Poor analogy since diners arrive and depart at random times. A better analogy on the restaurant model would be a banquet room and I don't think you'd want them cleaning up while your wedding reception is still in progress just because they booked Joe Smith's retirement party too closely.

The real analogy to the situation is that of live theatre, where the "credits" are the bows at the end of the performance. These usually take only a minute or two and provide feedbak to the performers. Movie credits, the offspring of curtain calls, have become long, dull, boring, stupifyingly slow, tedious credit rolls, touting the wares of everyone right down to the third lacky that served donuts to the crew on alternate Tuesdays.

The public is voting with their feet and our system of self-gratification is too self-absorbed to notice. The white on black credit roll is not art nor is it a movie. If you waited 15 minutes after one and then asked 1000 people who actually stayed to watch the entire credits to name just five names on the roll (that weren't recognizable actors), I'll bet that only a dozen would be up to the task.

If people are supposed to sit and watch credits, aren't film makers and producers supposed to entertain them? "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" had decent credits. Some of the outtake bloopers credit rolls are cute, but for most of the white on black rolls, the cleaning crew is the most entertaining thing in the auditorium.

Who is the arbiter of who gets their name on screen and who doesn't?

I know a guy who left Dynamix and went to work at ILM as a digital artist. His name often shows up buried deep in the special effects credits. Kind of like "One of the 27 Artists Ordered By George To Spend 6 Weeks Adding Another Storm Trooper To Scene 17, Frames 97 Thru 145". I say they all worked directly on what showed up on the screen, so by George they deserve their names in the credits!

Is the exit music timed to the credits, or is it the other way around? Sometimes it seems like when a film has a particularly good symphonic score, the end credits are timed to match the length of a musical composition.

Whilst the people do deserve their do, I don't consider it part of the film or entertainment. They are like the bibliography to a book...not required reading but there if you are interested. Back in film's glory days, after the "THE END" card came up, that was it, the show was over....on some occasions, there may be "The Players" that lasted a couple of seconds. Heck, even Apocolypse Now for the original 70MM engagements did not have ANY end credits but there was a hand out card. Now that is a way to give people their credit without the imposistion. Kinda like a live stage show. There are a whole bunch of people that go into a live production but only the "talent" takes it's bow, not the crew yet the play bill does list the crew.

With that said, I also agree that the clean up crew should NOT come into the theatre until the film is over, curtain closed (and if you don't have a curtain, GET ONE!)...intermissions should be scheduled to provide for the clean up and if that is just so impossible, please stay out of the way and don't block those people that actually wish to read the credits!

Therefore, in the desire to accommodate all, I too side with raising the house lights some to allow a safe exit yet not fully to make reading the credits impossible.

Steve

What i find over here in the UK is that when the credits roll, the audience interpret that as their cue to leave, and sometimes it seems like they believe first out the door wins a big prize, even if it means second guessing the ending and starting to get up when it seems the film is wrapping up!

So you can understand when i tell you that customers often APOLOGISE for watching the credits, because they either wanted to know where it was filmed, what that song they really liked was or because they wanted to see the name of their second cousins girlfriends hamster in the credits!

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I do, however, consider it rude to turn on the cleaning lights during the credit rolls.

I know of several people who will sit and watch the entire credit roll. Maybe they are looking for a certain thing, or maybe they are just listening to the music. Some of the music is quite nice.

Whatever the case may be, the people who buy tickets are entitled to see the entire film from beginning to end. That also includes the credits.

I have never heard of one complaint because we raised the houselights to half mast during the credits. However, I have heard of complaints of staff coming in to clean the auditorium during the credit roll.

Several times when I was running a booth, the manager or owner came into the booth and told me to snap off the credits so the people would get up and leave.

I think you all know what my answer was.

Well, I was never removed from my booth, nor was I ever going to be, shall we say, over-ridden?

Management generally figures out it is a waste of time bothering me with such an assinine request.

Steve

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Back on topic though: At the single screen art theater I worked at, our wall sconces were actually five different circuits, each a different color, each controlled seperately. Each sconce had about seven of each color bulb in it. It was really cool, i'll try and get a photo to post. Anyway, At full bright, the yellow and white bulbs were on. At half, the red and yellow, and "presentation" was blue and green. When the credits rolled, green and yellow, and then back to yellow/white. It worked extremely well, and always got "oooh-ahhhh's" from the crowd.

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I think the speediest credit scroll is in one of the "Cheech & Chong" movies. Maybe it was "Still Smoking", there's a film within the film and credits go up so fast you can't see any of it except white lines just speeding up.

Main titles for "The Shining" are blue and goes from top to bottom. In "M.A.S.H." and "Farenheit 451" they are spoken. Saul Bass' "West Side Story" end-credits are beautiful in Super Panavision 70.

For those of you who haven't had the experience, it's a nice feeling to see your name on the credit scroll.

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Cheers, Thomas
www.in70mm.com - The 70mm Newsletter

www.dp70.com|www.70mm.dk|www.hauerslev.com|http: //hjem.get2net.dk/in70mm

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Maybe we could add "Best opening or closing title sequence" to the Film-Tech awards.