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Author Topic: I Finally Met The Booth Monster! Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 10-28-2005 09:44 PM                    quote: Mark Gulbrandsen I wound it back through the top projector feed roller and onto a platter ring using the mut for control... took only about 45 min... not a single snarl or pretzel problem, it just went right back where it came. so with all the weight on the film you surly didn't pull from the bottom of the pile. You likely pulled from the top of the pile. That means that the end of the movie is now or was in the center of the film diameter. Basically backwards. My question is.....did you leave it that way?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-28-2005 09:48 PM                     Daryl, I guess you haven't read the whole thread..... what I did is in there somewhere. Of course the film came back up from on top of the pile... there were still 100 or so feet that hadn't been paid out so I actually started there. After getting it all back on the deck I then used the mut to get the film fed to the next deck down, heads in.... total time spent 1 hr. 15 min. Mark  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 10-28-2005 09:53 PM                    Just read that Mark, I thought I was on page two when I was reading it. Would have been interesting to see their faces though. Holy shit! how did the film get on backwards.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 10-28-2005 10:13 PM                        Q: What's worse than finding a booth monster on the floor? A: Finding half a booth monster on the floor. As in a 16mm print taking up on the platter and a 19mm booth monster growing on the floor. Walked in on one of those in an old Ballantyne 3-screen booth here back in the day.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-29-2005 09:15 AM                        There are booth monsters and then there are the insideous booth monsters that hide and strike with the element of surprise. I get to my booth for the second shift and the projectionist tells me there is a problem with one of the reels as the take-up "seems to be winding unevenly," as she put it. This is when I found the monster lurking on the reel itself, not piling on the floor. Why was the take-up reel wind uneven? Well because the one of the film slicers AFTER the intermittent (nothing visible on the screen) that is supposed to stop film from wrapping around its associated sprocket drive somehow jammed into the film because of a bad splice and then proceeded to neatly slice the right film down the middle and feeding the two pieces right onto the takeup reel. The takeup reel revealed two trips of about 17.5mm each. Seeing a pile of film on the floor, especially acetate which really winds back up quite neatly and rarely with any damage, would have been a decided blessing instead of finding this slit-down-the-middle horror.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 10-29-2005 11:31 AM                        Frank: then no replacement print was available (when it happened to us) and so we put splicing tape about every 15 frames and ran it for almost a month. Luckily we only had about 1200 feet of film until the credits. Louis  |  IP: Logged Will Kutler Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1506 From: Tucson, AZ, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 10-29-2005 09:07 PM                     I too, met the ULTIMATE BOOTH MONSTER...in LIVING, BREATHING form ! We had this one extremely lazy, dishonest and irresponsible kid working the booth at the theatre I last worked. With the amount of aw-shits attributed to this individual, I am perplexed that he was even allowed into the booth! Anyhow, this theatre was a 20-plex with two seperate booths, each shaped as a "T". And the two booths were seperated by the lobby. Now, we were always moving prints all over the place, and partial break-downs were not practical. This was due to the G.M. loaning out all our 6K's to his friend who was at a different theatre (of a competing company). The only way to move prints was for the two-person carry (w/o a board). And the prints generally needed to be tilted at an angle to pass through the booth doors. So it came to pass that I was working the closing shift with this kid one day and we needed to do some print moves. Well, the print that needed moving from one booth to the other was a 3hr flick...either "Patriot" or "Gladiator", I forgot which one. Anyhow, as we are actually passing through the door this idiot's cell phone rang. And ya guessed it. He reached for the phone buried in his pocket while the film was tilted while passing through the door! He ened up popping out the center ring and left the entire print dangling in my forearms! Cheers! K.  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 10-30-2005 01:56 AM                        Did you make sure to have him eat that cell phone?  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-30-2005 02:37 AM                     ..ain't that the bonafide crapola when a print goes limp on you like a wet rag in your arms..(LOL) I did that once: moved a print by myself without any form of moving device. Some prints wound on STRONG platters can be wound pretty tight to where, if you cradle it just right with your hands spread apart and pulling the print towards you in as well as in a vertical position, it's easy to do. but...when you stub the foot just the wrong way, you jerk the body and the ring pops out and your stuck with the "wet rag" syndrome. Luckilly, I was next to a platter to where, even though it had fully collapsed, I managed to swing that print on a deck and salvaged a horrible mess and got it taken care of within a hour (even though I had to cancel that showing due to this goof-up) ..I felt kinda stupid on that one.. - Monte  |  IP: Logged Will Kutler Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1506 From: Tucson, AZ, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 10-30-2005 11:31 AM                     Another good "Booth-Monster" laugh that happened to me that y'all might find ammusing. But I am intentionally deleting some specifics. I was called in last minute to be a relief projectionist. I was able to stop by the theatre a few days before my "shift" so that I could get a quick low-down on their booth and equipment. But, due my time schedule, it was a minimum visit. But I was assured that everything would be smooth sailing for me. Well, the day of my "shift"...due to my schedule, I was a little late getting to the theatre...but I had made the management aware of this potential problem. So, the first film was already runnning when I arrived. The second film was due to start about 10 minutes or so after my arrival. I quickly threaded up the projector and went to do the needed format change. Well, I was unable to release the turret lock! So, I start scratching my head wondering if I am so uncapable as to not be able to unlatch a TURRET! So, I tried to quickly find the projector tech manual...none in sight. So, I run to the neighboring projector and start visually comparing the differences between the two. AHA! Whether it was or was not intended as a practical joke, someone had disassembeled the turret latch lock and reassembeled it backwards...thereby making it impossible to operate the damn thing! Luckily I was able to find a simbalance of tools that were hidden away in another part of the booth, made the necessary repair and got the film started on time! But if this was intended to be a joke, my hats off to the perp! It was a CLASSIC!  |  IP: Logged Patrick Dunn Expert Film Handler Posts: 120 From: newark, DE, United states Registered: Aug 2005 posted 10-30-2005 06:56 PM                        quote: 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! How i wish i could say this didn't happen to me.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-30-2005 08:02 PM                     quote: Brad Miller you simply plugged it into a normal AC outlet rather than the slide outlet? ..did the same dumb thing with the CAT-701 and the slide in the same double outlet and didn't know that one side of the double was switched and the other was hot. I couldn't find out why the 701's LED wasn't on during show, yet on during rest-times (the slide projector was broken at the time and was controlled by the automation, thus took it for granted that both sockest were hot..not one hot and one switched). Odd stuff happening that day... - Monte  |  IP: Logged Carl Paquin Film Handler Posts: 1 From: sherbrooke / quebec / canada Registered: Aug 2005 posted 10-31-2005 02:02 PM                     Hi Mark. I think i have to apologize in some kind of way about the message I sent you. In fact, I understand now, considering your surprise, that the message was not written by you. So I'm sending you a copy of what I got after downloading it on my Desktop. By the way, I don't think the boot is too hard on me, neither the time I spent there. I even got a BAC in philosophy and I am now studying to be a sinister expert. I'm working in a 12 theaters cinema (soon 15). And don't worry, I never thought the movie accident happened to you. What happened to you, of course, was to be confronted to the "Monster". For my written English, at least I'm making efforts (Quebec is a bilingual province in Canada: some of us will never learn English, some of us will never learn French). Maybe you'll have to learn Spanish quite soon in the USA... So I hope you'll understand what I meant when you'll see the picture I joined with my message. It surely does feel good to have a nice technicien like you seem to be: I do know a lot of technician who would never have border with the movie on the floor. Best regards! Carl N-B: I don't know if I'll be able to send the picture Picture deleted. Carl, don't upload the bandwidth theft image. It's not humorous and will only get you booted from these forums for being an unnecessary pain. This entire post should've been EMAILED to Mark as well. [ 10-31-2005, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Brad Miller ]  |  IP: Logged Jean-Michel Grin Expert Film Handler Posts: 222 From: Geneva & Lausanne, Switzerland Registered: Jul 2002 posted 10-31-2005 02:27 PM                        Oh My Goodness, I never saw a disaster like this, but 4 years ago a coleague told me this following true story: A projectionist started the projector and the film broke on the lower reel. A "normal" guy would stop immediately the projector to repair the film, but in this case the projectionist was totaly incompetent and ran the entire feature Worst was at the end of the show: the booth was literally filled up with the film, and the projectionist moved all the "monster" to the rewind bench !! The print had never to be saved, they trown it to the garbage Best regards, Jean-Michel  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-31-2005 04:44 PM                     Now, forgive me if this seems to be leading off-topic here (since this can easily lead to a "You Suck"...forum), but this has to be considered a "booth monster"-meaning a booth operator. As I mentioned, I was "Presentation Manger/Engineer" for a 21 screener in my area. We had SW:EP1 playing and of course, I was off that day. When I came back to work, one of my co-workers told me this one that I considered this operator "a booth monster" due to his "level of thinking:" This co-worker told me that(with a complex this big, there are two operators on duty for most of the day to handle each side of the building..)the other operator on duty called him over to "verify" something. This co-worker went to look on what was to be verifed and his jaw about hit the floor. This "booth monster" was letting the machine run without any upper loop present! Somehow, a splice had weakened to allow the film to jump across the intermittent sprocket and lose the upper loop. This booth clown didn't even stop the machine, but let the print be racketed to death through the trap and gate (which cost us a replacement reel due to this...). My co-worker immediately stopped the machine, yelled at the "booth monster" on why he didn't shut down the machine and reset the upper loop. Then, the famous statement from my co-worker to this idiot was, "didn't you have the common sense to shut down this machine, fix the problem, instead of having me coming over to verify that something was wrong and let the print be damaged!?!?" Then, the "booth monster" said that he HAS some common sense, but wasn't sure on what exactly to do...(ARUGHHHH!!). Between the location manager jumping on me real hard for not having my members fully trained and understanding their duties, then on him real hard, he staighten out his act some after that. -Monte  |  IP: Logged

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