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Author Topic: Hey you, you suck! (AKA: Outing bad film handlers) Bob Healey Film Handler Posts: 93 From: Milford, CT Registered: Sep 2001 posted 11-17-2004 12:25 PM                     I'd like to thank whomever sent us Pulp Fiction with the head and tail leaders on reels 5-9 attached to the wrong reels. I had to spend the better part of an hour last night helping the projectionist get that thing back into the correct order.  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-25-2004 11:20 PM                        to the bay fair in san leandro, ca: a big thanksgiving you suck! our print of finding neverland had some problems, so we got a replacement print... yours. #3484. you ran what, one sneak, and then shipped it out? let's see. reel 1: no leader whatsoever. the rest of the reels unevenly wound (though no edge damage that i could see as a result), leaders poorly aligned, barely held on with a tiny piece of peeling tape. lots of dust. i didn't actually inspect the bulk of the print. i decided only to swap out reel 5 as ours had many scratches throughout (came that way). well. about 3/4 in there's a crease down the middle of the film for 5', then crimped edges for 12" or so. fortunately the worst of it was on the non-srd side so i snipped off the edge and rebuilt it with edge-repair tape. i'm sure there'll still be some wiggling and focus flutter around there, though i didn't get a chance to see it on screen yet. in the credits i got to play find-the-old-cue-tape, but fortunately the odds were stacked in my favor. your cue tape is rather wide, and was placed lengthwise in the image area for 2-3 frames. i caught 2 of them. if there were more, they are probably interfering with our presentation as i write this. during the ratings band and tail leader, more crimped and torn edges. well, we close the douser before then anyways, so no biggie. i did catch a bit of the reel on screen, and what i saw looked good. tomorrow i'll make a point of watching the #$*!ed bit run through to see if we need another replacement reel. update: it doesn't look that bad. it stays in focus. a couple diagonal scratches and a wee bit of dirt is all. and i just remembered: get a new splicer, yo. your hole punchers are misaligned and are enlarging the perfs into the soundtrack area! carl [ 11-30-2004, 05:04 AM: Message edited by: Carl Martin ]  |  IP: Logged Tom Simcoe Film Handler Posts: 9 From: Hamilton New York Registered: Nov 2004 posted 11-29-2004 04:00 AM                     I agree, one print we got was in real bad condition and it came from some place up in New York City. The prints were out of order, sloppy... not even taped down, and the film was everywhere inside the cases. Not to menchine, we had to get it together 10 minutes before it went on because the bringing in time sucked, as it does some of the time. But I didn't really do it, it was my friend who put it together in time, I just helped get it in the right shape to be put together correctly.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-03-2004 02:16 PM                     Hey!! University of Georgia Student Center in Athens Georgia... YOU SUCK!!! Thanks to you bastards I had to replace two reels in PRINT #65 of Touching the Void. When I SHOULD have been a couple-three days ahead of schedule, you put me a day BEHIND! I had to put in a 15 hour day because of your shenannegins! It was thoughtful of you to leave about 100 feet of busted-out sprocket holes, crinkled film and shitty splices half way into the first reel of the print! It was even MORE thoughtful of you to do the same thing in reel #4! I MIGHT have been able to splice over a few bad sections of film if you had not "V-Notched" the sprocket holes every few inches in an entire section of the print! Thank you for the scuff marks down the right side of the picture that lasted throughout the entire print! Then you topped it all off with the usual masking tape splices, "accordion style" reference frames at the end of every leader and other assorted crap. I returned the favor by reporting your ass to the distrubutor and requesting a replacement print. The shipping guy at N.Y. films mentioned you by name, Becki Garrett. I did not have to tell him who you were. It seems like you and Max are "old friends". I hope you get a nice fat bill in the mail for the replacement of that print! None the less, you are on my shit list and I'll be watching out for you! I won't hesitate to call up Ol' Max again if I find the least little fleck of dirt on a print that's been through your grubby little hands! Oh! BTW... Merry FUCKING Christmas!  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-03-2004 03:43 PM                     Wow, you were lucky enough to get a print from New Yorker with enough time to replace it? Good for you! --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-03-2004 06:38 PM                    Well now Randy, why not give your new bestest bud a call? Careful what you say though...it's very likely she is just the contact name and doesn't actually work the booth. Either way...either she or her staff (probably students) need better training.  |  IP: Logged Jon Miller Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 973 From: San Diego, CA, USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 12-03-2004 08:35 PM                     If she handles the Student Activities departmental budget and authorizes expenditures, she could restrict or cancel the film program or (ick) make them run instead of 35mm if the technical staff cannot handle film responsibly. If I was in her position and got hit with a stiff replacement-print charge, I'd probably do that.  |  IP: Logged Chase Hanson Expert Film Handler Posts: 172 From: San Diego, CA Registered: Oct 2004 posted 12-03-2004 08:53 PM                     I want to Thank...everyone thats put up with my crappy teardowns. Ya'll kick ass on many levels.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-03-2004 10:25 PM                     But for the e-mail address and the job title, I have all of the other information off the Fed-Ex airbill. I figure the same as you... She don't know shit from Shinola when it comes to film. She just fills out the paperwork and makes the phone calls. Still, cussing at her helps get the evil out of my blood. If it wasn't for these bastards, I would have been several days ahead of the game! Instead, I had to do everything at the last minute. The first print actually came in on Wednesday, the week before. I was up in the booth, building the print while the other one was playing. I figured, by the time the show was over I'd be done with everything and I could go home and chill out for a few days. I got half way through the first reel and my hand hit the sharp edges of the busted out sprocket holes and, "FUCK!", I almost cut my hand open! So I stop to inspect the film and find all the damage. I had to quit right there. No sense in going any farther. I'd just have to break it all down again. I e-mailed Max @ NY Films right away. I called him on Monday to follow up. The replacement print arrived Tuesday afternoon. In a normal movie theater I would have been able to build and screen right away. However, my time in the venue is pretty well blocked up with events on the stage. The Music, Theater and Dance Departments are putting on their opera. All this week and next is their tech time. I could go up to the booth and build the new print but I couldn't run it until the house was clear. That wasn't until Wednesday. The movies play Wednesday afternoon and evening. Normally, on a movie day, I don't come to work until 1:00 PM. The first show is at 2:00 PM. I'm going to be there until 11-12:00 at night. But, this week I had to get there at 9:00 AM so that I had time enough to do everything. I have to set the stage for the show. (Fly the screen in, set the speakers out and power up the system.) Then I have to screen the print and make any changes/repairs if needed. Once the movie has been screened I have to finish making the slide show advertisements in M$ PowerPoint and get that all ready to play before the house opens at 1:30. IF the print gets to me on time and IF I can have the house at least one day before the show I can have all that ready to go when I walk in the door. It's pretty much "Lick-em & Stick-em" at that point. If something happens to me like this I'm fucked for the whole day because I never get caught up. You guys who work in commercial "Googol-plexes" often don't have the pressure. If you have a problem, you can move a show to another house or something. You can invite the customer back for another show on another day. Not me! I have ONE DAY to show this film. I have to get it right the FIRST time and there are no second chances. At the evening show there are likely to be members of the college administration. The President of the College likes to show up unannounced. We also have box seat holders who pay $10,000.00 a year for exclusive use of their private boxes. Box holders can show up at virtually any time. Then I have the main benefactors of the Movie Series who plunked down a six-figure check to fund an endowment which is used exclusively for the Movie Series. Folks, my neck is on the chopping block every time that start button is pressed! One time, last year, I left one of my Work Study students in charge and went back to my office to catch a cat nap. I have a "squawk box" for the Clear-Com system near my office and I can hear the program feed from the house if I turn the volume up. If anything goes wrong I can usually hear it. So, I'm in there snoozing and I get a knock at my door. It's one of the ushers telling me there's a problem. I sprint back to the booth and I find that the projector is out of focus and the kid I left in charge didn't fix it fast enough. The next Monday, my boss walks into my office and plunks a copy of the college newspaper on my desk. There is a blurb on the next-to-last page about the "malfunction" at the movies! I had to personally apologize to the big-wigs then I had to write a letter of reprimand to the student and CC: it to my boss! I've been doing movies for almost 10 years, now. I STILL get butterflies sometimes when I'm about to start a show! Some days, I think I'd give my left nut to be back in the Googol-plex again! I've been on the phone to Max at NY Films many times. I've told him that if he ever gets a complaint about a print that's been in my care, I want to know about it so I can "talk" to the student who was responsible. 90% of my prints are shipped out again the next day after they play and he always gets them back in better condition than they were when he sent them. He knows if I call for a new print that I'm not just belly aching about it. I have very little trouble getting replacement film from NY Films. But then, again, I work my ass off to earn that privilege. Oh! By the way... Did I mention that the people who handle film at Univ. of Georgia's Tate Student Center SUCK DEAD DONKEY DICKS!? Some people wonder why I get so bent out of shape when I get crappy film. << FLAME OFF! >> Jon, I agree with you. If *I* was in the position they are right now, my ass would have my boss's foot prints up one side and down the other! Chase, Those ass holes make you look like Cecil B. DeMille! No Contest!  |  IP: Logged Chase Hanson Expert Film Handler Posts: 172 From: San Diego, CA Registered: Oct 2004 posted 12-04-2004 01:11 AM                     quote: Randy Stankey You guys who work in commercial "Googol-plexes" often don't have the pressure. Yeah, we have that other kinda pressure. The one that starts with a payroll accountant telling US how long it takes to build and tear down. HR Managers that have to finalize employee schedules before performance schedules are written. Technical Reps that demand we detail clean every projector after every show every set every day, and booking agents that seem to think you can just start movies one after another with about ten minutes buffer. Different headache, same at the end of the night.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-04-2004 01:14 AM                    Good points Randy. Still...how can we pass judgement until we've seen her picture? Hahahahahaha j/k  |  IP: Logged Jon Miller Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 973 From: San Diego, CA, USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 12-04-2004 08:55 AM                     Randy, Reading your post made my head spin and I sympathize 1000% with your plight. At least you have the "luxury" of requesting a replacement print (some luxury, eh?, with the damage that has been done to your tightly-choreographed schedule ); in my film-festival travels I have to make do with the prints I've received. The don't-give-a- people just don't realize the havoc they're wreaking. Chase, If by "crappy teardowns" you mean tearing or cutting splices instead of peeling them, maybe you should ask for better splicing tape to use for makeups. (Neumade and Jack Roe's JACRO brand are two good brands; use the "magic answer machine" to search F-T for opinions and more recommendations.) It should take, say, fifteen to thirty seconds to peel apart a splice made with good tape. Assuming a six-reel feature (and not counting trailers, policy, snipes, etc.), that would be about 1-1/2 to three extra minutes to do it right, and time well spent. The projection community could be thought of as one worldwide "meta-team," with its share of star players, reliable journeymen (and -women), unrecognizables, egotists, and misfits. Even if the small additional investment in time and materials to peel a splice or properly secure leaders may not immediately seem worth it, I feel there is ultimate satisfaction in doing a good turn for this "team" as a whole, especially to those who can appreciate the efforts without knowing who did it and who can pass the favor onto others.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-04-2004 02:27 PM                     To me tearing splices apart is ok if the guy is in a hurry. It's those idiots who CUT the splices apart that need to be severely punished! A tape splice cannot be re-cut and then remade by the next guy properly without losing a frame (or having a gap between the ends, which doesn't classify as "properly").  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-04-2004 05:35 PM                    Obviously you are talking about overlap splices. A proper butt splice can be cut if everything is in reasonable alignment and the tape is cut right at the join. I agree with you that the torn splice tape is easier to remove and if they lay new tape over old chances are I will end up peeling the whole mess anyway.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 12-04-2004 05:50 PM                     ...remember the "good ol' days" of wet splicing, where you HAD to do it right, or it would come apart during a performance? Have the sharpest razor blade (or the giszmo scraper with the attached brush that Griswald would send you)so you can make the cleanest, frostiest look on the film that needs to be scraped, the freshest cement, good spit to soften up the emulsion before scraping, if you're using a mag splicer to make sure that the film edges are even before clamping the film in the traps due to the smaller register pins on the splicer (and if splicing mag, to make sure the oxide is completely removed)...et.al. ? When prints came in, especially the knarled up kid show prints, or midnight show prints, they were on the rewind bench being highly inspected to see if the other operator's wet splices are good and true, and if not, you'd have to redo them for quality standards. Tape splicers have it easy...  |  IP: Logged

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