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Topic: "Re-engineering" the Profession of Projectionist

Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-06-2006 11:51 AM

quote:
In other words, can we "reclaim" the Projectionist's profession by distinguishing it from the low-wage version that has devalved it?

NO

Each chain or theatre has it's version of how much they are willing to spend on this job title. It looks like they have been locked in on the low-wage version for along time now. Sure you get projectionists/operators that treat this job as a avenue to a long career. They put a 110% into the job and put on great shows and presentations. Then you have people in the booth doing fair to bad film handling. Then you have mangagement that has to do both jobs. As for that avenue, it's been bumpy road for a long time and it's not going to get any better for the ones that work alot of these multi-plex complexes. The chains will build larger plexes and still man and pay the same old rates for wages. Like in the Union days, you had great operators and poor operators. Sometimes you found some of the good operastors in shit hole houses and poor operators in good venues, because of seniority numbers with the local. The lower the senority number the longer you've been in the booth. So if this great job opened up and went for bid on the bid sheet. You would go down to the theatre for a walk through and see what kind of job it was. Then you would bid on the job, by sending a letter to the local that you are bidding on this job by a select date. When bidding ended the letters would be opened by the business agent and he would award the job to the lowest operator's senority number.
In another case in the Los Angeles market. One chain had it's projectionists work at maintaining the theatre in house. They did repairs on seats, aisle lights, ice machines, popcorn poppers, hot dog machines, changing auditorium & lobby lights, light restroom repairs and changing and cleaning A/C vents and filters and maintain the booth & built-ups. The chiefs of staff ran the booth except during their breaks and then the projectionist got to run film, all for a $17.75 an hour wage.

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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 12-07-2006 08:57 AM

quote: Richard May
So back to your original point. This job will never be well paying except for specialty booths. Nothing is ever going to change that. You can thank technology for that.

Absolutely. I'm not disputing that, my interest is in highlighting this split if you like between the low-wage version of the job and the "real" Projectionists' profession.

If you look at the Accounting profession, you have low-wage "Accounting Technicians". But actual Accountants earn good incomes. So there's a distinction there that I'm suggesting could be applied to the Cinema.

So maybe you could have "Cinema Operatives" as way of distinguishing them from Projectionists. That might be controversial, but I think ideas like this need to be looked at if we want to preserve the profession of Projectionist in some shape or form.

quote: Bill Gabel
The lower the senority number the longer you've been in the booth. So if this great job opened up and went for bid on the bid sheet. You would go down to the theatre for a walk through and see what kind of job it was. Then you would bid on the job, by sending a letter to the local that you are bidding on this job by a select date. When bidding ended the letters would be opened by the business agent and he would award the job to the lowest operator's senority number.

Thanks for that information Bill, very useful and interesting. Was the Seniority Number system with the Locals a good or a bad thing do you think? Perhaps the logic was that the longer you were in the booth, the more employable you were?

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Richard May
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1057
From: Floral Park, NY USA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted 12-07-2006 11:06 AM

Brian, I do understand what you're saying. The problem is that you can't distinguish between the 2 anymore. All the jobs are starting to become low paying jobs. It doesn't matter how good you are. Theater chains will do what they can to eliminate the high paying jobs. So you CAN have 2 different titles like you're saying. The problem is that the projectionist will never get the job. The lower paid person will always win out.

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Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 12-07-2006 11:13 AM

quote:
Was the Seniority Number system with the Locals a good or bad thing do you think?

It was good and bad. If the Local was a good fair one it worked, but if the BA was bad. Then there was no fairness in the process. They would favor their select few of operators. And give them a slight upper hand wheather mailing info on the testing of the location or times. So it would look like the other operators had problems. Once I was on this job because the regular operator had died, so I was one of the regular reliefs on the theatre. The other operator was working the regulars hours. Everything was running fine and no problems. Because the job had tobe put on the bid sheet by the local. So a few operators started to show up to do walk throughs of the booth and job. The job would be the one that I was working on. So they asked questions and saw the operations of this seven plex. The location was a money maker for the chain. This one operator was a GOOD FRIEND of the BA, he never worked the theatre. He went afar as to invite the DM to dinner afew times before the testing. So this guy comes by the theatre one night to do the walk through, he said it was a piece of cake. The local [sex]

everyone who had bidded on the job by sending the test time info out by mailing it so it would get to the person after the testing. The only persons to show up for the test was that guy and another friend of the BA. The guy that took the DM to dinner lost the job because I did not tell him one important item about the digital roll around units. Which proved he was idiot to the DM and BA. [Big Grin]

He tried to put a round connector in a square hole. The other guy got the job for a few months before he got shit canned for being in the bar next door. [Big Grin]

So I was back on that job again.
On another bid I did was for this 6-plex and a tri-plex job. The local put it on the bid sheet. I had never worked these houses before. The people that came to do the testing, had come from many different theatres. One guy had never run a AA-II projector and had worked third run and grind houses. The one thing the local did not know was I had already won the job before the testing. I saw a few of the BA's friends testing there. I had worked for the chain before and they knew me and my work. Today the senority system is no longer in use in most locals. Today the BETTER jobs are only available by SPECIAL interviews and resumes. (Motion Picture Academy, Television Academy, Director's Guild, Writer's Guild and most Industry Screening Rooms)

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Richard May
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1057
From: Floral Park, NY USA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted 12-07-2006 12:43 PM

I think the senority system still applies to regular houses though. Bill is right about the other rooms. It's basically by request only. BTW, this is in New York City. It may be different elsewhere.

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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 12-07-2006 01:30 PM

The only thing that seemingly will bring us out of the low-pay expendable workforce is the fact that by 2025 in Canada anyway, the number of over-65 retired citizens will double. In the mountains of BC and oil-patch in Alberta, it's already happening. Starting wage at donut shops can be $15/hr with health and retirement benefits. That sure beats $6.85 minimum. In places like Calgary, virtually every business is short-staffed. Employers will simply HAVE to treat staff well again or go out of business.

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Brian Guckian
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 594
From: Dublin, Ireland
Registered: Apr 2003

posted 12-10-2006 12:27 PM

Thanks for the info folks, helps to chew on this! I appreciate your detailed explanation of the workings of the Seniority system Bill. Proves no system is incorruptible.

Interesting re. staff shortages in Canada Dave, maybe I'll emigrate!

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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 900
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-10-2006 08:17 PM

quote: Frank Angel
Consider this -- theatre owners seem to be willing to invest HUGE amounts of money in digital equipment. And what is the seemingly inexplicable lure that is making these traditionally reluctant-to-costly-upgrade owners purchase this ghastly expensive new equipment? What's making them salivate seems to be the chance that they can FINALLY and TOTALLY eliminate even the $8/hr splice jockey.

That's an absurd argument. Assuming that a single projectionist can manage eight screens and earns $25 per hour and the projectors cost $240,000 each, if one operates the projector 15 hours a day, it would take 14 years to break-even and that assumes that the digital projector would not require any operator whatsoever. But digital projectors still require someone to load the server, focus, set audio levels, etc., so someone is needed at least some of the time. And if the projector is used less than 15 hours per day, break-even would take even longer. At $10 an hour, break-even would take 35 years.

Rightly or wrongly, these projectors are getting installed on the basis that they will provide a perception of improved quality and on the basis that the perception of improved quality will attract audiences to theaters. Whether it actually will or not is not the issue. (My opinion is that on average, especially in smaller markets, it will provide superior quality, although I'm sure that as this expands, you're going to have owners in smaller markets try and get away with trying to use the low-res pre-show projector.)

Tipping projectionists is a silly idea, in my opinion. Everyone already thinks movies are too expensive and most people don't understand the lousy economics of the industry that theatre owners get stuck with. Even if they did, they wouldn't care. Most movie theaters in NYC now charge $11.00. I'm not tipping anyone.

The only hope for treating projectionists as pros is if the studios once again take over the theaters. I actually think that's a possibility ten years down the road. I believe that we could see a 50% reduction in the number of theaters and the industry is going to need a place to show its product, even if the purpose is to promote the DVD, download or on-demand performance. Once the presentation industry crashes, I believe the government would no longer object to studios owning theaters.

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Louis Bornwasser
Film God

Posts: 4441
From: prospect ky usa
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 12-10-2006 08:29 PM

Martin; Frank is, unfortunately, right about (wanting to) "pay for this by eliminating an $8/hr guy."

You are also right that the $ don't work out right.

That is, however, the reality of thought at some circuits. Louis

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-10-2006 09:26 PM

quote:
That's an absurd argument. Assuming that a single projectionist can manage eight screens and earns $25 per hour and the projectors cost $240,000 each,

Actually about half that price for the large units with a server and lenses... and thats for theaters that have actually bought them. Sony is even aiming at a 100K price tag on their 4K units... which I know is an absurdly impossible price target.

Mark

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Richard May
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1057
From: Floral Park, NY USA
Registered: Aug 2004

posted 12-10-2006 10:16 PM

Whether digital was here or not, the projectionists job would still be dwindling away.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-11-2006 02:37 AM

Much as it pains me to say it, sooner or later Moore's Law will give us digital projection to a technical quality and for a price that film will never be able to compete with for mainstream theatre exhibition. The economies of scale are starting to move in this direction. My gut feeling is that it'll still be a bit later than most of the pro-digital lobby believe, but that's mainly because of issues around content encoding and distribution, not so much the delivery technology.

My real worry is where this leaves arthouses, rep theatres and archive cinematheques. The world's major public film archives are sitting on circulating collections of tens of thousands of 35mm viewing prints each. They won't be able to afford to proactively digitise this content to HD/d-cinema quality - this'll happen gradually on a reactive basis. In the meantime, as release print stock manufacture and lab services wind down, these prints will gradually become less easy to replace, meaning that the level of projectionist skill needed to show them safely will increase. But this will be happening just as the pool of projectionists with high-end skills will be diminishing - as one generation retires and fewer of the next are trained to run changeovers, repair cement joins, know the difference between full gate silent, 1:1.19 and Academy, etc. etc.

The cost of digital mastering is not going to diminish significantly, because the main expense of that process is in skilled manpower, i.e. the datacine technician who grades the transfer. To put this in pespspective, a friend who was involved in the recent restoration of 'M' told me that the DVD master took six days to produce from the restored interneg, with over 500 individual grading decisions. This process is even more critical, and takes longer, in datacine capture for an HD master.

So for many titles, the existing collections of 35mm prints will be the only way we'll have of seeing these films in theatres for a long time to come. A scenario whereby in ten years time, an arthouse theatre in a small to medium sized city will be running mainly digital, with a 35mm projector and platter that gets used once or twice a year is surely going to be bad news for the prints that end up being shown in such circumstances.

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