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Topic: pleasant surprises

Ari Nordström
Master Film Handler

Posts: 283
From: Göteborg, Sweden
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 01-21-2000 05:58 PM

I ran a very nicely restored silent movie classic a few days ago. After the show, a 92-year old film director who was the special guest of the evening located me to thank me for a wonderful show. He shook my hand, said some very nice things about the art and craft of projecting, and pointed out how vital it was for any filmmaker that projectionists know what they're doing.

It all came back to me, how much I really like being a projectionist.

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Andrew D'Vrey
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: St. Paul, MN USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 01-22-2000 01:10 AM

I always like it when the THX TAP people come in and send you one of those 100 out of 100 reports.

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"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"

Andrew D'Vrey
IATSE Local 219

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Charles Everett
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: New Jersey
Registered: May 2001

posted 12-23-2001 11:44 AM

The Man Who Wasn't There when it played the AMC Hamilton. Perfect sound mix (SDDS) plus what appeared to be a "true" black and white print. Newspaper ads gave only DTS/Dolby Digital for sound.

It proves that on arthouse/upmarket pictures, presentation counts!

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John Anastasio
Master Film Handler

Posts: 325
From: Trenton, NJ, USA
Registered: Sep 2000

posted 12-23-2001 02:26 PM

When I saw "The Man Who Wasn't There" at the AMC Hamilton, it was a B&W print done on color stock. If they got a better print, I'm pleased to hear it. I'm usually pretty happy with the showings at that theater. The sound is consistantly good there and the place is always immaculately clean. I actually caught a manager chewing out an usher there one night because the kid had on the wrong color tee-shirt under his uniform!

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Charles Everett
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1470
From: New Jersey
Registered: May 2001

posted 12-23-2001 03:27 PM

John A: I stand corrected. Have edited my earlier post to reflect your follow-up remarks.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-23-2001 03:29 PM

Pleasant surprises from my viewpoint is finding managers and projectionists working in some theaters who are just as nuts about movies and show quality as myself.

When Lawton's Carmike theater first opened, its DTS systems were not set up properly. Just a last minute rush job to beat a construction deadline I think. No one knew about the problem since the theater didn't even get any DTS prints for the first few months it was opened. When a DTS print of "Seven" arrived and those really loud opening titles hit the screen, I was pretty alarmed. The volume level in the surround array was not all that loud, but so much bass was coming out of them that I thought the drivers would surely disentegrate.

Now, I'm just a friend of the theater's manager, but I took it upon myself to fax DTS about the problem that night and not just leave it to whatever the folks in Columbus, GA would tell the manager. Those guys at DTS actually listened to me. They got on the phone with Jack the next morning and even had one of the best tech guys working in the region over there the same day to get the system tuned correctly. I went back and watched "Seven" after that and the sound was just simply marvelous.

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Bernard Tonks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 619
From: Cranleigh, Surrey, England
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-23-2001 04:06 PM

A nice surprise for me some 30 years ago was when I was helping out the British Film Institute at the converted Roundhouse Theatre Chalk Farm, London (formally a steam engine train depot with turntable), for the BFI Cinema City Exhibition. One night I showed Harold Lloyd’s film “Safety Last “ plus a couple of shorts, the prints were Mr Lloyd’s personal ones, they were also struck special with academy ratio within 1.85:1 wide frame, the mono soundtrack was magnetic in place of the optical track although still coated 4 track but with standard perforations and not foxhole, most unusual.

After the screening Harold Lloyd visited the projection box and thanked me for the presentation.

The equipment at the Roundhouse, Kalee 19 projectors, Kalee xenons, Kalee Duosonic sound with 4 track magnetic penthouses to mono only.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-23-2001 04:28 PM

A few years back I did a screening of 'Faust' (the F.W. Murnau 1926 film) and was expecting to get the scratched and worn print that the BFI usually send out to places they have no control over. What I got was a Soho Images hand tinted print that had hardly been shown: very sharp and contrasty and the colours were lovely (miles better than Desmetcolour). The only problem was that the intertitles were in German: myself and a duty manager had very limited German, and after repeated viewings on a Steenbeck, we managed to write out a (probably very rough) translation. She got the job of standing at the front of the auditorium shouting out the translation of each title, trying to make herself heard above the pianist, whilst I stayed upstairs doing the changeovers. I think I got the best deal.

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