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» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Operations   » Ground Level   » Theater treats kids expecting to see Chicken Little to the wrong movie (Page 5)

 
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Author Topic: Theater treats kids expecting to see Chicken Little to the wrong movie
Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-09-2005 07:30 PM      Profile for Randy Stankey   Email Randy Stankey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
At Cinemark where I used to work, there was a manager who thought he could save on payroll by having the projectionist come in an hour after the first shows started. *HE* would be the one to thread and start the first round of movies. The projectionist would come in only when the first round started dropping. He figured he could save the company, oh, $70.00 per week or so!

Well, on the VERY FIRST DAY of his new policy, he was supposed to show "Hercules" to a theater full of Moms and their kids. However, he didn't read the label on the print and ended up playing "American Pie"!! He didn't notice the problem until one of the Moms came out and reamed him a new one!

By that time everyone had been treated to the opening scene. You know... The one where the kid is spanking the monkey into an old gym sock while watching scrambled porno channels on TV!

I got to work just in time to help him figure out how to stop the projector, unthread the wrong film and rethread the correct one.

Needless to say, that new "Money-Saving Policy" only lasted one day! [evil]

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

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

- posted 11-09-2005 10:32 PM      Profile for Mark J. Marshall     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Wonder how much money he lost the company in re-admits (assuming he was decent enough to give them out) and a depleted customer base.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

- posted 11-09-2005 11:43 PM      Profile for Randy Stankey   Email Randy Stankey   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have always been O.C.D. about putting labels on prints. I always write the print title in 1" block letters on white tape and stick the label to the print.

A lot of people write the name of the movie in small letters but my policy is to put lables you can read from 10 feet away and in the dark.

Those prints of "American Pie" and "Hercules" were BOTH labeled with letters you could read from 10 feet way in the dark. There was no excuse!

It was on a Saturday morning when he did that. The place was full. At that time the policy was to give two passes to customers who were REALLY pissed off. He probably handed out over 100 passes that day!

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

- posted 11-10-2005 07:39 AM      Profile for Stephen Furley   Email Stephen Furley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Well, I'm finishing my proper job in a few minutes, and going off to do a projection shift; about 15 1/2 hours total today, 7:30 a.m. till midnight at the proper job on Tuesday. Wish me luck; I'll try to put the right films on. [Smile]

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Patrick Dunn
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 120
From: newark, DE, United states
Registered: Aug 2005

- posted 11-12-2005 07:03 PM      Profile for Patrick Dunn   Author's Homepage   Email Patrick Dunn   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I have not yet threaded the wrong print, but i came close last weekend when i had one playing than the other right after it. and once i came close to threading the rocky horror picture show because we usualy leave that on the bottom platter but somone forgot to put it back, but the good thing is i noticed it before i took the ring out.

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Allison Parsons
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 630
From: East Peoria, IL
Registered: Oct 2004

- posted 11-13-2005 01:00 AM      Profile for Allison Parsons   Author's Homepage   Email Allison Parsons   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I've threaded the wrong print before (caught it as soon as the previews started)
I've threaded soundtrack in before
I've forgotten to change the lens between splits before
I've forgotten to change the DTS disk after we previewed a print before
I've missed spliced trailer rings wrong before
I've done plenty of things wrong before and I'm not affraid to admit my past mistakes! [Smile] I'm hear to wave my "Yeah, I've done that before by mistake" flag! The phrase "You learn from your mistakes" has helped me quite a bit.

Have a let a movie run with the fail safe stuck in the up position? NO! That I can proudly say I have not.

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

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

- posted 11-13-2005 02:00 AM      Profile for Monte L Fullmer   Email Monte L Fullmer   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Allison Parsons
Have a let a movie run with the fail safe stuck in the up position? NO! That I can proudly say I have not.
.....yet..... [Wink]

There's always a first time for everything..trust me. You're young and you've got a whole world ahead of you still in this crazy business. It'll happen.

-Monte

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Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

- posted 11-13-2005 02:43 AM      Profile for Frank Angel   Author's Homepage   Email Frank Angel   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
One of the things running repertory and festivals where you have a dozen prints in the booth and you could be running a schedule of multiple titles in a single day, or when you run double bills and the order is switched in the middle of the day in order to get the "A" title run one more time than the "B" title, you get in the habit of checking the title against the schedule triple time. Rep guys have got to be as anal about not threating the wrong title as you automated guys have to be about never being out of frame.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

- posted 11-13-2005 05:26 AM      Profile for Stephen Furley   Email Stephen Furley   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Frank, I think you're right; you've posted almost what I was about to say. I'll typically have four to six prints in at a time, for a single screen, there will usually be two or three different films running during the day, four is not that uncommon; five is very unusual, but not unknown. There were four yesterday, a private hire on video in the morning, children's film in the early afternoon, and three shows with two different films alternating later in the day.

Almost all films will be on more than one spool. If the children's film is on 5x2ks, and three adult films are on 2x6ks, plus another print not running that day on 2x6k, plus the adverts and trailers on another spool, that could easily be 14 spools in the box at the time. Places doing festivals, or running everything on 2ks, or running separate sound could have far more than that. You just check everything very carefully; it wouldn't occur to you not to.

Now, I've never run DTS, but maybe one day I'll have to. I think it's quite possible that I'd forget to put the right discs in; it's just not something that I'm used to doing, so I could easily forget to check it. Maybe the guy that made this mistake is just not used to having more than one film in a screen at the same time. If they were working on platters he's probably only got a choice of two, but if that's one more than he normally has, maybe he just didn't think to check.

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Patrick Dunn
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 120
From: newark, DE, United states
Registered: Aug 2005

- posted 11-13-2005 06:19 PM      Profile for Patrick Dunn   Author's Homepage   Email Patrick Dunn   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
I'm only used to having one print on a platter system at a time except for the one theater we have the rocky horror picture show but we usually keep that on the bottom platter, and you can tell if your about to thread that up since the print is so old. but i know of 2 times that was threaded accidently but once you start that you know to shut it down right away.

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Daryl C. W. O'Shea
Film God

Posts: 3977
From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from)
Registered: Jun 2002

- posted 11-13-2005 09:01 PM      Profile for Daryl C. W. O'Shea   Author's Homepage   Email Daryl C. W. O'Shea   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Frank Angel
Rep guys have got to be as anal about not threating the wrong title as you automated guys have to be about never being out of frame.
So you never give it a thought?

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Alexander Smith
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 128
From: Walney Island, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria.
Registered: Jun 2003

- posted 11-14-2005 06:09 AM      Profile for Alexander Smith   Email Alexander Smith   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
Like my fellow FT'ers, I have threaded the wrong show on occasion. On rarer occasions I have even allowed that show to start. Rarer still is when the adverts and trailers have run through, and then stopping the show and changing it.

[ One of the stupid things that has happened is the wrong show has been threaded, but there are no viewers, and no need to interfere with it. Unless it will finish _after_ the next show is due to start. ]

One of the things I think is a good idea to have is a "Lace Up Checklist", because it forces the projectionist to query what show they are running.

We use something like this:

http://homepages.tesco.net/alx.smith/projection/LaceCheck_generic.pdf

It is in the folder of webspace where my projection pages are, but it isn't linked to from any page yet. Please help yourself to a copy of that check-list if you need it.

Alex.

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Martin Brooks
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

- posted 11-26-2005 04:51 PM      Profile for Martin Brooks   Author's Homepage   Email Martin Brooks   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Stephen LaPadula
Your right. The Empire does not have a Union Proj running around up there....they have 2 at all times, making more than $25.00 an hour.
$25 an hour is $52,000 a year assuming one gets paid for all days off. That's $35K after taxes. Unless you're a student living at home, you can't live very well in NYC on that wage. That may be decent money in some places in the country, but it's not really very good money in NYC. You can't pay a mortgage making that kind of money and there is barely any rental property left in NYC.

That doesn't excuse screwing up in the booth, but when you have only 1 (or even 2) projectionists for 25 screens, you can expect mistakes to happen. I'd be willing to bet the Empire 25 has at least 25 people at any given time behind the candy counters.

I attend the Empire 25 quite often. It's not perfect and some screens are far better than others, but the quality of projection has generally been quite good. I have never experienced a major screw-up there.

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Mark J. Marshall
Film God

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

- posted 11-27-2005 12:19 AM      Profile for Mark J. Marshall     Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
It'll allow you to live at least twice as well as non-union projectionists.

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Steve Scott
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1300
From: Minneapolis, MN
Registered: Sep 2000

- posted 11-27-2005 03:34 AM      Profile for Steve Scott   Email Steve Scott   Send New Private Message       Edit/Delete Post 
quote: Allison Parsons
If you had Chicken Little in one theater, and the theater across from it had Saw 2(mind you, when you walk out of Chicken Litttle's theater, you can see in the port window of Saw 2's theater)...Do you black out Saw 2's windows just for the sake of possibly the kiddies seeing something that they shouldn't
I suppose if you had really bad lamp wash/ reflectivity from the opposing house, then, yeah... But honestly, this sounds like an urban (or suburban..?) legend that gets dug up every so often to try to (indirectly) take hollywood down a notch. It's the same attempted offense as a patron complaining about the movies you make at your theater.

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