This is topic Worst Booth you worked at! in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Rob Brooks (Member # 186) on 01-09-2000, 09:06 PM:
What's the worst booth or as we used to say "Dump" you've worked at? I once had a Manager that used to argue with me that I didn't need heat in the booth because the lamphouses kept the booth warm. Well one cold wintery day I came in and the gears on the projector not only froze, but actually had iscles on them. It took the service guy 5 hrs. to chissel the ices of the gears. Well lo and behold the next day I had warm heat in the booth.------------------
Rob
Posted by Andrew D'Vrey (Member # 285) on 01-10-2000, 12:53 AM:
The worst booth is a brand new booth (year old or newer) that is already dirty as hell with brand new projectors falling to pieces...there are two theaters near my home like that. A Regal and a Carmike. The Regal still has buckets of drywall and ceiling tile laying around full of cement dust that hasn't been cleaned up. I feel there's little hope for the dust and dirt that has accumulated after the place was built.
------------------
"And the monkey flips the switch."
- Major Don West, "Lost In Space"
Andrew D'Vrey
IATSE Local 219
Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 01-10-2000, 01:06 AM:
The worst booth I have ever worked at is the one I am working in now. Hopefully that will change because I own it. So it is up to me to make it something I can be proud of.
Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 01-10-2000, 12:07 PM:
Worst booth I've worked at?
hands down the AMC Prestonwood 5 (pics are in the warehouse) The equimpment was VERY poorly maintained. The Simplex projectors seemed to leak oil faster than they could keep it in, so they were pretty much just left dry. And as we all know, no oil in projector = bad, bad things. At one point they had some old ORC platters that would devolop random shorts in them, often resulting a shock to the operator, one projectionist was knocked unconcious by this.
The old CP-50s hadn't been touched since they were originally installed. Once they installed SDDS in this theatre the sound improved somewhat. they had to install new stage speakers, replacing the existing Radio Shack (no joke) speakers they had behind the screen. This theatre was recognized by many people as the worst theatre in town. Probably one reason its now closed.
Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 01-10-2000, 12:47 PM:
Worst place I worked at was a UA 5-plex (now closed.) All of the equipment was peiced together. There was a Century head with a Simplex soundhead, a Simplex head with an RCA sound head, Two ORC lamps and 3 Christies lamps, etc, etc. The only thing that was the same at all screens were Potts 5-tier platters, but those were peiced together, also (old motors, new motors; new decks, bent, 'wavey' decks; bright orange paint, dirty scratched paint, etc, etc.) One 5-tier was only being used for one screen, so two decks worth of payout heads, decks, and motors were gone.
Posted by Ari Nordström (Member # 288) on 01-10-2000, 04:10 PM:
Worst booth? Without a doubt a 3-plex called Göta in Göteborg, that now exists only in the nightmares of its former projectionists. There was oil everywhere except in the projectors, spiderwebs covered the back side of one lamphouse, one projector had an eight-degree port list, the CP50 had a faulty Cat 148 that produced hisses and clicks in the surround speakers... The list went on, and this was just the purely technical side of it. You should have met the ushers.Oh yes, and there was a table lamp we always called "the electric boogie lamp". Can anyone of you guess why?
Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 01-10-2000, 05:45 PM:
Cinema World (now Carmike Cinemas), Plaza 8 in Sandusky, Ohio hands down. They threw it together because they heard that Cinemark was coming to town and they closed their two screen and opened this one. They build a brand new building and then they put the biggest pieces of junk in the booth. I wouldn't have gave this stuff away. 8 projectors with 4 different brands. Simplexes, Century's, Cinemacannicas, and more Century's. We couldn't even get manuals for them. Of course this was before Film-Tech.com. I learned the art of Jerry-rigging real quick. No offense if your name is Jerry.
Once I even wrote out a request for parts, addressed it, stamped it and set it on the managers desk and it sat there for a month! I'm sure you can probably all relate. Then when they would break guess who got a call on their day off. Yep! They have since installed a few dts systems, but they still have to buy stock in gear oil.Joshua
Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-11-2000, 06:05 PM:
Village 8, Louisville. Only because it had been neglected for so long, and one of the two operators per shift had been eliminated. Chewing gum was holding things together! 4 different booths, 2 of which were across the lobby from one another. I worked a vacation for someone there for 2 weeks, and had to decline any subsequent offers to fill-in there.
Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-12-2000, 02:06 AM:
I worked at a theatre where the owner paid me in cash (paper bills and coins) in an envelope, to the penny. He would dock my pay if I didn't use carbons to less than a 1-inch stub using carbon savers (Peerless Magnarc). He cashed in the copper drippings himself, rather than give them to the Will Rogers recycling collection.
Spare parts? --- forget it and make do!