quote: David Zylstra

---

quality film make-up cannot fix print issues

---

I can understand the QC aspect, and I don't disagree with the intention. However, showing it at 2 in the morning won't get a replacement reel any sooner than running it at 11 in the morning. Granted, the 11A show will be for an audience, so that's an argument in favor of tech screening. Although, I don't know that print issues happen enough to justify showing everything - burning the electricity and running up the time clock - for every engagement.

quote: David Zylstra

---

it is too bad not many companies would allow proper inspection of a print during make up . . . .

---

David... it takes longer to show a movie than it does to hand-inspect it.

quote: Scott Norwood

---

When customers ask "what is movie X about?" the answer should be something better than "I don't know."

---

Ahhh, this was also handled in the "old" days. Boxoffice used to print synopsis and promo guides for most titles, every week, in the back of the magazine. They were already pre-punched for filing in a loose-leaf binder.
 

---

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-26-2008, 06:43 PM:
 
Aren't screenings also for the purpose of making sure automation cues, sound format etc. are correct so that everything about the first public show is, uh, showmanlike? Not just that the reels are in order and splices are good and there's no film damage.
 

---

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-26-2008, 07:08 PM:
 
Not to mention the discovery of bad lab work, minute scratches, etc.

I think in the "old days" hand inspection was more important because there was much more tendency for film to have breaks, splits, etc. than there is now -- mostly because prints were around much longer than they are now.
 

---

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-26-2008, 08:04 PM:
 

quote: David Stambaugh

---

Aren't screenings also for the purpose of making sure automation cues, sound format etc. are correct

---

quote: David Stambaugh

---

Aren't screenings also for the purpose of making sure automation cues, sound format etc. are correct so that everything about the first public show is, uh, showmanlike? Not just that the reels are in order and splices are good and there's no film damage.

---

We don't pre-screen our prints...never have. The print is required to be built correctly...full stop. Cues, reels in correct order and the right way around, sound format, screen ratio...all correct.

Of course, this comes back to bite us in the bum if there's a dud reel, but unlike you guys in the States, it can take 7 to 10 days to get a replacement reel anyway, so a day earlier will make not a lot of difference.

Apart from that, it hits the screen for the first time at the first session.
 

---

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 02-27-2008, 05:46 AM:
 
Naturally I concur with John^ being from the same part of the world and all. And I agree with Tim. I think it's important that trainees do their share of Thursday mornings (opening day) because if nothing else, dealing with their own screw-ups on first run prints motivates them to get their builds done right first time. If you do your job properly, you don't need pre-screeners and like Tim, I run every inch of film through my fingers when I make it up. However:
a) it's always important to keep an eye on the first time a print is run to make sure all is in order, and;
b) I personally wish we did have pre-screeners, that way I'd see more free movies!
 

---

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-27-2008, 06:45 AM:
 
Sloppy lab work being what it is, I don't think there's any reason in the world to not screen a print after you've built it, unless you're trying to save lamp hours or you don't want your staff turning the show into a party. Which, by the way... who cares? I say turn the screenings into parties. Staff only. No friends. Make it a perk. You're already not paying them much more than minimum wage. Make that something they look forward to. Give them another reason to like working for you. Why not? It's an easy way to get your staff to really like you.

How many people got burned by reel 9 of Fellowship of the Ring on the opening midnight show? I know the theater where I saw the movie did. In something like four sold out houses. No amount of inspection on the bench would have found that problem. And by the way, I'm not saying that we shouldn't rely on bench inspection because that is certainly part of it. Our print of the last Resident Evil movie had about thirty feet of BLACK film in the middle of reel 4. Nice. I guess someone opened the door while they were printing the film or something. We spotted it on the bench and called in for a replacement. The Simpsons had about fifty or sixty feet of yellow film around a lab splice. I see that a lot - especially on Fox films for some reason. We had a new reel before the first show.

Something else we spotted on the bench once was a strange problem. I'm not even sure how to describe it. But it was around a lab splice. It looked like the negative came off the sprockets in the printer or something, because the frames started drifting along the sprocket holes. I noticed it when I was about to cut out the frame with the lab splice, and I saw that about fifteen frames away the frame line was dead center on a sprocket hole. That continued for a good fifty or eighty feet before finally settling down. Remember your old TVs horizontal hold knob? It would have looked something like that being out of whack. (Or was it the vertical hold, I forget.) It was a miracle we even noticed that. I have only seen that particular problem one other time, and we didn't see it on the bench... and we didn't screen that movie either. What ended up happening was the picture "rolled" on the screen a couple of times, and then stopped in a position that put the picture out of frame. But since no one saw the rolling, the consensus was that we had a bad splice somewhere. We pulled our hair out trying to find that bad splice (which didn't exist) until one of us finally sat in the theater to watch the movie. When I saw the "picture rolling" phenomenon I almost fell on the floor.

So I say both bench inspections and pre-screenings have their place. One of the things that irks me is when we receive prints for big highly anticipated movies at the last minute for "security reasons" only to find a letter from the director inside reminding us of how important it is to screen the movie before showing it to the public. If it's so important, then get the damn print to the theater a day earlier!
 

---

Posted by John Walsh (Member # 168) on 02-27-2008, 08:26 AM:
 
We would allow staff to watch a screening just so they wouldn't be sneaking in to watch when they are supposed to be working. I think the reason nowadays is simply to reduce the payroll.
 

---

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-27-2008, 09:07 AM:
 
Which is stupid. Pay someone for two or three more hours and make your entire staff happy while reducing the likelihood of costly lost shows. It's the cost of doing business. I'm sick and tired of so many people trying to squeeze every penny they can off of expenses rather than trying to figure out how to increase revenue in creative ways. And I'm not talking about showing ads in front of the movies. There's nothing creative about that, and it does nothing to put more butts in the seats (which is how you increase revenue).
 

---

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 02-27-2008, 10:45 AM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

---

or you don't want your staff turning the show into a party. Which, by the way... who cares?

---

quote: Scott Norwood

---

floor staff to become familiar with the film which, one hopes, will improve customer service. When customers ask "what is movie X about?" the answer should be something better than "I don't know."

---

quote: Mark J. Marshall

---

Sloppy lab work being what it is, I don't think there's any reason in the world to not screen a print after you've built it, unless you're trying to save lamp hours or you don't want your staff turning the show into a party.

---

quote: Chris Slycord

---

you seem to forget how idiotic staff can be.

---

quote: Scott Norwood

---

Question for the pro-pre-screen-everything people: what do you do for films that only play once? Do you really expect someone to pre-screen every single film that will play in a film festival? What about rentals and special screenings? To do so would be both time- and cost-prohibitive if the screeners were to be paid.

---

quote: Tim Reed

---

However, showing it at 2 in the morning won't get a replacement reel any sooner than running it at 11 in the morning.

---

I'm going to have to disagree with Tim here. I know that I've called DFS at 2am to order a replacement reel which was delivered by 10am the same day, in time for the reel to be changed out before the first show.

And in cases where we've got multiple prints, we'll move them around to allow the 'bad' print more time to allow the reel to be replaced.

I'll also chime in on the staff party routine. I work for an independent house, and we've had several problems with floor staff 'joining in' on the inspection screenings. Management comes down on these events when they get out of hand. When I'm screening, I am happy to allow other staff to attend (with management approval) as long as they shut the hell up. I've thrown an usher or two out of my screenings in the past.

I'm in favor of inspection screenings. GCC never did this when I worked for them and it was a Saturday Morning routine to change out replacement reels.
 

---

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 02-27-2008, 02:10 PM:
 
We screen almost every print. Its fairly easy to catch image defects on the bench, but not always that easy to spot soundtrack track defects; analog or digital.

We had a print of "Clear and Present Danger" that repeated the last 5-10 minutes of the last reel near the end before the credits were to hit the screen. We all thought we had a case of deja vu. Ordered a replacement reel that night and had it in time before the first public showing.

The biggest reasoning for not having "employee screening parties" after operating hours is due to insurance. If you have someone get hurt while not actually working it presents a huge liability; not just if they get hurt at the theatre, but also if they get into an accident on the way home. I believe Regal had one such case about 10-12 years ago.
 

---

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-27-2008, 02:10 PM:
 
So, if you have 25 prints in your film festival, each one averages two hours, and you pay your operators $20/hour (low for festivals), your labor cost for the screenings is $1000. Plus (probably) extra rental costs for the theatre plus you'd probably have to pay a manager or someone else to be there as well.

Even if it's "only" $1000, the money has to come from somewhere. Personally, I'd rather take the $1000 and pay a competent tech to do a complete service call on the theatre and fix any known issues before the festival. Maybe rent better lenses for the week. Or hire another operator to be available to help during the screenings. All of these uses of $1000 would provide noticeable benefits for every show, whereas screenings "might" identify issues that "might" be able to be corrected "if" replacement prints are available (highly unlikely).

Pre-screenings would be great if they didn't cost anything, but some of us don't get to deal with people or organizations with unlimited budgets and would prefer that what cash is available be spent in the most efficient manner possible.

Edit: I should add here that I am personally sick and tired of having to explain to directors why their movies look and sound bad. This is usually because the venue has crappy equipment or, more often, is in need of maintenance. Service calls before festivals should be standard procedure, but often aren't.
 

---

Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 02-27-2008, 02:49 PM:
 
It is policy where I work that everything is screen tested and the projectionist who does so gets paid for their time.
We have rejected prints on the basis of scratching and bad lab work most of which you can't notice on the bench.

Occasionaly we are unable to test a print because it arrives on the day of the screening but they are usually only one off special screenings.

Also recently I started using Filmguard and a Kelmar film cleaner so I like to do one pass before it screens for a paying audience.
 

---

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 02-27-2008, 03:02 PM:
 
At the first cinema I worked at there were eight screens and the other projectionist and I would come in very early on Friday mornings and build up prints. Then we would each screen one. Occassionally I may miss a splice if the frame was way too dark but most of the time they were right. We didn't have the benefit of frame counters or anything like that.

Sometimes there were too many prints to screen though. When I moved to a fifteen screen theater this became the case. With upwards of seven films leaving some weeks it just wasn't feasible to screen them all.

On a side note we did occassionally have employee only screenings after hours. For the most part everyone behaved and it was something we all looked forward to.
 

---

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 02-27-2008, 04:20 PM:
 

quote: Scott Norwood

---

Question for the pro-pre-screen-everything people: what do you do for films that only play once? Do you really expect someone to pre-screen every single film that will play in a film festival? What about rentals and special screenings? To do so would be both time- and cost-prohibitive if the screeners were to be paid.

---

quote: Joshua Waaland

---

Occassionally I may miss a splice if the frame was way too dark but most of the time they were right. We didn't have the benefit of frame counters or anything like that.

---

I guess it goes without saying that a frame counter should be considered mandatory equipment but I too have worked in a cinema that didn't have one so I ended up making one out of some scrounged bits and pieces. It looks a bit like this (actually it looks exactly like this):


It cost me about 20 bucks to make and you're probably thinking that it looks it but it gets the job done.

Interesting that you guys are so militant about pre-screenings. I've found that lab problems are a rarity so if I were running a cinema, I probably wouldn't do them either. Or if I did, it would be the first thing to go when things got tough. Given that you guys in the US usually premiere before us, maybe the problems are all ironed out before we get our prints?? Although Aussie John says they pre-screen. Do you get frequent lab faults, John?
 

---

Posted by John Koutsoumis (Member # 1855) on 02-27-2008, 06:37 PM:
 
Yeah sometimes we get prints that have some weird flash colour shifting that's really annoying and recently we had a print where in place of the credits there was lab tech jargon printed instead. Looked like end cedits on the bench but on close inspection they were not. Of course the print had been shown elsewhere several times proir to us receiving it but no one noticed!

Most of the problems with prints that I have are Lab stock joins that are in the middle of the frame and poor printing quality on some prints but well what can you do.

9 out 10 times I get replacement prints due to the ones we receive having been trashed by others. Of course only really noticed after test screening.
I like testing prints before hand and will continue to do so regardless of what others think. Most importantly it gives me the chance to see the film too which I like doing
 

---

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-27-2008, 06:52 PM:
 

quote: Blaine Young

---

I've called DFS at 2am to order a replacement reel which was delivered by 10am

---

Well, that's a new one on me. As I said, the routine has changed in the 20+ years since I was a full time projectionist.
 

---

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 02-27-2008, 08:48 PM:
 
^^ I've certainly cut out crap loads of lab joins but these can be done on the bench. I don't understand how it is that labs can't get those joins on the frame line anyway.

quote: John Koutsoumis

---

I like testing prints before hand and will continue to do so regardless of what others think. Most importantly it gives me the chance to see the film too which I like doing [thumbsup]

---

Can't argue with that, mate.
 

---

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-27-2008, 10:19 PM:
 
It all depends on the event for me.

For a Studio screening...oh you betcha...there WILL be a run-through. Then again, I normally have two prints at my access and they have long been assigned as "primary" and "backup."

During these run thoughs we have have found bad digital tracks, odd marks/scratches in the picture and such. These shows only have one chance and must be perfect.

This is not limited to film events either...digital or even analog tape are always prescreened. One never knows what "hits" are in the picture or possible audio drops.

So as to once-time shows...it all depends...if the event warrants it, then absolutely. Then again sometimes it would be time prohibitive....take the Warner Bros collection that was screened some years ago...each film only ran once and there were 12 hours of screenings per day...you would need to run the theatre 24 hours to "prescreen" them all....it just wouldn't be practical.

In a typical cinema application though...having to run on analog versus digital is not a show stopper...an odd mark or color shift is also not a show stopper. Heck, the labs can't color time two reels the same way anyway.

I have no problem with theatres prescreening films as it makes some amount of sense. I have never done it myself in the theatres I've worked however and never had a situation come up that was a show stopper as a result.

Steve
 

---

Posted by Mike Sellars (Member # 4042) on 02-28-2008, 06:56 PM:
 
The only time we do not preview a film before we show it to the public is when we get them in Friday morning and only have time to build them and show them... cross your fingers!

In addition, every print coming in the building gets Filmguarded during the preview, and since we only have one Kelmar machine, they get previewed one at a time. Luckily some come on Wed and some on Thurs, and Sun-Thurs during slowtime we don't run lates, so we are not usually here forever. As long as I'm the GM, and we still run film, it will be this way.



Mike
 

---

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-28-2008, 07:38 PM:
 
You guys could also just get Moviolas in the booth, and run through them at high speed.
 

---

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 02-29-2008, 12:57 AM:
 
Here I thought that was why my variable speed drives can exceed 60 hertz.

It's odd how all the last shows of the night end at the same time.
 

---

Posted by Sonja O'Reilly (Member # 1322) on 03-05-2008, 08:29 AM:
 
I work at an 18-plex in Southern California and we try to pre-screen every movie possible. Because we live so close to the border with Mexico (Tijuana, specifically,) theatres in the area have gotten reels that were in English and reels in Spanish. I received a foreign language film that had R4 with no subtitles at all. I like pre-screening and thankfully my GM agrees that it is vital, because it allows for us to catch unusual situations, like poor sound or even a quirk of the film itself. Like Cloverfield, shot on mini-DV and transferred to film, so it has a lot of video "noise" on it and it was also a shaky film, so I made sure that warnings went up for customers with motion sickness problems.
Plus, pre-screening is fun.
 

---