What type of platters are you two guys using?

My first problem was over 10 years after running projectors with no accidents/disasters. It was on Titanic. The film had been out for about 2 months and was already completely trashed by the time I transferred to this theater. The last 3 reels went flying off the platter like a frisbee some 20 feet away on my first shift, the first show. Turned out the platters were timed to a ludicrous 55RPM!!!

(Needless to say, there was a full recalibration of the speeds that first evening after the accident.)
 

The problem was I was tucking the film under the film very loosely, and someone else had already chewed the tail by leaving it taped when they moved it. (shows you the intelligence of the "managers" I work with)
 

The movie was running on our antiquated Vic 8 (w/ Strong platters), which at the time was having brain wrap problems constantly (because of the static in our booth, and a brain that worked when it felt like it). Anyway, the movie wrapped to the point where there was a good 3/4" of film wrapped around the brain. Then the film spewed out all over the floor, from both the inside and outside of the movie.

Myself and another projectionist spent forever trying to rebuild the print. We took it off the platter, and wound it onto 36" reels using the makeup table. We lost a good 10-15 minutes of the movie, out of two or three different scenes, and of course the print was liberally covered in dirt from the floor.

Now here's the real mystery: we were winding film onto the reel out of the middle of what used to be on the platter. Then there was a break in the film. We went looking for the other end of the break, and found it coming off the outside of the film. I don't understand how that's even possible. I think we broke the laws of physics that night.

The sad thing is that we ran that print for another few weeks, given that we're a 3rd run house, and nobody was willing to sign off on the expense of getting us a new copy. And did I mention that our booth is carpeted (causing our chronic static problems) and nobody will pay to get it ripped out?

Sigh.
 

Reminds me of the Music of The Heart Sneak preview a while ago. On of my evil- pseudo managers built it too fast and accidently put real 7 on backwards. The site of a bunch of kids on stage upsode down playing Violins backwards kinda made me chuckle but damn, did I ever feal sorry for the crowd of 300 who had no choise but hang around for 45 minutes and watch 6th sense or get pissed off and go home.
 

You pointed something out that I have thought about for a while. My booth is also carpeted, and we do get static problems every so often. What winds up happening is the film wrapping around the brain in either spiral fashion (have to cut and resplice the film while winding it back onto the platter) or the film just circles around the brian really tight (I free-wheel the platter, spin the platter backwards, make sure everything is working in good order, turn the projector on, and keep on spinning backwards until the film is back in good order. I put the platter back to its original state and put it on takeout) Now, I visited a few theaters in Florida with tile floored booths, and they told me that ever since they opened, they never had a brain wrap. My question to all is, are tile floored booths better than carpeted booth due to static problems?

Erick Ojeda
 

It was on my antique Holmes. I threaded correctly, but the take-up clutch was frozen. Anyway, I had just gotten the monster running, and I did not notice the "singing sprocket" until over half of the reel had run. I went through it later and repaired the worst rips. It will run OK, but I got lucky and found R5 on the 'net and it was almost brand new.

I'm more careful with everything now.
 

What probably happened is the same thing described in the last post, namely, the ring of film got twisted inside out. This can happen on film drops and strange wrap situations. As for my worst treating of film, it would have to be "Braveheart".

I am diabetic and when I haven't eaten in a while I can get very spacey. At closing one evening I, for some unknown reason, decided that the print had to be moved. I then attempted to do it by myself with clamps. For those of you who remember this print, you know this is impossible!

Anyway, the whole thing came apart into about 25 rings of film, some twisted inside out. After grabbing a quick meal, I reassembled the entire print by cutting it into sequential sections and numbering them. By spinning a 2000 reel in the center of each loop, I was able to take up each section, reverse it on the rewind table and then load it back onto the platter piece by piece. It actually didn't look all that bad when next run, amazingly enough. I'm just glad this happened at closing as it took until 5AM to finish!!

Mike
 

The final pad roller in the sound head (SH-1000) didn't close firmly onto the sproket. I was newly thrown into the Academy Drive-In in Mason, Ohio and had the typical crash course you've all described ("thread it and turn everything off at the end of the night").

I digress. It was a manager-operator DI and I was at the box-office doing check out. I returned to the booth to discover the film on the platter but oddly uneven looking and a huge pile of film on the floor by the projector - but only the sproket hole side.

When a splice went through, it jumped off the sprockets and they perforated the film between the sprocket holes.

Then, it tore away on the roller after the failsafe arms, so they didn't fall.

It was nearly two reels destroyed.

A tech was at the theatre the next day, he gave it all a once-over and spent the rest of the day showing me things to do and look for.

If only the company (National Amusements) had simply done that first...
 

Beleive it or not, I wasn't even a projectionist at the time. I was working as a supervisor downstairs, and for some reason the booth guys went home early one Thursday night, and I had to move prints with another supervisor who claimed that she knew what she was doing. I had never moved a print before, and she assured me that all I had to do was hold the outside edge of the film (as opposed to holding your arms under the print and curling your fingers around the ring). This worked fine for a couple prints that we moved, but the first loose print that we attempted - Dennis the Menace - dribbled onto the floor. I was pretty freaked out. A manager helped us put it back together, but it took a few hours. Hard to believe I had the guts to ever work in a booth after that experience.

Oh, and about the static thing: I worked in a booth with carpet, and we NEVER had static problems. I now work in a booth with concrete floors (no tile or carpet), and we have a few static problems (quickly solved with FilmGuard). You can draw your own conclusions about that. <<shrug>>
 

Since then, the Gods have invaded the industry and every film in it with polyester film stock. The Gods were not interested in exhibition quality, oh no, they were interested only in the bottom line. The Gods are truly unwise.
 

One day he starts (I forget the film), then goes in to watch TV. The film starts to split in half at the failsafes, and runs that way from the middle of R1 to the end. (Which is a known problem with these types of failsafes from Kelmar.) Since both halfs were being taken-up, no alarms went off. Since it split after the soundhead, no indication appeared onscreen.
 

Christmas Eve - I had the night off. Getting into bed and the phone rings. Asst. Manager is crying on the other end and explains he dropped the print of 101 Dalmatians on the floor. I get up out of bed at 12:30 am and head into the theatre. By the time I get there the other person there is grabbing heaps of film and dragging them 50' across the upstairs booth. All I could do is laugh my ass off (I already had my new job lined up so I really didnt care about the theatre as the manager was less than pleasant to work for). Anyway, I reconstructed the film using 2 rolls of splicing tape until 4:30 in the morning. It ran through, correctly put together but it was the worst showing of a movie I have ever seen. I quit the next day (I gave 2 weeks notice) and all I heard about for the next month was the complaints and problems that they had from customers abou the print. I still find it amusing to this day. Needless to say, this theatre constantly has "issues" reguarding prints and presentations and I was glad to leave. I recently watched Any Where But here 3 days after opening and it was completely scratched. They even managed to play SW:E1 wrong: Midnight showing opening night (first show) they put reel 2 on backs and didnt catch it even though they swear they screened it first. Some people never learn I guess....
 

Fortunately we had a small crowd that night and everyone was very understanding.

That was the only time I ever cussed DTS. If not for DTS, the sound would have cut-out as soon as the soundhead filled with film and I'd have had about 300 less feet inside the projector head.

That's the only equipment-related missed shows I've ever had in 21 years in this business. We've had a few other dark nights, but they've mostly been due to the idiots at Technicolor and Greyhound Bus.
 

I've worked in a couple of non-tiled booths at other theaters, and the carpeted one at my usual theater. Now that I've thought about it, it's kind of an interesting situation:

- Our carpeted booth is very staticky.
- One of the tiled booths has no static problems. This is in a very new theater, all new ventilation, etc, etc, etc.
- The other booth is actually concrete, and had static from hell. This was in a very old theater (50+ years maybe). They "borrowed" our portable humidifier after they had a wrap on the opening midnight showing of Star Wars TPM and some kind soul in the audience called that 1-800-rat-on-us-to-Lucas phone number.

Oh, and may I add that I got that print in my theaters after it had gone through 2 other locations, and it left my care in MUCH better shape than it arrived in? I can't begin to tell you how much I hate it when some lazy projectionist decides to leave 8 million layers of splice tape at every splice when he's making up.

Anyway, I'm guessing that the whole static issue is a combination of all the old culprits - carpet, poor ventilation, low humidity, high heat, etc.
 

I quickly ran upstairs to the box and I saw a BIG mound of film on the floor. I don’t really know what happened but the platter didn't pick up the fault. And instead of the film going back onto the floor the film was falling to the ground. Approx 6000feet of film on the floor. REALLY EMBARRASSING . The next session ran 20 late and only 50feet was damaged, but is still usable. I am never forget that in a hurry.

Oh yeah the feature was General's Daughter
 

So I'm loading up the movie on the B screen, and I'm thinking about beer or my girlfriend or somesuch thing, cause I put up reel one and forget to push the reel latch down. And the movie starts fine, so I head down the hall to the A screen and thread up the movie there, and start it rolling. And I'm sitting there fat dumb and happy for about 10 minutes when from down the hall I hear:

sproingKABAMMM!!!!

I look down the hall to see the reel rolling on the floor after falling off the spindle. Now this chain (CinemaNational, which was sold to Mid-States, which was sold to USA, which was sold to Loews, which was sold to Hoyt's, which is being sold) bought these flimsy, crapola non-floating hub reels. And when this one hit the floor, one of the flanges bent under it so as to prevent the film from paying out properly. I could NOT get this thing to bend out again. Finally the popcorn kid came up to see why the show was off, and we finaly located this big honkin' screwdriver and were able to use it as a pry bar to bend the flange back enough to allow the film to pass thru.

Now the manager is watching the two of us on the floor trying to get the reel bent back into shape, and he's laughing his ass off as he thinks that this is the funniest thing he's ever seen. The next night I went upstairs, and a sign had been hung from the reel spindle in his writing:

LATCH GOES DOWN BEFORE STARTING PROJECTOR
 

Steve

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"Old Projectionists never die, they just changeover!"