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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: The stupid are spreading their stupidness
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John Wilson
Film God
Posts: 5438
From: Sydney, Australia.
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-14-2008 12:32 AM
How timely this subject is...
One cinema I do a shift-a-week at had evening sessions interlocking last Friday. When I came in at 5pm I was asked to put the interlock leader on (!). OK...I guess that's sort of alright since it was the first time it had interlocked. BUT I was also asked to swap it back again to the standard leader for its two matinee shows the next day and leave notes to put it back on again for the interlocks the next night. Worth noting here that the guy who was to do the next night's interlocks was an interlock virgin and he was to be asked to swap out leaders with around 20 minutes between the shows.
Now, I don't know about you, but that seemed to me like a dumb idea to take it off for 2 shows just to put it back on again so I left the dayshift guy the next day a note to say I'd left it on as the request had been un-necessary and he should just run it down for the 2 matinees.
Well, the guy who'd asked me to do this whacked idea found out I didn't do it he called me at home the next day and tried to chew me out about it. That didn't go too well as I told him on the phone it was a dumb request so apparently he then took it to his boss. I was then part of a meeting last night when I arrived on shift between this guy and was also 'witnessed' during the meeting by the manager on duty.
After my amazement at this meeting situation had subsided where he told me I had said he was stupid for asking it (I didn't) and also that I'd hung up on him (also no) I pointed out again his request was unnecessary especially considering the next guy would have been mightily nervous as it was.
I said to the booth boss why didn't he just come to me and talk about his grievance instead of taking it to his boss and the other manager...he said he just wanted a reference point. Huh? You mean reference, right? He seemed to not know what I was talking about. (Point of note here...if you're going to blindly do what your boss tells you to do, make sure you know what he's talking about before you repeat it in an attempted dressing down.) Meeting over.
The way I run a booth is to try and make it as easy as possible for my staff...not to throw hurdles in the way where they don't need to be.
So I finished the shift and made a note of all that had transpired for the record in the booth diary. I ended the notation with the following...
'There are those around who will willingly put up with shit like this, fortunately...I'm not one of them'. The shift ended and I won't be going back.
And just before you get upset at me again Antony at Palace Verona Cinemas in Sydney...I did not ask Brad to call this thread stupid...although I'm sure you'll think I did that as well anyway.
By the way,
- your top loops are 4 sprockets too big so your sound is always out of sync...
- masking is meant to mask the image with a nice sharp edge...this is not the job of the aperture plate. Get a file for goodness sake because your images on screen are appalling.
- When a xenon if flickering or is waving about on screen uncontrollably, that's not your cue to ignore it for a few more months. Change the bloody thing.
- Your job is to run the booth. If you took more care in there stopping yourself and others scratching all your prints instead of worrying about getting quotes to have the toilets stop leaking things'd be a lot better there. I'm not saying you shouldn't stop the toilets leaking, but the booth comes first.
One more time in case you missed it...if your job is to be in charge of the booth..the booth comes first.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 06-14-2008 03:48 PM
True, really makes you wonder on how these 'old wives tales' begin - like one place I know of, they do the similar as what Brad presented us, but in a very small way: As the film leaves the AW3, they put a half twist from the top roller of the AW3 to the top roller of the machine.
For some reason or another, the main guy who started training there said that this twist is necessary due to the basic same reason that Brad shown us - to not scratch the emulsion side of the print ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
I've shown them, including the mgr, that this isn't necessary. But, as 'horsebroke' as they are, that procedure remains to this day.
-Monte
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Bruce Hansen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 847
From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-14-2008 06:31 PM
What bothers me is that someone will hear something, and will blindly believe it, without checking it out. With the internet, it is very easy to check things out now a days. Some people are so stupid that they will believe anything, as long as it is what they WANT to hear, even though it has nothing to do with the truth. Let's face it, there are some who play on this. They will say the same lie over and over, and people will start believing it, even though they should know to check it out first.
One of the things that is false, but I have heard it MANY times: a phone line (coming from the phone company) is 4 wires, the bell is on it's own wires. WRONG! I have been playing with phones for 40 years, and I know that a phone line is only 2 wires. But try to tell someone who has never hooked up a phone in their live that you have been doing it for 40 years, and it is just 2 wires, and they will argue with you.
I have been saying for years that we need to teach a class in school about how to check things out, and how to go about figuring out a problem. When people in this country cannot even set the clock on their VCRs, something is VERY wrong.
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 06-15-2008 02:27 AM
the nowday, or at least, was the CD drawer on a PC tower as a cupholder.
Remember when the reel lawn mower was a common thing to have, then the rotary version came out and couldn't cut lawn as good as a reel? Guess too many people where slicing their fingers off since they had no safety devices - now, you have to pick your nose, twitch your ear and do a number of things before you start a lawn mower.
And seat belt/key/light reminder chimes, bells or buzzers...DANG! I don't need to be reminded to do these things when I get in and out of a car! (course, I'm too mean - I find the little black buzzer box, open it up and cut the wires to the speaker device to shut the flippin' thing up for good! The car doesn't know that I whacked the speaker wires, for the ECM is still communicating with the little black box to do its screaming..)
I do believe IMO, that the world's public in a whole is forced to be taught that "they can't think for themselves - they have to be told."
And it also seems that nowdays, having experience is NOT what every occupation wants, esp. if that occupation is more or less a team orientated occupation. If you have any form of experience and knowledge in what the occupation has to offer, you've become dead competition to that occupation in fear that you can perform better than they can and they will NOT allow anyone to both - prove them wrong, and/or show them up that it could be done better.
...looks like this present and future generation is turning into a ISO 9001 form of society.
-Monte
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Thomas Pitt
Master Film Handler
Posts: 266
From: Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK
Registered: May 2007
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posted 06-15-2008 03:40 AM
I can't believe the film even RUNS through the projector when threaded that way! I've seen similar things happen with audio and video tape before, and the twists nearly always cause the unit to auto-stop because the tension is too great.
Oh, on the Christie Platter pic, there's a 'bulge' of film in the center near the brain. Is this part of the stupid threading method; that you have to wind the beginning of the film so it bulges out and is 'closer' to the brain?
Even today, I'm still seeing film handlers that just take the very first bit of leader to come off the platter, thread that up and then motor the film through onto the floor until the countdown reaches '4'. Then they take that mass of film and attach it to the takeup ring, spinning the platter by hand until all the slack is taken up.
When the show starts, it often needs re-framing since the very first bit of leader is opaque with no frame lines - no reference to thread in frame!
I can't help thinking of people who grew up on the old 8mm projectors that were auto-threading. Just put the film in the top slot and let the projector do the rest of the work. It's a lot more complicated with 35mm and 70mm, folks! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 06-15-2008 06:29 AM
quote: Ben Wales
3) worked at a Regional Film Theatre and was informed by a BFI rep while on a site visit we could not run their archive prints - as ALL Platters/Cakestands scratch films.
This is an urban legend which has become firmly established in the archive world. None of the major archives in Europe or the US will allow their viewing prints to be run on platters (specifically, it's cutting the heads and tails off which they actually ban). To be fair, the root of the problem is the fact that many poorly trained projectionists make up their prints using poor handling techniques, and therefore the process DOES inflict some dirt and scratching on the heads and tails. Of course it doesn't have to and with good film path cleaning, good equipment maintenance, a dust-free booth and good film handling, the use of a platter will not inflict any more wear and tear on a print than any other film transport system. The problem is that platters can be and sometimes are used purely as a labour-saving device, and the people who do this give everyone a bad name in the eyes of archive access officers.
One of them, who is responsible for print circulation for one of the big US public archives, summed it up when she told me that she didn't care what went on in the booth - in her experience prints which have been run on a platter come back damaged, and ones which weren't don't. The solution - insist that all prints are run as 2k reels with changeovers. We all know that the problem isn't platters vs. changeovers per se; it's the fact that any venue which runs changeovers is likely to be a specialist arthouse/rep venue and therefore, by definition, is likely to have projectionists with more advanced film handling skills than the average. Crucially, they're also more likely to actually care about the films they're showing. Another thing it's worth bearing in mind is that an archive print is not like one of 1,000 prints made for the first release of a new mainstream feature. The archive may have had to do serious fundraising in order to strike that one copy, and in the case of more unusual titles for which there is less demand, make difficult decisions about which title gets a viewing print and which doesn't. If that print gets trashed, they probably won't have the money to replace it any time soon.
At the AMIA conference a few years ago Katie Trainor organised a panel called 'To platter or not to platter?' at which all these issues came out and a good, erm, 'argument' was had by all! Not surprisingly, there was a huge gulf between the archivists in the room who had actually worked in a booth and those who hadn't.
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