Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: "selling" theatre owners on upgrades

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-14-2007, 05:49 PM:

I've worked in more theatres than I care to think about that are still using lenses from the 1950s and 1960s and sound systems from the 1970s. This is bad, but I have not yet had much success in encouraging anyone to upgrade the older equipment.

For those who have convinced theatre owners to upgrade lenses, sound systems, screens, etc., how did you do this? I have trouble trying to convince people to buy stuff when there is no direct effect on ticket sales.

To date, I've tried to explain that audience expectations are based upon what people see in multiplexes and that most new multiplexes have new equipment and quality sound systems. I've also tried to explain that better presentation quality helps customers to enjoy their experience more and increases their desire to return in the future. I have also tried the "drug-dealer approach," where I loan equipment from my personal collection to show what an improvement would be made by upgrading.

These methods have met with little success. Am I doing something wrong, or do I just always end up working for cheap theatre owners?

Posted by Michael Moore (Member # 3867) on 06-14-2007, 06:29 PM:

I just recently landed a bid deal with our management. I stated that if we do not upgrade then we will be left in the dust. And that our current equipment will be harder and harder to maintain due to lack of parts. I also pointed out that we have patrons who actually care about quality and will be encouraged to return if we upgraded.

Needless to say they believed every word I said. I am currently upgrading and it has been hard convening a board of directors the need to do so. All I can say is make a list like I did pointing out the pros and cons of keeping old equipment. Trust me the pros will shine through and show them what the difference is. I find they have no clue as to what quality is and its hard to explain why. I came to a compromise and showed that the projector was falling apart. I then slowly moved on to the lamp house and I found that once the ball was rolling the more I was able to upgrade

good luck

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-14-2007, 06:32 PM:

I suggest a more direct approach.

I once had an owner who bought 3-4 Lexus (Lexii?) per year. Shouldn't your business (which is the source for the Lexus money) be treated with A LITTLE respect?

Shame will sometimes work; otherwise a blitzkrieg of preventive destruction might. Louis

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-14-2007, 06:55 PM:

Do these owners ever check out their competition? If not maybe you should take them on a field trip to a decent modern theater and let them experience the difference. (didn't AMC used to have a slogan something like "Experience the Difference"?)

Posted by Joel N. Weber II (Member # 3530) on 06-14-2007, 08:38 PM:

Have you got any good data on whether these theater owners believe that there would be noticable improvement from these upgrades?

On the lens issue, I've seen presentations at a college venue that has an underlit screen, port glass that isn't optical glass, and (I believe) 1970s lenses, and I'm not sure I can tell the difference between that and the Boston Common multiplex. Maybe I can tell that Boston Common has brighter screens if I know to look for it, but that's about it.

And operator quality can be a bigger issue than lens quality, I think: I once saw a presentation at a different commercial Boston area theater that I noticed was out of focus, which bothered me far more than an underlit screen with a 1970s lens and improper port glass.

I tend to prefer to sit near the back of theaters and not wear glasses, though, and my experiences focusing 1970s lenses from the booth tell me that my glasses are indeed useful to me at better seeing slight focus problems from the booth.

People's vision seems to vary a good deal, and it's possible that the differences between lenses from different decades are more clear to some people than others, and perhaps the theater owners are in the category of people who can't see the differences as well.

You did talk about lenses even older than the 1970s, and I can't be sure that I wouldn't notice that a 1950s lens is worse. But I'm not sure you'd ever be able to sell me new lenses with the drug dealer approach.

I don't understand why people would consider 1970s sound systems adequate these days, though. Then again, they probably could have been running magnetic sound in the 1970s and didn't bother.

Are they running on a tight budget where they feel they cannot afford the upgrades? If so, and if they're a non-profit, you might see if you can figure out how to get grant money.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-14-2007, 10:12 PM:

I find that you never shame a theater owner ever! Over time a theater owner will normally heed a suggestion for upgrades. Not all theaters can afford expensive upgrades nor necessarily to do them all at once. Sometimes a piece of old dying gear is all it takes... last one for me was a USL CS-10/100! They will become tired of its unreliability (Sony 2000) or unavailability of replacement parts. Sony is the best example of that with not a single FRB available of the D to A decoder board nor a single sprocket for the penthouse at present for the model 3000.

Mark

Posted by Richard May (Member # 2627) on 06-14-2007, 10:19 PM:

Good thread Scott. It drives me nuts when I hear some of the replies I do from owners. One in particular that I service. It's a quad. They still all have Kelmar mono systems. The original balcony seats 300 or more. When I suggested they upgrade to at least stereo, the owner said....."No, the customers are happy with mono".

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 06-14-2007, 10:37 PM:

To be perfectly honest, most of the gear can be refurbished. I have worked in to many places that have managed to squeeze first class results out of aging equipement, Ive seen old frosty lenses eventually put up first class results after months of daily cleaning. I've heard CP55s and early panastereos create great sound!

What I find on average that the speakers tend to be the weekest link in most cinemas. Add some wings and backstage dampening (black tissue faced), cheak for damaged cones, and surround speakers must actually sound good.

I have over the past 20 years enjoyed upgrading most of the cinemas that I have worked at, my secret has been by doing the cheapest things first, demonstrating that it doesnt take too much money to make a meaningful difference to the quality of the experience. Once the owner trusts you the budget tends to increase.

Personally I feel the reason that owners tend to be tight on these issues, is that they all have a story regarding spending a fortune on some piece of equipment, and not noticing or seeing any difference except to the bank account! I have owners on tape discussing this very problem.

A standard example is an owner wanting to upgrade the sound. The tech will sugest digital, new processer, new amps and new speakers! Yet its only the rooms acoustics that is actually causing the poor sound quality! ( BTW old altec equipment can be cheaply refubished, & to my ears outperform the standard bass refex designs today!) So if he spends a few hundred on backstage dampening, some timber for wings and sees a difference, they may continue spending money and next thing you know THEY are suggesting a digital processer ( yep a true story )

Over the past 15 years I have, custom built 3 complete cinema speaker systems, modified 10 others with acoustcs, new subs or surrounds ect. ( after the cinemas get new speakers, the owners usually get me to build them a home 5.1 system)

Got filmguard installed in 2 cinemas.

Organised 1 complete refurbishment of a cinema including 375 newer seats (creating leg room) repairing the speakers and adding sub bass, helped install the new projectors (second hand with less than 70 hours on them) Only costing aprox aust $5000 after selling the old 1930s seats! The audience reaction, word of mouth, created a noticable boost to the cinemas bank account.

Modified the lighting for greater safety and less spill on the screen at the local IMAX, plus produced a dolby surround intro to welcome them for all australasian Imax theatres during the expansion years.

Enough blowing of my own trumpet, Yes you can actually get these guys to spend money!

Arguing that modern cinemas have better gear has never been sucessful approach for me, mostly because the punters onced blame the film not the venue ie that movie was hard to understand, not that Roxy cinema has poor acoustics!. The true competion now comes from home theatre where people wont miss the difference seeing the same movie within a 4 month period!

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 06-15-2007, 12:41 AM:

"I find that you never shame a theater owner ever!"

Mark, for one, I totally agree. There is a big difference between the owners personal money and style and that of his business.

Fear and greed are all that will work in my experience. Pulling one of these two levers is most effective. It's as though they are attached directly to his nut bag.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-15-2007, 04:03 AM:

Yes, I also agree with Mark's reply as well for those theatre owners are extremely staunch with what they've got and will actually make the public suffer in their theatres..and by suffering, I mean on how the entire theatre is operated as - which includes operational procedures, personnel attitudes and appearances, theatre appearance conditions, and the most is actual feature presentations....and these owners all care about is how they play with numbers and lining their pockets.

But, it all due comes around. For the public knows where they can be treated well and will prefer the competition's theatres and then is when these owners finally begin to realize that they REALLY need to do something, like sound and picture improvements, replacing worn and/or broken seats..thinking of converting sloped houses to stadium and the like just to drum up the business that used to be there at the beginning, but their greedy and selfish habits have taken them to these lower levels of operation.

Yet, all of these said improvements above can't bring back the public since the one factor is still missing..and that is the "magic of the cinema" - the atmosphere that needs to be there and presented by the employees and mgmt team themselves, and this all comes from the caring by the owners.

Sorry, theatre owners: "the Buck stops with you."

-Monte

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 06-15-2007, 05:01 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
Over time a theater owner will normally heed a suggestion for upgrades.

This probably couldn't have been put better.

I've had my drive-in for 20 years now. In that time, I've changed projector heads and lamphouses twice. I've gone from old Bogen PA amplifiers (back when we had window speakers) to our second set of FM transmitters... rudimentary audio processing to stuff that major markets use... and from no noise reduction to Smart boxes, to CP65s, and now digital and computer control. We started with Snaplites, found some pretty good Wollensaks, and now have Schneiders. None of this happened overnight. I had to pay for the theatre, raise a family (and put 3 daughters through college), and deal with upgrades and maintenance in other parts of the property... the snack bar, kitchen, restrooms, playground & boxoffice... all on a seasonal income.

20 years later, I'm still not finished... probably never will be. Things get done every year over the whole property. However, if I had a projectionist who only looked at what was being done with the booth, I'm sure there'd be pressure to spend more time in that one place.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-15-2007, 07:45 AM:

Joel--if this is the college venue that I'm thinking of, then I'll comment that the sound quality (even though DTS) was pretty poor when I visited a couple of years ago. Admittedly, the room was not good and perhaps things have improved since then. Boston Common is decent, but they have top masking for scope in many (most?) houses and they have had serious flicker issues in most of my recent visits. Although my sample size is small, I think that the presentation is generally better at Regal (nee AMC) Fenway, but I wouldn't hold up either one as a shining example of quality, either. (I have never had any relationship with either of these theatres, except as a customer.)

Jack--I think that the difference between you and the theatres that I'm thinking of is that you _did_ make incremental upgrades over time and you also understand the benefits of making them. I'm talking about places that haven't upgraded anything (literally) in decades and whose owners see no problems with that. I am constantly pointing out good deals on used equipment, but no one has bitten yet.

Perhaps part of the issue is that venues that don't run film every night have a harder time justifying upgrades. In any case, it's tough to argue that exclusivity of product is not enough to keep customers coming through the doors. On the other hand, I hate having to explain why a film looked or sounded bad to customers and/or filmmakers.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-15-2007, 08:30 AM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
and these owners all care about is how they play with numbers and lining their pockets.

On the contrary, we have good customers that are also friends and I would give the shirt off my back to them. These are the customers that are doing VERY well yet are still constantly doing alot of upgrades to keep things in the best possible performance/condition.

But....
We have actually discontinued servicing a couple of locations just because the owners are way too into being the ultimate cheapskates! One in Afton Wyoming that owns a Ford Dealership but who thinks the wealthy guy in Jackson should also cover his part of the travel expenses just because I'm near by. Actually I do have to go out of my way to go to Afton from Jackson Hole.

Another guy in a large Central Eastern Idaho town that is sooooo cheap he buys used lamps from some dealer in Florida for a hundred bucks apiece and runs them till they won't ignite or till they explode. He always complains about lack of customers and buisness being slow... and the funny thing about one of his locations is that another customer of ours once owned it and had good grosses there. Neither of these are the type of customers any service person wants to have nor should have to put up with.

We too have customers that are still all mono... buck houses and some running the theater more as a service to the local community and such, however all have been loyal customers and loyal customers are the best customers a dealer can have.

Mark

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-15-2007, 09:35 AM:

People like Jack are no issue.....continuous improvement will eventually solve all problems.

Back on topic: how do you "move" someone who has prospered greatly evey year for the last 35 and who "doesn't have enough money to install stereo; replace the screen or lenses?"

He obviously has the money and is doing sufficiently well enough to remove large sums of money from the theatre; has no debts. He just thinks Motiographs, 1940's lenses, etc are Ok enough. In effect, helping him keep old stuff going is actually enabling him to continue, at the expense of serving his customers.

To be sure, all of us have "charity cases" who are not making loads of money. These are the places that get the hand-me-downs for free. Louis

[ 06-15-2007, 12:46 PM: Message edited by: Louis Bornwasser ]

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 06-15-2007, 10:18 AM:

Of course there are all kinds of theatre operators and I like to work with the ones who give a shit about what they do for a living and what they serve up to the public. It's fun to embellish to make a point.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-15-2007, 01:09 PM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
To be sure, all of us have "charity cases" who are not making loads of money. These are the places that get the hand-me-downs for free. Louis

Not necessarily true but there are customers that want to make themselves out as charity cases!! Take our ex-Idaho customer for instance. We quoted him a used sound system upgrade... used USL proc.,matching speakers and amps to what he already had there so he could take his existing C/S system on one screen to full stereo. Now you can't buy some of the USL cards any longer and we offered him a good tade in on his C/S USL and we'd just keep it for the parts. Instead he opted to go to an unscruplious dealer in Denver and just buy the stuff... mismatched stuff at that... without calling us back and saying hey can you do a little better? We probably could have had he called us back first. At any rate he still wanted US to come install the pile of junk he bought from the unscrouplous dealer(you all know who this is) and we said we would but that since this dealer's stuff is never in the condition it is represented we warned him that it would undoubtdly cost him more. Because he didn't even bother to call us back first we quoted him a price $20.00 per hour higher than we normally charge for service work and he about started crying at the other end of the phone. He called another local sub-contractor to come install it all and it was exactly as we presumed it would be.... the sub contractor had some horror stories for us about the gear when he got back in town. The mis-represented equipment ended up costing him way more than had he just bought our first quote.

Stupid people!
Mark

Posted by William T. Parr (Member # 677) on 06-15-2007, 01:25 PM:

I know how you feel Scott. I had teh same problem with the previous owner at the Howard theatre in Taylor. Thank God he sold it to someone that was willing to make an invetsmet in buying a new screen for his downstairs theater, bought a DTS unit from Mark at CALCO and C/E red led anaog readers as well as two Dolby units one a CP 65/300 and a CP55 with the split surround card and a SRA5 adapter with 280 cards. We are now working on repalceing the 23 yr old amps that were handed down and lenses that are from the early 70's. The new owner also put in rockers with cup holders. All in all with making neccessary repairs to the building and doing teh upgrades they dropped about $18,000 into it.

Posted by Bob Koch (Member # 1062) on 06-15-2007, 07:03 PM:

Great thread ,Scott. As usual Sam and Louis have pushed my buttons. Sam, as usual getting right to the point with his 'pulling the correct levers of fear and greed to reach them. Louis reference to Motiograph reminded me of a story that occured to me fifty or so years ago dealing with Model K,s and how to get rid of them in order to improve the picture on the screen. I worked for RCA then and they had come up with an idiotic projection parts contract for theatres in which we already serviced the sound. They had in their bovine like minds that they would supply the theatres with maybe a couple of pad rollers six books of lens tissue and collect their hefty monthly charge never dreaming that pad rollers hardly wear out but cracked reflectors,worn intermittent sprockets and intermittent overhauls and high intensity arc lamp positive contact failures were the norm. Anyway, I digress. The theatre was the old Esquire in Sacramento which had this type of contract,opened in 1940 with Brenkert Enarc arc lamps with Motiograph model K,s with their 415 lb pedestals.Oldsters will remember that the design of the K with its barrel shutter and associated universal trunnion and the opening of the whole rear door which contained the film trap. It prevented getting the arc lamp mirror at it`s working distance of 34",had to be 36' or more resulting in a huge loss of light and with the barrel shutter giving its soft vignetting effect[close to travel ghost] gave an under illuminated "soft" picture.
The operator and I decided we should send one "K" out for overhaul and got a Brenkert BX 60 for a loaner and just to ice the cake I got a 31" mirror to stick in the Enarc.Boy;you should have seen the changeovers.Even the patrons noticed but to no avail. Management wouldnt buy the change and my upgrade went in the toilet.They so appreciated my efforts they kept bitching to get the "K" back so the light would be equal[and less] again. I was prolonging their agony saying we were waiting for parts for the Motiograph but then the dealer wanted his loaner back; so ended my attempt to upgrade anyone.In my day, most of my customers were circuits with their main office with the required numbskulls anywhere from 100 to 1000 miles away and the on site people had a petty cash fund sometimes reaching almost$100 to use for local emergencies and repairs. Different time and different circumstances. From reading this forum it appears to me that some of you get to deal with principals. People who have spending authority now seem to actually go in the auditoriums and see what kind of presentation is being offered to the public. Not in my day.

Posted by Michael Moore (Member # 3867) on 06-15-2007, 08:44 PM:

I found the direct step wise approach of "hey we need to upgrade" and showing them the pros and cons of upgrading was sufficient. I did this in steps and over about three years! One thing to my advantage the board of directors glazed over when I started talking about the current equipment and what we would get out of newer better equipment. I quickly discovered that they had no clue of what I was talking about and decided to just leave it up to me. They backed the money! Then my manager said she did not want me to use certain vendors and preferred for us to use others because of the problems we have with the equipment we have now.

When the Schwartz Center was renovated they did not consult anyone about equipment, they used all the original supers that were installed in 1960 and did not what them replaced. They got a company/vendor to install and sell us what was called a "turn key operation" What we had was far from turn key, It was more like crank start and wizard of OZ behind the curtain kind of stuff. If any of you see what I have to do before I can show a film you would quickly quit after the second show! Trust me!

When I arrived I quickly did what I could at the time to upgrade. I went form a 500 watt bulb to a 1000 watt first. Then I slowly over hauled each platter, I took the old falling apart particle board MUT and transformed it into a functional MUT all with very little money investment. I purchased blowers, instead of renting then! I got a Century from Louis; I got a bigger power supply to get me brighter on the screen and A new 2000 W bulb, new splicer, new Flat lese. I plan to get a new scope lens soon and a cinema processor is in the works.
Little bits at a time worked for me. I'm now $10,000.00 closer to a better booth.
Mike

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-15-2007, 09:28 PM:

The previous owners of my theatre were the type that never wanted to upgrade anything. So when my brother in law and I bought it, we knew it needed work -- plus we are both gadget freaks, and I'm a sound nut. So we started upgrading. Then, people started saying how much they appreciated what we were doing, and saying "Thank you!" for providing a better theatre. Plus our crowds increased. So that was like fuel on the fire, and now I like to do upgrades (as Mark G. will testify), because I know the people appreciate it and will reward us with their attendance.

I think the secret might be: Make the first upgrade something very noticeable to the audience, so they comment a lot about it. (Of course it helps if the owner is actually in the building to hear the positive comments.)

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-15-2007, 10:09 PM:

Yes, going one step at a time and reaching a goal where you can cay "I did it!" and knowing that the public really notices the difference from what it was to what improvements have been taken, is well worth the congrats to the two Mikes above.

Posted by Ron Curran (Member # 3631) on 06-16-2007, 02:06 AM:

I regard our cinema as a work in progress. Our key staff have a wish list and we get a thrill when the budget allows us to tick off an item. It may be just a small thing like an extra power point in the foyer or beefier power for the subwoofers.

The danger is in accepting what you have as the ultimate. For an owner to hear that some aspect of the theatre nearby is superior should be enough to fire up his/her ambition to improve.

The major frustration is having things that are almost impossible to change. For example, our ceiling is too low so we cant increase the screen size without a complete re-build. And due to a lost battle, we now have an aisle right across the centre of the auditorium where the true cinema lovers used to want to sit.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-16-2007, 09:03 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
So that was like fuel on the fire, and now I like to do upgrades (as Mark G. will testify), because I know the people appreciate it and will reward us with their attendance.

Which is one reasons why you have one of the three best theaters in all of Montana! And thats a really large state!

Mark

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-16-2007, 09:23 PM:

Mark,

Can you email me regarding this "unscrupulous dealer"in Colorado. Ive started doing business with a dealer out there and want to make sure this isnt the same one your tslking about. Ive been dealing with Tankersly Enterprises and so far think theyve been great to me! <email address removed>

[ 06-16-2007, 10:07 PM: Message edited by: Brad Miller ]

Posted by Christopher Crouch (Member # 3784) on 06-17-2007, 04:49 AM:

In addition to presentation quality, there is also an issue with old equipment requiring time and focus that could be better spent elsewhere. More problems, more maintenence, more tinkering, more babysitting, etc. lead to more man hours being spent in booth. Additionally, this often takes management and staff off the floor; that manager and/or staff member, struggling with an old piece of projection equipment, could have been on the floor generating cashflow had the theatre owner invested in upgrading his/her equipment. Over time, this mispent time and focus can add up and take a sizeable chunk out of that heavily sited bottom line.

Posted by Joel N. Weber II (Member # 3530) on 06-17-2007, 11:52 AM:

Age and quality aren't necessarily correlated, and I'm not sure that every 50 year old projector head requires more tinkering than every five year old projector head.

On the other hand, older equipment does typically need to be fixed on occasion, and fixing it right the first time can certainly save time in the long run.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-18-2007, 08:01 AM:

For comparison we have a couple dozen booths that are still running Supers.... Yet we rarely sell any Super parts at all!! I visit a pair of immaculate E-7's in Big Timber, MT. once a year and basically say hi to them... they never need any work. We sell mostly X-L parts and then Century... this is what I see from my point of view servicing. None of our customers have any want to replace theses older machines either.

Mark

Mark

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-18-2007, 09:09 AM:

A more interesting statistic would be parts cost per machine in service. Of course the average dealer will be selling more X-L parts than Super parts because there are more X-Ls in service. It would be more interesting to see that, on average, a well-maintained X-L requires $x worth of parts per year, while a well-maintained E7 requires $y worth of parts per year.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-18-2007, 09:22 AM:

Our 27-year-old Simplex doesn't run as many shows as a city machine would (max 14 to 16 shows per week, probably averages about 10 per week) but it's never needed any major parts that I can think of.

Had to have the intermittent repaired once but that was caused by a film clog, nothing to do with the machine itself.

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 06-18-2007, 09:40 AM:

*WARNING* Rant

Welcome to my life. I deal with this everyday. I sell automation for welding. I go into customer's plants (at their request even) and do demonstrations of our equipment. 99.9% of my leads come from a customer finding us on the internet or asking their local welding supplier for automation. They come to me looking for a way to speed up their welding processes (without spending the major capital investment that is required for robots) and make things easier for their welders.

In the end very few of them actually buy anything. I even go as far as asking the customer to send their parts in to me to video tape the weld and send them back the parts and the edited video. This saves me wasting my time and expenses of going there if they aren't serious about buying anything. This is a major time investment in itself with the video part of it. If they decide they still want a demo from there I will go do it at their premises. They still end up not buying anything most of the time. In the future I have decided to make the customer commit to a conditional purchase order before I come to them. A kind of "If it works, you must buy it" agreement.

I just had a customer do this to me. I went all the way to Wisconsin and the jerk off stiffed me even after I did the video and everything. He couldn't wait to get me there to see the machine work. When I called for a follow up he told me they didn't want it. I asked why and he told me he wasn't included in the meeting and he didn't know why. WHAT?!?!?! The least you could do is give me a straight answer since I wasted thousands of dollars in shipping, airfare, car rental, gas, food and lodging. I also had to leave my home and family for three days. [Mad]

The worst part is that 99% of the time our equipment drastically improves their arc on time, weld quality and employee morale but they still don't purchase. Our prices are a small fraction of what a robot or higher end automation would cost. I don't get it. Most of them turn out to be tire kickers. Frankly, I am also surprised at how many people have no conscious about wasting your time and money. If you can find a way to pry a customer's death grip from their wallets please let me know. Especially when you prove to them the time and cost savings they will benefit from and the short time in which the machine pays for itself. Not to mention the improved employee morale since they don't have to have their face right in the welding fumes anymore and put their bodies in uncomfortable positions. I would think that this would also translate into less insurance premiums since the welders are doing less physical labor and breathing less toxic fumes. [uhoh]

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-18-2007, 10:53 AM:

I feel your pain.

It is possible that the boss was just using you to get labor concessions by demonstrating how fast & good this is.

Of course the real savings more than make up for the cost of your product.

It is always hard to sell quality, especially if the location has a closing date: lease expiration. This is a shame, since MOST theatre systems can be easily moved to another deserving site when needed. Louis

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-18-2007, 11:14 AM:

quote: Louis Bornwasser
especially if the location has a closing date: lease expiration.

Anyone have an idea of the average life-span of a theatre these days? I'm thinking 15 years, but that is just a wild guess. My theatre is 66 years old, new theatres certainly aren't built to last that long, much less operate. I suspect the business model is to get a good ten years out of a multiplex and then let it decay for another 5-10 years. If that is the case, I can see the business reason for not upgrading. At least that seems to be the way things work around here.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-18-2007, 12:41 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Our 27-year-old Simplex doesn't run as many shows as a city machine would

Gee Mike, that XL is still in diapers then only being that old and being run prob 1/5th the length as those mainstream cinemas that crank out the many shows that you said.

Just too bad that a filmwind in the machine did a number on the INT assembly. I had that happen last month and had to rebuild one due to a uncaught bad splice during a buildup found that area to break in. I know of a 4plex that has two of the old black wrinklecased units with early serial numbers, the oil fill tube in the front,(but has to sit on 5 star soundheads, which I had to do a bearing overhaul on this one unit, instead of the classic 4star units) and purring away as an XL should.

XL's are hardy unit and runs forever.

-Monte

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-18-2007, 01:21 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Gee Mike, that XL is still in diapers

Yeah, the only thing we've had to replace in the booth since our initial foray into automation has been sound equipment. (Electronics...go figure.)

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 06-18-2007, 01:50 PM:

I serviced 2 theatres in different locations with a pair of XL (old) and MI-9030 soundheads. The total cost in each case for 30 years for 2 machines was less than $1000. Works out to $2.77 per month. Each theatre had (1) bad intermittent caused by not oiling....yes, they leaked. If you remove the cost of those intermittents it works out to be $0.75 per month.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-18-2007, 03:07 PM:

We sold one G-87 to a theater that I don't normally even service... one of our other employees does that part of the country. So one G-87 in the last two years out of about 24 Supers? Whats that calculate to Louis? I've never put any parts in the E-7 at Big Timber.... Its been running for over 17 years now with a schedult about the same as Mikes.

Also Mike.... Whats a film Clog? Never heard of that one.....

Mark

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-18-2007, 05:04 PM:

Mark - we had a print of Forrest Gump on a reissue that had a splice with a gap in it. It was one of those overnight circuit deals so I had no time to inspect. The bad splice ran thru just fine until the very last show, when it caught on the failsafe and stopped the takeup. Film filled the projector. At first the picture was fine and so was the sound, since the film was still running thru the DTS reader on top.

Making matters worse - it was the last showing, so I was out changing the marquee and missed all the fun. I came in to find the film jammed so tight in the projector that it stopped the intermittent from moving. CLACO overnighted me a loaner and rebuilt the unit.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-18-2007, 07:27 PM:

Dam, even the rooter rooter man wouldn't be able to free that clog [Eek!]

. I see what you mean! I've never had that happen but I'm sure I've repaired projectors that have had it happen... folks are too embarrased to tell the truth.

Mark

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 06-18-2007, 07:57 PM:

Well, have to admit, I had a clog as well with an XL with "Star Wars" back in 1977 at my home town theatre only this one is where the takeup belt clip came undone and for about 10 minutes film piled up inside the machine of the 2nd reel. Luckilly, the film broke after being so jammed up tight in there (no wrap around the INT assembly, thank goodness..) and had white screen for a while. Some of the film was still repairable and showable, but a good 65 ft was way beyond that plateau.

Told the mgr on this and got a replacement print instead of a replacement reel and he just reported the need for replacement due to excessive print wear..and nothing was said about it.

BUT, where was I at the time? Downstairs fixing a C02 tank fitting in the conc room....they didn't know that a new gasket needs to go into the fitting and when they changed the tank, thus no gasket was there inside the fitting since it stuck on the face of the old tank fitting. Thus, when they did the change and turned on the gas...talk about a frosted tank and fitting from CO2 escaping and didn't know what to do ...

I still have that crumpled up section of "StarWars" to this day - the section of Ben Kanobi introducing the light sabre to Luke Skywalker...about 65 ft of what got crumpled.

-Monte

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 06-18-2007, 08:53 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
I still have that crumpled up section of "StarWars" to this day - the section of Ben Kanobi introducing the light sabre to Luke Skywalker...about 65 ft of what got crumpled.

OK... time to give it a proper Stars Wars burial on top of a heeping pile of firewood. It ought to burn up reel nice! [Razz]

Anyway, when I came to work for the new owners I told them up front that they would need to invest monies in upgrades to the sound systems and replace a couple of screens at a minimum. There were still 4 Kintek KT-2010 mono/surround and 1 KT-700 systems still in use. I informed them that Kintek had gone out of business so when these systems crapped out there wouldn't be parts readily available. For the screens, we had one that was a silver screen that had severe surface blemishes and another screen that had an 8" cut that someone had repaired with duct tape on the front side instead of the back; not that it still wouldn't have needed replacing, it just would've looked better.

The screens were replaced immediately with regular matte white screens, but the sound systems were kept in use until they eventually either died or I accumulated all the necessary pieces of equipment to do a full upgrade. I have averaged 1 screen a year on these upgrades. Most of the equipment I was able to track down used either on eBay or various dealers. I still have the KT-700 in use and am waiting till it crokes, but I have no big rush on this. My last KT-2010 system took a power surge back in October and fried the processor so I was able to improvise by using a cheap home surround sound receiver to limp by for a couple of weeks until I tracked down probably one of the last DTS-6ADs and a set of used JBL's (screen and subs).

Now I'm more focused on getting the maskings replaced due to dry rot.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-19-2007, 08:49 AM:

quote: Jeremy Weigel
until I tracked down probably one of the last DTS-6ADs

You should have kept the stereo receiver!

Mark