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Well, it's time once again to say I'm glad I'm Wetired Fwom this Cwazy Bitzness, but in my day...

We very rarely had a breakdown, but when we did the manager would come rushing up to the booth, which is understandable, but he/she/it would have to be told, as politely as possible, "Well, I can talk to you, or I can fix this, but I can't do both at the same time!"

We had the authority to kick a manager out of the booth if necessary.

Booths were off limits to all but projectionists. They were secured areas, and only projectionists had keys. Visitors were not allowed unless we said OK. Booths has a private phone line in addition to the theatre's lines.

For further emphasis, we were paid considerably more than most managers, most of whom came and went faster than we could keep track. Their authority was generally limited to such weighty matters as determining how much popcorn needed to be ordered for next week.

While the old man was not wildly enthusiastic about the union, he was astute enough to know there were more brains up there [as a rule] than down on the floor, and we were on a first-name basis.

Think about this, folks, and realize how much things have changed... for the worse.

Did I thread out of frame when I was a beginner? Yeah.

Do I make other mistakes? Sure.

Do those mistakes involve threading a projector out of frame? Hell no.

I have never had the experiences with matting that Joe describes above. Not once. Once they were locked, they never needed to be adjusted. And we screened every single print to go in and out of the place. Remember that we were a multiplex with typical movies going in and out. The only aspect ratios we had were 2.39 and 1.85. The equipment was properly aligned. Art houses have many more aspects to choose from, since moviemakers around the world shoot in whatever format is closest to their reach at the time (standards anybody?)

Since your retirement from the biz, many things have improved. One of them is printing. "Scent of a Woman" was the last film printed with wandering matting from reel to reel that I am aware of. That was back in 1992. I have not seen a single instance since then and like Joe R. said above, threading in frame is NOT a problem. Locking the framing controls is one of the BEST things that I see in a well run booth. Even the minimum wage "candy counter" kids have no problem threading in frame every single time.

Things do change over time, indeed. I am not going to get into a discussion as to whether union operators are better than non-union because some of them are and some of them are not, but if the candy counter kids can thread in frame all of the time yet back in "the day" there were problems threading in frame, what does that say about those projectionists back then with the threading in-frame handicap?

Today with platters and automation the booths are kept in better and cleaner condition. Today framing the projectoe is monor compared to missing a changeover.

The union in NYC was father/son and unless you were a close relatives you could not get in the union.

Well the unions did themselves in. In many of the theatres that were built with platters and automation the first managers were the business agents of the union's that we would call upon as we would come into a new area.

The first theatre I put in with a platter and automation was in 1966 in Bartow, Florida and I hired a union business agent as manager and this continued well into the early eighties.

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<flame mode on>

Of all the various problems with unions, this attitude was undoubtedly the most galling to me. Yes, there can be managers and employees that are uneducated and total jerks, but I've also seen my share of coffee swilling, dirty t-shirted, stackers of Playboy that called themselves the greatest thing to exhibition since sound, while the kid on the floor working his way through college and simultaniously studying Shakespere and Kant was looked upon by them with disdain.

The fact that union employees were covered by a collective bargaining agreement gave many of them the idea that they didn't need to improve their skills or try to excel beyond the minimum required. Many felt (or knew for a fact) that they couldn't be fired, no matter how outrageous their behavior, and that staying cronies with the local rep and getting a picture on-screen was all that was required to do a great job, all hail the brotherhood.

It bothers me when you state that the greatest decision that a manager had to do was figure out how much popcorn to order. Statements like that show as much or more of an ignorance of the big picture as that of a manager not knowing anything about the booth, which, btw, was usually not the manager's fault, but was a common ploy of the unions to keep from being held accountable for sloppy presentation, sloppy booths, and sloppy attitudes.

I'm of the opinion that unions are a good thing, *when union leadership doesn't degenerate into nepotism and fear of using fines or discipline because of the possibility of upsetting the brothers*.

There are plenty of unions where union pride is well deserved, and the union has served a vital function in improving safety in the workplace and providing for pensions and other valuable social benefits. I'd place most local IATSEs at the bottom of this list though. Instead of demanding better working conditions like air conditioning in booths, the locals demanded petty rules like ushers carry the film cans to the top of the booth stairs. Instead of working to establish minimum standards for presentation that all members had to abide by, they demanded radios and tvs be allowed in the booths. Instead of requiring booths to be clean, safe and orderly workplace environments, like any union worth its salt, the locals demanded that owners leave recliners found by members at the dump in the booths, so that those union members could nap on the job.

I had the distinct displeasure of going into many booths after the union was removed, and have had to cleanup and throw things out to get things back up to the minimum standards I'd expect in a janitor's closet. Bits of toast, smeared food, roaches, recliner chairs with holes and mice, broken tvs, Field and Stream collections, lockers chock full of broken and unusable parts mixed with pornography sometimes dating back to the 1940s, walls, floors and equipment all covered with grease and grime so deep that the first method of cleaning was sometimes a putty knife. This was the often the final result of allowing those fabulous secured areas, where only projectionists had keys.

I'm not saying that you personally did any of this, or even that any one union local did all of this, but it _is_ a fair and accurate representation of many union locals, and those attitudes and practices were a primary reason for many of those locals and their members being considered persona-non-grata, and told to get their filthy dirty shirt the f--- off the floor and back up in the hole.

<rant mode off>

When you admit that managers were underpaid and follow it up with "Think about this, folks, and realize how much things have changed... for the worse." because the union attitudes of "I've got more brains than you" are no longer allowed, I think you have things mixed up.

A theatre is a place that requires a lot of skills to operate properly. It isn't turned into a place that people want to visit by any one individual. It takes the dreamer, the banker, the architect, the manager, the projectionist, the cashier, the concessionist, the janitor, and all those people that provide the films. The narcisisstic attitude of many union members was totally outrageous and out of place. The industry is better off without them, and I for one say good-riddance. I do regret that the few competent projectionists who weren't able to find work in tech support are gone, and I regret that the fear of a repeat of the union has driven many theatres to not using a dedicated professional as a projectionist, but I see this as a problem that was obliquely CAUSED by the unions, more than one that exists because the unions are gone.

So, in closing, I have to add to the list of things that annoy me in the booth:

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After the show I went up to the booth and asked why the movie wasn't in DTS. They told me, "It IS in DTS..." I told them that I had been in the audience and I saw that it wasn't playing. The answer was, "Oh... Umm... the player isn't working..." I said, "Let's take a look at her. I'll fix 'er up for you."

I turned it on and there weren't any disks inside. I went and got the disks, (which were laying on top of another projector), and put them in. It fired right up. No problems. I told them, "It works a lot better when the disks are in the player..."

.....Which leads me to yet ANOTHER pet peave. There are three, and only three places where a DTS disk ought to be:

1. In the player.
   
2. In the can.
   
3. In your hand, being taken from one of the above places to the other.
   

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~slide projectors

~overhead lighting that is so bright that it becomes a distraction in the auditoriums
~operator that is afraid of the dark and turns on far too many bright overhead lights

~people that sneak up behind a projectionist, startling them on purpose

~lack of: suspended ceiling; tile on the floor; employee restroom, or even running water…

~operator that assumes he knows more about how to run a booth that I do because he's had experience as something of a sound technician, plus playing around with a bunch of AV equipment while he was in college, and he's now been working in a projection booth for about 8 months; whereas I've only been working in the cinema business for over four years, with 3 years & 8 months experience in a few different projection booths

~vague log book entries intended to keep someone from looking like an ass
~log book entries made by an operator to basically chew out the head projectionist
~log book entries that border on being unprofessional

~76dB ambient noise level, making it damn near impossible to hear the cheap walkie-talkies…

…I've had an aggravating few weeks recently…