1. Customers staring at you when you're hauling a heavy print, as if you're performing some amusing trick in a circus side show. "Oh look, manual labor. How quaint"

2. Anyone who has worked as a projectionist who downplays the importance of the position, tells people it requires no thought or skill, tells people it shouldn't pay a decent wage, and helps eliminate professional operators.

3. Operators who are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning the film path but let two inches of dust and crud accumulate on top of the lamp house

4. Theatres that have broken (chipped) rollers with jagged edges on their Autowinds and run them that way for years rather than dish out 4 or 5 dollars.

5. Customers who assume we never get to watch a film from inside the auditorium with the normal people. We work 7 days a week and get all our entertainment through the porthole.

6. Ushers forgetting to close auditorium doors and letting sound bleed from one to another, or in one case, letting the screen be flooded with light from outdoors well into the feature.

7. Overzealous managers raising the lights from inside the auditorium before the credits have started and making your presentation awkward just when you were getting ready to hit the lights at the appropriate moment.

8. Managers changing the show schedule without informing the projectionists.

9. Managers deciding to interlock only a minute before showtime, thus sending home everyone who showed up for the less popular feature (with some excuse about mechanical failure) and sending the operator on a mad dash to hunt down a 250 ft leader.

USHERS!

Ushers who call up on the radio and say the slide projector is out of focus. For heaven sakes, the people have to have their propoganda before the movie.

Ushers who call up on the radio saying a theater is too cold, even though the thermostat is downstarirs in the office.

Ushers who tell customers "Go see a manager and they'll give you passes"

Ushers who trip over the feed from the platter and send me into an aneurism as I try to get the show back on while they say "woops" and i give them a look like I want to send them through the portal glass...

1) Managers not informing the booth that we need to be in early for special screenings. This happened a couple of weeks ago where we had a super early auditorium rental for Toy Story 2 and nobody felt the need to tell anyone in the booth about it because after all, it runs itself, right? So on my day off I get a phone call from management asking why nobody is there to run their show of Toy Story 2 for their auditorium rental. I simply explained to them that since nobody told the booth about it, we didn't know and therefore the projectionist would be in at the normal time. The projectionist eventually showed up at the normal time, started the movie, and had to delay the start of nearly every other show in that auditorium for the entire day, pissing off countless customers who came to see the show later. What's up with management like this?

2) Nobody realizing that you exist until you have a problem. The response downstairs is always "Oh yeah! There's a guy in the booth! He f*cked up!" And they blame the stupidest things on you (like when the Christie CA21 automation constantly fails, which it does, by the way) no matter how many times you explain what really happened.

3) Open captioned prints. For some reason we get all of these prints. They are always in horrible shape and have the captions laser scribed onto the film, whch means you either focus for the captions or the picture. I don't know why my theatre has to be the one to get these prints all the time. Nobody ever comes to them. Of course if we didn't, we'd probably be sued by the one guy who does attend for discriminating against the deaf. It's interesting that these movies always come with DTS discs. Maybe I should be putting DTS and THX sound logos on the front of these movies. Or is that too cruel?

- Theatres that buy the cheapest projection equipment possible, but whose owners drive Mercedes or BMW cars.

- Being distracted by anything when a changeover is imminent.

- My all-time favourite: Soft prints (poor 16MM blowups or otherwise) or scenes in films in which the actor (or focus puller) has missed their mark. Some audience members cannot tell whether or not it is the film in the projector or the photography of the film which is out of focus, which is fine, but it isn't when they automatically assume that the projector is out of focus, especially when the grain of the film is visibly sharp on the screen!

New Line's new reels that have no MUT-peg holes in the hubs

Previous theatres that cut-off and keep the "attached" trailers

Ditto for the "enclosed" trailers

Technicolor always being out of the trailers I need

Projectionists or Technicolorites who don't use a good ("NEW") piece of tape to secure the film end before shipping it out

Cheap splice tape that won't peel off without leaving sticky gunk behind (If you're not using Neumade, then shame on you)

Prints that still have the foil cues from previous theatres on them (and cues made out of cheap tape that can't be peeled in one piece)

Release dates on one-sheets and in trailers (HEY! STUDIOS! IT ISN'T NECESSARY!)

Ancient film cans that weigh 30 pounds empty and require a screwdriver and hammer to open

People who:
-Stick gum to the seats
-Bring babies to the show
-Bring kids to R-rated movies and ask, "Is it really THAT BAD?"
-Stare at our "Balcony Reserved for Adults Only" sign and then ask, "Can I take the kids upstairs?"
-Show up at twenty minutes past show time and get mad when I tell them the feature has already started

Booth operators who:
-Don't clean their equipment
-Run a film onto a 3/4" plywood sheet to move it from one platter to another, thereby scratching the entire print (Yes! I've seen this done!)

The announcer on the "MovieTunes" CDs (the blandest announcer since Casey Kasem)

And lastly, I hate the music on the "policy" trailers that are produced by Filmack, Cinema Concepts, etc. Those things look and sound like they're from the 70s.

I could go on, but I have to go thread.

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What's wrong with keeping the enclosed/attached trailers? DUH! The next theatre down the line might like to use'em! Don't assume everybody feels the same way you do about those trailers.

There's usually a note in with the film asking you to "please do not edit or remove from print." Your fellow projectionist might be in a smaller town, but would still like the opportunity to promote the upcoming movies properly.

Of course, this problem would not exist if the studios would make more of their best advertising tool....MAKE MORE TRAILERS.

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