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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-27-2005, 06:49 PM:
 
It started out as a normal day.... a drive of about 35 miles to my service call... Stop at MacDonalds for a Cinnamon Roll and Diet Coke then the leiserly drive into the west Utah Desert area to this theatres location whom we will just refer to as "My Service call". I was to replace and adjist 12 lateral guide rollers and ruby balls in 6 Christie P35GP's as well as a dead fan in an Ashley power amp... and check on a few other things, all pretty basic stuff on "My Serice call". I arrived At "My Service Call" location unscathed by any of the ballistic heading insane Utah drivers and having enjoyed getting the Cinamon roll all over my shirt. I figured oh what the heck, I'll probably be getting dirty anyway working on these Christies! I get into the building and up to the booth and turn on some lighting when out of the corner of my eye I see what appears to be a snake going across the floor.... I switch on some more lighting and low and behold I meet the booth monster . Now in 25 years I've never ACTUALLY met a booth monster, ever! Here I was face to film with one and geez its nearing Halloween too... what to do... I approached it very, very carefully so as not to ruffle it too much and not to drive it onto some other complex form or shape after all this is a real monster that I've heard alot of stories about...... I happened to have my digital camera with and pulled it out ever so carefully so the monster retained its existing shape and wouldn't waver. Snap! I got its picture and what I captured is below ! Now what to do with it......?



I thought I could just suck it up in the vacuum, but this just didn't work......... Clearly the little red shop vac was just not big enough for this monster.



So how did I get rid of it.... well, I called the theatre's head office and told them to send their dam manager over to deal with it. I had work to do!
 

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Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 10-27-2005, 07:00 PM:
 
Ya know Mark, that 1st pic sorta reminds me of a scene from "The Blob" when it's in the projection booth and about to pounce on the projectionist... YIKES!
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-27-2005, 07:03 PM:
 
Yea Phil,
Its a good thing the port glass was in that night! I fear someone down stairs in that auditorium woulda been hanged.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 10-27-2005, 07:21 PM:
 
Yow...looks like the Attack of the Mutant Film!

Any chance the automation was a Christie CA21 with the early EEPROM version that, after a power glitch, ignored a dropped failsafe and allowed the film to mindlessly motor onto the floor?
 

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Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 10-27-2005, 07:27 PM:
 
Looks like you'll need the 6k's & MUT.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-27-2005, 07:43 PM:
 

quote: Jon Miller

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Any chance the automation was a Christie CA21

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No not a CA-21.... Its the very worst there is... A Smart automation unit . And no I didn't sell or install it, I wouldn't ever put a customer though that much hassle. I think its visible in one of the photos... if not then you don't want to know....

Well, the cause is always a totally incompetant operator but there was another reason for it not shutting down...we can't
blame the incompetant operator 100% for this one...... but I'll peg them at 95% for sure!

The failsafe arms were stuck in the run position... Thank you Christie for selecting one piece of crap cue detector to sell and thank you SPECO for building it.... The cheap 25 cent bushings were siezed to their shaft! But there is more to the story...... Why on earth didn't it take up?




From looking at this photo its obvious that the incompetant operator didn't bother to take up the film slack when he/she/it threaded up.



Some people just don't belong in the booth! Heck, they didn't even look to see if the platter(S) were running and they had to walk right past it to go back down stairs.

I waited for a couple of hours and no one showed up to clean it up so I wound it back through the top projector feed roller and onto a platter ring using the mut for control... took only about 45 min... not a single snarl or pretzel problem, it just went right back where it came. Yhe more I thought about it the more I was afraid someone with scissors and splicer in hand would show up to make an arrempt to cut it apart and put it back in order... so I went ahead and took care of it myself.

Mark
 

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Posted by Robert Harrison (Member # 3202) on 10-27-2005, 08:12 PM:
 
Mark,

You wound the print back on the platter in 45 minutes without any chopping and untangling? You are TRULY a FILM GOD!

Perhaps you can come to Illinois again the next time I accidentaly drop a print down the hatch from the #1 projection room. Thankfully, that hasn't happened since the first "Flintstones" movie.
 

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Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 10-27-2005, 08:18 PM:
 
That so-called "projectionist" needs to be hung by his nutsack with a noose made from the spilled film for not taking up the slack while threading up.

From the looks of things, I wouldn't be surprised if that numbnut's little filmic felony was aided and abetted by a show start timer. One more reason why timers are another one of those -y ideas to hit the booth, along with thoughtless operators.
 

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Posted by Jason M Miller (Member # 2597) on 10-27-2005, 08:43 PM:
 
now, how hard is it to look at the platter and see the thing is not moving, really did they hire a blind projection.
 

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Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 10-27-2005, 08:50 PM:
 
I met the Booth Monster once. I was visiting my first theatre again after I had left and they said, "Hey, could you come upstairs and ... help with something really quick?" Since I wasn't technically employed with that chain at that point, I got kicked out of the booth by the manager when I was found helping them out.

I met Son of Booth Monster not too long ago, relatively. A newbie made an innocent mistake, but a VERY GUILTY lack double checking or paying attention for the subsequent two hours. Especially since the platters for that projector are OPERATOR SIDE!

Neither instance, I can guarantee you, was corrected in 45 minutes!
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-27-2005, 09:19 PM:
 

quote: Robert Harrison

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Perhaps you can come to Illinois again the next time I accidentaly drop a print down the hatch from the #1 projection room. Thankfully, that hasn't happened since the first "Flintstones" movie.

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Remember Bob, I told everyone back in Illinois last time I was there that if you want to visit you have to come out here... heck we have tall enough mountains here to dangle 12,000 feet of film from and just let it spin its own twists out..... Much easier and alot more scenic this way!!

Yea, it really only took about 45 minites to get it back on the deck but it was tail in on the ring. If I thought it would take me a long time I would definately left it for the manager to deal with. After it was back on the deck I free-wheeled the platter it was on and used two pulleys on the MUT to transfer it head in to the next deck down. Worked fine and took about another 30 min. Believe me dropping a print is much worse than this. This looks really bad... it is really bad.... but it all comes back up off the floor no tangles involved exactly the same way it gets laid down.

Mark
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-27-2005, 09:45 PM:
 
Hopefully that's "The Fog" and not something more cinematically important like "Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story".
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-27-2005, 10:36 PM:
 
It's probably The Fog print that we're supposed to get tomorrow...we got a call today that it will be delayed until 4:30.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-27-2005, 11:18 PM:
 
Boy that photo brings back memories. Had that exact same thing happen many many moons ago. How long ago? The film was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Since it piled up nice and (relatively) neat, we were able to pull it all up onto 6K reels with a MUT without too much difficulty, and then build it back onto the platter. I think we cancelled one show. I don't even think the film (acetate) broke once.
 

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Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 10-28-2005, 03:30 AM:
 
Had that happen to me last November during the opening "sold-out" weekend of "The Incredibles". My 2 year old son wandered into the booth and grabbed ahold of the bottom (take-up)platter deck. Once it stopped spinning it no longer interested him, so he left the room. His older brother decided he would tell me about it about 10 minutes after it happened.

We were able to disengage the drive motor from the platter and spin it on by hand, but it took a good 10-15 minutes. The show never stopped, and no one in the field ever knew anything was out of the ordinary.
Since then, my boys have learned NOT to cross the tape line on the floor to Daddys' office!
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-28-2005, 03:57 AM:
 
Back in 1998, I had a "booth monster" hit a booth in my 21 complex while I had a day off...



What happened on this one is that a splice in the trailer pak got hung up in the failsafe, not allowing the arms to drop (which is the same SPECO built 3Q failsafe as Mark had shown us, but my bearings were not froze up..)



The operator on that day felt dumb not to check this and all six reels lay here piled below this Christie. He did the same-grabbed the MUT, took the tail end and wound it on the ring, took the MUT's control and fed back that print on the deck within a half hour with no snarls, twists and breaks. For the next show, he ran that print heads out from the outside of the roll with the deck unlocked from the motor and had no problems doing this (done that as well..).

Then ran that print through the Kelmar a few times to get the "fuzz bunnies" off the print due to we had carpeted floors in these booths.


I came back the next day and heard about this. These picts were taken from the assistant manager who wanted to get me in trouble, for he was going to send these to home office to punish me. Thx goodness, that the manager stopped him from doing this childish thing and told him that is a very unprofessional way to carry himself and next time he would get fired if he plans on doing something like this again against me.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Pete Naples (Member # 761) on 10-28-2005, 05:15 AM:
 
I've encountered the booth monster twice.

First time was some years ago. Theatre had 3 screens with towers, and no failsafes. Not a big problem as the sensible operator walks round and checks the machines every 15 minutes, don't they?... Not the guy who was on one night. Persons unkown had entered the booth, and switched off the mains to the tower, of course the mech kept pulling, put the tower wasn't taking up, so I came in ona sunday morning, to find most of Jurassic Park on it's way out the booth door to greet me. Took me most of the day to sort it out, as he'd waded through it to shut the machine down at the end of the show, then left!

Second time was during an installation, we were adding screens to an existing theatre, we came back late one night to cut som apertures in peace, to find one of the operators in a terible state with Forest Gump all over the floor, gave him some advice and left him to it.
 

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Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 10-28-2005, 06:25 AM:
 
I hope the advice was: "Run, Forest! Run!!"
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-28-2005, 07:42 AM:
 
I saw something like this happen once.

Setting: Century booth running 6000' reels with no automation.

Operator threads the machine and forgets to close the pad roller for the holdback sprocket in the soundhead (mistake #1), starts the film, and then leaves the booth for reasons unknown (mistake #2). After running fine for about fifteen minutes, the film runs off the sprocket slightly and the indentations that the sprocket teeth make in the film cause it to start taking up unevenly. Eventually, the takeup reel is so unbalanced that it stops spinning completely and the film starts taking up on the floor. When I stopped by the theatre to pick up my paycheck, a customer came into the lobby to complain of sound problems (the film on the floor had started to get pulled back into the soundhead).

I ran up to the booth to find about 4000' of "Character" (great film, BTW) on the floor. I cut the film, re-threaded, and re-started the show. Eventually, I did get the mess cleaned up, but the film was ruined from the sprocket indentations. Amazingly (and sadly, I think), the distributor never charged the theatre for the damage.

I've had a couple of close calls myself--once, a badly timed Super Platter failed to take up at the proper speed on startup, and I ended up with a dozen or so feet of film on the floor (just trailers). Another time, a Kinoton takeup clutch failed and I ended up with about 100' of film on the floor before I noticed (long story).
 

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Posted by Cory Isemann (Member # 2517) on 10-28-2005, 07:55 AM:
 
Mark-

You said you came in and found that. What astounds me most (well, besides that mountain of film) is that someone LEFT THE BOOTH for the night with that mess still there? Did they expect the opener to take care of it? If I ever pulled some crap like that (not only would I probably get fired) but it would give our weekday opener a heart attack. He would seriously keel over! I can't imagine leaving something like that. I couldn't do it in good conscience. You would have come in and seen me just finishing up after spending all night cleaning up the mess.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-28-2005, 08:18 AM:
 

quote: Cory Isemann

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You said you came in and found that. What astounds me most (well, besides that mountain of film) is that someone LEFT THE BOOTH for the night with that mess still there? Did they expect the opener to take care of it?

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Coery, Thats exactly why I called it in to the office.... I also thought it wierd that someone would leave a booth monster unattended to for the night..... and also another reason that I took care of it myself. For all I knew the manager found this and figured he was a gonner and left..... Can't entirely blame him though, it was partly the cue detectors fault.... the drop arms were stuck in the up position! Since it was so easy to get it back on the deck I was going to say "what mess of film on the floor" when the manager did show up...... "I don't know about no mess of film". You must have had a bad dream..... In all fairness to him he did show up ater it was back on the deck.

Mark
 

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Posted by Cory Isemann (Member # 2517) on 10-28-2005, 08:26 AM:
 
True, true.

I still would never leave the building with something like that lurking in the shadows. When I leave for the night, all the prints have been (as a former manager put it) "tucked in for the night" meaning putting the platter covers on.
 

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Posted by Keith Rightmyer (Member # 3403) on 10-28-2005, 09:23 AM:
 
Newbie checking in.....I had my first (and hopefully last ) booth monster last weekend during SERENITY. It was in the next to last reel of the print and I had been watching both platters for the entire show. They were running fairly smoothly so I was lulled into a false sense of security. The bottom platter was on take-up duty and a particularly large splice had caught in the next to last roller causing the film to just pile up in the floor. When I spotted it, I closed the douser, stopped the motor and hollered out the door to the owner (counting the concession drawer) that we had film in the floor. Between him, the cook and me we got the heap back on the take-up and got the show re-started in about 10 minutes. Not bad for our first time, IMHO! I didn't make the guilty splice by the way. I'm pretty much just the projectionist during the shows. The owner made-up the print. It had passed through fine on Friday night so it might have been slightly off in that roller. Another valuable lesson in threadology!

Keith
 

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Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 10-28-2005, 10:19 AM:
 
Glad the monster went somewhere else. He's visited me a couple of times.

Mark, nice job on getting it back onto the platter. What I did when the monster came by, was to wind it back to a 6K from the top of the pile so as to not try to pull the film from underneath the pile.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 10-28-2005, 01:56 PM:
 
Not having a SPECO failsafe handy to look at, I'm betting there isn't much clearance laterally past the required 35mm and a shitty splicer not properly trimming the edges was the cause of many of these jams. Can anyone verify this on a SPECO failsafe? (Make a splice by hand and use scissors to not trim the edges flush with the film.)

I've only met the booth monster once. Simplex w/5 Star and AW3 platter with takeup deck in "makeup" mode (since someone had just broke a film down). It was one of the non-Shatner Star Trek movies. I came in to manage the evening shift and not 5 minutes after I got there (having not even entered the booth yet) a customer came out and said "the sound is really messy in #7". So I run up to the booth and find the first 4 reels on the floor and piling up into the soundhead like Scott mentioned earlier. Using the MUT and an 8000 foot reel I got the entire mess up off the floor (again, this was an acetate print) without one tangle or splice. I had it up in about 5-10 minutes too. I just stood on a stool holding my hand up high to guide the film and cranked the MUT! You would've NEVER KNOWN the film had been dumped onto the floor except for the few feet that got mangled at the time the customer complained because the print was FilmGuarded and the floor was carpet. Within 2 more passes through the film cleaner, it was just as pristine as it could be.

Anyone ever gotten the call to a theater for a platter that refused to takeup and when you got there you simply plugged it into a normal AC outlet rather than the slide outlet? hehe That one always cracks me up!
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-28-2005, 03:32 PM:
 
..or a place that has a Balco platter with the mode switch on the side of the motor housing and the booth clown forgot to position the switch to which mode it supposed to be and freaks out and hollers for help?

..many "bone headed" stories that can come out of M/Operated theatres that are "infested" with booth clowns.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-28-2005, 06:21 PM:
 

quote: Paul Konen

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What I did when the monster came by, was to wind it back to a 6K from the top of the pile so as to not try to pull the film from underneath the pile.

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Paul,

The tail of the film is exactly what you have to look for. In my case the film had not run out all the way.... about 100 feet or so left. That made it easy to just set a ring n the center and wiond it back onto the ring exactly the opposite way it was set on the floor. Woulda made a hilarous time lapse film!!

In addition, never but never step on or move the film around at all... Here I'm leaning over to the machine to unthread it. I finally took my shoes off just to be on the safe side.....



Mark
 

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Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 10-28-2005, 07:59 PM:
 
Mark, was the show started with a timer? Unless the operator was denser than a dirt clod and ignored the film piling up on him once he started the show, I could not imagine this happening under an operator-attended startup.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-28-2005, 08:02 PM:
 

quote: Jon Miller

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Mark, was the show started with a timer? Unless the operator was denser than a dirt clod and ignored the film piling up on him once he started the show, I could not imagine this happening under an operator-attended startup.

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Believe it or not it was operator started!! No Start timers or remotes at this location. So... denser than a door knob certainly applies here.

Mark
 

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Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 10-28-2005, 08:37 PM:
 
Thanks for the reply, Mark! This is way beyond surprising.

Never mind my rant about timers on the first page...it's criminal ignorance and stupidity that is the worst thing to hit the booth.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 10-28-2005, 09:44 PM:
 

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen

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I wound it back through the top projector feed roller and onto a platter ring using the mut for control... took only about 45 min... not a single snarl or pretzel problem, it just went right back where it came.

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so with all the weight on the film you surly didn't pull from the bottom of the pile. You likely pulled from the top of the pile. That means that the end of the movie is now or was in the center of the film diameter. Basically backwards.

My question is.....did you leave it that way?
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-28-2005, 09:48 PM:
 
Daryl,

I guess you haven't read the whole thread..... what I did is in there somewhere. Of course the film came back up from on top of the pile... there were still 100 or so feet that hadn't been paid out so I actually started there. After getting it all back on the deck I then used the mut to get the film fed to the next deck down, heads in.... total time spent 1 hr. 15 min.

Mark
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 10-28-2005, 09:53 PM:
 
Just read that Mark, I thought I was on page two when I was reading it. Would have been interesting to see their faces though. Holy shit! how did the film get on backwards.
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-28-2005, 10:13 PM:
 
Q: What's worse than finding a booth monster on the floor?

A: Finding half a booth monster on the floor. As in a 16mm print taking up on the platter and a 19mm booth monster growing on the floor. Walked in on one of those in an old Ballantyne 3-screen booth here back in the day.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-29-2005, 09:15 AM:
 
There are booth monsters and then there are the insideous booth monsters that hide and strike with the element of surprise. I get to my booth for the second shift and the projectionist tells me there is a problem with one of the reels as the take-up "seems to be winding unevenly," as she put it. This is when I found the monster lurking on the reel itself, not piling on the floor.

Why was the take-up reel wind uneven? Well because the one of the film slicers AFTER the intermittent (nothing visible on the screen) that is supposed to stop film from wrapping around its associated sprocket drive somehow jammed into the film because of a bad splice and then proceeded to neatly slice the right film down the middle and feeding the two pieces right onto the takeup reel. The takeup reel revealed two trips of about 17.5mm each. Seeing a pile of film on the floor, especially acetate which really winds back up quite neatly and rarely with any damage, would have been a decided blessing instead of finding this slit-down-the-middle horror.
 

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Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 10-29-2005, 11:31 AM:
 
Frank: then no replacement print was available (when it happened to us) and so we put splicing tape about every 15 frames and ran it for almost a month. Luckily we only had about 1200 feet of film until the credits. Louis
 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 10-29-2005, 09:07 PM:
 
I too, met the ULTIMATE BOOTH MONSTER...in LIVING, BREATHING form !

We had this one extremely lazy, dishonest and irresponsible kid working the booth at the theatre I last worked. With the amount of aw-shits attributed to this individual, I am perplexed that he was even allowed into the booth!

Anyhow, this theatre was a 20-plex with two seperate booths, each shaped as a "T". And the two booths were seperated by the lobby.

Now, we were always moving prints all over the place, and partial break-downs were not practical. This was due to the G.M. loaning out all our 6K's to his friend who was at a different theatre (of a competing company). The only way to move prints was for the two-person carry (w/o a board). And the prints generally needed to be tilted at an angle to pass through the booth doors.

So it came to pass that I was working the closing shift with this kid one day and we needed to do some print moves. Well, the print that needed moving from one booth to the other was a 3hr flick...either "Patriot" or "Gladiator", I forgot which one.

Anyhow, as we are actually passing through the door this idiot's cell phone rang. And ya guessed it. He reached for the phone buried in his pocket while the film was tilted while passing through the door! He ened up popping out the center ring and left the entire print dangling in my forearms!

Cheers!

K.
 

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Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 10-30-2005, 01:56 AM:
 
Did you make sure to have him eat that cell phone?


 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-30-2005, 02:37 AM:
 
..ain't that the bonafide crapola when a print goes limp on you like a wet rag in your arms..(LOL)

I did that once: moved a print by myself without any form of moving device.

Some prints wound on STRONG platters can be wound pretty tight to where, if you cradle it just right with your hands spread apart and pulling the print towards you in as well as in a vertical position, it's easy to do.

but...when you stub the foot just the wrong way, you jerk the body and the ring pops out and your stuck with the "wet rag" syndrome.

Luckilly, I was next to a platter to where, even though it had fully collapsed, I managed to swing that print on a deck and salvaged a horrible mess and got it taken care of within a hour (even though I had to cancel that showing due to this goof-up)

..I felt kinda stupid on that one.. - Monte
 

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Posted by Will Kutler (Member # 770) on 10-30-2005, 11:31 AM:
 
Another good "Booth-Monster" laugh that happened to me that y'all might find ammusing. But I am intentionally deleting some specifics.

I was called in last minute to be a relief projectionist. I was able to stop by the theatre a few days before my "shift" so that I could get a quick low-down on their booth and equipment. But, due my time schedule, it was a minimum visit. But I was assured that everything would be smooth sailing for me.

Well, the day of my "shift"...due to my schedule, I was a little late getting to the theatre...but I had made the management aware of this potential problem. So, the first film was already runnning when I arrived.

The second film was due to start about 10 minutes or so after my arrival. I quickly threaded up the projector and went to do the needed format change.

Well, I was unable to release the turret lock! So, I start scratching my head wondering if I am so uncapable as to not be able to unlatch a TURRET! So, I tried to quickly find the projector tech manual...none in sight. So, I run to the neighboring projector and start visually comparing the differences between the two.

AHA! Whether it was or was not intended as a practical joke, someone had disassembeled the turret latch lock and reassembeled it backwards...thereby making it impossible to operate the damn thing! Luckily I was able to find a simbalance of tools that were hidden away in another part of the booth, made the necessary repair and got the film started on time!

But if this was intended to be a joke, my hats off to the perp! It was a CLASSIC!
 

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Posted by Patrick Dunn (Member # 3333) on 10-30-2005, 06:56 PM:
 

quote:

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Anyone ever gotten the call to a theater for a platter that refused to takeup and when you got there you simply plugged it into a normal AC outlet rather than the slide outlet? hehe That one always cracks me up!

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quote: Brad Miller

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you simply plugged it into a normal AC outlet rather than the slide outlet?

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..did the same dumb thing with the CAT-701 and the slide in the same double outlet and didn't know that one side of the double was switched and the other was hot. I couldn't find out why the 701's LED wasn't on during show, yet on during rest-times (the slide projector was broken at the time and was controlled by the automation, thus took it for granted that both sockest were hot..not one hot and one switched).

Odd stuff happening that day... - Monte
 

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Posted by Carl Paquin (Member # 3323) on 10-31-2005, 02:02 PM:
 
Hi Mark. I think i have to apologize in some kind of way about the message I sent you. In fact, I understand now, considering your surprise, that the message was not written by you. So I'm sending you a copy of what I got after downloading it on my Desktop.
By the way, I don't think the boot is too hard on me, neither the time I spent there. I even got a BAC in philosophy and I am now studying to be a sinister expert. I'm working in a 12 theaters cinema (soon 15). And don't worry, I never thought the movie accident happened to you. What happened to you, of course, was to be confronted to the "Monster". For my written English, at least I'm making efforts (Quebec is a bilingual province in Canada: some of us will never learn English, some of us will never learn French). Maybe you'll have to learn Spanish quite soon in the USA...
So I hope you'll understand what I meant when you'll see the picture I joined with my message. It surely does feel good to have a nice technicien like you seem to be: I do know a lot of technician who would never have border with the movie on the floor.
Best regards!
Carl
N-B: I don't know if I'll be able to send the picture

Picture deleted. Carl, don't upload the bandwidth theft image. It's not humorous and will only get you booted from these forums for being an unnecessary pain. This entire post should've been EMAILED to Mark as well.

[ 10-31-2005, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Brad Miller ]
 

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Posted by Jean-Michel Grin (Member # 1360) on 10-31-2005, 02:27 PM:
 
Oh My Goodness,

I never saw a disaster like this, but 4 years ago a coleague told me this following true story:

A projectionist started the projector and the film broke on the lower reel.
A "normal" guy would stop immediately the projector to repair the film, but in this case the projectionist was totaly incompetent and ran the entire feature
Worst was at the end of the show: the booth was literally filled up with the film, and the projectionist moved all the "monster" to the rewind bench !!
The print had never to be saved, they trown it to the garbage

Best regards,

Jean-Michel
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 10-31-2005, 04:44 PM:
 
Now, forgive me if this seems to be leading off-topic here (since this can easily lead to a "You Suck"...forum), but this has to be considered a "booth monster"-meaning a booth operator.

As I mentioned, I was "Presentation Manger/Engineer" for a 21 screener in my area. We had SW:EP1 playing and of course, I was off that day. When I came back to work, one of my co-workers told me this one that I considered this operator "a booth monster" due to his "level of thinking:"

This co-worker told me that(with a complex this big, there are two operators on duty for most of the day to handle each side of the building..)the other operator on duty called him over to "verify" something.

This co-worker went to look on what was to be verifed and his jaw about hit the floor. This "booth monster" was letting the machine run without any upper loop present! Somehow, a splice had weakened to allow the film to jump across the intermittent sprocket and lose the upper loop.

This booth clown didn't even stop the machine, but let the print be racketed to death through the trap and gate (which cost us a replacement reel due to this...).

My co-worker immediately stopped the machine, yelled at the "booth monster" on why he didn't shut down the machine and reset the upper loop. Then, the famous statement from my co-worker to this idiot was, "didn't you have the common sense to shut down this machine, fix the problem, instead of having me coming over to verify that something was wrong and let the print be damaged!?!?"

Then, the "booth monster" said that he HAS some common sense, but wasn't sure on what exactly to do...(ARUGHHHH!!).

Between the location manager jumping on me real hard for not having my members fully trained and understanding their duties, then on him real hard, he staighten out his act some after that.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Mary Cosgrove (Member # 2095) on 11-01-2005, 03:14 PM:
 
Personally, thankfully, I have never encountered a monster that large. The only one I have encountered was maybe 2 minutes of film back when one of the projectors I was operating was having random platter issues...as in the power would randomly go out on the platter even though it was fully plugged in and our tech couldn't figure out what was wrong with the stupid thing. So our monster was only big enough to set off our failsafe and cause a minor brain wrap. It took a month to finally track the source of the problem down and fix it.

Of course the location I am currently in has encountered the monster just as bad if not worse. Theirs was where something happened and it caused the film to get sucked back up into the turret and then try to go INTO the lamphouse. Of course it doesn't help that the automation on these projectors is so old they aren't really compatible with the failsafes we use!
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-01-2005, 06:53 PM:
 

quote: Carl Paquin

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Hi Mark. I think i have to apologize in some kind of way about the message I sent you. In fact, I understand now, considering your surprise, that the message was not written by you. So I'm sending you a copy of what I got after downloading it on my Desktop. If you want you can send me the picture and I will post it for you.....

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Carl,
Appology acepted, no problem... and welcome to Film-Tech! I thought that if you went back over the thread you'd find that I wasn't the cluprit.

Spanish... Of course this is a free counrty and you may speak what ever language you want to but not knowing the English language down here is a major handicap in leading a normal productive life.

Mark
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-02-2005, 01:11 AM:
 
my favorite booth monster was getting called to an emergancy to find the 70mm print of the untouchables was now two 35mm prints one half on the platter the other half on the floor not a pretty sight
 

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Posted by Stewart Anderson (Member # 1809) on 11-02-2005, 02:53 AM:
 
Back in the day when I was first learning how to run booth at good old Sandy Movies 9 (a run-down Cinemark) on the opening night of Gladiator the take up stopped taking up about 20 minutes in and unfortunatly we were running that machine on manual (I don't remember why). So there was about 20 minutes of film on the take up platter and to this day no one knows why the platter mysteriously stopped taking up. The platters were some old SPECOs (I'm not sure the model #). Does anyone have some ideas?
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 11-02-2005, 01:06 PM:
 
Yeah, the old red tree SPECOs with the cream colored decks required lubrication on the takeup's elevator twisted rod and guide rod. If they weren't lubricated from time to time, the weighted roller would literally stick instead of letting gravity pull it downward. All it takes is for the stick to be just enough so that it catches and the elevator roller stalls for several seconds. Then it falls thus stopping the takeup.
 

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Posted by Amanda Jones (Member # 3326) on 11-02-2005, 01:23 PM:
 
Knock on wood I've never met a booth monster.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-02-2005, 04:55 PM:
 
Yea, good ol' SPECO (Drive-In, Incorporated) LP-270's, steel decks, and the "bouncing" platter drive tires.

-Monte
 

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Posted by Stewart Anderson (Member # 1809) on 11-03-2005, 01:41 AM:
 
I don't know why I didn't think of that. Looking back on it now it seems obvious. Brad, that is a very good theory. Up till now I thought it was a short power failure that happened while I was on break.

That was years ago but I'll never forget that call on the radio: "number 9 is melting, hurry quickly...". The monster had found its way back into the projector ceasing it up after only a few minutes of playing with out taking up.
 

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Posted by Dieter Depypere (Member # 3184) on 11-03-2005, 11:09 AM:
 
Two years ago I could chase away the booth monster. Always good when you are present all the time and the failure happens during the show start.

The funny thing about it was that I pre-ran the projector (taking up the countdown leader) where the film was properly(!) taken up. But on the startup the film managed to slip out of the reel. Don't know why. Never happened again.
 

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Posted by Alan Plester (Member # 852) on 11-03-2005, 01:14 PM:
 
running towers in a twin, hadnt been in the game long, went down the boiler room to sort out a problem, got back and found another, I hadnt turned the auto shutoff unit on, and the take up had decided to stop, o m g! strugled but kept the show going, scared me to death, always made sure the a c o was on ,no matter what.
 

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Posted by Joseph Pandolfi (Member # 223) on 11-03-2005, 06:13 PM:
 
I never met the monster, yet. But came close when a trailer started tearing down the middle setting off the split failsafe. By the time the projector ground to halt I had about a foot of it on the floor.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 11-04-2005, 03:46 PM:
 
I'm reminded of this image that I scanned a while back from an old issue of Film Notes for Reel People. Truly the Booth Monster:



(sorry, I don't have a credit handy...)
--jhawk
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 11-04-2005, 08:34 PM:
 
Ha!

One of those cartoons used to hang on the wall above the rewind bench at the Chestnut Hill booth. Someone had crossed out "Don't" and changed the header to "Be very afraid of projection."

I doubt it's still there, though.
 

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Posted by William Sartore (Member # 3444) on 11-07-2005, 09:07 AM:
 

quote: Gordon McLeod

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my favorite booth monster was getting called to an emergancy to find the 70mm print of the untouchables was now two 35mm prints one half on the platter the other half on the floor not a pretty sight

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quote:

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I'm reminded of this image that I scanned a while back from an old issue of (Kodak's) Film Notes for Reel People. Truly the Booth Monster:

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Our editors always did have a good sense of humor!
 

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Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 11-10-2005, 05:00 AM:
 
No Wonder the used prints we get from USA are full of scratches ! you guys are packing up those booth monsters and sending them over here! (only joking)

I have never seen a monster the size of Mark's , and if I did i would close down the cinema encase it in concrete and build a new one!
I will say the Cinemeccanica platters are very good at switching the show off when there is a problem ,I know alot of operators don't like them but I have never experienced a disaster with them yet .
 

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Posted by Nick Scott (Member # 2850) on 11-10-2005, 05:18 AM:
 
I met the booth monster with a cinemeccanica cnr 3-35 platter. The pin that holds tension on the take up arm broke causing the take up arm to stop where it was which didnt trigger the fail safes. It took about 1 hour to get the whole print back up to scratch. Hopfully the monster has left for good now.
 

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Posted by Stewart Anderson (Member # 1809) on 11-10-2005, 06:39 PM:
 
How much film was there that took one hour? My monster was a long time ago, but I think it took us a lot longer then one hour.
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-10-2005, 06:42 PM:
 

quote:

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My monster was only about 15 minutes of film and it made a monster about the size of Marks. I cant imagine what kind of monster a whole hours worth of film would make.

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quote: Monte L Fullmer

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..hate to see the monster attack the JCommons IMAX there. Stewart would be learning something very new, very quickly ....lol.

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Bwahahahahaha, Stewart already experienced that at Thanksgiving Point 15/70 back before the battery backup was installed and when power bumps were really bad in the summer . Makes a mess and usually damages the projector! How bout it Stew.... tell us about some of those........!!!!! The evils of running two projectors at high linear speed with unknown power quality !! Otherwise known as not taking your manufacturers installation advice and learning the hard way... or flying by the seat of your pants.... Wasn't Stews fault be he sure got to expereince the cause and effect......

Mark
 

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Posted by Stewart Anderson (Member # 1809) on 11-12-2005, 06:20 AM:
 
Yeah, we definitely had more then our fair share of power failures (thank you Utah County ). And since the rotor ways like 200 lbs and is rotating 3 revolutions per second it doesn't stop on a dime. The take up will stop a lot quicker (and so will the pay out, making me even more screwed). This being the case the film does drop, but on that equipment it usually didn't drop on the floor, it would actually get behind the output sprocket and go back into the projector behind the rotor and get all tangled up in the rotor itself where film should never be. On one occurrence I just so happened to be near the output side of the right eye projector running a 2D show when the power went out, so I instantly started to pull the film out of the projector as fast as I could to prevent it from tangling up inside the machine again. Talk about an adrenaline rush... Unfortunately the pay out didn't keep up so it still did a little bit of damage to the film, but it could have been worse. But that was at Thanksgiving Point. Here at the Commons IMAX has some how created a system that will stop everything correctly in a power failure. Don't know how they do it but its awsome.

Come to think of it does anyone know how a Barco DLP system would react to a power failure? We have only been running it for about a week or so now and as far as I know we haven't experienced that yet. Obviously this will not result in a film spill so if you know that answer we should probably start or continue another thread.

[ 11-12-2005, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: Stewart Anderson ]
 

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