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Author Topic: Are some film-techers all talk and no walk??? Adam Fraser Master Film Handler Posts: 499 From: Houghton Lake, MI, USA Registered: Dec 2001 posted 01-11-2003 09:43 PM                        Thomas, You almost quoted all of the studios wording in their Master License Agreements. Too bad they dont enforce it.  |  IP: Logged John T. Hendrickson, Jr Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 889 From: Freehold, NJ, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-12-2003 08:27 PM                     Jeff: Why don't you email the person you suspect and confront him/her directly? Perhaps there is a logical explaination. Then you can report back to us and let us know if your suspicions were correct or not.  |  IP: Logged Tom Wienholt Master Film Handler Posts: 371 From: Towson, MD, USA Registered: Dec 2002 posted 01-12-2003 11:54 PM                     I don't understand why the person that broke down the film is being blamed! What did they do wrong? Who really cares about the fact that masking tape was used. The bigger issue here is the damage to the film. The scratches were most most likely caused from the running of the film, not breaking it down.  |  IP: Logged Jeff Sirles Film Handler Posts: 10 From: Meredith, NH, USA Registered: Dec 2002 posted 01-13-2003 06:52 PM                     Quote: "Jeff: Why don't you email the person you suspect and confront him/her directly? Perhaps there is a logical explaination." Im sure he/she has read this post by now, and I thought that perhaps it might make some people who had let their guard down look back upon their behavior. I didnt write the post to punish said individual or make anyone feel the need to defend themselves. The idea was to perhaps encourage some soul-searching and have this peron correct themselves, and maybe effect some others who weren't sure if I was talking about them. I have learned that when dealing with people who are your professional equals sometimes constructive critique is talken as an insult. When this happens emotions get involved and the whole point behind the critique is lost. Basically alot of "who the #%*@ do you think you are!!!" happens. I feel the need to reitterate that I am not shouting down from my pedistal believing I can do no wrong. I too have made mistakes, and I believe perhaps this person made a mistake, or perhaps someone made them look bad. Either way, whats done is done, I just hope this was a constructive post. THANKS for the Comments!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-13-2003 09:56 PM                     Tom actually the use of masking tape to hold the leaders on is seriousneough  |  IP: Logged Rachel Craven Madam Moderator Posts: 2190 From: Pensacola, FL Registered: Dec 2000 posted 01-13-2003 11:29 PM                     Luckily we didn't run this film. Though I never claim to be a god of film -- I almost always post in Ground Level and Film Yak. Anyone can make a mistake (even a film-techer), and no one will ever really know what happened with this print except the person that ran it. I hope this will make them realize that they need to take a good look at their work or at the other projectionists at their theater. If someone made a mistake and messed up the film (it happens) they should always order replacements, courtesy to the people in sub-run houses...but we all know that don't we??? None of you first run houses ever remember us little guys and gals!  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 01-15-2003 02:42 AM                        When I was in the business I wouldn't take much notice of receiving a knackered print on crossover from a given venue... once. Anyone can have a bad hair day and besides, a previous cinema could well be the culprit. However, if they started coming on a regular basis then I started drawing conclusions. There was one place that regularly sent us prints covered in projector oil. After three or four such crossovers, I called the manager there and suggested politely that she might have a leaky projector. She said that she'd pass on my message to the chief projectionist, but the oily prints kept coming. We never got them from anywhere else. Then there was the place that would send prints out with no heads and tails on the individual reels: all of them were joined up in one roll and rammed into one of the cans. Again, many times from the same place. In the arthouse circuit, where a small number of venues are constantly circulating a relatively small number of prints, you get a sense of who the Mickey Mouse operators are pretty quickly. I sometimes had one-off bad prints from places which were otherwise OK, and tended not to worry about those. As for rejecting prints outright because of defects, I didn't do it very often and frequently the response from the programmers was 'it's all they've got, so you'll have to show it anyway.'  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 01-15-2003 02:54 AM                        quote: from Leo: As for rejecting prints outright because of defects, I didn't do it very often and frequently the response from the programmers was 'it's all they've got, so you'll have to show it anyway.' That shouldn't be much of a problem nowadays... at least in the 'States, considering how many prints they make. We don't do a lot of circuiting anymore, but did up to a couple of years ago. A local first-run house (Paul, it has 10 screens) used to have decent projection standards, but went to hell in a handbasket when it was sold to a chain. The lack of attention to their prints got to the point where we told our booker not to arrange circuits from them under any circumstances. Playing them to our audience was an embarrassment, and I got tired of dealing with the complaints from my customers who assumed the damage was caused by us. We watched a show there a couple of months ago, and they're still chewing up their product.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 01-15-2003 04:05 AM                        Rejecting prints of mainstream titles usually wasn't a problem: if I had one two or three weeks after release that was NFG then by that stage the distributor would have surplus copies to play with and so could send one without any difficulty. Arthouse titles were a completely different kettle of fish, though. Very often there would only be one or two prints to start with, which would do one to two years of one-week bookings in smaller cinemas and arts centres. In this situation, the small minority of Mickey Mouse venues could trash these prints for the rest of us.  |  IP: Logged

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