At one time, I was very involved walking the picket lines and trying to help the union's cause. Ultimately, the union lost the fight. I myself went back to school, and have been earning my living in television production. But, I've never lost the passion for film projection, and I never will. When people find out about my background in projection, I'm always asked why there are so many problems at local theaters. Without exception these folks are amazed when they learn the extent of the training that today's "projectionists" receive. What it all comes down to is- Projectionists need to be properly trained! Union or not, it makes no difference. You can't just throw someone into a booth with a "turn on these breakers and push this start button" type of training.

Theater owners are looking to digital video projection to solve all their problems in the future. (So now they can really eliminate the projectionist, right?) In my opinion, there will still be a need for a skilled person to deal with hardware, data storage and trouble shootng issues. People are going to have their home DVD / High Definition systems for comparison. We have to be able to out-perfom that home system every time!

"Take me far away from the mucky-muck." -- Tenacious D

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Hang in there....it's not be a bleak as I make it sound. There are plenty of theatres across the country, mostly art houses, some restored palaces, museums, performing arts centers, some college and university film programs that have the luxury of running the old way. Most have changeover systems and most have veterans running them that came originally from the commercial sector. It is quite apropos that museums and schools run the classic titles that the commercial theatres won't touch. A museum's mission to preserve history and our culture becomes doubly important when it comes to film exhibition -- all the mucky-mucks dance shout about the need to preserve FILM, but there seems to be a decided lack of enthusiasm when it comes to preserving the best environments in which this film is to be experienced.

Go seek out these booths; nine times out of ten the guy will be more than happy to show you his craft -- he will usually be doing more than just booth work as these facilities tend to be multifunctional. He gets to be projectionist for cinema -- short runs mostly and then wears other hats as well. Even these noncommercial venues can't run films 12/7 the way we did back in the glory days, and to be quite honest, I am not sure if some of the magic might not wear a little thin if I had to run 5 shows a day off 2000ft reels, every week -- although, I must say, I did it for a few years in Texas and it rarely wore me down (but then I was 21 -- that number is long past).

And if your passion is unrelenting, then keep your eyes peeled for positon openings in these venues. You never know. And of course, if you are ever in the New York area, give me a shout....I'd be happy to let you make a few changeovers as a "guest projectionist" if you'd like.

Look, there are a lot of elements in this jigsaw puzzle which is the picture of the state of today's cinemas. It isn't only the theatre chains that are to blame -- a lot can be placed right at the door of the distributors. Look at it this way: the exhibitor now gets only 10% of the ticket sale and 100% of the concessions -- is it any wonder that the concessions "booth" is a block-long, gleaming chrome and glass affair with five people working behind it, and the auditoria are these dark, dank holes-in-the-wall with neither an usher in the room or a projectionist in the booth. The exhibitor doesn't have a lot of economic incentive to care much about what happens outside of his most lucrative sale item -- the concessions. The "don't-put-money-into-it-until-they complain" syndrome has a basis in the economic model developed by distribution. Cinema is now the fast-food of the entertainment industry. Films play off in a month and are never heard of again, at least not on a movie screen.

I am a realist. I know that EVERYTHING changes and cinema is no exception. I know dedicated projectionists -- very bright, technically savvy topguns who finally completely gave up their careers
because it changed so radically and they hated what booth work had become--they hated just being splice jockeys. As much as both loved being projectionists before multiplexing, each finally gave up and moved on to the computer industry.

Realistically, no one can go back to "the good old days," at least not in commercial exhibition. Not only are the craftsmen here on Film-Tech disillusioned about the technical dumbing of booth operations, but so is the public. When I was a kid, you NEVER heard anyone saying how they didn't like going to the movies. Even the under-belly, neighborhood theatres were able to give a show that people enjoyed -- the whole package worked. What amazes me is that exhibition doesn't see this. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that their product (which is NOT the film -- that's the studio's product) which is the physical plant, the whole moviegoing experience, it's deteriorating to the point where people would rather wait until the studio's product (the film) can be gotten through other sources, i.e., DVD, cable, HDTV, etc. Ironically, when the exhibitor had NO threat from other ancillary avenues by which his customer could get to see a film, when he was basically the only game in town, it was then that his showmanship and presentation values were MUCH better. Today, when he is threatened on all sides, his presentation values are the lowest. It almost seems like he has a death-wish. Surely he has to have heard that there is a growing mass of people who dislike going to the cinema so much so that they have stopped altogether -- mostly older folks who remember how impressive that experience used to be.

The most bizarre thing is, that some exhibitors think that DLP will solve all their problems -- what a joke. If they buy into this technology, they are going to quickly find that, like everything in the computer world, hardware and software become obsolete in a matter of a few years, sometimes in a matter of months. NOTHING about DLP is standardized (EVERYTHING that in anyway effects 35mm projection IS standardized). The president of Panastereo commented that the sound format for DLP is not yet standardized, making it quite difficult to design new sound processing hardware.

Won't exhibition be surprised that just when they think they have eliminated a $20 an hour union projectionist, they discover that they need a computer technician at $190 and hour just to load a new feature into the DLP's RAID server. What's more, the exhibitor's bought-and-payed-for, stalwart Century or Simplex projector pretty much ran for decades without much more than, at most, some oil and a new lamp every 2000 hours (2500 when they could get away with it) and which is so ubiquitous that he could find parts from a myriad of sources, will be replaced by hardware and software that is proprietary and staggeringly expensive. Even if Technicolor pays part of the installation on their measly 1000 screens, they certainly aren't going to also pay for maintenance -- they aren't going to replace that DLP nano-mirror module every time the 7000w xenon light source burns out 40 percent of those on/off nano-mirror pixels. Bet they are a lot more expensive than an aperture plate! When that DLP goes down (and you know it will), there won't be a "spare head" sitting in the basement ready to be quickly installed to get the show back on the screen within one or two show cycles like you could do with 35mm. AND there won't be an army of "old tech hands" who grew up with 35mm and could tear apart most any projector or sound head, repair it and put it back together in an hour. No, for years the guys from DLP will only come out of TI's enclave in one part of the country. Wait until Mr. Exhibitor has to fly one out, pay for his hotel and travel time and then watch him troubleshoot as the hours tick by -- $190 an hour...tick tick tick. How much you wanna bet ANYTHING on a DLPs takes longer to fix than ANYTHING on a Century?! Not a pretty picture for an exhibitor who historically fought like a cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof at every possible turn to eliminate a union projectionist's salary. DLP is not the answer....just another set of problems for exhibitor who don't seem to understand what draws patrons to a particular theatre -- PRESENTATION....SHOWMANSHIP! Wake up NATO -- why is this so difficult to comprehend?

Frank

Movies: Everyone should have one to look forward to.

It's better to "Do Film Right", than to give in to mediocre presentation or home "theatre". Many on Film-Tech are shining examples of what needs to be done.

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Cheers to Peter B. for starting this thread! It is vital that projetionists care about a quality presentation. As John P. said projectionists are the final link in the chain... and how important is the link that shows off every other link in the chain...? Ask any director who's had their film projected poorly... after they've stopped screaming and throwing things, and have calmed down a bit.

We, at TAP, have been going out to theatres and grading presentation quality since 1983. We have quite a data base of information. The only problem is, we are sent out to theatres at the request of Distribution primarily, and that tends to skew towards the top market theatres. Hence, many smaller theatres are rarely, or never, visited by TAP. I have been in discussions with my superiors at THX about rewarding the best presentation houses in the country (THX or non-THX, it doesn't matter). I'm trying to put together a "TAP Top Ten" Theatres in the domestic United States. Unfortunately, we will only be able to fairly "rank" theatres we've visited (that's the best we can do, currently). And we will not rank theatres on a 1 through 10 basis, but simply as "the ten theatres listed performed best," according to TAP Evaluation visits, for the year listed. How does that sound?

I was quoted in an article about The Senator Theatre in Baltimore, saying that, "the Senator is one of the two top presentation houses in the country." That was based on the statistics we were using to create the TAP Top Ten. I'm hoping to have something formal in place in time for ShoWest... your input is always appreciated.

Give it to me, please.

Yours, Ted