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Author
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Topic: Your Favourite Projector and Booth
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Barry Martin
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 203
From: Newington, CT USA
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 08-03-2002 10:44 AM
While I have only had the privelage of working a few projection booths, I can solidly say that the Strong Platters, Lamphouses, Projector Heads, have all been my preferred choice. A couple theaters around Boston have Century heads and while they seem to run fine they are a bit older and thus more cramped than the Strongs I have in Danvers. I have pretty big hands, so the convenience is a big issue with me. Where it would take me 60-80 seconds to thread my Strongs, it would take 3 minutes to thread a Century. I also haven't run into anything wrong presentation wise. A lot of our app. plates need recutting, and some of our lenses have been the wrong size from when the theater opened in '98 (both projectionists and technicians have complained, the company has still done nothing about it. I am unhappy with the changeover though, often we have them slipping down and cutting the picture off right after they open to start the trailers. I have had a lot of people look at me like I have three heads for saying I love the Strong MUTs and Platters, but they are faster for print work than any others I've used by about 50% and I haven't had major problems with them breaking down on me. The only complaint we had was the film would occasionally jump the guide rollers on the brains and cause a wrap, but we solved that by putting elastics around the rollers that would not obstruct the film path. Strong could solve this just by adding a couple inches to the roller height. ------------------
"The greatest thing you will ever learn, is just love and be loved in return." Barry C. Martin
IATSE Local 182
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Kenneth Wuepper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1026
From: Saginaw, MI, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 08-03-2002 03:42 PM
Hey, Brad,Did you ever work a carbon light, Simplex XL, reel house where the schedule called for a slide intro to the spotlighted organ overture followed by a reel of trailers (flat) A scope short and "The Crunch Bird" cartoon (flat) followed by the feature in Scope? You might have a new appreciation for speed in loading and a fair knowledge of Chess is also helpful.  This was the booth we took all of our wannabee operators to visit before signing them on for training. KEN The "Crunch Bird" is 60 seconds long. Not much film on that reel!
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 08-03-2002 05:58 PM
Kenneth,I don't see where a Simplex XL is a harder machine to thread than others, but yes I have worked in "sort of" a similar situation. In college I ran a theater that did not have a splicer. The bottom line was we had to run each trailer INDIVIDUALLY with a changeover in between each one. We also ran a cartoon before the feature and had to operate a manual light board. We had to be very fast and when we had to run a 30 second teaser, it HAD to be the first trailer shown. We did also frequently run 60 second reels. Your scenario is nothing new to me. However Kenneth, your points are off of the main point I was trying to make. My point was directly in relation to Strong's platter loading and unloading too fast to be safe for the film. This has nothing to do with being speedy in the booth in general, as the points were associated with platters.
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Barry Martin
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 203
From: Newington, CT USA
Registered: Jul 2002
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posted 08-04-2002 03:21 AM
As for the speed issue, I can both agree and disagree. I have seen scratches come up due to excessive speed used on platters. I myself always used a lubricant on the rollers of the MUT and made sure to set the rollers a little above the platter and never had any problems. As for getting home early, I would have milked it for every minute I could get, but I was corporate trained and corporate training means you are "efficient" and not "proficient". Once I started hearing about inspecting film while building/breaking down I tried to implement it but the manager wouldn't go for it. This was when we had 2 people working each shift on Thursday (AM and PM) plus someone extra on midday for "print work". Shortly before the unionization we were cut down to 3 people on Thursday and only given a certain number of hours allowed to complete the work (12-8, the midday basically took care of builds, the closer generally took care of breakdowns (me)). So as far as preferring quality over quantity, I am with you. Unfortunately, the company that paid me (and I'm guessing most) are not. I am killing myself here because I cannot recall the exact model of Centurys used in the theaters I worked, because I only did a day or two here and there. It's on the tip of my tongue, but it's just been too long. Will check with some other guys to see if they remember. If anyone worked the Fresh Pond or Assembly Square theaters, those are the ones I am referring to. ------------------
"The greatest thing you will ever learn, is just love and be loved in return." Barry C. Martin
IATSE Local 182
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 08-05-2002 06:04 AM
15 minutes to break down a typical length feature is plenty, but there are only two platters on the market that can do it to my knowledge without causing damage, the Christies and SPECOs. Other platters require manual human tensioning and going any speed at all does damage the print to some degree. Also, the scratches I am speaking of are not caused by rollers or dragging across the edge of the deck. They are "cinch marks" (which almost look like specs of dirt, but they are scratches) caused by improper and/or uneven tension, which are aggravated by high speeds and platters that require human backtension on breakdown (which can never be even). Unfortunately, most people think I am overreacting on this issue, as these marks will generally go unseen at *typical* theaters that do not run cleaners with FilmGuard, because even with daily cleaning with dry media or PTRs, the film WILL have projected dirt on it and the cinch marks tend to get hidden in the dirt. The brighter the screen illumination, the more obvious this becomes too. Unfortunately most theaters cannot even hit 16 footlamberts of light on the screen, further hiding the cinch scratches. But it IS there. As far as breakdown inspection...what??? If the theater is ran properly and the films are fully hand inspected on buildup, there should be no reason to even consider doing this. Be forewarned, many platter rollers are designed to NOT have a lubricant added. If you are doing so, you could be hurting the performance of the equipment.
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