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Masking is set to full open when we open and during intervals with clock projection on screen..... but let's not go there on that one.....

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The City Screen clock projectors are a double-edged sword, IMHO. If you could time the non-sync to finish just as the second hand was coming round to a show's advertised start time and then dim it out as it went past the 12 o'clock mark then the effect was great. But if, for whatever reason, you couldn't start the show bang on time then the clock projectors were a total disaster because you were advertising the fact, on a ten-foot diameter image, that the performance was starting late.

I tried to get round this at York by setting each of the three clock projectors a minute apart from each other, so that in the event of clashing start times I was able to run between the boxes and still appear to start the shows 'on time'. But all it took was a minor problem (e.g. having to fight your way through a corridor of queueing customers) and people were sitting there getting annoyed at the late start. In these circumstances the clock projectors became a massive invitation for bolshy member types to start filling out their complaint slips.

They're a lovely piece of technology which looks great in the bar, but put them in the auditoria and you're asking for trouble.

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with regards the clock projector... it fills an otherwise empty screen and is a City Screen policy.

As for complaints... well we don't get them and if any place was going to get them it would be Stratford.

Leo...

As for waiting until the second hand reaches 12 etc etc etc.... get real.

In a multi screen, single manning operation you cannot waste your time going that far.

As for the time sheet, it can only be considered a guide to the start of the performance, not the feature!! Adverts and trailers are different lengths each week but the show times don't change so you have to start early or later to ensure the feature hits the screen at the correct time.

And setting the clocks a min apart is asking for trouble.... one screen could easily be four or five mins out compared to the others. Hardly sensible is it!

Otherwise the clocks were a liability and should never have been installed in the auditoria. Exeter and York got a steady stream of complaints about shows starting 2 or 3 minutes late, some of which specifically referred to the clock on the screen. No-one would have noticed otherwise. The getting real to me meant realising that you're never going to be able to start every show at its advertised start time, especially with some of the programming (e.g. there was one week in which all three screens were scheduled to start their main evening show at the same time, and two at the same time was not unusual) that was inflicted on us. Drawing the customers' attention (especially the members) to that fact was like waving a red rag in front of a bull.

Clearly the members in York, in your time, had two heads and were very different from everyone else! you seem to feel members are especially difficult?

You seem to have the impression that 'members' are very different from ordinary mortals and more deserving of attention.

As for removing the big clocks from stations.... that is more a cost cutting exercise than anything else. The cost of maintaining these big clocks is considerable... the smaller more acurate clocks are easily maintained.

A clock is a clock is a clock.... the time is the time is the time.... no matter how you display it. If you have a clock displayed anywhere then people will go by it, some may even have their own watches, controversial I know but true none the less. How do you cope with that? The answere is you don't! You go on screen at the time you belive it to be..... to hell with what everyone else thinks the may be.

I make no apology for the fact that the clocks within my building may not all say the same time.... I live in the real world.

Hi Brad
Val Morgan is not the only cinema advertising in Aus.I do some install
work for classic movie ADS which has about 40 screens.Have you hear about Val M money problems,in was in last weeks paper.Val M may be no more.

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