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Author Topic: Worst Digital Projection EVER! Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-16-2011 11:01 PM                        Yeah, no a single employee over the age of 25 could be seen anywhere, and even then not more than four of them. The girl behind the concessions counter couldn't have been older than 16. Thing is, the place looked like a relatively new build. It was big and expansive, huge lobby and concession area. What I am now wondering is, what would a 3D picture possibly look when they've got such a horribly underlit 2D image! If the 2D is this dark, when they play a 3D title they'd better supply headphones so the patrons could hear a description of what is supposed to be happening on the screen.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-16-2011 11:24 PM                        We keep hearing about all the theatres being run by kids. I'm amazed that the big chains trust their multimillion dollar buildings in the hands of people who (if anyone ever bothered to look) don't know what they're doing. On the other hand, we've been to quite a few movies at chain theatres run by "kids" over the years and had a fine time. I guess the lesson is, stay away from the "chains" unless you can find one where the help really gives a crap -- or find a mom-n-pop operation where mom or pop is probably selling tickets and/or running the booth and has a financial stake in the operation, and thus has a compelling reason to keep things running right.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-16-2011 11:53 PM                     High school aged employees are not the biggest problem of commercial movie theaters. IMHO, the biggest problem is those "suits" sitting in the executive wings at global media companies.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 11-16-2011 11:54 PM                     Yet, have seen small operations that have excellent control methods where the kids are trained properly and are taught to care, which is the real key to all of this. This is how I began in this operation: a "mom and pop" drive-in whom the owner taught all of us how to care for things since everything in the building was valuable to the owner. Thus,when it came down to projection, I was shown a lot how to take care of the equipment and splicing, but expanded on the steps that I was shown where I did excel in "perfect presentations". You might say, that I showed great interest in his operation and I've carried these attributes to other venues that I've worked for - even to this present day. Definitely a smart bunch of young people that emerges out of these operations... -Monte  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 11-17-2011 01:37 AM                     When I worked at a Regal 11 years ago I was one of the oldest people there at the time. Of course much older people were pulling the strings of most of the younger people there.  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 11-17-2011 03:53 AM                        It's really not a question of the person's age, but the training they receive. While age does imply experience, age can also lead to a lifetime of bad habits. The problem I have is finding young people who display the attention to detail and technical skills to trust teaching them how to run projectors. And with digital, I find that a larger burden for maintenance and operation is falling on my shoulders. In part because I find it's often easier to do it myself than spend time trying to teach (yes, I know that's a very bad habit to fall into).  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 11-17-2011 10:21 AM                     Regarding young employees, some of the problems can point back to a failure in management. If the old guy thinks the young ones working under him are nothing but dummies that negative vibe can get across to those kids and create a really bad moral problem. A manager must be willing to delegate tasks, even challenging ones, to his employees and put some trust in them to get the work done. Obviously they'll need supervision, but eventually the manager's job will be easier since he won't have to fart with certain tasks any longer. He'll have more time to weed through the mountain of paper work the home office keeps sending. In a perfect world, a theater manager would only hire employees who really love movies and love the idea of working in a movie theater. In reality they get both good and bad employees. For high school age kids a theater can be a pretty good place to work, especially when considering many of the alternatives. Most would rather tear tickets than flip hamburgers. The manager kind of has to sell the employees on the place and convince them to care.  |  IP: Logged Matthew McBride Film Handler Posts: 97 From: Tupelo, MS USA Registered: Oct 2011 posted 11-17-2011 12:02 PM                     quote: Justin Hamaker The problem I have is finding young people who display the attention to detail and technical skills to trust teaching them how to run projectors. One of the theaters that I used work for seemed to have a pretty good handle on this. They first had an age requirement of 18 or older to work in the booth. Also they wouldn't put a new hire right into the booth unless that person has had previous booth experience. They made the employees work they're way up from usher to concessionist to box office. Then if they showed enough responsibility they would be trained in the booth, however in order for them to even work upstairs, after the training they were required to take a test. This helped a lot to keep the presentation really good. Of course though there were still flaws in such a setup. It got so bad one time that the management refused to let anyone make-up/break-down prints except for me and one other projectionist. But as you said Justin, with more and more digital projectors, it's more of a question of maintenance than operation which requires a slightly different type of technical ability than film projectors I suppose.  |  IP: Logged Jonathan Goeldner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1360 From: Washington, District of Columbia Registered: Jun 2008 posted 11-17-2011 03:09 PM                     Frank, it sounds like the presentation of J. Edgar was pretty bad, but not as bad as 'Immortals' first show of the day at AMC Tyson's Corner last Friday. The trailers started, froze up on the second one, then we the audience were subjected to watching the projectionist calibrate and position the dual projector's for what seemed like ten minutes - the movie started but the image was soft and displayed ghosting for the film first ten to fifteen minutes - the audience were getting antsy and quite a few of them got up to complain, the projectionist went back fiddled again while the movie was playing, the darkening of the image corrected this which I felt was unacceptable since it also diminished the 3D *pop* of the film. The ETX screen has been nothing but widely inconsistent, whereas I've never seen or had any fault with Cinemark XD screen over at the Egyptian 24.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-17-2011 03:56 PM                        Motion pictures on 35mm film in a theatre has come a long way since I first fell in love with it ever since I can remember and have seen it morph into Cinerama, dual projection Natural Vision 3-D, CinemaScope, Vistavision and the various 65mm formats. I too saw THE IMMORTALS last week in house #12 at Regal's Pearl Highland in Real D on their very large screen and the presentation was flawless. Like many of you who still prefer film instead of digital projection, I too will miss it when everything reverts to digital within two years but from the 2-D films I have see in the format, I love it very much. I saw FOOTLOOSE in digital a few weeks ago and I felt like I was watching the movie with a picture quality very similar to a good Blue Ray on a very large screen and fantastic sound. If Digital projection like the FOOTLOOSE presentation I have seen is the future of motion picture theatrical exhibition, bring it on. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-18-2011 07:47 PM                     "Digital" projection can look a whole lot worse than film ever looked. Just wait a couple more years. The upper managment-moron types running things don't care about ANYTHING but immediate corporate greed.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 11-18-2011 08:22 PM                     quote: Bruce Hansen can look a whole lot worse than film ever looked. Just wait a couple more years. ?? ... wonder how? Can't scratch the print, or do anything to the file content. Sound, can't get fubared up.. Bulbs have to be changed right on at warranty hours, thus very little chance of flickering, if any.... et.al.  |  IP: Logged Edward Havens Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 614 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Mar 2008 posted 11-18-2011 08:46 PM                     Randy, I think there is a subtle difference between a $10 cell phone and a $50,000 projection system.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-18-2011 08:52 PM                     quote: Bruce Hansen The upper managment-moron types running things don't care about ANYTHING but immediate corporate greed. I don't think it's that simple. I believe that when a business grows beyond a certain size, the economies of scale that come with size are overshadowed by the sheer overhead of keeping a company running. It's easy for central office management to lose touch with the satellite locations. The entire business, everything and everybody in it are reduced to little more than numbers on paper. The only common threads in a business like that are "the bottom line" and "how much people get paid." It is a very rare breed of manager who can operate a giant corporation without losing touch of the business's mission. I'd say that there are only a handful of people like that in the whole world. Businesses like AMC, Regal and Cinemark probably will never be able to attract that kind of talent. Yes, corporate greed has a lot to do with the problem but I think that people who are "simply greedy" are in the minority. I say it's more because your average theater manager is too stupid to think about his job in any other way. I think the solution is to have smaller theaters and more of them. Increase competition. Take scale out of the equation and force theater managers to compete in terms of quality and real customer satisfaction. If this doesn't happen, I bet digital movie theaters will end up being just as bad as people say traditional theaters were. Dumb ass managers will dream up new and creative ways to fuck up theaters. It's just a matter of time.  |  IP: Logged Ron Funderburg Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 814 From: Chickasha, Oklahoma, USA Registered: Nov 2007 posted 11-18-2011 08:56 PM                        Randy a bad manager can screw up a theater in a matter of few weeks! It might take a good manager months to undo those damages.  |  IP: Logged

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