|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Most Painful Mistake?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
John T. Hendrickson, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 889
From: Freehold, NJ, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 06-18-2001 04:23 PM
Carl King's post on his Two Mules For Sister Sarah brings back a painful embarrasment from the dark ages of my existance and my rookie year in the booth to boot.We were getting ready to open the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park for the summer with a run of Patton. However, the owner of the chain, Walter Reade, Jr. decided to have a cocktail party and a private screening of Two Mules For Sister Sarah the night before the summer opening. It was a two man union booth back then, running reel to reel with carbon arcs. Each operator ran one projector. I started number one- no problem. Then, the operator who was supposed to be working with me during the summer sauntered in and asked the other operator on duty that evening if he could thread up the number two projector. We said sure, go ahead. Comes changeover time, and the second operator on duty makes the changeover to number two and guess what? No sound! The phone in the booth starts to ring off the hook. The western electric soundhead had been misthreaded by our guest operator! We had to shutdown and re-thread the soundhead while we explained it to the manager, who was beside himself with a theater full of bigwigs, including Walter Reade, Jr. We were up and running again in less than a minute, but it gets better. The other operator told the manager that it was a "misframe in the soundhead". Obviously, the manager must have thought it was an equipment problem, so he makes an emergency call to the Altec tech, who also happened to be our local's business manager. He comes up to the booth about half an hour later, screaming bloody murder! I thought my days as a projectionist were going to end before they began. He calmed down after we told him what happened and I think he was more annoyed at the manager than anyonbe else. I learned my very first valuable lesson: if someone else is involved, CHECK THE WORK!
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michael Hunt
Film Handler
Posts: 63
From: Gloucester, Gloucestershire, UK
Registered: Feb 2001
|
posted 06-21-2001 12:56 PM
Hmm,first major problem was back in 1990, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours arrived at my Cinema about 45 minutes before it was due on screen... I'd made up a fifteen minute advert reel which my assistant was to start, whilst I was still making up the feature onto 14000' tower spools.
The first thing I did when the print arrived was to check what way around each of the reels of the print were, as I'd had a spate of features arriving on crossover from elsewhere where reel 1 was head out, reel 2 tail out and so on.
So I check 'Crimes and Misdemeanours' and reel 1 has a head properly spliced on, reel 2 a tail, reel 3 a head, reel 4 & 5 a tail, and reel 6 a head, but with no ID frames, so to make things easy, and save rewinding a platter reel, given as I'm pushed for time I rewind reels 1,3 & 6 and then start building the print up on the tower from tail of reel 6 backwards to reel 1, so that it'll be ready to screen as soon as I get to reel 1... and finished this just as the advert reel played out, and my assistant, who's screening this was closes the tabs and stops the projector...Okay I say, all yours, I'll be in the Arts Centre's bar downstairs for the next hour, killing time before the next bus home... twenty minutes later the phone in the Bar goes... 'Yes Mikes still here...'
I wander over to the phone to be asked by my assistant 'Okay Mike, just how many reels of this are going to be upside down then?'
Every bloody one that I'd thought was tail out... Teach me not to look harder at the print itself... Then about two years later I'm screening the first show of 'Howards End' with a reviewer from the local paper in the audience, now on making this print I'd found a break in the middle of reel 5 that hadn't been repaired, and two breaks in the middle of reel 6 that hadn't been repaired , so I fix them, checking that the print still matches, and check the reel ends 'just in case', everything looked fine, so on finishing reel 7, I rewind the print...
THe print runs through fine, until about three minutes from the end of reel 6, and way past the breaks that I repaired,m the print does a somersault, and everyone is standing on their heads! Now I know that the end of the reel is okay, So I stop the Film, bring up the lights and call the Duty Manager to ask him to apologise to the audience, and to tell them that the film should be back on, and the right way up in five minutes, and according to the local paper next day, exactly five minutes later it was indeed back on screen the right way up...
I'd split the film at the offending point, wound it down to the end of the reel, then wound it back about 30' before I found the other offending point - both splices had been so well made that I'd missed them at make up. I then rewound the 'upside down' part, spliced it on the right way round, rewound it onto the top reel, laced it up, and restarted...
I still have the press cutting somewhere
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Paul Harnden
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 107
From: Chandler, AZ, USA
Registered: Oct 2001
|
posted 11-26-2001 09:40 PM
Stupid things I've done:1: Dropped half a print of "Get It On" thinking i didn't need clamps to move the print. This happened mind you a couple minutes before showtime.
2: Had my finger ran through most of the upper portion of a Simplex 35/70 housing, let me tell you those 70mm sprockets hurt!!!
3: Mistakenly played a more adult oriented movie in front of a catholic church group who really came to see "Remember the Titans"
4: Ran my hands through the point where the motor wheel and the platter touch when engaged, several times.
5: Tried to start movies with just the general path setup, the projector still unthreaded (duh!).
6: On a call with my tech about a problem with the monitor (later found out it was a blown fuse) I mistakenly hit the wrong button and turned off the amps while the show was running. These are some of the little gems I thought I'd submit, hope you like them :-).
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 12 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
Printer-friendly view of this topic