My booth has a low pile carpet. We vacuum it every week and if you ask me it is far better than tile. Would you rather vacuum it once a week or sweep AND mop a tiled floor probably daily?

Like Randy said, my theatre has static problems too. Putting the humidifier next to the platter doesn't help much because the booth is too big. We have one projector that has tiling behind it and let me tell you it helps cut down the sound vibration SOOOO much. Like night and day.

I will grant that static will be a little bit higher in a carpeted booth on film that is run dry, but who wants to run their films dry???

For a large area, the anti-static solution can be applied by spraying it using a pressurized garden sprayer.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

I remember the booths that used to use black rubber matting (available in rolls) along the most heavily travelled paths. They are cheap, not bad to clean (as long as techs don't drop hot solder onto it), easily replaceable, or moveable should you change your mind.

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You have to wind them with the sound track down since it is basically opposite rotation of the platter. Then, take the old trailers off, and splice on the ones you just made up.

Please remember, this works best if you have old trailers already on the show. Take the old ones off, and replace them with the roll you just made up. Of course, you'll have to flop your newly made roll over to match up the soundtracks.

Then use the old plastic lined trash can trick to dismantle your old trailers if they are to be saved. Hold the old trailers in your hand, unwind 10 convolutions into the trash can, twist the roll, and unwind 10 more and so on. When you then wind them on a core, they will not tie themselves into a nasty knot. The convolutions will cancel each other. With proper handling techniques, you will not damage the trailers.

But, I will admit, if the trailers are going to be used in the circuit's sub-run houses, your idea is probably the best if the booth is equipped with equipment similar to what is depicted in the pictures. With the old CFS MUTS and those worthless Strong MUTS, I found it much easier to either toss the trailers in the trash, or use the trash can technique to salvage them for "practice reels". I never had the time to fiddle with trailers that were going to be thrown in the garbage anyway.

When I had projectionists use my practice reels, I came equipped with all kinds of neat stuff to make the film jump rollers, suck itself through the pay-out heads, and some tools to remove sprocket perfs from the film, and purposely be club-footed and walk through the film path, and things like that.

Now those old Brenkerts sometimes outfoxed me. I could cut the film 3/4 of the way though, as well as removing 8 inches of sprocket perfs, and it would not even phase those old Brenkerts.

In my training sessions, anything that can happen in a booth I made it happen, as long as it would not damage the equipment itself. I have also been known to install a bad belt on something like a Century or a Simplex 5-Star, and while the machine was running, a razor blade applied to the belt was very effective. Then I just stood there and watch the prospective projectionist scratch his or her butt trying to figure out what was wrong, and then I would walk over to another machine and sliced the film in two, or shut a platter motor down, or trip a circuit breaker or two.

Devil I was, yes! But many of my trainees became the best!

The Christie item you are referring to is not a new "platter", just a new center ring. The idea is to takeup a movie onto the new 19" center ring right before you change your trailers out. This gives you TONS of room to drop in new trailers. Also convenient is loading up the feature alone (say for a screening) and taking up on the larger ring and then you will have plenty of space to drop in an entire trailer pack.

Personally, I prefer the 19" center rings over the standard ones hands down for ALL use. Using them allows for a retiming of the platters to 15 1/2 RPMs, which makes it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to throw a print. It also allows for clamping of Costner-length movies with normal clamps, where the clamps would otherwise have not fit.

I'll try and get pictures later if you want them.

Yes, I would like to see those platter pictures,

Regards,

The standard Christie center ring.

The new 19 inch Christie center ring.