|
|
 
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Union Projectionists
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
|
posted 03-08-2005 08:12 AM
Ready to roll: Film festival back in black quote:
29TH CLEVELAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Ready to roll: Film festival back in black
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Clint O'Connor
Plain Dealer Reporter
Funny thing about film festival movies: They linger.
Long after multiplex moments or video rentals have fast-forwarded from your brain, it's the sweet, low-budget Swedish movie you saw at the festival four years ago that still stakes out space near your heart.
The 29th Cleveland International Film Festival lands at Tower City Cinemas Thursday and runs through March 20. The Cleveland Film Society will present 100 feature films and 80 short subjects from more than 40 countries.
It kicks off with an opening-night gala featuring Steve Buscemi's "Lonesome Jim," a comedy starring Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler, and winds up with French director Francois Ozon's "5 x 2," the story of a marriage told in reverse: from divorce to first date.
The festival offers a slew of American-made documentaries, quirky shorts, forums and films with local ties. But it often shines brightest with its selection of foreign films that bounce from the bizarre to the heartbreaking.
Having a festival every year is not a given, however.
In 2003, when many arts organizations were already suffering from depressed post-Sept. 11 corporate support, the festival coincided with the invasion of Iraq and a crummy economy.
Ticket sales suffered. That year, the nonprofit Cleveland Film Society found itself about $110,000 in the hole, according to its financial records. An operating deficit meant changes were needed.
"A mistake many nonprofits make is they take the attitude, 'We'll tough it out and things will get better,' " said Mark Smith, a film festival board member who also works with the venture-capital firm Jumpstart.
The film festival took a more proactive approach.
It cut its staff in half (from six full-timers to three), launched a major fund-raising campaign, added 18 new board members, and decided to focus exclusively on the film festival, dropping its filmmakers series and other educational programs.
"The toughest decision was cutting our staff in half," said Anna Vedouras, a labor lawyer for the Department of Defense and 12-year film fest board member. "We really had to get down to the down-and-dirty. That also meant telling board members, 'If you can't help at this time you need to step back from the board."
New board members were brought in under the banner of "Give or Get."
"We gave ourselves two years to turn things around," said festival Executive Director Marcie Goodman. "But it only took us nine months." By the end of its fiscal year last September, the society had a cash reserve of about $55,000.
Goodman credits Development Director Patrick Shepherd, Director of Programming Bill Guentzler, her 32-member board, and strong support from Cleveland's corporations and foundations. The additional money also allowed the society to add a full-time office and membership manager.
Today about half the society's money comes from contributions and half from festival income, mostly ticket sales. Its annual budget is $807,000.
Substantial help also came from the Cleveland Foundation's Arts Advancement Program ($85,000 a year for three years), and a $15,000 Arts and Culture as Economic Development, or ACE, grant from Cuyahoga County.
The film festival was one of the few organizations chosen for the program. After a highly competitive application process, it stood out for its "board commitment and staff ability," said Kathleen Cerveny, program director for arts and cultural initiatives at the Cleveland Foundation.
The $15,000 ACE grant allowed the festival to expand from four theaters to five, which means it can show about 25 movies a day instead of 20. "We funded it because it is something good for the town," said Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora.
Although they supported the festival with the grant, the Cuyahoga County commissioners announced last week that they would boycott the festival because of a labor dispute between a projectionists' union and Cleveland Cinemas, owner of the Tower City theaters.
Despite that, Goodman said the film society enjoys good relationships with elected officials "all around - the city, county, state and nationally." Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell has been honorary chair of the festival, and Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman held the post last year.
The recovery does not mean long-term solvency. The society is still actively raising money, and this year introduces something new: a silent auction and raffle running the entire 11 days.
In the meantime, the staff - about 50 seasonal workers and 200 volunteers - have four days to get it done. Goodman will psyche up the troops this week with inspirational quotes that everyone's sick of hearing. Perhaps most apt is one from "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels who said his crazed comedy show "doesn't go on because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30."
"We don't start the festival because we're ready," said Goodman. "We start because it's opening night."
Spare the Film Festival quote:
Spare the Film Festival
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
The 29th Cleveland International Film Festival is in a bind it did not create and does not deserve.
Just days before it is set to open, this jewel of the city's downtown arts scene finds itself trapped in no-man's land between Jonathan Forman, the godfather of independent film exhibitors in Cleveland, and the union that represents projectionists and other entertainment-venue employees. The festival is supposed to begin its 10-day run on Thursday, but flak from the dispute threatens to damage what ought to be a happy occasion for both film buffs and those who care about downtown.
For 15 years, the festival's home base has been the multiscreen theater at Tower City that is operated by Forman's Cleveland Cinemas group. It brings upwards of 40,000 people and $1 million downtown each year. That's an important boost for our city's struggling core.
In recent years, Forman has chosen to operate his five theaters without union projectionists. He contends this is a simple matter of doing what most of his national chain competitors have already done to hold down costs and take advantage of technological change. Supporters of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 160 call him a union-buster and picket his theaters.
Until this year, the festival hired some separate staff, including union projectionists. But its new contract calls for Cleveland Cinemas to supply all staff for the five screens the festival will use. This outrages the union, which has been contacting filmmakers, urging them to withdraw their movies from the festival; none has. The union hints that it may take some public action before the festival opens. It has asked the Cuyahoga County commissioners, who gave the festival a $15,000 grant, to boycott the event; Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones say they will. New Commissioner Tim Hagan is trying to mediate the dispute.
We do not take sides in the battle between Forman and Local 160, except to note that it involves a handful of jobs, and that once digital technology takes hold in theaters, there will be no need for traditional projectionists. But what really matters today is that this dispute do no further damage to the festival and its organizer, the nonprofit Cleveland Film Society.
Clearly, the union sees embarrassing the festival as a way to embarrass one of its founders, Forman. But if it wants to make a political statement there's got to be a better way. Hey, here's an idea: Make a film.
© 2005 The Plain Dealer.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jeffry L. Johnson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 809
From: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Registered: Apr 2000
|
posted 03-11-2005 02:31 PM
Politics & Palindromes quote:
[snip]
MARCIE GOODMAN
“Only three theater chains in Cleveland use union workers.”
IN ADDITION TO the compelling and intellectually challenging programmatic elements of the 29th CIFF, patrons will also notice that the festival has expanded to a fifth theater at Tower City Cinemas. The CIFF has not expanded since 1997, when it occupied four theaters. The increase in theaters allows for a total of 106 feature films and 80 short films from 50 countries.
CIFF attendees may also witness another first this year: picketing outside the theater by members of the Projectionists' Union. Cleveland Cinemas owner John Forman, has been at odds with the union for more than a year since he replaced union projectionists with nonunion “managers” who operate the projectors.
While Goodman contends that the Cleveland Film Society is caught in the crossfire of this heated dispute, workers' rights organizations such as Jobs With Justice are releasing statements urging people to “think twice before they attend the Cleveland Film Festival this year.” Jobs With Justice believes that by acquiescing to Forman's directive that no union labor could be used in the Tower City facility, CFS is, in effect, supporting Forman's anti-union position.
Goodman maintains that the union controversy is “not a Film Society issue, because we are simply leasing the theaters from Cleveland Cinemas.” While this is a somewhat dubious position, she points out that Forman is an easy target for union leaders and worker's rights activists, as Cleveland Cinemas is a locally owned and operated company. “Only three theater chains in Cleveland use union workers,” she explains, “and the unions aren't going to go up against a more powerful national chain over the projectionist issue.” The union controversy may work its way into the theaters during the CIFF, as the Projectionists' Union has urged filmmakers and film distributors to pull their films from the Festival. However, as of last Saturday, Goodman reported that no films had been pulled.
However the union debacle plays out, one thing is clear to Goodman and the staff and board of the CFS — the weeks leading up to the CIFF are never boring or without controversy. And it may be advantageous for both sides of the debate to have the labor battle waged within Cleveland's cultural milieu, where creative problem solving is de rigueur . Ultimately, however, a cultural tradition that brings to light issues like the inhumanity of factory farming, the inequities involved in being born in a wealthy versus a poor and overtly repressive country, and both the fallibility and potential of the human condition is crucial, especially in the midst of a particularly gloomy point in our city's history.
IATSE Local 160 has collective bargaining agreements with three of the four national theater chains in the Cleveland area.
Show goes on at film festival quote:
Show goes on at film festival
The Cleveland International Film Festival will show all of its films. A local projectionists union spent the last week trying to get filmmakers and distributors to withdraw their movies from the festival as part of an ongoing labor dispute. None did. "We're no longer pushing for any films to be pulled," said John Galinac, business agent for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 160. The festival had its opening gala events Thursday night at Tower City Cinemas. Local 160 is protesting Cleveland Cinemas, owner of the Tower City theaters, over jobs that were cut or consolidated last year. Seven members of Local 160 set up a brief informational picket Thursday on a sidewalk in front of Tower City. As for protesting the rest of the festival, which runs through March 20, Galinac said, "We're going to play it by ear as things develop."
In a television news story yesterday Cleveland Cinemas representatives said all you do is push a button and projectionists are like elevator operators and typesetters.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
|
posted 03-11-2005 04:59 PM
Projectionists should certainly wear something which indicates that they are theatre staff when they're working in public areas, though probably not the same uniform as front-of-house staff. In the last theatre I worked we were part of the fire drill (i.e. in the event of an evacuation, we had a designated area from which it was our responsibility to evacuate customers), so for that reason alone we had to be identifiable as staff.
I worked in a number of theatres in which the only way to get between booths was to go through a public area. During some turnarounds that meant fighting your way through a queue of customers. Even a name badge is enough for them to see that you've got a good reason to be doing that and let you through. Just wearing 'civvies' gives customers the impression that you're just another one of them trying to push in. Besides, it's sensible for security. If all the staff know that no-one who isn't wearing some sort of visual indication that they work here should be passing from public areas into restricted areas, then there's less chance of someone doing that who shouldn't be. In large theatres with lots of part-time front-of-house staff (i.e. 70-100 people on the payroll who work relatively few hours a week) and a high staff turnover, having projectionists - who, by definition, are going to be walking all around all parts of the building - not wearing any sort of uniform at all is not sensible, IMHO.
| IP: Logged
|
|
John T. Hendrickson, Jr
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 889
From: Freehold, NJ, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 03-11-2005 07:46 PM
Sorry, Leo. Got to disagree with you on this one, at least from the standpoint of our theaters. My philosophy (and this is in sync with our owners, too) is that the job of projectionist is just that: insuring a proper on-screen presentation.
Our booth personnel do nothing else. They are not to be seen on the floor. They belong in the booth. When they are monitoring auditoriums for sound and picture quality, we want them to be as inconspicuous as possible. They are not responsible for evacuations, fire drills, or for that matter, any concerns that patrons may have. That is the job of the floor personnel.
As far as being able to identify our projectionists , the floor staff had better damn well know who they are.
We do not expect our projectionists to be part-time managers. Their only responsibility is to put on a quality show.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic