Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Most Painful Mistake?

This is topic Most Painful Mistake? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=000997

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-17-2000, 10:39 PM:

Lets face it, we all have our horror stories of techs or kid projectionists that simply dont know what they are doing. what is the weirdest, worst, etc. story you have to share? I am sure that we all have had plenty. oh yes, it is even safe to talk about your own screw ups as a rookie.

here is one of mine.

One time the owner of cinemark decided to screen Titanic in his house. (he has his own in house booth and hires cinemark UB's to run film). The proj. ws returning back to the theater and was carrying the print by his lone self up the emergency stairs in the back of the building when all of the sudden, uh-oh the ceneter ring collapsed and down from the heads to the tails comes the famous unraveling Titanic. A movie i am guessing about 3 and a half miles long. the manager was not there at the right time to help him out. She just missed the print. I believe after countless hours of picking it back up and rewinding on to the proper reels, courier picked up print and sent it to, oh yes we all know him as, Brad Miller.

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-17-2000, 11:02 PM:

Okay, PAINFUL mistakes I have made:

1) Grabbing a Neumade splicer in a hurry and hitting my fingers on the razor blades.

2) Doing an emergency lamp change (CFS lamphouse) -- I reached in to feel if the lamp was cool enough to change yet. Of course, you can't feel heat through a leather glove so I had to reach in bare handed. I didn't actually touch the lamp, just put my hand about 3 inches from it. It was still hot so I instinctively recoiled my hand out of the way. Dumb-ass-me! I hit my hand on the rough edge of the dichroic cold-mirror and split my knuckle open! I got the show going again before I went to the hospital to get stitches, however! (It only took 3 of them but it bled like hell.)

PAINFUL mistake ANOTHER person made in my presence:

While rewinding a 6K reel full of film, he grabbed the reel, spinning at top speed, with his bare hand. I don't remember if he had to get stitches but he bled like hell too!

So, the moral of the story is:
"When I say I give blood and sweat for this company, I really mean it!"

Posted by Scott Magie (Member # 368) on 05-18-2000, 12:42 AM:

Okay this is about as embarrassing (and as painful)as it gets. In my third year of film school, I'm shooting a documentary project in a 3-person group. I was unanimously chosen to be the cinematographer due to my extensive experience.

Unfortunately, my experience was in using a different camera (the Eclair-ACL for those of you who care). Now, when loading the Eclair, you thread everything inside the magazine (in the darkroom or tent)... then, when you go to shoot, you just attach the magazine to the camera and shoot. We were using the Arri-BL instead. After carefully threading the magazines, I proceeded to mount the mag to the camera and began shooting. Unfortunately for me, the Arri requires you to also thread the camera body. So... we drove for 2 hours, got entrance to the prison in which we were shooting (this had been pre-arranged months in advance), shot for most of the day, and returned home... happy with what we'd accomplished. We sent our stock to the lab for processing only to have them call us back and tell us that it was completely black! The film had merely been pulled from the pay-out side of the magazine to the take-up side... never passing through the camera gate! What's worse is that the other two group-members knew this about the Arri-BL, but assumed that I also knew it. You haven't felt stupid until you can top that!

ps- I'm not even gonna put my signature on this one, 'cuz years later... I'm still embarassed. (and no lookin' at the sidebar to see who I am!)

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-18-2000, 12:49 AM:

Ok, I'm going to share my most painful and embarrasing moement here.

When we played "Mystery, Alaska" my manager had arranged a special sneak preview in cooperation with a local radio station. We do a lot of promo's with this station so this wasn't anything special.

Ok, so I build up the print right? This isn't anything new for me, and I'm not under any time pressure. I liesurely build it up and leave at 5, thinking the 7 sneak will go fine. I get a call about 9:30, "Geuss what you did." Well I....I can't believe I'm telling you guys this. Oh well. Somehow-to this day I don't knwo how-I got reels 6 and 4 mixed up. That's right folks, I built it in this order:
1, 2, 3, 6, 5, 4, 7

When pestered about that, which I am to this day, I merely reply, "I got the title and the credits in the right places, everything in between is just snow and hockey, doesn't matter."

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-18-2000, 02:49 AM:

No Ethan, I did not get that print. Where did you come up with that? ETS knows better than to send me a damaged print. It just doubles their work load once I open the cans and find out there is a mark on it.

Posted by Dwayne Caldwell (Member # 417) on 05-18-2000, 08:52 AM:

I goofed up building up a print of Starship Troopers once. Let's just say I'll never take Techicolor at their word when they put the head and tail leaders on their reels. After this incident, I always check the orientation of the film image but anyway...

I had built up the print, checking the leaders to make sure the reels were heads up. Loaded the film up, and me and another co-worker screened it. I was really getting into it when reel six comes up. At the end of reel five, the troopers have reached an outpost after the slaughter. They all split up and search the place.

When the reel change occurs, four or five soldiers are upside down looking at something on the ground. I'm hoping this is the viewpoint of a victim, but I'm not buying it. Just hoping. A few seconds later, the Russian like gibberish dialogue starts up and I'm hightailing it upstairs.

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

Posted by Jason R. Weinsteiger (Member # 456) on 05-18-2000, 10:23 AM:

i've only been at this game for about 3 years now, so i guess the worst thing i ever did was put together a movie backwards.

And lucky me, it was "Saving Private Ryan." i'd been putting films together for quite some time at the point and had just been lucky i guess, cause i didn't know that a movie could come in tails-up and my boss, not the best teacher in the world, never told me.

Silly me, i didn't notice the problem til reel 9 when i noticed that the credits were at the beginning of the reel (i know these things have long credits, but 20 minutes?!) hehe

oh yeah, here's another: It was a sunday night i believe, when me and my coworker spent most of the night changing signs around (and not paying attention to the film). We were just finishing up the signs when i heard the music at the end of the film. i opened up the door to the booth and stood for a moment in shock and horror at the film, about 10% of which was on the platter, the other 90% had neatly distributed itself on the floor all around the booth. we were there for about an hour and a half untangling and running it back onto the platter. Annoyingly enough, while my coworker ran for a camera (before we picked the mess up) she later lost the film! that would have made a nice picture for my album.. *sigh*

jasoN

------------------
"That's what life is - a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of muppets." -Dante Hicks

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-18-2000, 10:30 AM:

I'll bet more than a few of us have shed some blood from sharp edges on reels during inspection and rewinding.

The drive-in I worked at in the late 1960's had old RCA power amps (I recall they each had four 807 output tubes) with brittle wiring that occasionally caught fire on hot nights. We always had a CO-2 fire extinguisher handy to quell the flames and minimize the damage and subsequent repairs.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com

Posted by Mitchell Cope (Member # 32) on 05-18-2000, 11:13 AM:

Didn't one of the television networks (a couple of decades ago) show a movie that had been built up wrong? That's a big mistake.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-18-2000, 11:39 AM:

I'll never forget the reel order mishap During the opening night for Cocoon 2 at a theater I used to service in Oak Park, Ill. The manager (who was also a Catholic Priest)was new and had assembled to film so that when the prople died and the next reel came on they were all back again. Patrons started comming out wondering what was wrong and how that could happen. Of course only the Priest was able to explain this to one and all...............
Mark

Posted by Reeve Byrne (Member # 295) on 05-18-2000, 11:40 AM:

I was trying to remove a hair from the projector, when the film hit my finger, I instinctivly moved my had away, right into the sprocket whiched grabed my finger into the film path. I hit the stop button but I still had to sit there and wait for the projector to stop with the sprocket riping my flesh off. I pulled my finger out rethreaded the projector and pulled off the torn up skin. No blood at first, then about two minutes later I look down and it wouldn't stop bleeding for a half-hour.

------------------
"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

Posted by Michael Cunningham (Member # 210) on 05-18-2000, 01:10 PM:

Ouch Reeve!

When did this happen? I was just kidding when I said I would feed various of your body parts to the projector if you screwed off! Sheesh...

I recall a time when, during a print build-up, I attempted to slow a 6000 reel down by hand after the film had wound off it to another 6000. I was using the heel of my hand against the face of the reel out near the edge, just above the holes through the flange. This was an older reel without the free-spinning core and was warped somewhat in places so I had to watch what I was doing. Just then (dramatic intro music) the manager snuck up the stairs behind me and allowed the booth door to slam behind him. I jumped, spun my head around and promptly inserted my thumb through one of the rapidly spinning flange holes. It sliced the skin off the top of my thumb and trimmed my fingernail for me. Very painful...and profusely bloody.

-Mike

Posted by Dwayne Caldwell (Member # 417) on 05-18-2000, 02:18 PM:

I was splicing something once and forgot to pull away one of my fingers (my left index if I remember correctly), so it clamped down and smashed the phalange good. I didn't get any blood on the film, but I danced around for a good five minutes with a paper towel wrapped around my finger. It healed though.

I also have had a finger pulled through a sprocket, an upper pull down sprocket. Again, the film got lucky because it was the tail leader of the film. I was more freaked out than hurt for about a good two minutes. Then the pain caught up with me and the peroxide only seemed to accentuate that pain. But it took me about thirty minutes to stanch the bleeding, and I didn't need any stitches.

Don't ask me how it is I did these things to myself. I still haven't figured out what possessed me to display such an enormous magnitude of sheer stupidity. But I assure you guys, I am safer now. You can trust me in a booth. Really!

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-18-2000, 02:52 PM:

Dwayne:

I've seen Joe Redifer's "Projection Seminar" tape. Is that you with the blood spurting out when you get your fingers caught in the Christie or under the tape splicer's guillotine? That bare-bulb xenon explosion wasn't too pleasant either. Thank heaven for the Red Cross and Joe's SFX.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 05-18-2000, 02:55 PM:

My most painful experience was when I couldnt get my marble splicer to cut the damn sprocket holes so I slammed the damn thing down. SHOULD HAVE MOVED MY FINGER OUT OF THE WAY. Broke the finger, but managed to miss all the blades. Still hurt like damn hell.

------------------
"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-18-2000, 03:28 PM:

ok ok
I forgot to share with you some of my most painful experiences.

weel, it was a thurs. changeover night, and I was training someone on how to buildup a print. I was building the 6k reel onto a speco platter, when all of the sudden, I ws not paying attention and OOOUUUUCCCHHHH!!!! MY finger got caught in the holes that you stick the reel on to he mut. it was going full speed. spun me around so i could go with the flow. !$#@% that hurt. as i am bleeding all over the booth. It was not really hard to find me. Just follow the trail of blood on the floor. Had to be rushed to the hospital. where i got, x-rays, tetanus booster, didgi-block(really hurt), and some stitches. Keep in my mind that this was my right hand. I could not write for a while. anything i had to sign turned out to be a huge scribble.

has anyone everhad film-cuts? those suck too.

also once i picked up a splicer the wrong wat and somehow my finger managed to get the teeth blades? and ooohhh@!!! tha one hurt too.

dont worrry folks i am fine now
no more problems

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-18-2000, 03:41 PM:

John

that sminar tape sounds funny how can i get my hands on one? anyone know?

ethanharper@hotmail.com

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-18-2000, 07:51 PM:

Reels Out Of Order: Happened a couple times with prints that got to me with no ID frames at the head or tail, and the reels bands switched around... I think the film was 'The River' and it did seem awfully strange that the strike ended before it started and the cow that had tear-jerkingly died miraculously was resurrected (Hallelujia!)

Upside-Down & Backwards: This has only happened to me once, and it was a *very* difficult scene to judge ( this print had no heads or tails, and im pretty sure I had the reels in the correct order- the film was 'My Cheauffeur, so no biggie anyways ( discount house), but the reels changed to a scene of a car which was right side up... untill they panned out to find the whole world upside-down (it was the REFLECTION of the car in a water puddle!:O ) AGGH! it was large reels, so I had it back correctly in about 10 minutes anyways no biggie there either.

Payouts onto the floor: Had this happen twice ever too, once at the Phoenix, we had 'Dune' playing to a sold-out crowd, and the print filled the 14000' tower reel to maximum... well the boss had me working balcony security keeping the noisy teenagers out of the balcony, and i told him that i need to check the print to see if there are any problems with anything, and he threatened to fire me if i left my post ( the balcony entrance, downstairs from the booth)... Well about 3/4 the way thru the film someone complained that the sound had faded away.... I was relieved, I went up to the booth and AGGGGHHH about the first 2 reels of the film had taken up to the reel, the rest ( we were almost done with the show at this time i think a reel or so to go) was knee-deep on the floor! took me about 45 minutes to carefully wind this mess up. ( no failsafe, this house is manually operated) or when i came to work my 6-close shift at the Cinema II, and the credits of 'Witches Of Eastwick' were rolling on the screen, I asked the offgoing asst mgr/projectionist if everything was ok he said yes, and so i went upstairs... I screamed,,, then grabbed hios sorry ass and dragged him up to show him that the first hundred feet or so had taken uop before the disc stopped (again no automation this time on an AW2 platter house) and the entire film was all over the place on the floor... Knee deep in finl again this time it took a couple hours to fix the mess, and was able to wade thru the mess to start the second feature on time.... ack!

Injuries: Once i was changing carbons on a Strong Futura II and my right hand was handling the positive feed jaws and the rest of the arm was resting against the bottom of the lamphouse door and i went to reach for a pair of pliers, bumped the rectifier remote switch, and turned the rectifier on!!! Felt like someone had hit my right hand with a sledge hammer and knocked me across the room! Lucky it just was thru my arm i could have been killed!

Or a couple summers ago, I was replacing a fried dowser coil in Clearlake, I was in the area so I made the repair, was wearing shorts (over 100 degrees that day) and was placing the dowser unit atop the projector when it dropped, and a razor-sharp clip on the dowser caught my leg just above the knee slashing a 2" gash all the way to the muscle!! and to boot there was nothing clean to stick on the wound, so i come downstairs into the now-packed snack bar, blood running profusely down my leg and all over my hands... the manager got me a paper towel and then took me to the hospital, had a few stitches there

Unintentional Flying Objects: I was breaking a print of 'Long Kiss Goodbye' from platter to 6000' reels, and was going at a pretty good clip when it happened.... the (polyestar) film snapped, the recoil caused the ring with about 1200' of film on it to fly across the booth, ripping the brain from its fasteners and narrowly missing my girlfriend's head as she was sitting nearby, as it slammed against the wall...

I'd better stop before i get the award for the longest non HPS-4000 flame war post ever here hehe

Aaron

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-18-2000, 08:44 PM:

Ah, that reminds me.

Once I was building up a movie, forget which. Was going at a pretty good speed though. Well when the tail ran out it didn't, it just stuck inside the Fox reel. Yanked the whole damn makeup table into platter. Luckily a bent roller or two on the MUT were the only things damaged. I always slow down at the end now.

Another time when I was building up or tearing down, can't remember, part of the plastic reel decided to break off and go flying past my ear at about 60 miles an hour. That was scary.

Posted by Jon Bartow (Member # 241) on 05-18-2000, 09:39 PM:

A couple of weeks ago I replaced an intermittent in a SA. When nearly finished I was rotating the shutter on the shutter shaft with my right hand. The edge of the shutter blade sliced my index finger down to the bone. (missed all of the tendons, thankfully) Bled for about 8 hours. No stitches though.

Most painful equipment failure (back in my "virgin" days): Was working on finding some bad wiring in a sound rack (rack incl. 4- crown 1200 amps, DA-20, JBL crossover, JS-200, CM-35 ultrastereo monitor) Well, I accidentaly unplugged the DA-20 while the whole rack was on. Who knows why but a high pitch (similar to the most common high feedback in a PA system) went through all three stage channels. They heard it in the office 100 feet away through 8 concrete wall. This resulted in the voice coils in all three horns being melted OPEN. Tested at 35,000 ohms each. Nothing left of the coil. The bill for three new JBL horns and three days with the largest screen down did not make the powers that be happy.

Posted by Bryan Redemske (Member # 354) on 05-18-2000, 10:02 PM:

well, none of them feel good. i do have scars all over my knuckles. i have a pretty good one on my shoulder...no stitches, though. you guys that have stitches all have me beaten.

i have, however, almost taken out my fiancee with a pair of scissors. they were underneath a reel that was spinning. caught them just right and went right by her ear. wow!

Posted by Michael West (Member # 428) on 05-18-2000, 11:02 PM:

has anyone ever lit a carbon arc and forgot to close the lamphouse - its blinding! i was just starting when i did this in 1981.

Posted by Russ Kress (Member # 461) on 05-18-2000, 11:08 PM:

I know it was a Saturday night (the only night I wear a suit).

I had just started a projector and it began making one of those noises that they always reserve for Saturday night.

I open the Ballantyne Pro-35 up and start to investigate when the projector's drive belt grabbed my tie with sufficient force to bounce my head off the side of the projector. Lucky for me, the tie forced the belt off of the fly wheel.

Needless to say, with no drive belt, the audience was treated to one of those really cool "film melting on the screen" moments!

That was my favorite tie too! It was shredded.

Russ

Posted by Scott Magie (Member # 368) on 05-19-2000, 01:29 AM:

I wear a tie every day, and I'm always deathly afraid of it catching. I'm sorry to delight in the loss of your tie, but the image of your head "bouncing" off the lamphouse is just cracking me up! I'd pay to see that in slow motion! Maybe John Woo will put it in a movie someday.

Imagine this... sold out opening night crowd for "Life Is Beautiful". Now, we all know what kind of a crowd this is, right? Okay, well a newbie had built the movie and reel #1 was the only one heads out. This was at a crappy theatre that I'm sure this particular crowd usually tried to avoid, so you can imagine the demeanor of the departing throng. Many a nose scraped the ceiling on the way out. I'm just glad it wasn't me who built it.

True Crime played for about 3 weeks at a cross-town theatre before coming to mine. They just clamped it and brought it over to us instead of breaking it down. During the second day of showings at our theatre, a customer made me aware of the fact that it had been built out of order. He said something like, "Well they make this big deal about Clint eating this candy bar, and then about 40 minutes later, he opens it." You know it's a crappy movie when it plays for 3 weeks without anyone noticing it's built out of order!

As for flying booth supplies during break-down, I accidentally kicked the platter-plug or the make-up table plug (I can't remember). I didn't even know that I had done anything... everything just all of a sudden EXPLODED! Some stuff seized up, while other stuff kept spinning uncontrollably... film was spooling out everywhere and getting wrapped around everything... and there I was crouched in the middle of it all with my hands over my head and my head buried between my knees.

------------------
Scott A. Magie

scoooot@hotmail.com
"Anybody wanna peanut?"

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-19-2000, 02:11 AM:

Ahh, ties in the booth, worst idea I ever heard of. Been wearing a tie now for about 2 months. I know its only a matter of time before something happens. I always wear a tie tack to keep it in check, but still *shiver* I'm just waiting for it to happen.

Posted by Sean M. Grimes (Member # 445) on 05-19-2000, 02:38 AM:

ahh my best booth story happened just a few weeks ago... At my theater we do Tripod Open Caption movies about twice every month. The delivery company that they use is actually much worse about deadlines than Airborne. After the last show on a typically hectic Thursday full manual concession inventory four builds and six breaks - did I mention the $375 payroll left for the week? Well anyway they came for the film at 11:30 when it didn't break until twelve - I decided to lend an extra break hand to my wonderful friday night guy. So on I made it upstairs and finished reel five of "Man on the Moon"... Unfortunately my booth guy never locked the 2000' reel on the m.u.t. so when I went to slow it down it tossed the reel in the air and the film grabbed me by the arm and pulled me right into the tree of my Neutronic platter. But can I say the twelve stiches look soo nicely against my eyebrow?

Posted by Frank Rapisardi (Member # 435) on 05-19-2000, 04:43 AM:

most painful mistake: Many years ago(too many as a matter of fact) I was working for the E.M.Loews theater company in New England.E.M.Loew (Ellias Loew)would have a huge cook-out every year at his home and would invite managers and certain people frome the company.Needless to say he would also have an open bar.Well I had a bit too much!Then returned to one of his Drive-ins to run Saturday Night Fever.Threaded it wrong(picture was upside down) Never thought to check anything! The next day my head was painful thats for sure!

------------------

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-19-2000, 05:31 AM:

Wow this thread is really screamin' along!

John- The guy who got his finger caught in the projector on my "Projection Seminar" tape was a friend of mine named Tom. The dumbass who cut his finger on the splicer and got blown up by a xenon bulb twice (once just holding a bare bulb with no protection and another squirting oil on the bulb inside the lamphouse to get it to strike easier) was me. I want to make more things like that, it was fun. I got my inspiration for that by attending Kodak's projection seminar. The only thing that could have made that version you saw better would have been by adding sound effects. I can do that now.

One of my embarassing moments was when I built up the movie "Ready to Wear". I think it was reel #'s 4 and 5 that I put on in the reverse order. Another projectionist screened the print and did not catch it. Then an assistant manager screened the print the next day and did not catch anything odd. Then a week passed by before an audience member finally noticed something weird. And we were doing decent business for it as well! A whole week! Talk about embarassing!

I think I may have already told that story on this forum. Not sure. Oh well.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-19-2000, 07:33 AM:

Other than the usual cuts from rusty metal reels and cracked Technicolor reels, paper cuts from reel bands, etc., I'm happy to say that I've never had a genuinely "painful" experience in the booth. Of course, now that I've said this, I'm guaranteed to electrocute myself while running carbon arc tomorrow.

Most embarrassing mistake: hitting the "curtain" button instead of the "changeover" button. Oops. Also, splicing a "coming soon" tag into a trailer reel backwards. I'm happy to say that I've never run the reels out of order or built up a film incorrectly onto platters (knock on wood).

Coolest-looking mistake: before "Rocky Horror" one night, I was showing some 16mm footage that someone shot of the previous year's cast. This ran fine on Friday night, but on Saturday night's show, the film jammed in the gate and burned about halfway through the reel. The audience loved this for some reason, particularly when I shut down the 16mm projector and turned on the slide projector with a "Technical Difficulties" slide (intentionally) positioned upside down and backwards (for just such an occasion). At any other show, this would have been an embarrassing disaster, but in this case it probably looked professionally choreographed...

Posted by Stephen Winner (Member # 8) on 05-19-2000, 10:26 AM:

A few weeks ago, a few folks had come up to the booth to take a look around. I was demonstrating how the carbon-arc lamps work, and how to strike them.

Normally, I turn the motor-generator off after the last show, but since these folks were up there, I never got to do it. I went through the normal routine of striking the arc to demonstrate it to the "tourists", threw the knife switch, pulled the rod back, and BRILLIANCE!!!!! White-hot light in all our faces!!!

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 05-19-2000, 11:23 AM:

Joe,

I was one of those people who screened Ready to Wear for you and I swear that it looked fine to me. Of course I was just looking at the models.

My most painful booth mistake was when I stood up under a 70mm penthouse door and gashed my head. We were very close to showtime in all 12 of our theatres so I had to thread them all up. So for an hour I was wandering around the booth, treading projectors and starting films with blood poring down my head onto my cloths. Finaly after I had started everything, I went to the bathroom to clean up. I looked worse than some of the dead guys in the slasher ficks.

My manager couldn't beleve that I had worked like that. But if not me who? Anyway, it looked worse than it was.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-19-2000, 11:24 AM:

Stephen:

Bet you are all still seeing "spots" in front of your eyes. Seriously, if you or your guests are still seeing an afterimage of the arc, it would be a very good idea to go to an eye doctor. The strong UV from an unshielded carbon or xenon arc can damage the retina within a matter of seconds.

Reminds me of a Kodachrome Super-8 film I made in a film class in college called "The Unseen Showman", showing a day-in-the-life of a projectionist. I aimed a Super-8 camera with automatic exposure control at an open Ashcraft Core-Lite lamphouse and struck the arc (not looking at it directly myself, of course). The camera's auto exposure control worked perfectly, so I got a scene with the carbons coming together, and then the plasma "flame", all well exposed. If I was a modern "film" student and using a video or DV camera, I'm sure I would have "fried" the CCD with this trick.

Wonder if video was ever used to "film" nuclear explosions?

Posted by Kyle Smith (Member # 177) on 05-19-2000, 03:18 PM:

My most embarrasing moment:

On my second shift for Hoyt's in 1989, I threaded "Parenthood" with the soundtrack turned inside the projector. I start it up and...wala! The logo is horizontally flipped with no sound. What's worse is how I corrected this abberation. Instead of taking one minute to unthread the Century and simply "turning the film around", I have it in my head that I have to rewind the entire film and rethread from scratch. Yeah, that took a good hour producing some irate patrons. I thought it would cost my job for sure. You can rest assured I haven't made that mistake again though!

Most painful:

I briefly worked for an old (still existing) single-screen house with the traditional 2000' reels and carbon arcs (Magnarc lamphouses). While changing carbons during a show, I failed to secure the hood properly and it came crashing down on my head. I also have some bruises on my hand from splicers.

Another persons makeup "disaster":

We got "Beauty & the Beast" for the second time and the makeup projectionist forgot to visually verify the third reel was heads up. Sure enough, everything's going fine until the splice and the characters appear upside down. At least we got a good laugh from the kids in the auditorium.

Another persons exhibiting "disaster":

We ran the SPECO platters in which payout & takeup functions were assigned by pressing a button. Well in cinema 1, the takeup button for the top platter liked to pop back out and disengage the function. This was at a theater with all manual controls and no failsafes. So the projectionist is of course downstairs chatting away with the concessionists, drinking his soda when "Pretty Woman" starts loading onto the floor. He goes upstairs, sees about 15-20 minutes of film spilling next to the projector base and decides not to interrupt the show and let the whole thing run onto the floor. I report in at 6:00 and go check on him upstairs (I was scheduled to work concessions that night) and I see this huge mess and he yells some expletives as he's dancing around trying to sort the mess. I later was sent back up to help him but we missed the 7:00 show. We finally got the thing back up for the 9:20 show but "Pretty Woman" wasn't so pretty anymore, to say the least.

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-19-2000, 03:41 PM:

Dang Kyle that sucks

anybody got any info on how i can get my hands on that seminar tape. sounds funny.

anyways i used to work in a cinemark 2-plex which has many walls and many stairs there was a week that went by that i triiped on those narrow stairs but that is beside the point.

i used to have a problem with running into the corners of walls(really freakin' hurts especially with glassess so they get oushed farther into your face) and interlock rollers as well. One time it was the last start of the last round and i was tired. I was double checking the bottom roller when all of the weight in my head went flying into the manual douser lever(CFS7000)
it knocked me back and i was looking at stars.

As anybody everheard a 7000watt bulb explode? It is extremely loud:0 Scared everyone. I have heard it twice. You can hear it from one side of the building to completely the other.

how about false fire alarms?

I will never forget the time there was a 30 min. blackout in the whole theater. it was packed and all of the patrons who came to the huge 20-plex got a raincheck. how much do you think this one cost?

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-19-2000, 03:53 PM:

Im sorry forgot something
it was a 20-plex not a 2-plex.

weirdest thing i have seen while closing.

it was about 2:00am and i waws shutting down booth when in the last theater i see a couple who have fallen asleep. work lights were on and non-sync was going. police had to come and revive the two from the dream that was better than the movie.

weirdest thing i have heard that has happened
well in my theater at least. all stadium seating. two people having sex in the middle walkway of the auditorium. and another performing oral faltio in prince of egypt. called police to that teater but they were done before they arrived.

some body once threw a pair os purple panties on the porthole for dr doolittle

weirdest thing found
cocaine and beer bottles.
condoms in front of theater

I have even seen a couple of people been escorted out of the theater and was arrested. i believe at least one of those had a warrant out forhis arrest and he arrrived to the theater drunk off his ass. really smart there buddy. Ironically I have heard of one fight manager tried to stop but was pushed. they ran away befpore cops got to them. Oh yeah 2 bomb threats. one false. the other ws just some customers tools in which were found in the parking lot. it was in a army issued ammo box. employees and customers could not get to their car within that vicinity until the scene has been chaecked out. But yes it was a nice rich neighborhood. its plano. conglomerate international

any body else find weird stuuf in a theater?

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-19-2000, 03:54 PM:

Ethan, I was working at your nearby theater when you had that blackout. The big 20 plex killed our business and there was exactly myself and ONE employee on duty when we got hit by your angry customers who took their business to our theater when you lost power...and we got hit bad! I had to run projectors, clean theaters, sell concessions and tear tickets for about 1000 people within less than an hour that day. I also did a very nice and painful backflip landing on my head/shoulders (ala Joe Pesci in Home Alone) on the concession floor because a certain someone never bothered to fix our bag in the box oil pump and I was hand dipping the oil into the kettle. That makes a real mess and those non-stick floors cannot combat an oil spill. After that, I had to swap places with the girl in box office because my head wouldn't stop bleeding and selling food wasn't the best place for me to be at that point. Needless to say, my suit was ruined and the company outright refused to pay for it.

THAT sucked!

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-19-2000, 04:50 PM:

Ethan Said:
"any body else find weird stuuf(sic) in a theater?"

I used to work in a porno drive-in. You can only *imagine* what i have found out there while either servicing the field or cleaning the place up during the day. You can usually find some strange items in a theatre right after any screening of 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' as well.

Odd Things I have found in regualar theatres (non-porno, and not after a showing of RHPS):

-Dirty Diapers (someone had the BALLS to change a baby in the auditorium?!?)

-a pair of pantyhose

-a pair of pants, belt and all , nothing in the pockets tho...

-a pile of *human feces* in the elevator of our 9-plex (gak)

-on several occasions in my career I have found small quantities of 'illegal' drugs (marijuana, crack, crank, powder cocaine) that have 'fallen out' of someone's pockets... their loss (the items in question were *not* consumed or resold by me they were flushed down the toilet)

*Then there are the strange food items that have been found in the auditoria:

-three *large* Domino's Pizza boxes (how *these* managed to get by the ushers is one for the X-Files)

-a large box of Cheerios

-an empty Mason jar that had some kind of home-canned friut or vegetable in it

*Then the pleasant surprises found while cleaning:

-a $100 bill under a seat

-several [still]cameras, Walkmen, CDs, cassettes, and calculators, most go unclaimed...

* Living things other than people, insects or common housepets/vermin making their way in a theatre:

-we had a skunk come visit the lobby in Tiburon

-a bat somehow made it into the 3rd floor lobby of Sebastopol

-Errant birds, mostly smaller ones, but I have seen pigeons and crows in theatre lobbies and auditoria...

I could go on....

Aaron

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-19-2000, 06:43 PM:

Electrical mistakes that hurt:

All our projector work light switches are posistioned correctly except one. One annoying switch that is upside down. For some reason it just annoys the hell out of me. Well one day I had a bright idea, "I've got nothing better to do. Its only two screws, turn it around, put them back in." Problem is our breaker box is poorly labled and all the shows were running then so I didn't want to experiment. Anyway, I got the screw out and was turning the switch around when I somehow manageing to touch the positive and negative screws with my finger. OUCH!! That hurt. Now I'm panicking, I obviously kicked out that breaker, so a couple of emergency lights come on and there is a black patch on the side of the switch. Panic time. So what do I do? Put it back together exactly the way it was and act like nothing ever happened. It still works to this day, still upside down though.

Another time I was changing one of those little lights on the underside of platters that illuminate the film below. Silly me I didn't take out the fuse or unplug the platter. So I got a nice little shock from the tip of my finger down my arm and out my elbow into the platter. You'd be surprised how much 1.5 amps can hurt.

Posted by Jason R. Weinsteiger (Member # 456) on 05-20-2000, 10:09 AM:

i feel your pain. i can't touch the light switch at the same time as the platter or i get zapped.

jasoN

------------------
"That's what life is - a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of muppets." -Dante Hicks

Posted by Jeff Stricker (Member # 224) on 05-20-2000, 10:28 AM:

I worked in a TV station in the summers during the '60's to pay school expenses. When they hired me and found out I had some experience with film, they started me off in the projection room. The 16mm RCA (I think TP-66's)projectors were remotely started by the boys in the control room upstairs. There was a switch by each machine that you would put in the "standy" position when threading so the the machine could not be remotely started until it was ready to go.

Well one evening, things got screwed up, and I had to thread a film quickly to avoid "dead air"...of course in my frantic hurry to get things ready, I forgot to throw the switch. Well, the boys upstairs got nervous and rolled the machine along with my right index finger through the feed sprocked above the gate.

ouch!!!

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-20-2000, 10:35 AM:

well honestly, this is one of the first times i am getting the priveleges with working with christie platters.

so anyways i believe so far i have been zapped at least 5 times. not too pleasent but not too bad either.

one time i was watching my manager change out the payout control card on a speco lp271 well he forgot to turn off the power to the power to the platters and all of the suddenZZZZAAAAAPPP!!!! i turn to see my manager thrown to the floor in pain.

Posted by Dwayne Caldwell (Member # 417) on 05-20-2000, 02:43 PM:

I remember we had two projectors, #6 and #8, whose distance between both platter systems was about three feet apart. This was an AMC booth and the platters were ORC. It wasn't uncommon for me and this other guy to spin both platters at the same time (in opposite directions) to spool the remaining tail leaders onto the take up platters. Of course, this was when the take up platters were either both on top or in the middle.

We stopped doing it when I was receiving a shock. Actually, it felt more like a surge of static electrical current running through my arms. And I want to say it pasted my chest, but I really can't remember. This was more than three years ago. Anyway, I asked the other guy if he'd been receiving the same kind of discharge and he said he had. I didn't have the problem when I spun one or the other of the platters by itself. So I asked him if he had any problems spinning the platters individually and he said, "Nope. It's only when I spin both platters." I told him we needed to stop doing it since I had no idea what was causing it and had just assumed we lose the extra time to spin one more platter then have a stopped heart. I still don't know exactly what that was. Anybody out there have any idea?

------------------
The man with the magic hands.

Posted by Chris Rhode (Member # 448) on 05-21-2000, 11:25 AM:

One of my idiot mistakes:

I had just built up Dogma (8 reels) and I went to take it off of the platter. There were no clamps on it and when I went to swing it off of thte platter, it just came apart in my hands. It took 3 hours to put back together again and needless to say, I always check the tightness of the print before I move it myself.

Another idiot mistake someone else had but I had to fix:

I was off the previous day when I get in the next day to find a big pile of film all tangled up on the build-up table with a note scribbled on one of those papers you get with the prints that said something to the effect of, "this is angela's ashes, I didn't know how to fix it, so fix it. Thanks." Enough said. On a side note, this happened at 11:30 that morning and the manager came up and saw what happened and asked, "will this be up for the 1:05 show??"

One of my other projectionists were building up a print of Black & White for a press screening. The first 2 reels ran fine when all of a sudden the third reel was running upside down. I didn't monitor the sound but I realised what had happened. Naturally the critics were pissed and we had to cancel the screening because we weren't able to finish it in time for the first show we ran in that house.

Most painful mistake:
transferring film from one 6k reel to another and trying to stop the pay-out reel spinning at top speed. I thought I was placing my hand in the direction that the reel was spinning when it was in the opposite direction. I got my middle and index finger caught in one of the holes. It just plain hurt for the first 2 minutes. I was shaking my hand kind of like when you hit your finger with a hammer when I looked at the floor and realised that there was blood. I looked at my fingers and saw that my fingertips got sliced. We didn't have any first aid kit, so i just took some paper towels, wrapped it around my fingers and taped them with maksing tape.

Ethan: I have heard a 7k bulb explode. It was while it was lit and during a show of Mission To Mars. I never heard it because i wasn't around but I asked the projectionist running that side when it happened and he said it sounded like a great big explosion. He was right next to it when it happened and he said he almost crapped his pants!!!

Joe, I would like to get ahold of that video you have. How can i get a copy of it??

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 05-21-2000, 01:28 PM:

Recently, while on a service call, I noticed that the error rate on the Dolby DA-20 was flashing 3,F,3,F,3,F.....ect., quite rapidly.

Acting on a suspicion, I placed my finger on the film over the sound-drum on the Cat 700, and felt, as I had suspected, a "bump" with every revolution of the sound drum. Using a flashlight, I could see a gob of splicing tape stuck to the drum. I tried to unstick it with my fingernail with the projector running. THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA!

Sprocket-marked fingers hurt!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-21-2000, 05:13 PM:

I myself have had a finger run through a sprocket, but this was on a Simplex. I just remember showing my finger to everybody for days afterward because you could see distinct sprocket holes. I don't remember what I was doing to get the damage.

The tape that everyone seems to want is only 3 minutes long. I am toying with the idea of having anyone who wants it just send me a blank tape. If the interest is enough, I may go back in and add sound effects (there is alreadu narration and music).

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-21-2000, 09:00 PM:

How does one zap oneself using a Christie platter? Is there some "do not touch this part" part that is electrically live? Or is this a static problem with ESTAR-base film and the fiberglass decks of an AW-2?

Posted by Ethan Harper (Member # 472) on 05-21-2000, 11:01 PM:

well, if there is electricity going to something and oh lets say someone said that the platters are powered off and you decide to try and change a motor control card well scott you kind of get shocked. and it is not pleasant. sorry if i seem harsh but im not in the best of moods (grouchy) if you read my latest post maybe you would partially understand.

how this one smart for you ?

when i was at cinemark. the ub's(projectionists) were the only ones allowed to dust the screens reason being we were the only ones who were trained to do so. well the dumb usher head manager, who thinks that the theater is the pentagon or something(real tight dumbass who hits and stare at 12 year old girls who is married and has a 10 year old daughter of his own) though it would be smnart for one of his ushers to do it. so he gets the screen brush and hands it to his usher. then what happens? Can you guess? if said that they put a hole in the screen you were correct. at least it was not the big house.

------------------
--"That's my story and i'm sticking to it!"--

Posted by Jason R. Weinsteiger (Member # 456) on 05-21-2000, 11:39 PM:

scott sayeth:

"How does one zap oneself using a Christie platter? Is there some "do not touch this part" part that is electrically live? Or is this a static problem with ESTAR-base film and the fiberglass decks of an AW-2?"

-----

it's not the platter, it's the lightswitch. The platter just provides a nice place for the current to go after it travels through me

jasoN

------------------
"That's what life is - a series of down endings. All Jedi had was a bunch of muppets." -Dante Hicks

Posted by Anthony Matarazzo (Member # 63) on 05-22-2000, 06:53 AM:

The worst projection disasters
I've had almost entire print go onto floor while I was on my meal break. I can't remember the movie but what a MESS!. Took about 45min to fix. I nearly vomited all over itwhen I first saw it tangled around the take-up on the Vic 8 base.

When I was training the projection dropped the print of "Das Boot" onto floor while moving it. It was impossible to pick up so I unscrewed a platter and we slid the print onto it. It worked .

While running the head program during a preview I noticed that the cinema tech didn't splice the perf holes on the foil tape for the lens change, when it went through, I showed the audience what film is like when it burns.

Lacing the wrong feature

While I was doing the ad changes on a Cinemaccanica 35/3CNR platter the grill next the light fell off and when I went to put it back on I got zapped.

The worst things I seen
Dirty Diapers under the seat after a children preview

Syringes

Vomit - all different mixtures

Human feces ( on the floor and in coke cups also urine in cups as well )

A young couple came in with a cooked chook and a loaf of bread.Lets have a picnic

The usual sex senses

Thanks all I can think of at the moment.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 05-22-2000, 02:58 PM:

A worker and I were installing a sound rack at a drive-inn one night. My worker was soldering some stuff inside the rack and when I flashed off a picture he about went through the top of the rack. He thought I'd applied the rack power too soon! Took about an hour to get him to come down off the stack blower.
Mark

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 05-23-2000, 01:34 PM:

Brad,

I was working there at that time. Denton County Power lost a phase (out of 3) right at 6:00PM on a Sun evening, Opening weekend of the re-release of Empire Strikes back as I remember it, It went off RIGHT as I started the 6pm show. If I remember right the power stayed off for about 2 1/2 hrs. The fire Dept made us evacuate the entire building (20 screens remember) Customer were demanding refunds indstead of accepting rain checks (this is in a very high income part of town) Which due to the computers being down because of the power outage we were unable to fullfill. Once the power came back on we were back on schedule within about 20 minutes for the most part. Lesson learned here: An 8 screen theatre CANNOT take up the slack when a 20screen theatre loses its power, Brad when that happened wasn't it just you, the box office cashier and a concessionist? or was the concessionist still optional that day?

This was the 2nd time that the Pwr company had lost a phase, the first time was during construction, as we derperatly tried to find the electrician to find the main power cutoff to keep things from half-phasing to death. Well we found him, in the elevator stuck between the 3rd and 4th floors.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 05-23-2000, 01:35 PM:

Joe,

I too have had a finger caught in a sprocket, althought mine was on a Century JJ-3. the film had wandered off the idler roller in the mag penhouse and I tried to use my index finger to nudge the film back into place when the 70mm sprocket grabbed my finger. I too had distinct sprocket holes on my finger. Kinda odd looking at first...

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-23-2000, 02:07 PM:

After the 20 screen opened, we went from selling out 7 out of 8 screens all weekends long to bringing in 10-20 customers during any given weekday. I always insisted on having 2 employees plus a manager, but as you well remember, most of the time it was one manager plus one employee because of little things like school. Also, when someone called in sick on a two man shift, there went half the staff. It was just me and one employee that day during that incident.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 05-23-2000, 04:33 PM:

I remember talking to you shortly after that happened, you got completely slaughtered over there, but we weren't happy campers either. People on Plano can be downright snotty, to put it lightly

Woohoo!!! this is post # 100 for me! YAY!! LOL

Posted by Carl King (Member # 398) on 05-24-2000, 11:49 AM:

Painful mistake? Only to my ego.

A whole lot of years ago when I was just a young projectionist I was running TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARAH starring Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLane (did I spell that right?). At the same time I was revising and animated TOM THUMB for a matinee the next day. Can you guess what I did? Yes , I mixed up the reels. When I made my changeover (manual changeover/carbon arcs)Shirley said to Clint. "What do we do now?" I made the change and Tom Thumb hit the screen yelling "Run everyone, run" Luckily no one did and I shut down and changed reels. The Manager (my father) only yelled at me for 15 or 20 minutes. I got off lucky

Presentation is everything

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-24-2000, 02:17 PM:

But according to Steve Guttag in a debate he has apparently forefited, it is IMPOSSIBLE to get reels mixed up on a changeover situation! (Check it out in the thread "Miller vs. Guttag at the 30 plex".)

LONG LIVE PLATTERS!

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-25-2000, 01:06 PM:

>>How does one zap oneself using a Christie platter? <<

Scott, I don't know about this case, but I lit myself up once on an AW-2 (and it only took once), by checking the brushes with the power on!

------------------
Better Projection Pays!

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 05-25-2000, 01:25 PM:

Here's one. I once talked a manager through changing an intermittent in a Century. He had me on the phone on his shoulder, and a screwdriver in hand (I was two states and a day or so away, working another emergency). Everything progressed fairly uneventfully, and after an hour and a half or so, he'd successfully reassembled the machine and run it in. "Great, I'll see you day after tomorrow, for the PM call."

Somewhere in the middle of the Texas panhandle I thought, "Oh, no! I forgot to have him TIME THE SHUTTER!" I figured he must've hit it perfectly, because he didn't call back and a whole day had passed. A few hours later, as I walked into the theatre, I told him about my oversight and how he'd evidently aced the shutter without knowing. He allowed that he guessed so, as it looked okay to him and no one had complained.

When I put the machine on the screen, however, I found it awash with travel ghost... top to bottom!

------------------
Better Projection Pays!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-25-2000, 01:51 PM:

Tim:
In pre-historic times, when I worked at the Grandview Drive-In in Angola, NY (it's still operating), the other projectionist, Carl, and I used to hone and test our skills by changing "defective" projector, lamp, or sound system components between 2000-foot reel changeovers. At least twice each season, we would challenge each other to change the intermittent and retime the shutter on our Century C projectors. The pressure of having to do this, or change a silicon rectifier in the stack, or water-cooled silver carbon "jaws", or reflector, etc. in less than 15 minutes really kept us on our toes. The hardest part was that some of those things hadn't had a chance to cool down much before we "had" to work on them. Amazingly, we never missed the next changeover. If we had, we know we would have heard 300 horns honking in unison.

The stupid (but fun) things you do in your youth.

Posted by Jason Burroughs (Member # 68) on 05-25-2000, 03:23 PM:

Annother stupid and potentially painfull mistake I've witnessed an experienced technician do is use a screwdriver to discharge a capasitor on a 4000W lamphouse. Needless to say the screwdriver became welded to the posts and a new capasitor had to be installed. Boy were the sparks a'flyin on that one!

Stupidest move I've done is change 7KW lamp in about 5 minutes. from the time the lamp was shut off to the time that the new one was back in and aligned and running. All without protective gear (as I'm ashamed to admit) This was done soly as an emergency situation though.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 05-25-2000, 03:30 PM:

Changing a hot 7000 watt lamp without protective gear?

You're very lucky to still be alive and have your eyesight. NEVER do that again (even with a cold bulb)!

Posted by Don Olson (Member # 90) on 05-25-2000, 04:08 PM:

I had a Super80 lamphouse that wouldn't line up right. I finally resorted to moving the lamp yoke and the entire lamphouse with the bulb lit and door open. No face shield. TXH house and I am desperate. I struggled and then saw stars. The lamphouse door came off the magnets and hit me across the nose. Dan Devoe was with me. I ask him if I was bleeding. He said. "yep" Is there a flap of skin?? I ask. Dan answered yes. Which way should I push it to cover up my meat?? He kinda showed me up and to the right. I pushed the flap over the meat and kept working. In the end we discovered that the reflector was so heat damaged that no alignment would improve the amount of light.

It was late and I hate to give up.

Don

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 05-25-2000, 06:52 PM:

Don-

I hear ya! Just last week I had a Super 80 door come down on my head while installing it... Had just finished the static (string and weight) alignment so I tightened the bolts, then made the mistake of giving the thing a quick shake to see if it was solid..... CRASH! Ouch.... Had a headache for the better part of the day.

Aaron

Posted by Gordon Leslie (Member # 139) on 06-03-2000, 08:37 PM:

Back in 73 I also worked in the telecine dept of TV, one Sunday after the midday movie got under way I was sitting back at my control desk like thousands of viewers, having lunch and enjoying the movie.
At the end of one of the commercial breaks I get a call on the intercom from the master controller asking where the second reel of the movie is as nothing is coming up on the preview screen. I spin around to check the other 16mm projector and there's nothing loaded up, the second spool was still in the trolley. Up comes the "stay tuned" caption while I do a quick thread…….most embarrassing!.

Another around the same time; during a commercial break there was a slide ad with a 10sec spot, when it came up on air I realised I put the slide in the carriage back to front, not to worry I'll just hit the switch which will reverse the slide, wrong! In my haste to throw the switch I hit the wrong one, this one turned the slide upside down so now I had a slide upside down and back to front!, with 5sec to go I just left it , I didn't wont to risk anything else going wrong. That last 5sec felt like 5mins.

And yet another; I suppose I could blame my wife for this one, she wont be reading this thread……..A few years back when I returned to the bio (booth) I headed off to night shift with my dinner in hand which my lovely wife prepared. I see its in one of those aluminium containers with a lid like you see in takeaway stores. I think great hot food so around 6pm I stick the tray in the oven to heat up to have around 6:45 when the features have started. I get a bit delayed so I didn't grab dinner out of the oven till after 7, I get the tray out , sit down with knife & fork in hand, take the lid off……..oh no!! it’s a salad!!!!!!!! I was hungry that night so I still polished it off, the lettuce wasn't to good, it's surprising how much water comes out of them when their cooked!.

And still another; getting out of bed on a cold wet winter morning absolutely dog tired trudging down to the bus stop for a 25klm ride to work in peak hour traffic, get into work and see the other projectionist walk in the same time as you and say, Gordon what are you doing here your on tonight!, so you get back on the bus and head of again to go through the whole thing again in 6 hours….now that sucks!!.
Back in 73 I also worked in the telecine dept of TV, one Sunday after the midday movie got under way I was sitting back at my control desk like thousands of viewers, having lunch and enjoying the movie.
At the end of one of the commercial breaks I get a call on the intercom from the master controller asking where the second reel of the movie is as nothing is coming up on the preview screen. I spin around to check the other 16mm projector and there's nothing loaded up, the second spool was still in the trolley. Up comes the "stay tuned" caption while I do a quick thread…….most embarrassing!.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-16-2000, 05:56 PM:

My biggest screwup has to be showing a trailer for CRASH before a kids' matinee of THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

This was in a single screen cinema that used two projectors and changeovers - we made up one reel of commercials and trailers that would often be shown before several features.

On this occasion, all but one of the trailers were U-certificate (OK to show to kids). The CRASH trailer (18-cert) was right at the end, so that when the reel was being shown in a lower-cert programme, we'd changeover from it at the end of the penultimate trailer, and let the reel run out with the douser closed.

On this occasion, I started the commercials and went out to get a coffee. Whilst doing this the duty manager asked me to fix her computer, and so I got back to the box slightly later than planned. As I walked in, a voice could be heard from the booth monitor asking, 'Do you want to sodomise him? Do you want to penetrate right to the back of his anus?' - needless to say, it wasn't Julie Andrews!

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-16-2000, 07:04 PM:

My favorite one was many years ago at the Cineplex Odeon Eaton's Centre theatre (rear Screen) there was a relief projectionist in for the matinea in one section and he went into one of the reeel screen booths to thread up the first show (Tower ). He threaded up the unlabled reel on the tower pressed start and then had to leave the rearscreen booth and went on to the next booth. The only problem the opertor from the night before hadn't moved over the correct print so an audience of toddlers who thought they were going to see Song of the South got Ford Fairlaine in stead

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 07-16-2000, 11:08 PM:

Having just got home, after a hard day's work and just having sat down to supper, I got a call from Local 173 Buisness Agent, Graydon Hulse.

"We're in real trouble, can ya help us?" he asked. Turned out the guy who was supposed to work the Odeon, Oshawa that night, phoned at the last minute to say he couldn't make it. As I was only half an hour away from the theatre, I vounteered to fill the shift.

It was a piece of cake, two Century projectors, Eprad OS-1 Mono sound system, Peerless Magnarc carbon arcs, twenty minute reels, and a five-reeler called "Young Guns" with a trailer package on the first reel.

As this was basically the same equipment I had worked with years earlier, in Cobourg, Ontario, I figured I might enjoy this trip down memory lane.

The evening was boringly blissful until the last change-over. At the point of change-over, all I saw was a black screen. A lightning quick check, arc on, dowser open, and, looking in the spot-sight box, the change-over blade was still closed. I reached behind the Essanay change-over mechanism to pull the rod so that the change-over blade opened. It was already in the open position. I realized that the blade had become separated from the wire that connected it to the change-over solenoid.

Working at light-speed, I killed the arc, whipped open the arc-lamp door and reached into the back of the projector to lift the blade.

It was at this point that I realized, too late, the wisdom of shutting off the projector motor BEFORE reaching into the back of a Century CC (double-shutter) projector, and attempting to lift the change-over blade.

Realizing that I would now need my tool-box (from my car, parked out front of the theatre), I quickly wrapped my bleeding fingers in brown paper and headed out to my car to grab my tool-box (passing the manager, chatting to one of his staff). Noticing the blood-stained paper towel over my left hand, he casually inquired.
"Everything ok?"

"Just fine" I muttered without stopping.

Got the performance back up and running, but I still feel a touch of something like arthritis, every time I see a Century.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-16-2000, 11:53 PM:

Dumb question, but wouldn't it have been easier to move the reel of film to the other projector than run to the car, since the show had already stopped?

Can you still count to ten on your hands?

Posted by Per Hauberg (Member # 529) on 07-17-2000, 03:13 PM:

"BARQUERO" - a m i n o r (indeed)1970 or so very longwinded western from United Artists, starring Lee Van Cleef was ordered express to nect theatre, and to be sure of cathing last train out of town that evening for the shipment, i ran the late show on 2000 ft reels c/o - grapping reel 6 in stead of reel 5. -End credits started, while i was loading what i thought was the last reel. Not a single complaint from audience, but funny glimses from ground personel and lots of requests the next many weeks about "going home early nonite or what...?"

More serious mistake: Many years later, now having my own place - believing an equipment dealer, telling me, that i'd be a fool installing those two Bauer B11's, i've bought for reserve, because it would be impossible to get spares for them. -He sold me a Vic 9 instead YAK !

-And Kinoton, Münich shows up to have all the bits You need for B11. OK, Miss Victoria has been rockin' and rollin' now for 4 years without making the big trouble, but a mistake it was....

Per

Posted by Dave Cutler (Member # 515) on 07-17-2000, 07:19 PM:

One of the guys at my theatre built 'Jocob the Liar' with reels 3 & 4 switched, and it ran that way for two weeks untill a guest who had saw it at another theatre told my about it. I had two people screen that and neither of them noticed.

I knew a guy once who (while the projector was running) saw some dirt on the trap and decided to poke at it with an allen wrench. Not a good idea. He dropped the allen into the running projector and tore the crap out of it.

Other than a finger or two cought in fast spinning 6000' reels or hitting my head on equiptment or electricuting myself, I have been pretty lucky compared to some of you guys. Then again, I am still fairly new (5 years).

Actually I do remember hoping up and down in the booth waving my hand around in pain splattering blood everywhere once. I can't remember what I did at the moment though. Oh well.

Posted by Paul Cunningham (Member # 501) on 07-17-2000, 07:34 PM:

Hello to all film-techers, having been "lurking" for the last couple of months and reading nearly all of the 14,000 entries in the forum it is time to say something.
Rick, I can sympathise with you, we have a couple of Centrex's like your Century's and many years ago when still learning I thought it would be nice to clean the inside of the sight glass while the projector was running. Little did I realize just how close those double shutters are to the outside until they sliced through the end of my finger, fingernail and all. OUCH! Just the other day I stopped one of my fellow projectionists just in time from sticking a screwdriver through a spinning Cinemaccannica shutter to lift a broken zipper which was down, that would have been nasty.

Posted by Michael Pace (Member # 553) on 08-05-2000, 09:27 AM:

I worked at the Redcliffe Drive-in (Just north of Brisbane, Queensland Australia) during the late '70's early '80's. The print of Private Benjamin arrived with the tails of spools 3 & 4 reversed. As I had checked the part numbers at the tail end I had not put time into checking the heads so I did not find out about the spool screening out of order until a patron suggested that there was something amiss with the film.

It had ran the Thursday and Friday nights this way and was corrected in time for the Saturday night session.

Also had a print slide off the side of the platter one night around about 20 minutes from the end of the show. It took me only 20 minutes to get it back onto the platter to enable me to finish the performance. The biggest problem was that the bio box had an observation window for the patrons to have a look at the projection equipment and there was quite an audience at that window while I was picking up the film.

And the only reason that projectionists put the film in the projector the wrong way and have the sound-track appear on the screen is so that the hearing impaired are able to read the sound. I use this when the trainee stuffs up once again.

Regards to all.

The weather in Townsville is magnificent.

Posted by Greg Kristopik (Member # 594) on 01-05-2001, 04:19 AM:

Taking down a print of the General's Daughter. Ring came out and film went FLYING off the platter.

The WORST mess you have EVER seen. How long did it take to fix? From about 2:00 to 2:30.
Oh wait, that's PM to AM!

I gave up after a while and just started randomly splicing stuff together to get it the hell out of there.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-05-2001, 06:11 AM:

Greg --- tough situation.

I know it's hard to take responsibility, but I do hope that you informed the exchange and distributor that the print had spilled, and needed to be cleaned/rewashed before the next booking. Otherwise, the next theatre would have a real mess on their hands with a dirty print full of splices.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 01-05-2001, 07:33 AM:

I guess my biggest mistake would have been the time I built School Ties 1,2,5,4,3. The kicker is the fact that it was screened by an employee and ran for TWO nights before one of my friends stopped in to see it. Before they left they stopped by to talk to me about it, telling me how something *had* to be wrong with the buildup (they knew terminolgy becaus they were good friends of mine and had sat and watched be build/break films many times). I had not rec'd ONE complaint from anyone else about it, but I looked into it myself, only to find that reels 3 & 5 had been labeled wrong from the previous theatre.. Had it all corrected and re-screened for the first AM show on Sunday.

I don't know which is worse, the fact that *I* did it, or the fact that no-one else noticed.....

PS.. the great thing about being a 16 plex first run --- receiving used prints is a rarity!

------------------
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 01-05-2001, 08:04 AM:

Jason:
Did reel 5 of "School Ties" not have closing credits or a rating tag? Or did the previous theatre cut them off? Usually the first and last reel of a feature are easily identifiable during makeup (even if the leaders are mixed or cut off) since they have opening titles and closing credits.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 01-07-2001, 10:20 PM:

Actually, the more I think about it, the print was actually 6 reels. I remember noting the fact that the credits were, in fact, intact, as they should be. I had NOT noticed that reels 3 & 5 had the reel bands reversed on them , thus causing the mix up on initial build-up. Now a days, I *alyays* look at the imaging on the head AND tail EVEN if it IS a new print. You never know with some of the stuff that comes from the labs these days... Sorry John, but labs aren't perfect either...

------------------
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!

Posted by Barry Hans (Member # 477) on 01-07-2001, 11:04 PM:

Does sticking my fingers into the back of a 16mm projector to check lamp cooling blower ( while machine was running, lamp off ) and having my index fingernail half way ripped off by the shutter blade count? Darn finger feels like when I had some material kick back from my table saw and fractured my thumb knuckle- ouch! Back a few years ago I knocked my self to my knees once running into an Imax reel unit head first! dizzy, blood dripping, swearing at myself no thread time to start with and was able to get the show started on time!

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 01-07-2001, 11:29 PM:

Most painful mistake? Ummmmm - I got my finger caught in the double shutter on a BX-80. Ouch! Could have been much worse. Luckly, the bevel gear stripped.

Posted by James Robertson (Member # 888) on 06-08-2001, 04:38 AM:

Back in the dark ages when I started (1955) it was routine to run the projectors(Super Simplex) for 10-15mts. before start of show to warm the motors up a bit. I was wiping off the accumulated carbon dust (Peerless Magnarc)from the previous days show. So I open the dowser to give it a clean. Yes you guessed. The cleaning rag gets too close to the shutter. BINGO! Tussles with the shutter. Rag wins.Expensive gear stripping exercise.
Never ever made that mistake again!

Jim Robertson

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 06-08-2001, 07:29 AM:

Fortunately for me, I never had any major mistakes made by me except the rookie type when I was being trained in 1986. I have had film cuts and static shocks, but far as I am concerned, all normal. However, a few years back, a coworker of mine was building up a print onto 6000' reels and he had originally came in to work a management shift. Well, Tony forgot to take his tie off and never tucked in his shirt. He went to rewind one of the reels at high speed and the wind caught the tie and sucked it in. I never saw the incident but I did see the aftermath. The left side of his cheek and forehead were bruised and scraped. I think I would have given up a pay check that week just to see that. Very funny stuff even though I shouldn't laugh.

------------------
Chris Duvall
General Manager
Regal Cinemas Colonnade14
Las Vegas, NV

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-08-2001, 07:49 AM:

Christopher said: "Tony forgot to take his tie off and never tucked in his shirt. He went to rewind one of the reels at high speed and the wind caught the tie and sucked it in. I never saw the incident but I did see the aftermath. The left side of his cheek and forehead were bruised and scraped."

Ouch!!!

Never wear a tie or loose clothing around moving equipment. Safety goggles are a good idea too, especially when reels may fly apart.

Posted by David Kilderry (Member # 142) on 06-08-2001, 09:07 AM:

OK, OK, I was in a box once where half a house was expecting "The Little Mermaid", what they saw was Steven Segals "Hard To Kill" for the first 5 minutes!

What was the injury here? Someones pride was very badly hurt!

I said I was in the box, I didn't say I did it!

Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 06-08-2001, 09:54 AM:

Once held the top sprocket pad arm of Gaumot Kalee 21 in place for three reels, after thing let go from the rest of the projector, I had grooves in my fingers for weeks after that.

Another time with a Westrex Westar 2001 I was gingerly easing running film back onto the hold back sprocket that a really terrible join had pushed it off of, when, you guessed it, there was an altercation between said sprocket and mt right index finger, and the sprocket won.

Most painful thing I have ever seen was during the Edinburgh International Film Festival, a then colleague had placed a 13,000 foot spool containing the film "Speed" onto the top sindle of the tower, and in his haste (it had been a LONG four weeks) had forgotten to put the securing nut on. As he revolved the tower to thread the mech, said 13,000 foot spool slid off the spindle in slow motion, and landed on my unfortunate friends foot. Result was a lot of swearing, a badly bent spool and a badly bruised foot.

I've just realized, the machine in question is the one I'm leaning on in the picture on the left. (The one where my finger got between sprocket and pad roller, and also the tower that dropped the spool onto my mates foot is behind this machine!)

Posted by Alan Plester (Member # 852) on 06-08-2001, 12:07 PM:

Started with a short first,instead of feature, had to run it twice to get timings back on track, at least only 5 were watching.
Opened up w/s film with wrong lenses in, OOOOOH, BIG PICTURE OR WHAT.
Both done only once in 15 years.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 06-08-2001, 05:48 PM:

Most painful incident was when I was lugging a 13,000 foot reel down the stairs and lost my footing and said reel jammed up my side and under my arm. My whole side was bruised for a week.

Other incident happend to a guy I know. He was running The Rescuers on 60 min. reels. When it changed over it changed into the 2nd reel of Scarface. (F you Mother F you die). All hell broke loose with parents running out of the theater.

Posted by Geoff Bradley (Member # 658) on 06-09-2001, 12:34 AM:

Ouch!
Rick, I haven't been to Cobourg in a long time, is the theatre still there.
What was it called? The Centre? Across from the hotel?

John, why don't you put that 8mm of the carbon lighting in the video section. I would love to see it.

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 06-09-2001, 02:15 AM:

Wow, what goof-ups you have all made. Glad none of those ever happened to me Course, there was that time I left the theatre, after replacing a bridge rectifier in a platter only to get a call from the projectionist that the platter was running backwards.....anyways.

By the mid-70's most theatres had converted to solid state amplifiers. A few, however, (mainly independants) clung to their still-working vacuum-tube technology.

I had just been given my first service route - Northern Ontario - baically a triangle from North Bay to Timmins to Thunder Bay, and I was determined to make an impression, especially at my first stop with tube amps - Sturgeon Falls.

First, the service reports (unchanged since the 50's) were a giant chart enabling the technician to enter such data as plate voltages, pre-amp B+, exciter voltages, ect. Since before the great flood, soundmen had been drawing a line through all this and just entering "checked tubes" under the "Remarks" line.

Not me boy. I was gonna do this right. Using my trusty Simpson 260, I carefully measured and entered every voltage they asked for. Not only that, but I even typed it up when I got home and handed it in on a Monday morning.

Working at my bench, and waiting for the obvious "congratulations - well done" speech from my supervisor, I found him, instead, standing at my bench, drumming his fingers and looking at me like I was an idiot. (Very perceptual man, my supervisor.)

"Ya just hadda do it, dintcha?" he asked. "Now, go get the manual for that amp and check your report against the schematic"

He was right. (I was later to learn that the supervisor is ALWAYS right). The plate voltages were all about 30% low. A little deduction showed the power supply resistors to be at fault. NO PROBLEM! - I vowed to change them on my next service call.

Which I did.

Mind you, the sound was a little more "hissy" than previously, but damn, those voltages were spec.

Proud as punch, I left town and arrived in Sudbury, some 70 miles west.

I had just returned from supper around 8:00 when the desk clerk at the hotel handed me a note.

"Could you come back please, our amplifier caught fire."

Turns out the old electrolytic caps couldn't take the higher voltages.

Posted by Rick Long (Member # 213) on 06-09-2001, 02:28 AM:

Geoff, if you are taking Ontario, I think you mean the Park Theatre, across from the hotel and half a block from the beach.

It was the most boring booth in the local..Super-Simplex, Peerless Magnarc, Eprad OS-1 and prison bars on the window to prevent (we were told) break-ins. After a few shifts there, break-outs would have been the greater danger.

Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 06-09-2001, 03:56 AM:

Well I've never really hurt myself except the mandatory cuts and scratches from various things. I've also never really done anything bad, although I had to fix someone elses mistake of putting reel 6 of sixth day wrong. Took forever.

Once I was tearing down Me, Myself and irene. I had accidently taken the center ring out, and tried unsuccessfully to put it back in the center. Of course I could only put it back sorta halfway. I started tearing down, I slowly, foolishly put the platter at full speed. There was another movie showing at the same time, it was Pokemon (I was tearing down from the top platter.)

So I start slowly, then go to full speed, and I kinda get scared since the ring is only in halfway holding the film in the center. Well just as I went to slow it down, the ring somehow came out of the hole and the film flew out. Now if you can imagine, a whole 7 reels spinning full speed its alot of force flying around. What happened was that the film *HIT* the tree part of the platter, the ENTIRE platter tree tilted to its side, HIT the side of the projector then flung itself back flat on the ground. Meanwhile after the print nearly knocked over the entire platter mechanism, its momentum slid it completely off onto the ground, not tangled or anything, perfectly flat like if it was on the platter. Amazingly, even though the entire tree had tilted over and hit the projector, the Pokemon did not stop or fall off, it kept going without a hitch. I was just standing there for about 5 minutes thinking of how lucky I just was. Then I proceeded to build up something else because I didn't want to touch tearing down for a few minutes.

Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 06-09-2001, 01:44 PM:

Most Painful mistake?

Trusting a technicolor reel....Nuff Said.

Posted by Jan Kisluk (Member # 868) on 06-12-2001, 02:36 AM:

I run a 7-plex and we had 2 prints of Star Wars Episode I. I opened both boxes and checked the reel numbers. I built up the first print and watched it with my staff the night before the opening. Everything was fine. The second print I built up the next afternoon and the concession kids that couldn't stay late the night before came in to watch it. As I was removing the tape from the labeled "head reel 6", one of the kids came up to see when it was going to start. I remember thinking that it was odd that reel six started in the same place as reel 2. Oops. The reel was clearly labeled reel 6, but it was also clearly labeled reel 2 once you removed the first header... It was fun calling distributors to get another reel sent up from Boston (3 hours away). I now stop what I'm doing when people come to visit while I'm building a film. The line of SW fanatics was quite enthusiastic when the courier arrived with the correct reel. I even got phone calls from the poor guy who had put it in the box. Seems they told him he was responsible for the only screwed up print in the country. I made sure that the extra header with the wrong #'s on it went back with the reel. Mostly what was hurt was my pride...

For physical pain try spraying Xecote into your eye instead of the projector.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-12-2001, 04:44 AM:

I swear the ONLY time I make mistakes is when I've got people around talking to me. I always catch myself in time, but they oughta give me a special lock for the booth no one has the key to for when I'm building up films!

Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 06-12-2001, 03:20 PM:

Keeping all unnecessary personnel OUT of the booth will help you do your job more effectively and keep your fingers attached to your hands. Our small booth gets quite noisy with all the equipment running, and I have had individuals accidentally suprise me once or twice whilst doing something that requires my undivided attention.

I now insist that absolutely nobody is in the booth with me during a show - one trainee or interested party excepted - and the door is locked. I remain in contact with the ushers and box office via radio.

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 06-13-2001, 02:44 AM:

Getting the two cam unit register pins on an IMAX projector stuck through the end of your left index finger while threading up

Letting an adjustable spanner (crescent wrench) that you are holding touch the caps in a big IREM rectifier before they have discharged .

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-13-2001, 09:31 PM:

Aw, heck! I gotta' bunch of CFSs. I short them out as a matter of practice before working on them... except for that one time!

Posted by John T. Hendrickson, Jr (Member # 849) on 06-18-2001, 04:23 PM:

Carl King's post on his Two Mules For Sister Sarah brings back a painful embarrasment from the dark ages of my existance and my rookie year in the booth to boot.

We were getting ready to open the Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park for the summer with a run of Patton. However, the owner of the chain, Walter Reade, Jr. decided to have a cocktail party and a private screening of Two Mules For Sister Sarah the night before the summer opening. It was a two man union booth back then, running reel to reel with carbon arcs. Each operator ran one projector. I started number one- no problem.

Then, the operator who was supposed to be working with me during the summer sauntered in and asked the other operator on duty that evening if he could thread up the number two projector. We said sure, go ahead.

Comes changeover time, and the second operator on duty makes the changeover to number two and guess what? No sound! The phone in the booth starts to ring off the hook. The western electric soundhead had been misthreaded by our guest operator! We had to shutdown and re-thread the soundhead while we explained it to the manager, who was beside himself with a theater full of bigwigs, including Walter Reade, Jr.

We were up and running again in less than a minute, but it gets better. The other operator told the manager that it was a "misframe in the soundhead". Obviously, the manager must have thought it was an equipment problem, so he makes an emergency call to the Altec tech, who also happened to be our local's business manager. He comes up to the booth about half an hour later, screaming bloody murder! I thought my days as a projectionist were going to end before they began. He calmed down after we told him what happened and I think he was more annoyed at the manager than anyonbe else. I learned my very first valuable lesson: if someone else is involved, CHECK THE WORK!

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-18-2001, 06:40 PM:

A very emotionally painful mistake is to drop a 14,000 foot assembled print in a BIG puddle of water. That will definately ruin your whole day. It is enought to make an adult cry. (Don't ask for details. It is embarrassing enough to 'fess up to it.)

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 06-20-2001, 03:57 PM:

Nice-thought-but-bad-idea newbie mistake commited by yours truly:
Tried to clean a short 70mm print while it was running. Was holding a film-cleaner-soaked-cloth between my fingers and letting the print run through during a sound check (the lamp wasn't on). Worked fine until a splice came through... Had nice twin rows of Westrex sprocket scars across the top of my right hand and forefinger for awhile after that (those Westrex's bite hard!)

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 06-20-2001, 09:55 PM:

Paul;

And, so you have bought us into the realm of Mistakes you will only make ONCE!"

You only have to forget to discharge those power supply caps ONCE. For the rest of your life, you'll never forget making a mistake like that!

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-21-2001, 06:56 AM:

Most painfull
Rewinding a print from the bottom to the top reel of our tower. At some point one of my fingers decided to get caught in top reel. Shaved my finger nail nicely and sliced the top of my finger. No stitches but plenty of blood and it hurt like hell.

------------------
------------------
Michael Brown
Bradford Student Cinema
www.Bradfordstudentcinema.co.uk

Posted by John Keegan (Member # 290) on 06-21-2001, 12:16 PM:

Since I've only been a projectionist for four months now, almost five, here are a couple of embarrassing things :
1. I was building a trailer pack for the next film on its way and I was putting commercials (yuck!) on and unwittingly spliced one M&M commercial upside down and backwards.
2. I've threaded film backwards...Nice sound the projector makes when its reading the non-soundtrack side of the film...NOT...
3. I threaded up the wrong film when we were running two films on the platter..I showed a children's movie to an adult audience...Boy did I get a lot of looks from the audience when that one occurred..
4. While threading the brain, I missed one of the rollers which caused a brain wrap...luckily I caught it in time before the movie was damaged.
5. I was trying to focus a film when I hit the lense by accident causing it to how my fingers instead of the movie.

I think that's enough boo-boo's for now

Needless to say, I am a lot more careful when I work now that I know better ! Whew!

Posted by Michael Hunt (Member # 772) on 06-21-2001, 12:56 PM:

Hmm,first major problem was back in 1990, Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours arrived at my Cinema about 45 minutes before it was due on screen... I'd made up a fifteen minute advert reel which my assistant was to start, whilst I was still making up the feature onto 14000' tower spools.
The first thing I did when the print arrived was to check what way around each of the reels of the print were, as I'd had a spate of features arriving on crossover from elsewhere where reel 1 was head out, reel 2 tail out and so on.
So I check 'Crimes and Misdemeanours' and reel 1 has a head properly spliced on, reel 2 a tail, reel 3 a head, reel 4 & 5 a tail, and reel 6 a head, but with no ID frames, so to make things easy, and save rewinding a platter reel, given as I'm pushed for time I rewind reels 1,3 & 6 and then start building the print up on the tower from tail of reel 6 backwards to reel 1, so that it'll be ready to screen as soon as I get to reel 1... and finished this just as the advert reel played out, and my assistant, who's screening this was closes the tabs and stops the projector...

Okay I say, all yours, I'll be in the Arts Centre's bar downstairs for the next hour, killing time before the next bus home...

twenty minutes later the phone in the Bar goes... 'Yes Mikes still here...'
I wander over to the phone to be asked by my assistant 'Okay Mike, just how many reels of this are going to be upside down then?'
Every bloody one that I'd thought was tail out... Teach me not to look harder at the print itself...

Then about two years later I'm screening the first show of 'Howards End' with a reviewer from the local paper in the audience, now on making this print I'd found a break in the middle of reel 5 that hadn't been repaired, and two breaks in the middle of reel 6 that hadn't been repaired , so I fix them, checking that the print still matches, and check the reel ends 'just in case', everything looked fine, so on finishing reel 7, I rewind the print...
THe print runs through fine, until about three minutes from the end of reel 6, and way past the breaks that I repaired,m the print does a somersault, and everyone is standing on their heads! Now I know that the end of the reel is okay, So I stop the Film, bring up the lights and call the Duty Manager to ask him to apologise to the audience, and to tell them that the film should be back on, and the right way up in five minutes, and according to the local paper next day, exactly five minutes later it was indeed back on screen the right way up...
I'd split the film at the offending point, wound it down to the end of the reel, then wound it back about 30' before I found the other offending point - both splices had been so well made that I'd missed them at make up. I then rewound the 'upside down' part, spliced it on the right way round, rewound it onto the top reel, laced it up, and restarted...
I still have the press cutting somewhere

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 11-26-2001, 08:40 PM:

COPIED FROM "My Christmas Wish - A Splicer?"

I broke 2 splicers once by leaving them on an engaged platter.
I forgot to start movies.
I started the wrong movies.
I started the wrong projector.
I dropped a print because I thought i could movie it by myself to another platter three feet away even though it didnt have a center ring.
I put the fifth reel of CITY HALL on backwards.

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 11-26-2001, 09:40 PM:

Stupid things I've done:

1: Dropped half a print of "Get It On" thinking i didn't need clamps to move the print. This happened mind you a couple minutes before showtime.
2: Had my finger ran through most of the upper portion of a Simplex 35/70 housing, let me tell you those 70mm sprockets hurt!!!
3: Mistakenly played a more adult oriented movie in front of a catholic church group who really came to see "Remember the Titans"
4: Ran my hands through the point where the motor wheel and the platter touch when engaged, several times.
5: Tried to start movies with just the general path setup, the projector still unthreaded (duh!).
6: On a call with my tech about a problem with the monitor (later found out it was a blown fuse) I mistakenly hit the wrong button and turned off the amps while the show was running.

These are some of the little gems I thought I'd submit, hope you like them :-).

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 11-27-2001, 07:53 AM:

My painful mistake when I was a projectionist several years ago, working at a 3-screen, reel to reel machines, 6,000 foot reels for the feature, 2,000 feet reels for the trailers, got involve watching a damn good movie, theaded a 6,000 foot reel on the machine, took up on a 2,000 foot reel, I had 6,000 feet of film on a 2,000 foot reel at the end of the show.....yep, it fall off the reel as I put it on the rewinder, must have made 100 splices and at that time only wet splices.....that took some time to repair...I bet the film company & the next theatre LOVED ME !!!

Posted by Neil Chue Hong (Member # 685) on 11-27-2001, 08:06 AM:

I've made my (un)fair share of mistakes in the past.

Most painful was probably attempting to stop a full reel on a tower rewinding by sticking my hand between the spokes

Most impressive was when hand winding a 6000ft 16mm reel at speed, the rivets sheared and one half of the reel went flying out the projection booth door - we bought new reels after that.

Most amusing was when showing round some new trainees on their first day on the box. I went "and this is how you dim the lights in the auditorium", pressed the dimmer (an old 1960s monstrosity) - and the dimmer box caught fire! Of course the dimmer box *had* to be located in the proj box... :P

Not sure I ever saw those two trainees again!

Posted by Bob Healey (Member # 1003) on 11-27-2001, 11:15 AM:

My worst mistake:
Changed over from policies/previews to the main feature. The takeup reel sounded like the film had snapped. Bent down to visually inspect the film exiting the projector, and caught my sleeve on the motor switch.
Nothing damaged except my pride.

Posted by Daniel Boisson (Member # 1027) on 11-27-2001, 07:36 PM:

i was checking my loops with my finger right after i started the movie. turned my head and the next thing i knew, i had a cut in my finger going really deep. my finger had gotten caught in between the incoming film from the platter and the first sprocket. there wasnt any major damage, but it hurt quite a bit for several days.

------------------
...My brain's always wrapped...

Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 11-28-2001, 05:44 AM:

I think my worst mistake must have been when I added some nice continues and VERY obvious black scratches to ALL 9 reels of "The Last Emperor". I did not discover them until the next morning when our late queen mother (Ingrid) and her son-in-law (Henrik) saw the film at the morning performance at the classy Imperial Bio.

I remember seeing the scratches during the main titles. I rushed the DP70 door up to find out where the hell they were coming from!!! Nothing! I concluded the scratches were done by myself during the previous performance the night before. And sure enough, when going through the complete film path, from the non-rewing and back again, I found a very large cotton-ball like piece of plastic-film-dust on the base of the machine.

I had managed to show the whole film by bypassing the lower fire trap on the DP70.

We took the film apart, had it cleaned, and the scrathes were gone. A learning experience for the whole crew and it never happened again.

PS: I never got complaints from the Queen

------------------
Cheers, Thomas
..in70mm - The 70mm Newsletter
www.in70mm.com www.dp70.com www.70mm.dk www.hauerslev.com http://hjem.get2net.dk/in70mm

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 11-28-2001, 12:23 PM:

Thomas said: "We took the film apart, had it cleaned, and the scrathes were gone."

You were lucky! Sounds like you may have superficially scratched the emulsion side, and the scratches fortunately did not penetrate into the imaging dye layers. If so, an aqueous "rewash" process can often heal these minor scratches:
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/processing/operating7.shtml#rewashing

Obviously, it's better not to scratch the print in the first place.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 11-28-2001, 07:00 PM:

Thomas,

WOW! I have to agree with John, that was very lucky! I also agree that scratches of any kind can be avoided, but like you said it's one of your mistakes, and lord knows we're all human here. Keep up the good work.

Posted by Thomas Hauerslev (Member # 566) on 11-29-2001, 02:43 AM:

Thanks for your comment John. The scratches were on the base side of the film.

Our print had been taken apart and reassembled several times before the premiere (for screenings, TV etc), so in the end, the print actually looked much better/cleaner thanks to the "cleaning".

What amazed me was the fact that the film could actually run on the mechanism. From that day on, I never failed to double-check the lover fire trap, from fear of repeating my "stunt".

------------------
Cheers, Thomas
..in70mm - The 70mm Newsletter
www.in70mm.com www.dp70.com www.70mm.dk www.hauerslev.com http://hjem.get2net.dk/in70mm

Posted by Patrick J. McCart (Member # 1043) on 11-29-2001, 04:34 PM:

I don't work the projector at the Swan Drive-In, but I've seen some bad stuff (and experienced some!

I've found some vile/weird things...

- Condoms stretched across the men's room sink (Not used)
- Feces all over toilets
- Toilet paper stuffed down a restroom sink
- Underpants in the toilet
- Half a large pizza on the lot.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 11-30-2001, 01:43 PM:

Wow, I really feel badly for some of you guys. Luckily I have never been seriously injured. The only thing I can remember was not cutting the power when removing the filmtrap on a Simplex 1050. When I disconnected the aperture plate motor, zap! I was used to the Millenium where the connector is enclosed in that plastic structure. But from theat point on, I have made it a habbit to always cut all power when cleaning my projectors, even if I'm not removing anything.

As far as mistakes....I can fill pages! When I was new to building, every week I did something like put a reel on backards, upside down, or out of order. I also put a reel on backwards with The Mummy Returns, but I caught it before it went onto the platter, so I took it off and fixed it.

My current theatre has manual platters. I was used to the Strong AP. Took me a while to get used to switching the payout platter to payout. I had a few brainwraps at first.

I have also dropped more than my fair share of prints. Two cases come to mind. One was Nutty Professor 2. I didn't use clamps, but I did use one of those cardboard donughts. Sorry. It dropped. Same thing with 13 Days. In both cases, the projectors were right next to each other! Talk about emarassing. It's not like I was moving the prints down the hall and around the corner. Oh well. Live and learn. I now always use clamps (at least 3 clamps), and if at all possible I try never to move prints by myself.

As far as getting ties caught, never happened. That's because our manual says to remove a necktie or tuck it under your shirt. I opt for the former. A practice I highly recommend. (Besides, how in the world can anyone run a booth in a suit???) Our policy is also to NEVER do any kind of cleaning with the projector running, for reasons made obvious by some of mistakes mentioned in this thread.

Here's a good one. I was cleaning and lubricating the pad roller assembly on the upper feed sprocket of a Millenium. I figured it would be easier if I removed it and took it to the workbench, right? Wrong! You know that little spring that keeps the pad roller closed? I spent nearly an hour trying to get it back on correctly! I shared my embarassing moment with my tech and we both laughed about.

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 11-30-2001, 03:57 PM:

Ken, I can relate to that spring that keeps the pad roller close, for 20-years I could never get that spring back on quickly, I fought it for years, just as I had it in position with needlenose pliers, the assy would come off & I had to hunt for the parts (sometimes I couldn't find them)...I called Strong told them that they had to have a special tool to put these thing on to send me on....the Tech at Strong told me that it would cost $100.00 for the tool, I told himto send me 2 of them...he said " Ok send the check" here is the tool, take a small paper clip or wire compress the spring, insert the clip into the hole on the spring assy shaft & in 5-seconds you should have the assy back on, remove the clip.....I tried this & WALLA...it was done....( of course they did not charge me me for that)...but for that information I would have gladly paid the 100 bucks...I went to the Strong factory, talk with the tech about the spring assy a few years later....he said that there was a tech that wanted to pay 100 bucks for a paper clip...I said "HEY THAT WAS ME !!"...Strong still laughs at that one....I told Strong to put a paper clip in a small box, put a Strong logo on it & sell it....for 20 years it has taken me 10-mins to an hour to get that spring assy on....now it's ony 5-seconds.....Well I glad I can make someone laugh !!

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-01-2001, 09:25 AM:

What's with ties in the booth anyways? Sure it looks nice, but i've had my fair share of incidences involving it getting caught in paths and such. Tie-clips helped, but they always popped off and I never found them. and tucking it in your shirt or pants kinda makes you look silly rather than professional. Before i left I went against the dress code and left my tie off. Never heard anything from anyone, even our tech didn't have a problem and he always found something to talk to me about.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 12-01-2001, 11:40 AM:

Don, I'm trying and trying and I just can't picture what you're saying.

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 12-01-2001, 03:30 PM:

Ken, you said you removed the upper pad roll assy to clean & could not get the spring back on, took you an hour....well I did the same, had a hard time myself with that for years until I had enough, I called Strong & they told me the correct way to install it....on the shaft the spring is on, there is a upper spring retainer (looks like a washer was a slit in it) the spring, and a lower retainer....the spring assy fits into a pin on the pad roller arm & & the machine to operate the pad roller arm to keep open or closed....if you remove the pad roller assy, you have to remove the spring assy, to re-install, compress the spring & retainer with a pair of piers, on the spring assy shft there is a tiny pin hole, after compressing the spring the hole can be seen, put a small paper clip or a single piece of strand wire into that pin hole, the spring will now stay in place & compress, install it on the machine & pad roller, once in place, pulll out the paper clip or wire that is holding the spring in a compress state & in 5-seconds the spring assy is not in place with no more hassle !! very simple, but it has taken me 15-years fighting that spring, before I called Strong, now I laugh at it....I always saw that pin hole but never knew that was what it was for....I hope this helps....

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-01-2001, 04:10 PM:

As a manager who presides over a booth while others run the show; who gives advice to others and only threads the occasional projector, wearing a tie is OK but if you find yourself working around moving machinery the tie should come OFF. Upper management should realize this implicitly.

In the college theatre I used to run, we had a special show and I had to waear a tie. There was a problem and I had to "go to work" so to speak. I went up to the booth and the first thing I did was "shuck off" the tie. The boss looked at me and said, "Why are you doing that?" When I told him that I didn't want to get strangled to death I got a look that seemed to say, "OH! Yeah! Right! Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" Never had that question come up ever again.

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-01-2001, 05:36 PM:

Maybe it would be a good safe idea just to wear those t-shirts with the ties printed on :-).

Posted by Tom Sauter (Member # 616) on 12-02-2001, 02:04 PM:

A co-worker with really long hair got herself wrapped up in a take-up reel once. Luckily the motor switch was in reach and she was able to save herself (and her hair in time).

Rumor has it that Gordon always wears a shirt and tie (and a tie tack) when making service calls. Everyone should take care to tie hair back, roll up sleeves, tuck in shirt, and remove anything dangling from their person when in a booth.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-02-2001, 02:54 PM:

Yes I were a tie almost all the time
They are handy for mopping up any spilt beer

oops I mean oil

And usually a shop/lab coat as well that is anti-static

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-02-2001, 03:39 PM:

Gordon,

you wore a labcoat too? I used too but everyone used to pick fun at me and call me the "crazy scientist". i didn't mind it that much and it soaked most of the oil up that would have ordinarily ended up on my white shirts, but unfortunately I ended up ripping a huge hole in it in the end. Oh well at least i know I wasn't the only one :-)

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-02-2001, 03:56 PM:

Shop/lab coats are very practicle as the pockets hold all sorts of stuf

Also the ones I have been using are conductive anti static so the zapping of cmos and of me is a lot less

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-02-2001, 04:19 PM:

Good to know, thanks :-)

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 12-02-2001, 05:06 PM:

Wouldn't lab coats fall into the category of loose clothing? I wouldn't chance it.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-02-2001, 05:26 PM:

I know of several circuits that it is mandatory to wear a lab coat

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-02-2001, 05:34 PM:

Actually as long as it's not really loose fitting on you, you shouldn't have any problems

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 12-02-2001, 05:48 PM:

If you look at the pictures of the Ontario Place Cinesphere you will see your truly wearing one

Posted by Tom Wurz (Member # 42) on 12-06-2001, 04:03 PM:

Hey,
I don't know if this was mentioned already, but my most painful mistake was when I had a manager start movies while I worked on a brain wrap.

Posted by Paul Harnden (Member # 1034) on 12-06-2001, 11:32 PM:

Tom,

I had a similar incident happen to me when I was trying to fix a reverse wrap, my dumbass of a GM at the time thought it would be a great idea to start it. I had to run and grab the top guidance roller above the projector head to keep it from jerking to the side from all the tension, I hated that guy.

Posted by Bob Healey (Member # 1003) on 12-13-2001, 01:57 AM:

Not physically painful, nor a mistake per se, but
Was running a show of Shrek on campus. 1st show of the night (7pm) Many of the professors etc had brought their kids to see the movie. During the 16mm Bugs Bunny cartoon we were showing before the main feature, the Eiki decided to eat a few frames. Had to changeover from cartoon to reel 1. Audience was not too pleased. The cartoon ran through the projector fine 20 min before show, then I took it off to rewind, and rethreaded it. After Shrek let out, I pulled the cartoon off to examine it, turned out to be two torn sprocket holes, after applying some splicing tape, the cartoon ran fine for the 9:30 and midnight shows. The onlu was you could consider me at fault is I was not in the booth at the time, but in the auditorium checking sound level.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 12-14-2001, 05:12 PM:

Many years ago one of my coworkers was training a new man. After an appropriate time he seemed to have everything down pretty well so my friend was going to have the new guy run the whole shift while he watched. About 3 changeovers into the second show the new guy pulled the arc switch & instantly opened the lamp and grabbed the still white hot carbon tip to change it. Flame from the poor guys' fingers burning flared and the odor of burning flesh filled the room. Fortunately a major hospital with a burn center was only 4 blocks away. His fingers though burned to the bone were grafted and survived. He never did come back to the booth.

Posted by William Hardie (Member # 1112) on 01-29-2002, 12:36 AM:

Where this is my first post, I thought this would be a good spot to make a post. I have been a Projectionist for close to 20 years and I still have mistakes (Did I say that?). Most are funny, but a couple have been painful. I won't mention them all here

The first mistake I remember doing was while I learning the Craft in 1982. I apprenticed at the Capitol Theatre in my hometown of Antigonish, Nova Scotia. I learned on Century SA Projectors/Century R3 Sound Reproducers and Gaumont/Kalee President Carbon Arc Lamps. The thing I was told more than anything else to check after I threaded up was to check the carbon trim. Needless to say, I forgot and the Positive Carbon was a bit short, and the patrons missed seeing Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong landing at the mission in the film "High Road To China". The last thing that was seen was the waterfall. Then the light went out. Talk about the Intercom Buzzer going off.

Another funny thing that happened while I was still apprenticing was when we opened Monty Python's "Meaning Of Life". If you remember, this film came with a Short for Reel #1 that actually tied into the film later on. We run Reel #2 as Reel #l after our House Trailers Reel as the start of Reel #2 said "Our Feature Presentation". Then went into Reel #1 with the short. Where it was a Monty Python film, no one noticed and it looked like it was supposed to run this way. It was on the second show, we realized we were running the reels wrong.

But the most painful experience was after I took over the Capitol's Booth as Main (And I should add "only") Projectionist and having my carbons go out in Lamp #2 while the show was on (we were using Marble) and opening up the door to the Lamp then striking an Arc. I had spots before my eyes for awhile. Of course this was close to a changeover.

In later years I almost ripped my finger off breaking down a print from a Strong AP3 Platter by catching my finger on a fin on the underside of the platter deck. (But That's Another Story)

This is all for now.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 01-30-2002, 12:29 AM:

ok guys, top this one. About that dangerously long hair? In my hippie period, I sported the typical mop-top of kids of that era. The booth had old Simplex Standards which had the shutter shaft extended in front of of the projector head -- a throw back from years before when the shutter was mounted in front of the lens.

I was a green kid all full of curiosity and inquisitiveness and it just so happened that while threading a print that had a white leader, I discovered quite accidentally, that if the other projector was in operation with a picture was being projected on the screen, you could see that image perfectly focused in the aperture of the other projector. This discovery blew my mind (a popular expression at the time) and I was really excited to repeat the test to see for sure what was happening.

I put a piece of paper in the gate and tried to get a good look at it by moving my head close to the front of the machine, looking into the mechanism. Well, as bad luck would have it, I was playing around with this optical revelation while the motor of this machine was still running. As I leaned in closer to get a better look at the miniature moving image in the aperture, the spinning shutter shaft which jutted out in front of the lens grabbed a hold of my golden locks and within a split second, grabbed enough hair to cleanly ripped out all the hair on the right side of my head.

Dispite the port glass and the movie soundtrack playing, a blood-curdling scream could be heard in the theatre and all the way out to the ticket booth.

Luckily only the hair and roots were pulled out, the scalp was not damaged. The owner/manager remarked that in his entire career he had never seen anything even remotely like it. Quite amazing that a Yankee-boy had to come to the wild west to get scalped.

Once I assured myself that my scalp wasn't damaged and the owner gave me a stiff drink of Johnny Walker Red, I made the next change-over without skipping a beat.

Now I only wish I had some hair to catch on a projector shaft.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-30-2002, 12:33 AM:

I don't know about you guys, but if this thread was a contest, I think Frank would have just won.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 01-30-2002, 06:28 PM:

Brad, I second that!

William, welcome! Yeah, those supports on the Strong platters can be a real pain, sometimes literally!

------------------
This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by Darren Solomon (Member # 1120) on 02-03-2002, 07:54 PM:

This one time.. in the projection booth, while I was using the makeup/breakdown table, I was breaking down a print verry fast from the platter, when the print swung itself off from the platter, hitting the wall and hitting the floor fully intact. Only missing part of the last reel. Talk about dumb luck, I had forgotten that there was no ring holding the print down on the platter. I could have hurt someone.

Another time.. I was moving Gladiator by myself(dumb thing to do) from booth to booth and I almost dropped the print. But I hurt my back instead.

Lastly...this one time, I was clamping a print up to be moved, and somehow I pushed too hard with one finger and I made a big gash in my thumb and blood was spurting out. I then noticed, I was bleeding on the platter and on the last reel of the print. I had to quickly get a paper towel and clean it up before it soaked into the print.. Hmm. it was a rated R movie anyway. Whats a little real blood on the movie gonna hurt anyway..ooh yeah.. Hurt me.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 02-03-2002, 08:51 PM:

Darren: Ouch, that does sound painful. I think you've been watching a little too much American Pie.

------------------
This one time, at Projection Camp, I stuck a xenon bulb....

Posted by Darren Solomon (Member # 1120) on 02-03-2002, 09:11 PM:

Well, if you could finish your "one time.." I'd like to hear it. Even if its not true. Where did that Xenon Bulb fit into? Hmm.

Posted by Tim Turner (Member # 1109) on 02-03-2002, 10:16 PM:

Hmm well my biggest mistake was 2 years ago when I reported to my manager that I couldn't get the lamp to come on in one of the projectors. This was a Friday and this film had just opened, so alot of people came to see it. I told him I had done everything that I could do. He called the head-projectionist in and he arrived and took a look. Together we discovered that the Exhaust Fan for the lamp house wasn't working and that was causing the problem. The manager called out an expensive electrician that works with air conditioners, and he was also puzzled for about 20 mins as to why the Fan was not working, he even went on the roof a few times to see it. We had canceled 2 shows at this point.
So while I'm off threading another projector, the electrician walks upto me, and says. "Hey man, I found the problem. You will not believe this! It will blow your mind!" I followed him back to the projector, and he points to a switch on the wall in front of the projector clearly marked "FAN"! which somehow had gotten turned off.

I felt so stupid~!, I litterally got a head-ache and a stomach-ache that day worrying about it and being so embarassed. My manager didn't say anything to me but I know he was mad. For about 3 days everytime I thought about it I punched one of the walls in fustration. I mean you would think that the on/off switch would have been the freaking first thing to check wouldn't you??

Now try beating that "Painful Mistake"!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-04-2002, 11:17 AM:

Tim Turner said:

"...He (my manager) called the head-projectionist in and he arrived and took a look. Together we discovered that the Exhaust Fan for the lamp house wasn't working and that was causing the problem....and he (the "expensive" electrican) was also puzzled for about 20 mins as to why the Fan was not working."

Well, not only you, but your manager, head-projectionist, and electrician forgot to check the fan power first. So don't feel bad, you had good company! But why not work with your head-projectionist to develop an operations manual for your theatre, or at least a "checklist":
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/spring98/projection.shtml
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/newsletters/reel/december98/projection.shtml

Posted by Tim Turner (Member # 1109) on 02-04-2002, 01:32 PM:

quote:
Well, not only you, but your manager, head-projectionist, and electrician forgot to check the fan power first. So don't feel bad, you had good company! But why not work with your head-projectionist to develop an operations manual for your theatre, or at least a "checklist":

Well, Its just that we never used the on/off switch, ever! In fact I was told never to touch it. So I guess it was just something that didn't come to mind right away. I guess the electrician assumed that we at least tried to turn the darn thing on first.
But anyway it was an awful experience for me.

I think my second biggest mistake was not showing up for work one day by mistake. Causeing all the movies to start really late.

Posted by Steven Privett (Member # 718) on 02-04-2002, 08:55 PM:

Well, I guess I'll add mine. I'm sure Don will remember it. Building up "Top Gun" for its big opening weekend. I ran a 6,000 ft. reel of film under that metal bar on a Christie Make-up table,(you know the one), and trashed the last three reels of it. I noticed the large pile of emulsion after I had started the film. Telling the manager about it was probably the hardest thing I had ever done. We stood in the auditorium and waited for those bad reels to hit. OUCH!

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 02-07-2002, 12:37 PM:

Painful mistake causing disaster openings

I was adding another Screen to the Drive-in and Advertised it as opening on saturday Due to the Fact that I was to be in Arizona for the Real job until friday afternoon.

I ran the Theatre fri night and started wiring the booth at 2Am When I heard a big BANG from the Cap that exploded I discovered I had the DC cable backwards. Which Explained why those used bulbs did not lite. Now the auto ignition wont work. Now the sun is coming up and the bulb is lit............. bad diode massive flicker but was enough so that i Could run the RP-40 and figure out which lens and cut a scope apature.

At 7am I decieded it was time to get a few hours sleep. When I woke up at ten It was time to put up a screen (the screen is on the back side of another screen) So I started hoofing the sheets of plywood up my 40 foot ladder to install. Finished that and painted a buddy replaced the diode from a extra rectifier. Where were putting the platter together found two of the four motor were not operational when we installed the second deck(Igot only two It was free) the deck got jammed and we could not get it all the way on or off. At that point I had to get the drive-in open for sat night so I cancelled that screen for the night and the people whe came were sent to another screen at no charge.

Sunday After putsing with the platter for most of the day I got it operational. I decieded to move the double feature over Instead of pulling off 3 or 4 reels so that the clamps would fit without gaps I just clamped it up When I was putting it up on the new booth A whole pile of film from that Gap dropped no show sunday normally I go home sundays at about 7pm as the manager runs the place for me But I was there till midnight fixing the problem. More free movies for people Except for the lady who drove 40 miles one way for the second night in a row She got a season pass for her family.

Monday night We now have it open.

Posted by German Marin (Member # 918) on 02-09-2002, 07:03 PM:

In my country the labs used to makes a little perforations on the head and the tail of each reel (just in the frames). ei:

1st reel: one perforation at head and another one at foot.
2nd reel: two perforations at head ant another two at foot.
Nth reel: N perf. at head and another N perf. at foot.

I got a copy of a film named "Most Value Primate" which I read the number of each reel only on the tail of each one but I found the 3rd reel into the 2nd ship can. When I checked the perforations that identify each reel i realize that the 3rd reel is the 2nd reel "What will I do?" I thought. I did think "the perforation are reliable 'cause those people checked the film before it come at my hands". Then I made up the movie following the order of perforations made by the people of the lab. I even can't believe that someone from the lab made the perforations on the wrong place!!!... I've made up the 3rd reel where 2nd reel belong and viceversa. I'm and I would like to show this to those people who are wrong.
(sorry about my english, I know it's weak)

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 04-30-2004, 12:15 PM:

It has been 810 days since the last post.

Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 04-30-2004, 12:15 PM:

A couple days ago, I was threading up something, dont remember what it was, but I was threading to the bottom platter. I was squatting down to reach the ring, and when I was done, I started to get up. I lost my balance for some reason, and hit the back of my head on the corner of the door for the breakers. [Eek!]

I went downstairs and asked the manager if I had a bump, she said I had a bump and was bleeding from it. [Eek!]

Posted by Dominique Replogle (Member # 2387) on 04-30-2004, 02:18 PM:

Looks to me that this thread has been brought back to life. I have been in the industry for a little more than a year. Thus far there has really only been one mishap I can think of. I work in a three d theatre that runs 15/70. When the movie is over we have to take the film out of the projector and run it over the rollers on the front to finish the movie off and get it off of the pay out. Tailing the film out in the projector is a bad bad thing. So, I went back and centered the dancer arms and turned the reel units back on and moved the dancer arms over to run off the tail. I was leaning against the deck with the dancer in my right hand and my left hand was on the deck with my index finger dangling about an inch in the trough. When the film ran out the dancer snapped back out of my hand and onto my finger with the spool spinning a million miles per hour (exaggeration). It cut deep and required six stitches to my finger. The cut became infected later and the finger swelled to the size of a cocktail weenie (not an exaggeration). It hurt like hell for a long time. Enough said, lesson learned.

On a side note I want to thank everyone for swallowing their pride enough to admit to a screw up. That takes guts. What matters is if you learned from it and it does not happen again. We are getting a 35 mm projector soon and will be showing films on that on late nights and weekends. I want to do well. From reading all of your posts I feel I have learned a lot from your problems and mistakes. I have fallen in love with this work and appreciate all of you for your wisdom and experience. I am just rookie but I have leared a lot from all of you.

-Dom

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 05-12-2004, 06:06 PM:

I think my worst mistake ever came during my first year as a projectionist in Tucson at the Air Force Base theatre. We had Simplex XL's with RCA 9030's, 2,000' magazines..and the old Ultra-Panatar "mirror box" 'scope attachments. Feature was "Conan The Barbarian", with a flat trailer/policy reel on the #2 machine.

Did my changeover to the feature, BAM! Picture on SIDE WALL of the auditorium!! [Eek!]

One "Holy F--in S--t!" heard by everyone in the house,shutdown, manager racing up the stairs ripping the still-turning reel off the machine (he thought I had the film in backwards). Manager winding film like a madman, me pissed and puzzled by why pic's nowhere near the sheet [Confused]

...finally found I hadn't seated the Ultra Panatar on the top crossbar right. Started the machine, shifted the attachment as the house saw the rectangle of light magically move to the screen. Luckily for me the two-star General movie buff wasn't there that night.!

Same theatre, opened the Peerless Lamphouse with the xenon conversion operating. Still have the burn in my left eye. [eyes]

Again, same theatre..ran preview (green band) for a movie about a woman's talking privates to a kiddy matinee [evil]

..official policy was quickly changed to pre-screen ALL trailers before public showing!

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 05-20-2004, 06:55 AM:

I almost chopped the tip of my finger off last night. I just finished MEan Girls and was spinning the platter to take up the film to tuck it when my finger got caught inbetween the fin and the outside edge of the platter.

It hurt like a MF. Now I can truly say that I have my blood and sweat in my work.

Posted by Roy Martinez (Member # 2343) on 05-22-2004, 02:21 AM:

The most painful mistake I made at my theatre was becoming a floor manager... the pain! What was I thinking... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 01-17-2008, 01:05 AM:

It has been 1334 days since the last post.

Posted by Paul Van Dusen (Member # 3640) on 01-17-2008, 01:05 AM:

Not really booth injury, but my assistant at my last theatre was a real moron. He went to drop the deposit one night, and despite there being a handle to grab that keeps your hand far away from the pinch point, he managed to break two of his fingers by slamming them into it. Of course this meant he could build, break down, or thread. I still think to this day he did it on purpose so i'd have to do all the booth work again. lol

Posted by Benjamin John Doman (Member # 4365) on 01-18-2008, 01:48 PM:

I also have had the ‘finger in the top sprocket of an FP20’ wound. Theses days working ‘in the field’ I just seem to attract soldering iron burns, although banging head on the sticking out sep mag head on an FP18 comes a close second lately as I have just re-furbished & installed three.

When I worked for Cannon Cinemas (UK) we used to get the minutes of the company Health & Safety committee. We always had a good laugh at the accidents reported. The best one was from Bognor Regis – “projectionist poked self in eye whilst trying to swat fly”! [Eek!]

Regards
Ben

Posted by Eric Robinson (Member # 2966) on 01-19-2008, 12:40 AM:

Back in the day before cordless drivers were popular I used my corded Skill drill to drive many a screw. Once I was using my trusty drill to attach some plywood on a deck high up behind the screen for a center speaker. For some reason I had my drill perched upon the deck while I was down below. Of course I stepped on the extension cord leading up to my drill which pulled it off the deck. Next thing I knew I felt a big bang on the back of my head. I could tell from the impact that something unnatural had happened something quite drastic. I decided then that I should run to the phone as quickly as possible and call someone to tell them in case something bad happened. I called my manager who found my story to be hilarious. I survived the incident with no repercussions (that I know of.) My manager joked about the phone call I made for months afterwards.

Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 01-19-2008, 05:07 AM:

okay one from the past...

we had a guy in the business who wasnt able to easily reach the top platter, so ive heard. he had to stand with his feet on the edge of the bottom platter, so he could reach up to the top.

needless to say over time he bent the platter so much that A) the prints couldnt be played on it, and B) he couldnt stand on it anymore.

no physical injury, but one that makes me laugh when i think of it. pretty sure its true.

most painful mistake? well, the bill.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 01-19-2008, 06:46 AM:

The very first time (1969) I saw/installed/operated a Century H (like an SA) projector, I pushed up the small glass on the shutter guard and inserted my right index finger, which the shutter blade smited righteously! I can still feel the indentation.

One of my local projectionists was rewinding on a hand rewind at breakneck speed. The supply reel was an old Neumade wire reel. He had no sooner removed his hand when the weld broke and the outer "wire" uncurled and imbedded itself in a wall. Louis

Posted by Steve Wilson (Member # 2411) on 01-19-2008, 06:46 PM:

Louis will like these two, because both are about as dumb a move as his. Once upon a time, I flew a Cherokee 180 from my airport to another local airport and the guys stated calling me Towbar. One of the guys said, Wilson, did you fly that airplane all the way down here with the Towbar hooked to the front wheel, I turned around and took a look and said, Yes, I guess I did. Of course non of those guys ever made such a stupid mistake and I said, well guys, I admit my mistakes and you guys hide yours, thats the only differnce between me and you.

Then we have the film path incident back last summer, where while the 4K bulb was burning during a test, I for some stupid, double dumb ass reason, stuck my finger in the film path with no film present and burned the hell out of my finger.

Being an Old,Old Boy Scout, I headed directly to the ice bein and slapped a large chunk of ice on the wound for the next 5 hours. The Next day, all was fine except for a really hard blistered skin, created by the ice taking the heat out of the burn and there was no pain due to that advanced first aid treatment that I had learned so many years ago as a young man in the Scouts.

Oh Well, those are 2 of my many mistakes an old man can make in his life~--

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 01-20-2008, 12:18 AM:

Oh, one more.

I remember I caught my index finger once in one of the old Wolk motorized benchtop rewinds. This is the one that had a crank handle attached to a big (12" or so dia.) pulley on the right-hand spindle, and a drive belt between the pulley and a motor. The idea was that you could use this device to either hand-crank film for inspection, or power rewind.

If you weren't careful while cranking, it was very easy to get a wayward finger caught between the exposed belt and pulley!! What a dangerous, poorly-designed piece of junk.

My finger smarted for a good long while.

Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 01-20-2008, 07:40 AM:

In 1988 I was running a shrinking 70mm print of My Fair Lady on a V10 projector. The film wanted to roll off the top (BIG) sprocket and I was using my first finger (left hand) to keep the film on the sprocket. I pushed too hard and my finger was yanked down in the sprocket. Damn projector never slowed down but I had to go for stitches! That large V10 sprocket is like a meat grinder. It wasn't a pretty sight. [puke]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-20-2008, 08:46 AM:

quote:
Again, same theatre..ran preview (green band) for a movie about a woman's talking privates to a kiddy matinee [evil] ..official policy was quickly changed to pre-screen ALL trailers before public showing!

Got a phone call on what I thought was a day off, early one Saturday morning. The previous evening had been spent, erm, ingesting a beverage or three. Projectionist was ill; I had to cover. Staggered into the booth feeling a little the worse for wear; kids' matinee was the first show, at 1100. Two cups of industrial strength coffee later I felt a bit better, and fired everything up. The kids were starting to go into the auditorium by then. Little did I know that the Pulp Fiction soundtrack had been left in the CD player running the non-sync, and that the fader had been left on 7 from the previous night's feature (the normal nonsync volume was 3-4). The noise of Uma Thurman screaming 'FREEZE, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!' was so loud I heard it through the wall of the booth, even without any monitor speakers on! A few parents got a tad irate over that one...

Posted by Benjamin John Doman (Member # 4365) on 01-21-2008, 12:06 PM:

I had one projectionist run SET IT OFF instead of 102 DALMATIONS. In the first scene a man gets his head blown off. Two kids were too traumatised to go back into the screen. Not sure how a whole screen of people, plus two ushers, managed to sit through 20 mins of alcohol adverts and 15 / 18 rated trailers without noticing.

I have been VERY lucky in my time in the box. I have only put the wrong film on twice, and both times it was a kid’s film instead of the adult one!

Ben

Posted by Alban Birch (Member # 4121) on 01-21-2008, 02:23 PM:

@Don Furr
The exact same thing happened to me on a Vic9
@Leo Enticknap
"Freeze, you Motherfuckers" was said by Amanda Plummer playing Honey Bunny and not Uma Thurman playing Mia Wallace

Posted by Bryan M. Montgomery (Member # 4412) on 01-26-2008, 11:56 PM:

Heres one of many bleeding in the booth stories I have.
I was installing film cleaner brackets on some Xetron platters. You have to remove a large carriage bolt, install the bracket, then reinsert the bolt and tighten.Pretty simple. I was using a box-end wrench on one side and a crescent wrench on the other using a grip which had the handle end upward, while tightening it that last nudge, the crescent let go, (as they always do)and the handle proceded to quickly plant itself into my right eyesocket. I dropped the tools and ran for the booth bathroom where I painfully pried open my eyelids to inspect the damage. Luckily I was not met with the sight of a bloody eye-less hole, but I had a large swollen black eye by the time I reached the lobby. Damn that sucked.

Posted by Sonja O'Reilly (Member # 1322) on 01-29-2008, 05:30 AM:

We had a "marathon" for the Saw movies this past autumn. I was sitting next to the MUT, breaking down our last print, Saw 1, and was very happy that I was going to be previewing Darjeeling Ltd. Halfway through breaking reel 5, the ring collapsed, and sent the whole film flying at me. That didn't hurt me. What hurt was frantically reaching across the MUT to turn it off and burning my arm on the plastic reel. (I still have that scar.)
Our GM came in and previewed Darjeeling for me, and I spent a few hours cursing the film and putting it back together to break it down. Needless to say, I called Technicolor and recommended that they no longer use that print. I also don't sit when I'm breaking.
I've also shocked myself on a MUT, but that's what I get for fiddling with the belt while it's still plugged in and letting my arm brush against wiring.
I've given myself a blood blister when my wrench slipped while adjusting the bottom roller on a... MUT.
I'm noticing a pattern.
I think the MUTs are out to get me.

Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 01-29-2008, 07:29 AM:

slammed my hand in the projection booth door yesterday. that hurt. and its one of those magnetic locking ones... it got close enough to the magnet it started squishing my finger (once id removed two of them) between the door and frame. i had to enter the keycode in the wall to release the door. got a bruise today from that!

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 01-29-2008, 08:22 AM:

This thread is making things hurt on me that never hurt before....like my eyeball socket. Socket wrench -- one of the more evil of the inanimate objects, all of which are perverse at their core.

Peter, surely this magnetic door thing has to violate some safety reg. What does OSHA say about a door that can engage a huge pull on it capable of catching your fingers like that? Surely a safety disengage switch on the inside wall would be in order. Suppose you couldn't reach the keyswitch or remember your code, which would not be an unheard of scenario given that your fingers are caught and you are screaming in pain. What....you'd have to wait there until someone came by to release the magnetic lock? Bad, bad system. Seems like there should be some sort of sensing device like they have with garage doors that will release the door if there is a certain amount of resistance....like you freakin hand and fingers caught in it. We had magnetic locks installed on ever door in the complex; they never worked....low bid. I do know the pull they exert....it's nothing to sneeze at. Safety mechanisms need to be put in place I would think.

I'll throw in one more -- there was a time, when I first got into the booth that there were nothing but metal reels -- pressed sheet metal (always bent) that prints came on and the aluminum "house reels" that you wound the print onto. Lots of times you would be hand rewinding and the natural thing was to use one hand to crack the rewind and the other to control the other spinning reel. You applied pressure on the top of the reel, you palm pressing down on the two flanges -- basically using your had as a break. On occasion you would actually break both reels to avoid a spin-out disaster by putting hard pressure down on both reels.

Then came plastic reels. I used the same method -- keeping one hand on top of the spinning reel to control the speed. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, the heat that the metal reel dissipates from the friction of your skin on it is VERY different than what plastic will dissipate. Plastic dissipates practically NO heat. So the first time I clamped my hand down on a plastic reel to stop it from spinning-out, I burned two track marks right across my palm. It took weeks for the marks to fade. Hurt like hell too. Ah, the learning curve.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-29-2008, 09:35 AM:

No painful stories to relate but one thats pretty funny... We were installing the 2nd booth at the Melody Drive in one very hot summer and my co-worker was hooking up he 3 phase rectifier wiring at the panel. I wasn't in the booth and had been taking some pictures outside when he had started... but I walked in behind him he didn't hear me come in because he was so absorbed in what he was doing... I used that moment to set off my flash just as he inserted a wire under one of the screws on the triple breaker [Eek!]

and he about jumped through the ceiling [Big Grin]

. After he came back down off the exhaust blower I reminded him... Tom... that panel is still dead!

Mark

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-29-2008, 09:54 AM:

quote:
@Leo Enticknap
"Freeze, you Motherfuckers" was said by Amanda Plummer playing Honey Bunny and not Uma Thurman playing Mia Wallace

'YOU'RE A NAUGHTY BOY AND YOU HAVE TO BE PUNISHED!'

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-29-2008, 01:51 PM:

Hey, isn't that Mr Bean's car he's crucifying there?

Mark

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 01-29-2008, 02:40 PM:

It's the infamous car-thrashing scene from Fawlty Towers. The car (one of those hideous British cars from the '70s that were always breaking down) dies once too often and Basil loses his rag, repeatedly hitting it with a tree branch and screaming 'You're a naughty car and you've got to be punished!' (or words to that effect).

Posted by Peter David Bruce (Member # 4447) on 02-01-2008, 05:28 PM:

back to the topic. this week (as in, today as its friday)i have somehow got a graze on my right forearm, a cut on my thumb and index finger, a graze on the skin between the base of the thumb and my index finger... a bruise on my right shin, cramp in my right foot, and a splittin headache.

no harm to the left side of my body though. yet!

how can projection be so dangerous!!!????