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Author Topic: I Finally Met The Booth Monster! Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-28-2005 03:57 AM                     Back in 1998, I had a "booth monster" hit a booth in my 21 complex while I had a day off... What happened on this one is that a splice in the trailer pak got hung up in the failsafe, not allowing the arms to drop (which is the same SPECO built 3Q failsafe as Mark had shown us, but my bearings were not froze up..) The operator on that day felt dumb not to check this and all six reels lay here piled below this Christie. He did the same-grabbed the MUT, took the tail end and wound it on the ring, took the MUT's control and fed back that print on the deck within a half hour with no snarls, twists and breaks. For the next show, he ran that print heads out from the outside of the roll with the deck unlocked from the motor and had no problems doing this (done that as well..). Then ran that print through the Kelmar a few times to get the "fuzz bunnies" off the print due to we had carpeted floors in these booths. I came back the next day and heard about this. These picts were taken from the assistant manager who wanted to get me in trouble, for he was going to send these to home office to punish me. Thx goodness, that the manager stopped him from doing this childish thing and told him that is a very unprofessional way to carry himself and next time he would get fired if he plans on doing something like this again against me. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Pete Naples Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1565 From: Dunfermline, Scotland Registered: Feb 2001 posted 10-28-2005 05:15 AM                     I've encountered the booth monster twice. First time was some years ago. Theatre had 3 screens with towers, and no failsafes. Not a big problem as the sensible operator walks round and checks the machines every 15 minutes, don't they?... Not the guy who was on one night. Persons unkown had entered the booth, and switched off the mains to the tower, of course the mech kept pulling, put the tower wasn't taking up, so I came in ona sunday morning, to find most of Jurassic Park on it's way out the booth door to greet me. Took me most of the day to sort it out, as he'd waded through it to shut the machine down at the end of the show, then left! Second time was during an installation, we were adding screens to an existing theatre, we came back late one night to cut som apertures in peace, to find one of the operators in a terible state with Forest Gump all over the floor, gave him some advice and left him to it.  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 10-28-2005 06:25 AM                        I hope the advice was: "Run, Forest! Run!!"  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 07:42 AM                        I saw something like this happen once. Setting: Century booth running 6000' reels with no automation. Operator threads the machine and forgets to close the pad roller for the holdback sprocket in the soundhead (mistake #1), starts the film, and then leaves the booth for reasons unknown (mistake #2). After running fine for about fifteen minutes, the film runs off the sprocket slightly and the indentations that the sprocket teeth make in the film cause it to start taking up unevenly. Eventually, the takeup reel is so unbalanced that it stops spinning completely and the film starts taking up on the floor. When I stopped by the theatre to pick up my paycheck, a customer came into the lobby to complain of sound problems (the film on the floor had started to get pulled back into the soundhead). I ran up to the booth to find about 4000' of "Character" (great film, BTW) on the floor. I cut the film, re-threaded, and re-started the show. Eventually, I did get the mess cleaned up, but the film was ruined from the sprocket indentations. Amazingly (and sadly, I think), the distributor never charged the theatre for the damage. I've had a couple of close calls myself--once, a badly timed Super Platter failed to take up at the proper speed on startup, and I ended up with a dozen or so feet of film on the floor (just trailers). Another time, a Kinoton takeup clutch failed and I ended up with about 100' of film on the floor before I noticed (long story).  |  IP: Logged Cory Isemann Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: White Plains, MD, USA Registered: Jun 2004 posted 10-28-2005 07:55 AM                        Mark- You said you came in and found that. What astounds me most (well, besides that mountain of film) is that someone LEFT THE BOOTH for the night with that mess still there? Did they expect the opener to take care of it? If I ever pulled some crap like that (not only would I probably get fired) but it would give our weekday opener a heart attack. He would seriously keel over! I can't imagine leaving something like that. I couldn't do it in good conscience. You would have come in and seen me just finishing up after spending all night cleaning up the mess.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 08:18 AM                     quote: Cory Isemann You said you came in and found that. What astounds me most (well, besides that mountain of film) is that someone LEFT THE BOOTH for the night with that mess still there? Did they expect the opener to take care of it? Coery, Thats exactly why I called it in to the office.... I also thought it wierd that someone would leave a booth monster unattended to for the night..... and also another reason that I took care of it myself. For all I knew the manager found this and figured he was a gonner and left..... Can't entirely blame him though, it was partly the cue detectors fault.... the drop arms were stuck in the up position! Since it was so easy to get it back on the deck I was going to say "what mess of film on the floor" when the manager did show up...... "I don't know about no mess of film". You must have had a bad dream..... In all fairness to him he did show up ater it was back on the deck. Mark  |  IP: Logged Cory Isemann Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 500 From: White Plains, MD, USA Registered: Jun 2004 posted 10-28-2005 08:26 AM                        True, true. I still would never leave the building with something like that lurking in the shadows. When I leave for the night, all the prints have been (as a former manager put it) "tucked in for the night" meaning putting the platter covers on.  |  IP: Logged Keith Rightmyer Film Handler Posts: 5 From: Harrodsburg, KY, USA Registered: Oct 2005 posted 10-28-2005 09:23 AM                     Newbie checking in.....I had my first (and hopefully last ) booth monster last weekend during SERENITY. It was in the next to last reel of the print and I had been watching both platters for the entire show. They were running fairly smoothly so I was lulled into a false sense of security. The bottom platter was on take-up duty and a particularly large splice had caught in the next to last roller causing the film to just pile up in the floor. When I spotted it, I closed the douser, stopped the motor and hollered out the door to the owner (counting the concession drawer) that we had film in the floor. Between him, the cook and me we got the heap back on the take-up and got the show re-started in about 10 minutes. Not bad for our first time, IMHO! I didn't make the guilty splice by the way. I'm pretty much just the projectionist during the shows. The owner made-up the print. It had passed through fine on Friday night so it might have been slightly off in that roller. Another valuable lesson in threadology! Keith  |  IP: Logged Paul Konen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 981 From: Frisco, TX. (North of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 10:19 AM                     Glad the monster went somewhere else. He's visited me a couple of times. Mark, nice job on getting it back onto the platter. What I did when the monster came by, was to wind it back to a 6K from the top of the pile so as to not try to pull the film from underneath the pile.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 10-28-2005 01:56 PM                     Not having a SPECO failsafe handy to look at, I'm betting there isn't much clearance laterally past the required 35mm and a shitty splicer not properly trimming the edges was the cause of many of these jams. Can anyone verify this on a SPECO failsafe? (Make a splice by hand and use scissors to not trim the edges flush with the film.) I've only met the booth monster once. Simplex w/5 Star and AW3 platter with takeup deck in "makeup" mode (since someone had just broke a film down). It was one of the non-Shatner Star Trek movies. I came in to manage the evening shift and not 5 minutes after I got there (having not even entered the booth yet) a customer came out and said "the sound is really messy in #7". So I run up to the booth and find the first 4 reels on the floor and piling up into the soundhead like Scott mentioned earlier. Using the MUT and an 8000 foot reel I got the entire mess up off the floor (again, this was an acetate print) without one tangle or splice. I had it up in about 5-10 minutes too. I just stood on a stool holding my hand up high to guide the film and cranked the MUT! You would've NEVER KNOWN the film had been dumped onto the floor except for the few feet that got mangled at the time the customer complained because the print was FilmGuarded and the floor was carpet. Within 2 more passes through the film cleaner, it was just as pristine as it could be. Anyone ever gotten the call to a theater for a platter that refused to takeup and when you got there you simply plugged it into a normal AC outlet rather than the slide outlet? hehe That one always cracks me up!  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-28-2005 03:32 PM                     ..or a place that has a Balco platter with the mode switch on the side of the motor housing and the booth clown forgot to position the switch to which mode it supposed to be and freaks out and hollers for help? ..many "bone headed" stories that can come out of M/Operated theatres that are "infested" with booth clowns. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 06:21 PM                     quote: Paul Konen What I did when the monster came by, was to wind it back to a 6K from the top of the pile so as to not try to pull the film from underneath the pile. Paul, The tail of the film is exactly what you have to look for. In my case the film had not run out all the way.... about 100 feet or so left. That made it easy to just set a ring n the center and wiond it back onto the ring exactly the opposite way it was set on the floor. Woulda made a hilarous time lapse film!! In addition, never but never step on or move the film around at all... Here I'm leaning over to the machine to unthread it. I finally took my shoes off just to be on the safe side..... Mark  |  IP: Logged Jon Miller Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 973 From: San Diego, CA, USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 10-28-2005 07:59 PM                     Mark, was the show started with a timer? Unless the operator was denser than a dirt clod and ignored the film piling up on him once he started the show, I could not imagine this happening under an operator-attended startup.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 08:02 PM                     quote: Jon Miller Mark, was the show started with a timer? Unless the operator was denser than a dirt clod and ignored the film piling up on him once he started the show, I could not imagine this happening under an operator-attended startup. Believe it or not it was operator started!! No Start timers or remotes at this location. So... denser than a door knob certainly applies here. Mark  |  IP: Logged Jon Miller Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 973 From: San Diego, CA, USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 10-28-2005 08:37 PM                     Thanks for the reply, Mark! This is way beyond surprising. Never mind my rant about timers on the first page...it's criminal ignorance and stupidity that is the worst thing to hit the booth.  |  IP: Logged

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