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Author Topic: NPR "The Waning Art of the Projectionist" Buck Wilson Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 894 From: St. Joseph MO, USA Registered: Sep 2010 posted 11-13-2012 03:48 PM                     Thoroughly enjoyed this thread and those pictures. Would rather be there though!  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 11-13-2012 05:54 PM                        quote: Gerard Joe, you complain that most of the gallery pictures show the projectionists just sitting. But for my first decade as operator (1970-1980) most of my time in 3-projector, single screen booths was coping with boredom, and even in my latter years (I retired in 1994) when working singles. ... So I feel showing projectionists in repose captures one essential aspect of life as it used to be lived by some projectionists. The problem is that most of the people in the pictures are just sitting there, staring at nothing. One guy is even sitting in a lounge chair with a TV remote. Another guy is staring at the ceiling. Then there is an assistant manager squatting for whatever reason. And a girl hiding underneath a workbench. Another girl sitting in the middle of the booth for no reason or purpose. Another guy is staring at the floor. None of these pictures I just listed reflects any sane booth employee. The photographer pretty much sucks. But I'm sure he thinks it is "art". The only ones he does somewhat decently on are where the people are actually working with film or equipment. That's far more interesting that seeing someone staring at the ceiling or hiding under a workbench.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-13-2012 05:59 PM                        You've never met an operator who spends most of his shift watching TV while sitting in a lounge chair? (OK, that's not really "sane" for anyone who wants to keep the job (unless he is screening something on video and watching it on the monitor in the booth), but it happens all the time.) I'll give you that the girl sitting under the rewind table makes no sense. Although the guy staring at the floor does. Haven't you ever been bored out of your mind at the end of a shift (when all of the reading material that you brought has been exhausted) and eager to go home and go to bed? Although that picture would have made more sense if there had been film running on the projector.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-13-2012 08:18 PM                        The girl sitting under the bench, I thought maybe her dad was the projectionist and it was "Take Your Daughter to Work Day."  |  IP: Logged Graham Ritchie Film Handler Posts: 54 From: Christchurch, New Zealand Registered: Apr 2009 posted 11-13-2012 10:34 PM                     Interesting, although I am totally lost as what the meaning of the photo of the girl sitting under the bench is all about. Quote. "For years Holmes has photographed the places where people are most productive", hu.... they dont look very productive to me. Its a pity those folk were "posed" like that, it might be alright for their own personel record, but thats about it. If he "the photographer" wanted to capture an image of a dying art, then he should have shown them threading the projector, inspecting film, projecting film, and so on....basically doing something, that would be a far more interesting record for "others to look at". As its shown, it might look to an outsider that projectionist do nothing except "dream into space" which is a very misleading statement in my view. Graham.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-14-2012 01:34 AM                     The problem with the projectionist's job is that it is either feast or famine. Either you are working or you are not. There is little in between. The projectionist threads the machines, starts the movies and monitors their progress but, once they are running, they need very little attention. Only an occasional check every 20 minutes. As mentioned above, even a changeover operator isn't hustling all the time. Most people don't understand the work a projectionist does, even if they understand how projectors work. They don't understand the scope of the job and the level of responsibility involved. The projectionist's job isn't simply to thread a projector and press a few buttons. His job is to make sure the movie plays correctly at all times. That means he has to be critical of, not only the way his machine(s) operate but the quality of the picture and the sound in the auditorium. Small adjustments or maladjustments can make a huge difference in the quality of the presentation. There are a thousand tiny details that have to be attended to in order to make things work the way they are supposed to. Any one of these details isn't hard, by themselves. I bet you could take any competent car mechanic and teach him how to be a good projectionist but it is not simply mechanical knowledge that makes a good projectionist. It is the ability to pay attention to many details at once and to know how to keep everything working the way it should. If the projectionist does his job right, nobody notices but, if something goes wrong, he's the first to get blamed. (Often rightfully so.) A projectionist who does his job well, often looks like he's not doing anything most of the time. That's because he doesn't have to. He did everything right in the first place. The job is similar to a boiler tender. If he does his job right, the factory doesn't explode and all the machines have enough steam to do the work but, if he fucks up... KABOOM! Even if he doesn't blow the building up he could still end up shutting down the factory for the rest of the day. In both jobs, the guy might spend a large portion of his work day sitting at a desk or a workbench, reading the newspaper and smoking a cigar. To all the world, it looks like he's just screwing off. People who don't comprehend the job don't understand. Many people who are don't understand the projectionist's job, who are probably incapable of doing it well, are the very same ones who try to tell us what to do and tell us how lazy we are. The truth is that the projectionist could probably do the manager's job better than the manager could do the projectionist's job.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 11-14-2012 07:27 PM                        quote: Scott Norwood You've never met an operator who spends most of his shift watching TV while sitting in a lounge chair? I don't think I've ever been in a booth that had a TV that could be watched for recreational purposes.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 11-14-2012 08:45 PM                     I had it nice: I could even sit down to lace up an XL. The booth that was Chief Projectionist at, the booth, being underneath the balcony, had low cut portholes. Thus, the bases had to be cut down 6 inches so the machinery can be centered with the portholes. The lower magazine would almost touch the toekick of the base. With this adjustment, it made it easy to lace up the machine sitting down. We sat down doing changeovers and in between the two machines with all controls right there (including main, scrib curtains, lights masking, et.al.)  |  IP: Logged Graham Ritchie Film Handler Posts: 54 From: Christchurch, New Zealand Registered: Apr 2009 posted 11-15-2012 11:26 AM                     If I had one regret and that is not taking photos of the old single screens in this city. I remember one such visit back in the 70s when the Cinerama theatre was running a series of 70mm prints, one such film was "The Mag Men in their Flying Machines". The managers in those days were well dressed "suit and tie" and made there presence downstairs known and to greet customers arriving, anyway at the time I knew the manager and he invited me to have a look around. The first stop was the projection box and I think it was a Philips DP70, a very impressive machine and it was all ready to go, also had a interesting chat to the projectionist and during the intermission the look around continued at the screen, the kid operating the intermission slides etc. Those days of film presentation on that scale with changing coloured lights, screen curtains is long gone as with those wonderful cinemas, sadly very little record in the way of photos exist. Graham.  |  IP: Logged Rick Raskin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1100 From: Manassas Virginia Registered: Jan 2003 posted 11-15-2012 03:44 PM                     I worked a lot of jobs in Washington DC and the surrounding area in the late 60s through mid 70s. I don't recall that any of the booths were particularly filthy, but some were better than others. I do recall that many were rather cramped and not too people friendly, but that was mostly in the really old theaters. One theater was so tight that we used to say the projectionist wore the machines. The booth was on stilts in the alley and attached to the rear wall of the theater. Access was from a metal staircase at one of the exit doors. I enjoyed viewing the photos mentioned earlier but I have to agree with Joe. If you are intending to show the dying art of projection then show the people actually doing something. It wouldn't be off base to show an operator waiting for a cue, threading up, making up a show, operating lights or trimming carbons (although the latter may be difficult to find). Those things made up the art of projection, not sitting under a rewind bench. And yes, it did get boring. I remember one Saturday night walking in seeing the reel turning and thinking I had to unwind that thing three more times before I could go home. That was one of the last times I worked a booth.  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 11-17-2012 05:49 PM                     The least attractive booth I ever worked was accessed via a rusty iron ladder from the second balcony, through a wooden trapdoor with an iron ring and padlock. An unshielded toilet bowl stood in the center of the booth, ready for use, and the browned-with-age sheetrock walls were pierced with holes containing reused lunch bags containing copper-coated stubs of carbons too short to use,with notes saying "Don't touch--these are mine." The complaint that the artist did not really show people working, made me think of Michaelangelo's sculpture of David. He chose to show David, not in a hero's stance of throwing the stone that killed Goliath, but in a very relaxed posture, with the sling draped casually over his shoulder, and a stone in one hand. Had he been striving for realism, he would have had David wearing a tunic, or if nude, circumcised. (As the son of Jesse, and the chosen representative of the Jewish people, he would have undergone the ritual practice in infancy.) However the sculptor was more interested in surpassing his Greek and Roman predecessors and revealing the beauty of the (male) human form, even if following the examples of the ancients made for artistic license.  |  IP: Logged Tony Gallimore Expert Film Handler Posts: 108 From: Willis, Virginia, USA Registered: Jul 2009 posted 11-17-2012 10:49 PM                     Interesting pictures, Mike. One thing I noticed missing in discussing the drab dirty booths of yesteryear was the plague of burning carbons. The first two booths I worked in had no forced air exhaust system to move the carbon soot out of the lamphouses. It had to find the way out of the lamphouses on it's own, usually right into the booth. We vacuumed those things out at least once a month but it didn't really help without a draft ststem. I'm surprised more projectionists didn't come down with black lung or something. I know that soot was all over everything including your clothes, hands, mops etc. I wouldn't take anything for that experience, either! The theater was fun back then, not just running a business... we were entertainers.  |  IP: Logged Robert E. Allen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1078 From: Checotah, Oklahoma Registered: Jul 2002 posted 11-17-2012 11:33 PM                     Geeze Tony, since you are on the East coast I assume what you experienced was on the East Coast. I worked carbon arc booths from 1950 to 1971 from Southern California to Seattle and never ran into a booth that didn't have good exhaust systems. Maybe the fact that they were I.A. booths made the difference.  |  IP: Logged Mike Heenan Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1896 From: Scottsdale, AZ, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 11-19-2012 06:19 PM                     Looking at these pics and the faces of the people in them remind me of Brad Pitt's quote in Fight Club about what a "shit" job it is (something like that, been a while since I've seen it). Only like 2 or 3 of them seem happy.  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 11-19-2012 07:16 PM                        "Before the house lights go down at the movies, I find myself turning around to look up into the tiny window above the audience." One local theater has a doll head (the kind cosmetology students practice on) sitting in one of the booth windows. It was put there so kids would see it and figure someone was watching them.. so better behave. Harold  |  IP: Logged

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