should clarify that the source of the trouble was with old ORC platters. I hate hate hate them!

When we got TITANIC the owners agreed to leave the print in the big theatre for the entire 4-week booking. The movie stayed there for 6-months, sold out every show days in advance. I'm sorry to hear about people dropping their prints of this movie. I can only imagine what that must have been like.

I have not been around during a Xenon explosion and I hope I never will be.

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And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

[edited: never mind, steve...a google search did the trick]

...And is this a new trend...IMAX blowups of 35mm films? In the case of APOLLO 13, it sounds like a good idea but if Disney ever gets around to doing a special IMAX edition of OLIVER & COMPANY then we might have some problems.

About the ORCON platters: what happened most often is that the return platter would just stop spinning and the film would pile onto the floor (no thanks to those evil failsafes). In our case, the prints were not being thrown.

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And, hey! Let's be careful out there.

~Manny.

What kind of platter are you using? I know in some platters (CFS, and the older Potts) if the ballast resistor is burned out (the resistor that shunts the points/micro-switch) that machine will have a very nasty whipping and hunting problem.

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So do Torus screens. Suction cups might be your only chance to swap spit with a cute female projectioneer!

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Careful what you wish for Steve. One day you and Guttag may end up working a platter booth together, and I don't think you want to be swapping spit with him!

"Suction cups suck!"

No they don't (but yes I do get the joke). This is why you simply MUST tape these things down! Never ever rely on those things actually sticking to the platter by the time the show gets halfway through, much less into the previews.

Still, a simple tail tuck works fine and dandy provided the platters are properly maintained by either the tech or projectionist. On alternating double-ups I routinely splice both features together on one platter and all we do to secure the tail is tuck it. Never had a problem, even when there is only about 2 inches from the edge.