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Author Topic: ROTK Screening Screw-Up Dennis M Dow Jr Expert Film Handler Posts: 141 From: Bloomfield NJ USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 12-05-2003 04:23 PM                       Let's put blame where blame belongs.... on the operator who made up the print. It doesn't matter whether the show arrives in th am or 2hrs before showtime, it is still the operator's responsibility to put it together right. If an operator can not tell the difference between heads or tails he should not be in the booth. FWIW, I work in a 14plex with no screeners permitted(unless on our own time) and we have yet to have a fuckup with prints being put together wrong. I have had shows arrive 60mins before they were scheduled to run and have built and loaded while inspecting the film during makeup.  |  IP: Logged Martin Brooks Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 900 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 12-05-2003 08:38 PM                        I realize that it's not the theater who's hiring the security guards to watch over the print, but if the studios and exhibitors got together and compromised on better terms for theaters to insure better presentation quality, they could have one less security card and take that money to invest in a real projectionist instead of a popcorn kid.  |  IP: Logged Dennis M Dow Jr Expert Film Handler Posts: 141 From: Bloomfield NJ USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 12-05-2003 09:57 PM                       Martin It doesn't matter who pays for security.... the exhibitors have it in there mind that presentation does not matter as long as the customers buy concessions.... If they did care about presentation they would negotiate with the unions fairly instead of trying to throw us all out so they can save on our pay and benefits... UA had told their operators that they could save over 100k/yr by going to ushers operating in NYC..... Loews is remarkable in that they do get paid for a dedicated projectionist but would rather pocket the money than supply a second man for the booth.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-05-2003 10:43 PM                        I have seen it all... I have been there when a star was pre-screening his movie and a reel went upside down. Needless to say the projectionist who put the print together lost his job and it was given to me. I believe that all prints should be watched by the person who built it before it hits the screen for a 'real audience'. I think that is one of my biggest complaints nowadays. An hour is plenty of time to build a print, however you need to include the time to have it screened too. It all goes back to the 'piracy' crap. They want to insure that no-one videotapes the film, so they get the print there an hour before showtime - with a guard. I say the bad screening in Washington was a good thing. Maybe these damn film companies will wake up and do something about it.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 12-07-2003 07:51 AM                        Dennis said: quote: It all goes back to the 'piracy' crap. They want to insure that no-one videotapes the film, so they get the print there an hour before showtime - with a guard. I don't quite understand how it makes any difference if they send the print four hours before the public screening or one hour -- their security guard is still with the print and can do whatever the hell he does to insure that it will not be pirated while in his perview. How much extra can it cost the studio...what are they paying this guy....8 bucks an hour? Surely they can afford that miniscule added expense to insure that their press screening or opening with the director and/or major stars, plays without a hitch. And talk about putting blame where blame belongs, I heard a story about a projectionist in NYC at either the Ziegfeld or the Astor Plaza (can't recall which only that it was a premiere house) who ran a press screening of one of the first STAR TREK movies. Turns out a reel was not backwards but I believe a reel was out of sequence and the show had to be stopped and everyone went home. The story as I heard it from the union guys was that both Paramount and the theatre management insisted that projectionist be fired, although the studio was not concerned enough about insuring no mishaps by paying for a test screening. The worse thing about it is that the day guy didn't even make up the print -- the closing guy the night before did. And the stalwart defenders of the poor working stiffs at local 306 caved in to the theatre's demand and fired the day guy, not the one who made up the print. Then again, he wasn't a friend of the union leadership and the evening guy was. Everything is politics.  |  IP: Logged Dennis M Dow Jr Expert Film Handler Posts: 141 From: Bloomfield NJ USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 12-07-2003 07:00 PM                       Frank, I know at the Astor they messed up the 70mm and 35mm print of 2001. Yes everything is politics esp in 306 and if you were an FoS(friend of Steve) you did not have to worry about anything... there was always a home somewhere for you. But getting back to the security and prints and piracy, New Line is very paranoid about this movie. Guess Valenti has everyone worried that someone is going to get past security during the tech.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-07-2003 07:33 PM                        I'm surprised that New Line is so worried about ROTK, since all the buzz (including comments from someone I know who saw the press screening) is very positive. I would tend to think that the big concern for piracy is that if the movie is bad, people will watch pirated copies, realize that it's bad, and then not go see it at a theatre. On the other hand, for something like ROTK, assuming that it actually _is_ good, one would expect that anyone watching a pirated copy would enjoy it and have a desire to see it on the big screen. Regardless, if I were a theatre owner who wanted to rent out the theatre for press screenings, I would simply tell the customer that a test screening (optionally, with a representative of the film distributor present, and, preferably, several days in advance of the scheduled show) would be required to ensure a perfect presentation, and that it would cost $X for this screening, without which I (the theatre owner) would refuse liability for presentation problems. Obviously, there's no excuse for showing a reel backwards, but the blame should go on the customer for not requesting a test screening.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-07-2003 09:28 PM                    There is absolutely no excuse for this, and it's clearly operator error. There are other problems in this industry that lead to this madness like paying kids $6.50 an hour to run the shows, having prints arrive without ample time for a kid making $6.50 to put it together right, etc. But for a properly trained operator, this should have been no problem.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-08-2003 02:25 AM                        Actually... We had a press screening of "Looney Toons' not to long ago. They dropped the print off the night before. A guard came in the next morning to 'stay with the print'. A lot of sense that made... Someone mentioned earlier that the press screening of ROTK in Minneapolis had a problem - do we know which theatre that occured at?  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-08-2003 10:43 AM                     Scott suggests requiring test screenings for press screenings. I don't think that's very reasonable, at least not for most press screenings that are attended by only a few people and only run once. Remember Steve K.'s comments last year about his AMPAS screenings where no one showed up? Why waste all that effort? I think we can agree that a competant professional operator should not get reels out of order or backwards or half-twisted. Studios should be able to expect that degree of professionalism. Obviously many flaws in prints cannot be detected, but many screening prints are circuitted, and ought to have been previously test-run. If a single theatre were to make such a statement, I expect the studios would just go elsewhere for their press screenings, and rightly so. Competant operators are a competitive advantage (or should be!). As a small example, we have high standards for the test screenings of films we run at MIT, but we don't test-screen sneak previews, we take them as they come. We find that's a reasonable accomodation and we have not been bitten by it (err, except for 2 minor instances of final DTS discs and non-final edit reels). --jhawk  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-08-2003 01:07 PM                    I'd be more than happy to test run all films. Normal rates would apply. While this represents extreme carelessness (or know-nothing-ness) if they were plattering a new print where the leaders would be the primary thing they should have noticed it's interesting to think about how many of us pay attention to image orientation in the event the leaders had been cut and put on reversed head to tail. For me, I would probably be puzzling over the lack of C/O dots (during my inspection) when they were present on the other reels. If the orientation didn't jump out at me right then it certainly would if I tried to scribe dots because all other things being equal attempting to place dots on the wrong end would have the film on the rewind bench base side up which would certainly have sirens going off even if it took a moment to figure out what was up. Obviously, mismatched "ID" frames would call attention even faster than C/O dots or image orientation.  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-08-2003 01:09 PM                     As Mark Marshall said quote: There is absolutely no excuse for this, and clearly operator error. If you are a good operator and known the differance between Heads and Tails. Even if the "ROTK" prints are using the newer Deluxe Heads & Tails leaders. John Hawkinson said quote: In replying to Scotts post on requiring test screenings for press screenings. I don't think that's very reasonable, at least not for most press screenings that are attended by only a few people and only run once. I run a lot of press screenings from brand new prints to ones that have been circuitted from other theatres or screening rooms. Some of them that have never been plattered to ones that the last operator should go back to selling popcorn downstairs. About 90% of the time the prints have no problems the other 5% is from lazy operators. The only times we ever did a pre-screening of a print was on a premiere or an main all media press screening. Like right now I'm running a press screening of "ROTK", the print came in at 11am. My prep time was 11:30am and I have 4 more press and academy screenings set for today. I run reel to reel. So this is not a reel to reel vs. platter debate. Because I've been there with late delivered prints for a platter screening. So I know the problems of just getting it on the screen on time.  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-08-2003 01:26 PM                    I feel that I take responsibility for each reel coming up in frame and focus and for the changeover that will get me out of the reel successfully. Over the course of the reel I am concerned with focus and keeping any fibers or debris blown out should they cling to the aperture. (Obviously brightness, steadiness, quality of sound, etc. and many other things are part and parcel of a quality screening but I'm speaking now only of things applying to an individual screening.) Beyond these things if something unusual happens over the course of a reel (lets say a bad lab splice caused the printer to jump a perf and it goes out of frame) obviously one deals with it the best one can and fix it if possible for the next person (or note it and call whoever is responsible for that print). But I won't feel like I have committed an error by not having caught it before it went on screen. Heads and tails is all there is really time to check on. Even so I would say about 75% of my work is inspecting & repair prints and only about 15% the actual running. Very often I am inspecting reels just keeping ahead of their being projected.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-08-2003 01:41 PM                        The lack of time for a proper film inspection is the real issue. When I worked at the Grandview Drive-In (1967-1970), we were EXPECTED and paid to inspect every foot of every reel on the rewind before putting the film on "house reels" for showing. This included checking the film for bad splices and perforation damage that could cause a film break or misframing, as well as for the proper cue marks (we ran 2000-foot changeovers), reel sequence/continuity, and image orientation. We also noted unusual dirt or scratches, ordering a replacement reel if the damage was significant. Admittedly, many of the second-run triacetate prints we ran NEEDED inspection to avoid problems. But even if the chances of a new print problem are one reel in a hundred, do you want to risk that over 5% of your first showings will have a problem?  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-08-2003 02:53 PM                    Fortunately the percentages of significant problem reels is much lower than that which is a good thing since there are limits to what one can detect on even a slow bench inspection and if you are inspecting slower than real time you might as well just test run it since the bench isn't going to inform you of, say, a picture jumping up and down with each turn of the printer sprocket, digital dropouts, and a myriad other things.  |  IP: Logged

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