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Topic: Do you always run a test screening?

Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 10-03-2010 02:33 PM

quote: Mike Blakesley
Hard drives come with a letter asking you to fax it back, call, or e-mail the depot saying your content was ingested and/or test-screened. Do you respond to those?

No response at all is needed and none is provided.

Let me put it to you in different terms. Do you call in to say "hey I spliced all 6 reels of the print together, test screened it and didn't have any misframes"?

No you don't. At least with film there are many ways to screw up the assembly of a print. With digital, its not like you can get the reels out of order.

If you get a defective reel or a reel is missing from the movie...do you say nothing about it because nobody from the studio called you and asked you? Hell no! You alert them when there is a problem and then they resolve it.

I find their treatment with digital insulting and I refuse to reply. We are smart enough to let them know if there is a problem. Theaters have ran for 100 years this way and there have been no real issues other than prints (or hard drives) arriving the day prior to a show, as when issues DO arise, one day prior isn't enough time to secure a replacement.

The whole "Mr. Studio, we here at Deluxe (or insert other company name here) want to sell you something that you don't need...a slew of our staff that will make annoying phone calls and help to kill the trees by creating a ton of useless paperwork...but you have to trust us, with digital you must do this! Its how digital works!!!" ...followed by lots of scare tactics to help them to sell their completely unnecessary service.

And of course the people at the studios deciding to pay for said telephone harassment aren't even smart enough to realize they are being taken to the bank. [Roll Eyes]

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Mark Hajducki
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

posted 10-03-2010 04:24 PM

quote: Brad Miller
a slew of our staff that will make annoying phone calls

They do seem to have great skill in finding the least convenient time to phone

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 10-03-2010 04:56 PM

Not only that, but Cinedigm has resorted to blocking their caller ID, probably because so many people got fed up with the ridiculous calls they were ignoring them.

To give you an idea, and this isn't Cinedigm specifically it is pretty much everyone (the only exception being Technicolor, who generally hires people who can read).

"Hello is this the manager?"

(I already know who this is by their opening line.) "Is this an emergency call?"

"Ummm, is this the manager?"

"Sure, we'll play it your way. Yes this is the manager. Please clue me in and tell me what theater you are calling about?"

"So are you the manager?"

"YES. As far as you are concerned, yes. What theater are you calling about?"

"Oh, well this is <insert dumbbutt's name here> from <Deluxe/Cinedigm/etc> and I am calling about your theater."

"I handle a lot of different theaters. WHICH theater please?"

"Ummm, the <chain name>."

"That doesn't help sir/maam. I handle ALL screens for that entire chain. WHICH specific theater?"

"Oh, the <chain name> 8."

"That doesn't help either. That chain has more than one 8 screen complex. Which exact specific complete theater name please?"

"Ummm, the one in <town>."

"There is more than one 8 screen theater in <town> run by that company that I oversee. What is the NAME of the theater, and not the chain name please?"

"Ummmm, well, ummmm..."

"Just give me the address of the location you are calling about."

"Oh, ummmmm, 12345 Sample Street"

"Ok thank you, FINALLY now I know what location you are calling about. Now back to my original question, is this an emergency call?"

"No, we just need to verify you built your playlist and quality checked <movie name>."

"Well lets see, first if you will read your notes it clearly says in there that this phone number is for emergencies only. Do you see that?"

"Yes"

"Ok great. Second, we are not morons. We have been building playlists for a long time now. We know how to do it and we would have called if the content or keys did not arrive or if we had problems ingesting it, just as we have done for many years before digital existed if we needed a replacement 35mm film reel."

"So then you have check screened the movie?"

"I didn't say that, but more importantly lets please go back to the first point again. Is this an emergency call?"

"I don't understand."

"Will the world explode if you don't find out if we screened this movie?"

"Well, no."

"Exactly and thus, this is NOT an emergency call."

"Ok, sorry for the confusion it won't happen again."

"That is incorrect sir. This happens many times every week and I am told that same thing every week."

"Ok, so did you check screen the movie?"

"Did you read your notes for this account?"

"Yes I just did."

"Apparently you did not read ALL of your notes, did you?"

"I don't understand."

"I know you don't. Perhaps if you could keep reading the notes just a bit more please, you would see that it says to email any non-emergency questions and not to call for these sort of things."

"Oh yeah, I see that here."

"Good, then we're done."

"Ok, sorry about that confusion. So did you check screen this movie?"

"If I tell you then you won't learn, now will you?"

"Ummmmmm"

"Thank you for your time."

Then of course its time for the email.

quote:

We are emailing you to verify that you have successfully quality check screened <movie name> content for your engagement.

quote:

If you would continue to read your notes, you would see it also states clearly that this chain does not permit the check screening of any content. Thank you.

Seriously, this isn't an exaggeration. Not all of the phone calls are this bad, but there have been a few. All this industry needs are knowledgeable people to answer the phones and resolve legitimate issues. Nobody needs an army of people making completely useless calls and wasting everyone's time. I have been forced to take this stance because of the barrage of unnecessary calls. First they want to know if you received the hard drive (even though they have tracking information showing we did). Then they want to know if we have ingested it. Did we build the playlist ok? How about the keys? Now that they have sent out keys, did we ingest them? What about the check screening. Has it been done yet? When is it scheduled so we can call you back and annoy you some more? Oh and lets not forget the call AN HOUR INTO THE FIRST SHOW to see if the movie is playing!

I repeat, WE ARE NOT MORONS!

It really does say something about the lack of projectionists and the current quality of manager's in the average theater though. It MUST be a widespread problem for them to go to so much effort to babysit the digital theaters like this.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 10-03-2010 09:29 PM

..bet all of those calls originated from India and are reading a script that a MORON, who doesn't know what is going on, and/or doesn't know anything about the industry, wrote for the callers to read and the instructions/questions on the list has to be read in order - no exceptions.

... so the poor idiot on the end of the call gets paid per each call made, or quantity of calls made per shift.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 10-03-2010 11:07 PM

Actually, I don't think they are calling from India, and I don't think they are morons themselves. I'll bet a dollar their software they are working off of sucks. For example, there should be automatic flags not to even bother calling in certain situations (for example, if a theater has a company policy not to pre-screen, then don't ask).

When there has been a legitimate problem, all of the groups have been acceptably quick to resolve the issue. The problem is some suit has convinced the studios that they need this level of "service" to ensure their movies have uptime. Ummmm, no.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 10-03-2010 11:21 PM

quote: Brad Miller
that they need this level of "service" to ensure their movies have uptime

...Dang, looks like a monopoly of sorts then where the buck rules supreme and using this digital as the "crutch".

Like I heard that the Sony 4K units with their "media block", built-in server don't even have a "rewind" function so the operator can't restart the show for the studios are afraid that revenue is lost due to this practice..

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Manny Montes
Master Film Handler

Posts: 270
From: United States
Registered: Feb 2010

posted 10-04-2010 03:53 AM

it doesn't have a "rewind" per say, but it does have a "restart" and you can enter a timecode to seek back to.

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Todd McCracken
Master Film Handler

Posts: 263
From: Northridge, CA, USA
Registered: Mar 2008

posted 10-04-2010 05:48 PM

Gosh Brad, tell us how you really feel (Don't worry we already know)

Are we morons? Nope.

Are we contractually bound to follow up on distributions, yes.

Don't worry, there are things coming soon down the pipe that will change much of this for the better.

But I have said too much, they may kill me if a say any more [Razz]

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Brad Miller
Administrator

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

posted 10-05-2010 12:23 AM

quote: Todd McCracken
Are we morons? Nope.

All of you? No of course not. The ones that can't read? Yup!

quote: Todd McCracken
Are we contractually bound to follow up on distributions, yes.

I get that and don't fault any of the callers (except those that can't read). My beef is with the greedy a-hole that sold this unnecessary "service" to the studios in the first place. Tell me WHY this "service" is not needed for 35mm prints. Really, I want to know.

quote: Todd McCracken
Don't worry, there are things coming soon down the pipe that will change much of this for the better.

You mean things such as...

*Send KEYS to the kdm email address and send CORRESPONDENCE EMAILS to the correspondence email address??? Yes, that would be nice.

*Flag accounts with policies of no screenings not to bother calling to ask "have you screened this movie yet? I can't read my notes that clearly state you don't do that, so did you? Huh? Huh???"

*Be able to give the FULL theater name when calling to identify what location we are talking about.

*Give a little credit when the security screening is halfway over and not bother calling to ask "hi I am just wondering if your screening is running. It was scheduled to start an hour ago and we thought you guys might be such idiots that you couldn't get it running and just cancelled the show." (Yes that is my wording and not a direct quote, but you get the idea.)

*Actually include the credit offsets with the kdms? Oh now THERE's an idea I've only begged for dozens of times!

*Oh and here's an even better one. How about actually providing PROPER credit offsets and not when the director who is in love with himself decides the lights should rise? I'm dreaming, yes I know. What? That old lady broke her leg trying to get out of the theater when the credits started rolling because she couldn't see? Oh well, at least the lights stayed off for the stupid director. Screw the insurance policy anyway! That lady deserves to suffer.

*NOT package a hard drive in a freebie UPS overnight box and expect it to work after UPS tosses it around and drop kicks it several times? (I believe Resident Evil comes to mind.)

*Actually use USB sticks that can only fit into the slot one way rather than those piece of shit Corsair Voyager Mini USB drives!!! [Mad]

*Oh and before I forget, get rid of the antique USB-only drives, PLEASE!!!

Ok, ok, ok I'll stop. I just have a low tolerance for illogical actions. There is no reason for any of the above to be happening. Please help us out Todd. You can make a difference, right? [Wink]

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