Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What compromises to make in the booth?

This is topic What compromises to make in the booth? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Derek Miner (Member # 2348) on 04-04-2004, 12:50 AM:

I am deleting my comments, due to the fact that they were inappropriate for a public.

[ 06-19-2004, 07:03 AM: Message edited by: Derek Miner ]

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 04-04-2004, 01:32 AM:

One bit of advice I can give you from my own personal experience is be VERY careful of what you post about other employees and procedures behind closed doors at your place of work. Make sure you are not breaking any company policies by discussing such issues.

Besides that, I'd say just keep your own high level of work ethics going and talk with your managers often about things you do to contribute to a better presentation. Also keep your eyes open for loose screws!

[ 04-04-2004, 04:09 AM: Message edited by: Wolff King Morrow ]

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 04-04-2004, 01:57 AM:

The first thing that I would do, since you say you are at the bottom of the totem pole, is get someone near the top on your side. Even if they dont get on your side, do things the right way and the people that have any business being in booth will follow your example.

A little over a year ago I was pretty much in your shoes, except I already had 2 years of booth experience. I pretty much had to retrain myself with the things I learned on FT. Because of that I beat out my competition and became the boss.

For the record, taping and throwing leaders on the floor is NOT authorized AMC procedure.

Posted by Jason Thode (Member # 1854) on 04-04-2004, 03:33 AM:

Derek I was in your place exactly,I had just started as a projectionist, back when I worked for AMC, and everyone in the booth was more concerned about getting a paycheck for just "Projector Jockeying" [Mad]

. But I hung in there and started to figure things out through common sense, the FT website and talking with fellow projectionists from other theatres of the AMC chain in my area (Hi Chris). After a year passed of honing my skills and showing the boss what needed to be done and that presentation is everything in the theatre business I finally was put in charge of the booth with only a few toes stepped on. Once there I removed the "Jockeys" and retooled the booth to start functioning like it should. Before I left my theatre my old booth was well on its way to recovery.

My advice is to hang in there and not give up, go to other theatres around the area and ask for advice on what to do concerning the film and equipment. Make polite periodic suggestions to your coworkers and managers, eventually they will have to give in to shut you up. And when it comes to film and its presentation there is NO compromise, its a true art form to see what a seasoned projectionist can do when building and presenting a film [thumbsup]

. Its Breathtaking and any audience will tell you that [Big Grin]

. Just because you have a booth of people who dont care there is a whole world of others around you that do.

By the way, welcome to the Club of Projection and may your career in it shine like the silver screen.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 04-04-2004, 06:59 AM:

Derek Welcome to the Club!!!
You really have spoted a great forum. Everyone here is willing to help (beside Joe Rediffer and Brad Miller offcourse who will keep telling you about teaser titles and all the other forum rule crap!!) [Smile]

Anyway. I agree with others. Be-careful of what you are posting in here. You might do it out from the goodness of your heart and thirst for FILM DONE RIGHT but try to keep a low profile. And be carefull of who you talk about this specific site. You might get yourself into trouble. The most common thing that you should know is that LEADER OFF THE FLOOR. Try to stress that out to everyone in the booth. Sometimes it gets the hard way for someone to understand what that means. At one theater here in my place, there were two projectionists, a completely careless one and a deep conserning one. They were working shifts. People could tell the difference. The careless one always kept leader on the floor (even though the cinema was using spools instead of platters) and one day the deep conserning one took a brand new trailer, layed it all on the floor and spliced it on the actual feature. He showed him what the result was and the manager too on screen. From that day both projectionists cared and even the manager started paying attention to the booth. They even upgraded their damn equipment!!! The point is. Try to do everything the way it SHOULD be done. I would also take the advice of try to get the BOOTH MANAGER on your site. Stress to him that on-screen presentation is what matters to the audience. If you have cue automation take your time to think and program on paper the schedule of your trailers, logos, feature and the cues that should be put. Co-operate with other projectionists (if you are two on a shift for example) especially when running interlocks. Get friendly and be polite to everyone (even though he might be an @#$hole). Get your BOOTH MANAGER to stress that you need a rewind table to prepare the feature. Platter based system is not convinient at all. It might take you half a day to set up a feature (especially if you have a ten reel feature and one is head up and other foot up e.t.c). Tell the actual manager of the chain to actually get to care for the damn ON SCREEN presentation and not be blinded by the money paid by customers to see films. I am telling you sometimes it takes the HARD WAY to get some poorly minded people to understand but leave that as your last option. I agree with JASON that you have to let them know that it is your way (FILM DONE RIGHT WAY) or you won't shut up.
Anyway. Again Welcome aboard.
May your days in FILM-TECH be filled with knowledge!
Demetris

Being a projectionist is not a Job. It's an ART

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 04-04-2004, 10:50 AM:

Demetris--

I'm a retired projectionist with 45 years under my belt. Before
the booth mode changed to "booth manager" with a whole string of
"projector jockeys" under him, iti was just me and a co-worker in the booth. There wasn't concession personnel, ushers,
or anyone else strolling through the booth like 'grand central
station'. THIS was a union rule! If you didn't work in the
booth and were not a union member... STAY OUT! Of course things
change and now everybody and his brother is a projectionist and
most of the booths and screen presentations show it.

Just my 2 cents worth. Rant off.

fjn
Local 294 Ret. [Razz]

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 04-04-2004, 12:12 PM:

I've always found this to help: (or not)

I went ahead and printed out the "Improving your Onscreen Presentation" essay in the TIPS section and gave a copy to the general manager and left a copy in the booth. I explained to them that this is what we should aim for in terms of quality in the booth and that it's not a cookie-cutter job you can train someone on in 2 days like the floor operations. I explained that having the best presentation in town would put us above and beyond the competition, who's presentation REALLY sucked at the time.

The booth staff hated it. Of course they did because that meant that what they've been doing all along: Throwng trailers across the booth to "rewind" them, using opaque yellow tape in the feature, masking taping everything, etc. was the WRONG WAY and that this "NEW WAY" was "TOO MUCH WORK" [Frown]

Fortunately, the manager was very receptive and straightened out the staff for the most part. (I still had the brunt of the work to do to keep us top-notch, like using the film cleaner, but oh well.)

The result was that we had a damn good presentation. When I looked out the porthole and couldn't tell if the green ratings band was on film or if it was a slide, (instead of having a "rain effect" of dirt) I knew good had come out of it. [thumbsup]

In the end, the staff (booth and floor) were complementing our presentation. They actually WANTED to take advantage of the free movies they got as employees, hehe. Mainly because they could no longer sit through the horrible stuff the competition was putting onscreen.

Hang in there, and you'll be proud of what you accomplish. The easiest way to show others you care is to do it the right way yourself, first. They will notice and start asking questions. [Smile]

=TMP=

Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 04-05-2004, 03:20 AM:

there's no easy way to revolutionize how your booth is run when you aren't in a position of authority. just do your own job conscientiously and offer suggestions to others when the opportunity arises. depending on how charismatic you are, you might get away with giving unsolicited advice, but that can backfire. personally, i have trouble with that. but keep educating and improving yourself, and eventually you will earn some respect.

be patient. when you train new people, you can train them the right way. if you know your shit, they will be less inclined to slack off like the others.

eventually, if only by outlasting the others, you will have the authority to enforce proper methods.

if you can turn your coworkers on to film-tech, that's great. but some people have other things they like to do when they're not at work. i wouldn't know anything about that.

carl

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 04-07-2004, 08:34 PM:

I agree with Carl about the idea that unless you are in charge, changes can be difficult to effect.

In fact, what's really a catch-22 is this: if you are inexperienced, you are not taken seriously, whereas if you are a Jedi-Master film handler, you are resented for it because those above you can feel threatened. This may not always be the case, but I've experienced it first-hand: when I finally made my first mistake, they made a huge deal over it and raked me over the coals...no thanks!

Of course, when i suggested Film-Guard, I was laughed at. I was also taken to task for posting on this forum, but now that I'm no longer with that company, they can (insert expletive here).

The only solution is to be the head projectionist. Of course, how do you get there in the first place...

What I did was to find a cinema to work for that was already idealogically aligned with my own personal philosophies about how a booth should be run (ie Film Done Right - Hi John!)

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 04-13-2004, 07:41 PM:

Michael, whatever you do, don't tell them you now own a DVD store.

SHHHHHhhh...

[Smile]