The week before the Regal 8 (formerly Cobb Cinema 8) closed, I talked to the manager and he told me that the aperture plates and lenses has been swapped around and he had been trying to figure out which ones went with which projectors. 7 of the screens were identical size, 20 feet by 10 feet (that dreaded 2.00:1 ratio) with fairly long throws (long narrow 24 and 28 foot-wide auditoriums)). One screen was 24 by 10. From what I've seen at the Madison Square 12, it appears that they've done some permuting of lenses and aperture plates.

After one of my "kidding" ways to make an evil mistake deliberately in my last post, I sure hope nobody's theatre blows up this weekend.

Evans

I would line up all of my 1.85 lenses from the highest number to the lowest number.

Then I would look out all of my portholes and try and determine which screen looked the largest from the port. I would then take the lens with the smallest number and try it in there.

Then I would go around the building and try to place all the lenses using that method.

After which, I would take all of my aperature plates and just start looking at them in each auditorium untill I was satisfied with the results.

For a 16-plex, there would be 16!, or just over 20.9 trillion possible arrangements of lenses. That would keep a dummy busy for a while.

This is a real, management-sponsored training session. I figured it'd be a lot more fun for everybody instead of me standing there in front of a bunch of bored Usher-Bs and reading from a list on a clip board. I've told everybody about it and they all seem to like the idea.

The first part of the training should be taking place as we speak... I've given them a shopping list of things to go buy at Radio Shack, like HEAT SINK COMPOUND and a 1/2 decent OHMMETER to test diodes with. I already went to the store and told the manager what I wanted them to buy. All they have to do is take money into the store and say, "Hi, I'm from the theatre down the street." They will show them everything they need.

As far as the agenda goes, I PLAN to do four things:

1)10 minute introduction talk.
2)Play, "Find the threading mistakes".
3)Everybody builds a pretend movie out of old trailers and plays it.
4)Play, "Troubleshoot the projector while it's running" (Using the "films" they just made.)

After that it'll be pretty much "questions and answers".

Definately, some of you guys' ideas will make it to the "test".

I also have to show them how to change Xenons and check diodes!

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Try a few of these things:

Cut the film half way through and then get the to run it. It will shut the show down eventually.

In your old bits of film put about six or seven out of frames - all in the one direction. Eventually they will run out of adjustment and need to stop. Then again, they should pick it up on the bench!

Also, when you are running old film, show them how easy it is to scratch the film. Move the film into positions you know will damage the film and let them see it for themselves.

A great thing to teach them is a checking routine that they can use each session, every thread so that they get in the habbit of double checking their work. Something like Check Platter, Check Film Path, Check projector threading, check feature check program and time. You get the idea - modify it to suit your booth and equipment.

How about taking out the variacs in the platters?

Pull out the card with the two electro-magnets that controls the movement of the platter via payout arm. (Sorry don't remember what it is called).

Pull out the bridge rectifier out of the payout and takeup control panel.

On the platters under the elevator (takeup rollers) there is a small white plastic piece (again I forget what it is called). Remove it and have them figure out why the platters are not taking up.

Did Brad already say flip the interlock switch?

turn the igniter adjustment switch all the way down.

Inside the back of the lamphouse take out the fuse that goes to the ingitor breaker and have them try to figure out why the bulb is not striking.

Does Cinemark still use those crappy timer delay relay circuits? You know the ones that are white with red lettering? If so change the timing on it so the timer is on 10 mminutes, and the other 2 pot switches are on the very frist number so when the first inboard cue goes through, it will shut the projector down.

Turn off the breaker on the wall for the lamphouse power.

That is all I think of right now.

I did two projectors. One had only platter mis-threads and the other only had projector mis-threads.

Proj #1

Not properly threaded brain. (All found it, because I harp on this one a lot.)
Film 1/2 way off the lower magazine roller. (50% got it)
Film off roller at top of Yo-Yo and running on the shaft. (All got it.)
Moveable take-up caster fallen down and scraping film over the edge of the platter. (All got it in 10 sec.)

I think the reason the one roller was missed by some was that they were looking at the platter and thought that roller was part of the projecor.

Proj #2

Soundtrack wrong way (missed, but they noticed the film was twisted)
Film mis-threaded on the feed sprocket & 'buckling' between the pad rollers.
Out of frame. (ALL got this one right off)
Soundhead open. (The guy that missed it went, "Aw! SHIT!")

Taught Diodes and Xenon replacement. All did well on this. They were a little afraid at first, mostly because of horror stories that other people had told them.

Splicer care; How to splice; How to use a "Cheat Stick" to find frame lines.

Cleaned lenses; Cleaned port glass; Cleaned projectors; How to use the film cleaner.

After that I just hung around while they ran the booth and watched what they did. I DID get a little bit evil on them. On one guy I jumped the film off the failsafe but he got it right away. (Damn!) Later on, we had a failsafe mess up for real, so it wasn't a total loss. On the other guy I shut off the exciter power supply. I had to walk him through how to troubleshoot that one but once I asked him if the exciter was on he got the idea. I think I rattled him by standing over him and saying, "Okay, what do you do now?"

This week while I was doing the reapairs I had to fix a lot of things like messed up payout magnets, detached changeover wires and stuff. I also went over how to take care of FM-35 problems. I'm ordering them the new and improved FM-35-PU (Pickup) so they don't have to worry about that anymore.

Even though there were a some inexperienced guys, they all did pretty well, given the circumsatnces. There weren't any bad problems at the theatre. Just a bunch of little ones that all stacked up on them. I think that once these guys get some more experience they'll be pretty good!

I think I'll try this again one of these days and refine the technique.

Cine 1 -- set up the automation so the curtains won't open.

Cine 2 -- Set the time to start the show 10 minutes early.

Cine 3 -- Punch in the makeup button on the AW3 and set the automation on safety to overide alarm so the failsafe would fall and film would sprew on the floor.

Cine 4 -- Pop the breaker on the lamphouse.

Cine 5 -- Manually open the changeover and set automation to close the changeover at show start.

Cine 6 -- Set the CP65 to go to non-sync at the start of the feature.

Cine 7 -- Platter feed threaded incorrectly.

Cine 8 -- (The killer) intentionlly rip a splice between two trailers on the platter to simulate a film break.

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