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Topic: Union Projectionists picket Orinda Theatre (CA)
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 08-03-2009 12:42 PM
quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
IMHO all the present Locals need to look towards the Seattle Local as a model of existance if the rest of em are to survive. They have a number of locations for Landmark where the Projectionist was kept on rather than the theater manager.
I was gone before that happened, but I can say that they did have a training program in place during the mid '70s, when the vast majority of the town was still changeover, and both projection and sound service were unionized.
The training was broken up into several areas specific to the craft, with one or two of their senior projectionists teaching and/or evaluating the candidate's skill in that area. Once you performed to the satisfaction in one area, you'd be sent to a different theatre, where you'd start on another. In the end, you presented yourself at the Seattle Labor Temple, where you'd be given a box of parts and told to assemble and properly time a projector (I think it was a Super or an E-7). After that, they trotted out a piece of plywood with two changeover solenoids, a couple of pushbuttons, a power cord and a bunch of jumpers. They wanted to see if you were intelligent enough to wire the two solenoids in reverse. Seems simple, but it did make some look crosseyed. It was all a bunch of window dressing, but they felt they had to come up with something as a "final exam".
As for your ability to run a show: That had already been evaluated in several booths, with different machinery, lighting designs, curtain timings and operational philosophies as a result of having traveled around during your "training". Some of those booths you'd never see again unless you were very good or very lucky.
Back then, the program took 3 months to complete, during which you were not paid or assigned any shift on your own for any reason. On the other hand, once I got through it, I was double shifted just about continuously until I got my own booth.
So... yes. I'd also put Local 154 up there, as far as training is concerned.
My point in suggesting Brad wouldn't turn his program over was based more on his being very specific about his expectations and the fact that union training is pretty much a thing of the past.
I don't recall ANYONE at that level, being hair triggered about the changeover. The delay was understood, and taught... so was the fact that you had to allow for the different spin-up times you'd find if you weren't in the same booth every day. Funny, huh? You actually had to think .
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