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Topic: Who the HECK are you??
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Don Bruechert
Mmmmmmmmm, bird!
Posts: 340
From: Manitowoc, WI, USA
Registered: Jan 2003
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posted 02-07-2003 08:59 AM
Hi, my name is Don Bruechert and I work for the Strand Cinemas in Manitowoc WI as a shift manager/projectionist (all projectionists are managers - all managers are projectionists). I got started in "real" film tech in October as a favor to a friend in need and am finding that I enjoy the work and it has its own share of challenges (and stress!). I did projector setup from 5th grade all the way on up through high school, but it was nothing like this, and that was 20 years ago! I was gifted with about 3 weeks of so-called training and then had my first "official" shift during the opening weekend of Harry Potter - oh joy! My goals are to get some kind of regular maintenance going on our equipment, dramatically improve our presentation and film handling, and generally just do a good job for the customers. I am not ready to give up my opaque splicing tape yet tho, and we use white paint pens from wal-mart instead of shoe polish (he says, as he ducks from the rotten tomatoes thrown his way....). I'm also working on the masking tape thing, but that's what I was taught and it is really hard breaking out of a habit when its 130 AM and you have to be up to go to your day job in 4 hours - we're working on it though. I have no idea what the zebra tape is that you guys hate so much, but I suspect it is the stuff we are using right now to wean ourselves off of the opaque tape - it is clear tape but has a yellow line where the splice usually lives and one across the top and bottom like a big "H".
When I'm not doing that, I'm either working at one of my other 2 or 3 jobs or sleeping. I work for the local hospital and do most of the telecom stuff and some of the IT stuff, along with project management and engineering. I also work for the local Civic Centre doing theatrical tech - sound, lighting and other stagecraft work, and dabble in various website design and web management tasks.
OK, this is long enough....
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 02-07-2003 01:07 PM
Here's info from my company bio:
John Pytlak has spent his entire 33-year career at Kodak working on motion-picture product development and customer technical service. John has an electronic engineering degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, graduating in 1970. But his “reel” education in film began as a projectionist at several “hardtops” and drive-in theatres around Buffalo, NY, working his way through school.
Over the years, John has worked on a wide variety of projects at Kodak to help improve the quality of the prints theatres receive, and to help theatres put all that quality on the screen. These include the development of the Laboratory Aim Density (LAD) control method, Particle Transfer Roller (PTR) film cleaners, and new Kodak print films having scratch-resistant anti-static backings. Recent projects to Enhance the Theatre Experience include developing the specifications for the Kodak ScreenCheck Experience, and working on significant improvements in projection technology. Since 1994, John has written “Pytlak’s Practical Projection Pointers” for Kodak’s quarterly publications “Film Notes for Reel People” and “Cinema Notes”, answering technical questions from exhibitors and projectionists, and helping them improve presentation quality. He is also active helping theatres via the INTERNET, participating in user groups like http://www.film-tech.com and http://www.bigscreenbiz.com .
An active member of the SMPTE since 1970, John was elected a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) in 1983, and has served on SMPTE Theatrical Projection Technology Committee since 1979, including eight years as Chair of the committee. John is also an active member of the NATO Blue Ribbon Committee, a member of the British Kinematograph, Sound and Television Society (BKSTS), and Convenor of the Projection Technology Committee of ISO/TC36 (International Standards Organization).
John’s active participation on the Inter-Society Committee for the Enhancement of Theatrical Presentation since 1979 includes the thorough study of the causes of print damage, the SMPTE Theatre Quality Evaluation Program, and a comprehensive report on the conversion from triacetate to polyester film base. On March 6, 2002 at the ShoWest theatre owners convention, John became President of the Inter-Society Committee, after serving two years as Secretary-Treasurer.
On March 3, 2001, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a Technical Achievement Award (Certificate) honored John for his work in developing the Laboratory Aim Density (LAD) System. The LAD system has become the standard method used by film laboratories and digital film recording facilities for the efficient and uniform control of color in camera negatives, inter-positives, and duplicate negatives.
Kodak's Particle Transfer Roller (PTR) film cleaning technology has won the 2003 EPA Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award, which will be presented at the Earth Technologies Forum in Washington D.C. on April 22, 2003.
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Phil Hill
I love my cootie bug
Posts: 7595
From: Hollywood, CA USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 02-11-2003 04:20 AM
When I was 19 and looking for a way to pay for college and since I loved film and was a SCUBA and Motorcycle freak, I produced and filmed many underwater and X-treme sports films that aired on local and national TV. Mostly MotoX since I was into dirt bikes big time. I still have much of my original 16mm diving and race stuff! I also filmed 35mm occasionally for commercials and feature films whenever I could weasel my way in to a show!
After High School and in my 4th year of college, I was "drafted" and rather than ducking my responsibility and running to Canada, for 3 years I was a sergeant in the US Army Signal Corps. My tour of MOS's was a RF, Microwave, and TV maintenance technician...or better known as a grunt #071684. I flew around Vietnam everyday in a Huey UH-1 helicopter for 19 months being dropped on hostile mountain-tops to set up and/or restore microwave communications. After being shot at, wounded a couple of times, and blown-up by mortars I finally was discharged with a Purple Heart and a Bronze-Star for meritorious service. I then went back to work at WXYZ-TV/ABC-TV in Detroit Michigan as a newsreel film-lab technician. A job I had before my military service. I then went on to a 16mm newsreel cameraman. Yea!, Auricon's, Frezzolini conversions, and CP-16's!
In 1974, I got married and moved to Los Angeles to accept a job at Panavision where I was an electronic project engineer for the 35mm Panaflex motion-picture camera and other projects.
I was the 1st guy to commercially marry a video camera to a film camera for "instant" playback of a "take". There was a horrendous union fight at that time over who had jurisdiction. The film guys thought it was their jurisdiction, and since it was video and 3/4" video tape, the video guys thought they should control it.
I also developed and designed a video system to use a Panaflex camera to film at the standard 24 fps a video monitor without the sync bar showing up or flickering in the film image. This was a breakthrough as the current method at that time was to do a very costly conversion of any video to be filmed in a scene to 24fps/48field video as Universal Studios was doing. That process took specially modified VTRs, monitors and other equipment to sync to the odd-ball 24fps video. I was at Panavision for 5 years.
I then moved on the Continental Camera Systems/Astrovision where I designed electromechanical, gyro and image-stabilizing, and optical systems for filming from moving helicopters and Lear jets. I have flown in many Helicopters and Lear Jets while filming scenes for some of the most famous movies of the 80's. I also was the 1st person to develop a "Frameline Generator" which would super-impose safe-area filming frame-lines on the video tap image so the cameraman and director can remotely see the film frame in the proper aspect ratio. It is now a common thing.
I also developed all the electronics for a remote pan and tilt camera head that would mimic the mechanical movements of pan and tilt rotary handles like the smooth movement of a Worrall gear head...all controlled by electronics and servo motors with tactical feedback...it was like one was using the mechanical head but controlled over wires. Today these are commonly used for remote crane shots, like at the Academy Awards, rock videos, sporting events, Christmas and other parades where the camera must be extended a long distance from the operator and/or get unique shots. I was there for 7 years.
After that stint, I moved on to Iwerks Entertainment where I was an engineer, then Chief Engineer and lastly for 5 years, V.P. of Engineering and Technology. I was there for 14 years before a corporate take-over and I got tired of all the new COO's games and bull-shit. I finally told them to go and shove it up their loop-chute and left.
Note: Don Iwerks, the founder of "Iwerks Entertainment", the long-time Disney mechanical engineering wiz who invented many of the technologies we still use today in the film industry, the son of Ubb Iwerks (who invented, 1st penned and animated "Mickey Mouse"), and my great personal friend, was no longer involved with the company at that time. To this day, he and I see one-another socially and for lunch frequently.
While I was at Iwerks, I was responsible for, and designed all the large-format theaters and motion simulators, hardware, and software of the Iwerks 2D and 3D 435, 835, 570, 870, 1570, and HD video projection, audio, and show-control systems as well as all the budgets, specifications, contracts, and proof-of-performance tests. Whew! Many of my audio system designs have over 30kW of raw audio power on 7 or more channels. (I like to feel the sound) In short, it was my ass to make it all work! I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge! It was a blast!
I also refined and designed the simulator product known as "Turbo Tour" and the hydraulic servos, control, and safety interlock systems for many other much larger simulator rides. There are over 1200 of the "turbo" motion bases in service world-wide. My theatre and system designs are in over 250 venues all over the world as well as the US and include Magic Mountain, Disney parks, Universal Studios, etc. I specified and oversaw the design and installation of the 3D projection for Terminator 3D at the Universal venues worldwide as well as many other venues.
Since my exit at Iwerks, I have been trying to catch up on the things I've been wanting to do for years. You know, the stuff you collect saying, "some day I will get to that." Well, I FINALLY realized that "someday" is now!! ...before I croak! It is long past time that I "smell the roses"! I'm tired of the "fast-lane"! While it was fun all those years, I have moved past that cut-throat crap to things that I consider more important to me now and I don't have to do it any longer.
I'm not bored or burned-out, I just don't have any desire to get back in the rat-race! I will do it at MY choice, not some idiot boss! Been there, done that! Plus, I rather piss Brad off now with my posts here! You know, just to keep him from being bored and give him something to do. I do like to "stir the pot" to make people think about other points of view whether I agree with them of not!
My hobbies and passions are restoring vacuum-tube stuff, audio amps, BIG transmitters, and ham-radio receivers/transmitters, and old SW radios, jukeboxes, and pinball machines. Oh, and of course, collecting and projecting 35mm films! While I have built my home theatre and the booth... did all the construction, wiring, and so on, I still have not completed it. I still need to paint, tile the floor, and install all the cool equipment! Yeah, some day soon... I hope!
I have current-model Simplex PR-1014 projectors with 5-star sound heads with reverse red LED analog and Dolby digital scanners, Strong Super-LumeX lamphouses with switching power supplies, CP-500, CP200 with mag preamps, DTS-6D and readers, plus tons of accessories, splicers, reels, rewinds, etc. ALL in Storage! Oh, and of course...films. Ummm, way too many films! DAMN!
I love to design and build high-power vacuum-tube transmitters and audio amplifiers. When I was in my mid-teens, in my spare time when I wasn't having sex with myself or others, I built a lot of home-brew equipment.
I got my ham general-class ticket back when I was 13 and my commercial 1st phone w/radar when I was 16. My 1st "official" radio job was a transmitter man at WJBK, a 50kW AM 6-tower directional radio station in Detroit when I was 19.
My buddies and me used to see who could stand the most RF by walking our fingers up the antenna tower base-loading coil to see how much "heat" we could stand! GOD!!!! We stupit at 19...huh?!!!! But we had fun! Hahhahahahaha
I then went on to be that "Sunday-Night-DJ" at WPON AM in Pontiac Michigan and played "vinyl records" and yakked live for 4 hours a week giving the weather, the news, commercials, and my feelings...8pm 'til midnight! Sunday mornings, I went to different area churches and recorded the holy-roller "pastor" spiels for playback an hour before my live show. The xmtr was remotely located from the studio and the xmtr guy and I would have races to see who could kill the transmitter 1st at the end of the day after the national anthem was played. I "won", since one time, I cut the power at the beginning of the NA. Ummmm, that was the last show I did for them! What a bunch of "Sticks-In-The-Mud" jerks! They just could NOT take humor! HAhahaha
I also have built several Tesla coils including one that uses a power-company pole transformer connected backwards to power a coil that would throw a 14 ft arc! GOD! I sure am lucky that I didn't kill myself with some of the "experiments" I would concoct.
Sometime I'll have to write about the "Electric Chair" myself and my "evil" friend built! HAhahahaha
My parents sure put up with a lot, huh? But, I was a "good kid" ...honest!
Updated: 9/25/03
Updated: 11/12/03 To remove the edits one the those damn moderators added at some unknown point!
>>> Phil
[ 11-12-2003, 05:27 PM: Message edited by: Phil Hill ]
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Phil Hill
I love my cootie bug
Posts: 7595
From: Hollywood, CA USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 02-12-2003 10:51 PM
Bob: 84???? Gosh, that makes me 2 years younger than my dad & mom. I don't think I was conceived or born out of wedlock?..but then again at that time, I was too young to remember. Hmmmmm, Wow! It must be one of those medical miracles!
Seriously, I really love and appreciate my folks. They have put up with so many of my shenanigans and have unconditionally supported me so much over the years. I grew-up in Walled Lake, Michigan and I even have to commend the fire department for saving my parents house the time I set it on fire. I didn't think that Tesla coil would arc **THAT** f*cking far!
One night when I was 17, we had a tornado that knocked over a bunch of HV power poles. My best buddy and I went "scavenging" and "appropriated" some HV insulators and a 14.4kV-to-240VCT/5kVA pole transformer which I used in that Tesla coil. Unfortunately, the transformer was destroyed in the above-mentioned fire. However, I still have one of the petticoat insulators that I have been using for a door stop. And for another door-stop. I use a humongous 4CX5000A silver-finned, external-radiator vacuum tube that was used in the RF amplifier for a 141kW ERP FM stereo broadcast station I worked at while I was in college. I used to like to turn off and on the 19kHz stereo pilot in between the records I was playing. The effect was to blink everyone's "STEREO" light/indicator on and off in the 4-state area we covered. God forgive me, oh, and the FCC but, I used to blink them on and off in Morse code sending Ummmmmm? "sex" messages! HAhahahahaha. You would not believe the phone calls I used to get. God! It WAS soooo funny! Ahhhh, to be young and "learning" the ways of the world. I was such a pistol!!!!
Somebody asked me in email what I have been doing lately in a professional sense. Well really nothing spectacular... just sorta advising friends about different issues both technical and otherwise. I'm not really financially too worried at this time. I've done a lot and got a lot.
I have been devoting a lot of my spare time to helping the Hollywood street-kids. Mostly gay kids 13 to 20 that sell themselves sexually to survive. Over the last 20+ years, I have financially supported them in many ways. No, NO, NO, Bob!!!!! NOT *THAT* way!!! But with, motel room vouchers, meal tickets, outright cash, and airline tickets back home for those that want it, etc. Lately, I have been going out on the streets and talking with them. It's really dangerous, but at the same time very, very sad how many young people are considered disposable and "thow-aways". I find the most dangerous ones to be about the 18 and up group. They are very street-wise and are used to being taken advantage of, beaten-up, fighting to survive, and living on the street. But they need help too. Oh, well, I'll get off my soapbox!
Updated: 9/25/03
Updated: 11/12/03. Again for the Moderator's modifications!
>>> Phil
[ 11-12-2003, 05:33 PM: Message edited by: Phil Hill ]
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