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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Booth Clocks
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-06-2005 04:24 AM
I have it so easy working for art houses and independents -- single screens all. That doesn't mean I am not as anal-retentive as the best of them, but I don't have to run the length of a football field to start another three projectors all suposedly at the same time (are DMs SO freakin stupid that they do not see this as a physical impossibility?). I really admire you plex guys.
In the big theatre where we had been using the packaged preshow music programs, it was all timed out so that if you started the music at 25min before showtime, then you would be able to hit the screen with the cartoon just as the music ended (having the last cord of the non-sync music playing just under the first sound of the WB cartoon logo music). You were right at the top of the start time, within a few seconds. The preshow had built in cues so you could just let it cue your start sequence.
In the houses that don't use the packaged Preshow Concerts, nevertheless we program cuts from CDs; again, knowing the exact running time of the CD cuts that you've programmed, if you start the CD non-sync so that it ends exactly when the film is scheduled to start, you can hit the screen within a few seconds of the correct time. I made sure the all the CD players are able to display count-down as well as elapsed time; I just look at the time counter and hit the start sequence -- house lights sequence (1/2 House, Credits Level, Show level), the warmers and finally projector start and curtain so that it all times out perfectly when the music is done.
What I hate is when the house is messing with crowds and they want to hold the start time or when some speaker has to blab blab blab before the film and messes up the whole sequence. If that happens, I've taken to going back a few minutes on the last CD cut, fade it back up so that I can still play that cut and get the whole startup sequence to step to the countdown of the CD timer.
As for the atomic clocks. My experience is the same as you guys -- they are piss awful; of the three I bought for the center (all different types), none of them were able to get the signal reliably -- one of them only after days. To me that's not a technology that is ready for market. And the idea of having to get up on the roof to run an extra antenna, well, let's just say, yeah....like THAT's gonna happen any time soon. I just set my digital watch with either one of the dozen internet TimeSet programs or to any broadcast network TV show at the top of the hour. That's close enough.
The college decided against putting them in all over campus a number of years ago because of the threat of theft (three or four years ago those clocks were pretty pricey) -- they can easily be pulled off the walls. So the college in its infinate wisdom went instead with an elaborate master clock system with special clocks in the hallways and rooms used regular AC to drive the clock motor, but a second circuit is used to synchronize the clock hands every hour or so to the master clock someplace in another building on campus. They figured no one would steal these because they will not keep accurate time without the pulsing from the master. Problem is, they needed to have electricians run multi-cables to each and every one of the hundreds of clocks across the entire campus at a mind-boggling cost to tax payers. They could have kept replaceing every stolen atomic clock for the next 50 years before they would come near the cost of installing the master clock system. PLUS, the "synchronized" local clocks are always, ALWAYS wrong....sometimes by 15, 20 minutes. I have no idea what that's about. Some are an hour wrong half the year cause they never get the pulse to go on Daylight time.
To make it even more laughable, the college had a customized clock face made showing a black & white line drawing of its logo. Problem is, the hands of the clock are black, so unless you are standing 3 feet from the clock, you can't see where the hands are pointing for the busy background, except for the second hand which is red. Only problem is, in about 60% of all the clocks, the second hands, for some inexplicable reason, have all fallen off and lay at the bottom of the clock. Very funny to see a clock that seemingly has no hands except for a red one laying sideways at the bottom. In the scene shop, the carpenters have taken to putting a big X made out of duck tape over the face of the its clock so no one should get burned thinking they are looking at the correct time.
[ 02-06-2005, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]
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