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Topic: New Company Policy on Movie Pre-Screening

Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 02-27-2008 09:07 AM

Which is stupid. Pay someone for two or three more hours and make your entire staff happy while reducing the likelihood of costly lost shows. It's the cost of doing business. I'm sick and tired of so many people trying to squeeze every penny they can off of expenses rather than trying to figure out how to increase revenue in creative ways. And I'm not talking about showing ads in front of the movies. There's nothing creative about that, and it does nothing to put more butts in the seats (which is how you increase revenue).

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Chris Slycord
Film God

Posts: 2986
From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-27-2008 10:45 AM

quote: Mark J. Marshall
or you don't want your staff turning the show into a party. Which, by the way... who cares?

Apparently a lot of people.

You say "make it a perk for the staff" but you seem to forget how idiotic staff can be. Some of them push the limits on staff screenings.

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 02-27-2008 10:51 AM

quote: Scott Norwood
floor staff to become familiar with the film which, one hopes, will improve customer service. When customers ask "what is movie X about?" the answer should be something better than "I don't know."

One would hope that'd be the case. However, staff usually showed up only for shows they were personally interested in. In a larger multiplex, that would still result in a lot of "I don't know's".

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Christian Appelt
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 505
From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: Dec 2001

posted 02-27-2008 11:28 AM

Mark J. Marshall wrote

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Sloppy lab work being what it is, I don't think there's any reason in the world to not screen a print after you've built it, unless you're trying to save lamp hours or you don't want your staff turning the show into a party.

I agree with that because there are many lab problems that will go unnoticed even if you prepare your print properly.

Maybe not a problem in the US, but in europe some labs produce different language versions for a number of countries, and with the short time given by studios to make thousand of prints...mistakes do happen.

IIRC some theatres in Germany received prints of the last Harry Potter movie with R4 or 5 in Russian dub version! Most projectionists noticed it in their prescreenings and the theatres lost only the early morning shows.
Especially sound printing defects will hardly be spotted in makeup unless the whole reel has no visible track - better to hear it before customers do.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 02-27-2008 12:33 PM

quote: Chris Slycord
you seem to forget how idiotic staff can be.

A perk can be taken away for bad behavior and can also be used to reward good behavior. But if it's not there to begin with, then you have no "bargaining power" (so to speak) with your staff. But my point is if your staff works hard and generally exhibits good behavior, then why not let them watch the movie while you check the print?

Either way, screening the prints is a necessary part of the business whether you decide to let the entire staff in the auditorium or not.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-27-2008 12:39 PM

Question for the pro-pre-screen-everything people: what do you do for films that only play once? Do you really expect someone to pre-screen every single film that will play in a film festival? What about rentals and special screenings? To do so would be both time- and cost-prohibitive if the screeners were to be paid.

How many lab problems do you have, anyway? And how many of these should have been caught on the bench? (Yes, it is possible in most cases to check for subtitle and soundtrack language issues on the bench.)

I would never suggest that pre-screening was a bad idea...just that there are better uses of time and money in most cases.

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David Stambaugh
Film God

Posts: 4021
From: Eugene, Oregon
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-27-2008 01:27 PM

Seems like there would be possible legal liability issues allowing staff to attend a screening (in party mode) while claiming they're off the clock.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 02-27-2008 01:53 PM

quote: Scott Norwood
Question for the pro-pre-screen-everything people: what do you do for films that only play once? Do you really expect someone to pre-screen every single film that will play in a film festival? What about rentals and special screenings? To do so would be both time- and cost-prohibitive if the screeners were to be paid.

Absolutely!!! A film festival, particularly when the director is in attendance, is NOT the place to find out someone made a misframe or the last theater left a piece of tape in the middle of the reel that wasn't caught on inspection.

If the theater cannot keep their head above water by paying someone 2 hours on the clock to check-screen a movie, then that theater has far bigger problems and should go ahead and shut down their operations.

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Blaine Young
Master Film Handler

Posts: 477
From: Kirkland, WA, USA
Registered: Sep 2006

posted 02-27-2008 02:01 PM

quote: Tim Reed
However, showing it at 2 in the morning won't get a replacement reel any sooner than running it at 11 in the morning.

I'm going to have to disagree with Tim here. I know that I've called DFS at 2am to order a replacement reel which was delivered by 10am the same day, in time for the reel to be changed out before the first show.

And in cases where we've got multiple prints, we'll move them around to allow the 'bad' print more time to allow the reel to be replaced.

I'll also chime in on the staff party routine. I work for an independent house, and we've had several problems with floor staff 'joining in' on the inspection screenings. Management comes down on these events when they get out of hand. When I'm screening, I am happy to allow other staff to attend (with management approval) as long as they shut the hell up. I've thrown an usher or two out of my screenings in the past.

I'm in favor of inspection screenings. GCC never did this when I worked for them and it was a Saturday Morning routine to change out replacement reels.

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Jeremy Weigel
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1062
From: Edmond, OK, USA
Registered: Mar 2007

posted 02-27-2008 02:10 PM

We screen almost every print. Its fairly easy to catch image defects on the bench, but not always that easy to spot soundtrack track defects; analog or digital.

We had a print of "Clear and Present Danger" that repeated the last 5-10 minutes of the last reel near the end before the credits were to hit the screen. We all thought we had a case of deja vu. [Confused]

Ordered a replacement reel that night and had it in time before the first public showing.

The biggest reasoning for not having "employee screening parties" after operating hours is due to insurance. If you have someone get hurt while not actually working it presents a huge liability; not just if they get hurt at the theatre, but also if they get into an accident on the way home. I believe Regal had one such case about 10-12 years ago.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 02-27-2008 02:10 PM

So, if you have 25 prints in your film festival, each one averages two hours, and you pay your operators $20/hour (low for festivals), your labor cost for the screenings is $1000. Plus (probably) extra rental costs for the theatre plus you'd probably have to pay a manager or someone else to be there as well.

Even if it's "only" $1000, the money has to come from somewhere. Personally, I'd rather take the $1000 and pay a competent tech to do a complete service call on the theatre and fix any known issues before the festival. Maybe rent better lenses for the week. Or hire another operator to be available to help during the screenings. All of these uses of $1000 would provide noticeable benefits for every show, whereas screenings "might" identify issues that "might" be able to be corrected "if" replacement prints are available (highly unlikely).

Pre-screenings would be great if they didn't cost anything, but some of us don't get to deal with people or organizations with unlimited budgets and would prefer that what cash is available be spent in the most efficient manner possible.

Edit: I should add here that I am personally sick and tired of having to explain to directors why their movies look and sound bad. This is usually because the venue has crappy equipment or, more often, is in need of maintenance. Service calls before festivals should be standard procedure, but often aren't.

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John Koutsoumis
Master Film Handler

Posts: 261
From: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 02-27-2008 02:49 PM

It is policy where I work that everything is screen tested and the projectionist who does so gets paid for their time.
We have rejected prints on the basis of scratching and bad lab work most of which you can't notice on the bench.

Occasionaly we are unable to test a print because it arrives on the day of the screening but they are usually only one off special screenings.

Also recently I started using Filmguard and a Kelmar film cleaner so I like to do one pass before it screens for a paying audience.

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Joshua Waaland
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 800
From: Cleveland, Ohio
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-27-2008 03:02 PM

At the first cinema I worked at there were eight screens and the other projectionist and I would come in very early on Friday mornings and build up prints. Then we would each screen one. Occassionally I may miss a splice if the frame was way too dark but most of the time they were right. We didn't have the benefit of frame counters or anything like that.

Sometimes there were too many prints to screen though. When I moved to a fifteen screen theater this became the case. With upwards of seven films leaving some weeks it just wasn't feasible to screen them all.

On a side note we did occassionally have employee only screenings after hours. For the most part everyone behaved and it was something we all looked forward to.

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Mark Hajducki
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 500
From: Edinburgh, UK
Registered: May 2003

posted 02-27-2008 04:20 PM

quote: Scott Norwood
Question for the pro-pre-screen-everything people: what do you do for films that only play once? Do you really expect someone to pre-screen every single film that will play in a film festival? What about rentals and special screenings? To do so would be both time- and cost-prohibitive if the screeners were to be paid.

Although not totally without an audience, the press show should catch any small errors, and give an opportunity to check the image on screen.

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Stu Jamieson
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 524
From: Buccan, Qld, Australia
Registered: Jan 2008

posted 02-27-2008 05:12 PM

quote: Joshua Waaland
Occassionally I may miss a splice if the frame was way too dark but most of the time they were right. We didn't have the benefit of frame counters or anything like that.

I guess it goes without saying that a frame counter should be considered mandatory equipment but I too have worked in a cinema that didn't have one so I ended up making one out of some scrounged bits and pieces. It looks a bit like this (actually it looks exactly like this):

It cost me about 20 bucks to make and you're probably thinking that it looks it but it gets the job done.

Interesting that you guys are so militant about pre-screenings. I've found that lab problems are a rarity so if I were running a cinema, I probably wouldn't do them either. Or if I did, it would be the first thing to go when things got tough. Given that you guys in the US usually premiere before us, maybe the problems are all ironed out before we get our prints?? Although Aussie John says they pre-screen. Do you get frequent lab faults, John?

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