Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What is the most complicated theater you have worked

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Posted by Michael Dolan (Member # 4808) on 05-28-2008, 04:33 PM:

Most booths are pretty simple to run. You know your showtimes you thread and hit start. But some theaters just have alot of problems due to poor maint. or just a confusing layout. My most complicated booth was a temp. deal I did at the swap shop in ft. lauderdale. I'm not sure but I believe they had like 12 screens. ( ohh sorry it was a drive in). But anyways each projector was in a different building stretched across this huge area. You had to use a golf cart to go wherever needed and most of the time you were by yourself. When I went there there was no labels on the movies or projectors. some screens had double features and you had to just guess by the size which movie was which. I don't know how many times I got lost or almost hit by a car trying to find these buildings.

I have heard that there are alot of booths out there with really wierd designs or setups. Who else had to work them and how was it?

Posted by Chad M Calpito (Member # 3736) on 05-28-2008, 04:54 PM:

At my theatre, I run 15 projectors by myself during a shift and in my booth, we have 7 different booths requiring a key to unlock doors and the booth is separated into two different floors. Showtimes are scattered in which I would go from one far end of the booth to the other end on a different floor utilizing stairs most of the time and those rare times, the Elevator and it get's a little more crazy when I have showtimes in which two sets of projectors have to be started at the same time. Luckily, all of my projectors are labeled the proper number and I pre-thread as many projectors as possible, etc. Also, all of my prints are labeled which makes things easier.

In essence, the booth layout is complicated to anyone who has never run the booth before.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-28-2008, 11:41 PM:

As a Presentation Manager/Engineer, I did a 21 screener by myself on one full wknd (21 machines in 7 booths) - all of my other 5 guys had things going on for the evening.

The cinema boss congratulated me on my extreme efforts in keeping shows on time, but also warned me not to do this again. For if I had one house go fubar, the entire complex would have suffered with late starts.

My trick was in this event was: not to worry about start times, but pay attention to exit times. That way, when a house dropped, I immediately went to that house and laced it up for the next show.

Posted by Steve Greeno (Member # 4789) on 05-28-2008, 11:42 PM:

The most complicated theater I ever worked was when I was a relief manager for UA theaters. Not any single theater in this chain was difficult if you were the manager. However, being a relief manager my job was to go around to all of the seven different locations that UA had in Lafayette Indiana and take over for just one or two nights while the manager had his/her night off.

This was very difficult to do since each theater was different and had different equipment to run. Just when I would get it down I would then be at a different theater the next night.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 05-29-2008, 02:14 PM:

The most difficult theatre I worked was the old Loews Freshpond Mall 10. Ten screens, five booths, Five Deck NXP Platters, Threading on rollers around corners, Interlocking through catwalks built into walls into seperate booths! All kinds of FUN!

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 05-30-2008, 03:36 PM:

Sean -- I'd love to see pictures of THAT. It sounds like the booth I keep working in whenever I have that nightmare where I'm back running projection and can't find movies or figure out how the platter works.

Posted by Benjamin John Doman (Member # 4365) on 06-03-2008, 02:30 PM:

Most complex cinema – Maybox / Gallery / Cannon / MGM / Virgin / UGC / Cineworld / Empire Slough (UK). Ten screens, six boxes’s over six floors. Started life as the Fulcrum centre, Theatre, concert and exhibition halls. The council sold it because it was so complex to run! Bill & Ben Freedman then converted to a ten plex with Michel Cain. It was tough getting projectionists. I had to rescue one relief projectionist as he got lost going from one box to the other. When I started we had Cinemeccanica Vic 5’s, CNR platters and just an end sequence automation, with three projectionists on shift. Ended up with Kinoton FP30D’s with EMK1 automation, ST200E platters and CP500 / CP65 processors. I believe they run with one or two projectionists on shift now. Very challenging to run, but great fun. Eight screens in one box was positively boring after that! May also qualify for theatre with the most number of name changes?

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-03-2008, 02:42 PM:

quote: Scott D. Neff
Sean -- I'd love to see pictures of THAT.

Scott, I have some pictures around here somewhere. I will try to scan them in when I have some time and send them into Brad. It is an interesting place! It is currently run by Entertainment Cinemas out of Southeaston, Ma.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 06-03-2008, 02:57 PM:

quote: Scott D. Neff
It sounds like the booth I keep working in whenever I have that nightmare where I'm back running projection and can't find movies or figure out how the platter works.

Damn! I thought I was the only one to have that dream!

Most complicated booth for me was a single screen Mexican theatre in LA. I was called to work at the last minute on New Year's Day. I'd never been in the booth, it had a platter I'd never seen before, I had no idea where the switches were, I don't speak Spanish and no one in the theatre spoke English. Nonetheless, got the show on and ran it all day.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 06-03-2008, 03:44 PM:

I think we've all had similar nightmares. Also walking in cold was not unheard of, especially when working relief. I went in cold to the late Virginia Theatre in Alexandria, VA when they were screening a premier with a live stage performance. Producers, directors and all sorts of suits hanging around. The regular man was there but he was OCD and over the top about having to control three microphones, so no help from him. Somehow it all worked out.

Posted by Cameron Glendinning (Member # 3516) on 06-03-2008, 09:05 PM:

Ben, I remember a guided tour of the slough complex in 1995, lots of fake walls and vast amounts of unused spaces. There were even theatre seats in side balcony boxes that had been walled up.
When I visited there were many projectionists on duty.

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 06-04-2008, 01:44 AM:

The theater I work at now has 10 projectors in 8 different booths with 2 floors in between (one set is on 3rd fl, other on 5th). The architect should have been shot. I spend most of my time running up and down the stairs. The good news is I lost 10 lbs my first month there.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 06-04-2008, 03:57 AM:

Tripled 1,100 seat 1938 movie palace. 3 Seperate Booths on 3 diffirent floors, when you leave you the booth you have to walk through the auditoriums. All Vic 8's with AW3's but used to have diffirent platters in every booth. Zero automation, Aspect changes are completely manual, ie: Close douser, unscrew lens barrel, remove lens, seat scope lens, tighten, change ap plate, turn sound to feature level, turn lights off, open douser. We all have it down to around 4 seconds.

Challenging, but fun setup.

Posted by Andres Briano (Member # 4621) on 06-04-2008, 09:27 AM:

quote: Joe Elliott
The architect should have been shot.

Yep. I think I know that guy. I´m sure he is the one who designed the 18plex in Barra de Tijuca, Brazil.

18-plex with 16 booths. Two different buildings connected by a hanging bridge just for ourselves. The booth span over 4 floors. But here´s the tricky part. Booths on the same floor are not connected between them. So, to go from one booth in, let´s say floor 3, to the other booth in floor 3, you have to go up to 4 and then back down to 3 again.

Did I tell you about clearances? All the stairs and doors for that matter are only 30" wide. Last time I was over there, some architects were scratching their heads trying to figure out how to get a brand new digital projector to one of those booths.

Usually 2 projectors that are side by side are not from consecutive auditoriums.

Interlock? Let me show you interlock!

Granted. It´s not the worst, but it adds to the fun of that place.

Equipment? They have the Kelonik "Good-from-far-but-far-from-good" Lamphouses.

If awards are ever given to specific booths, this one would take home the honor in the Best Amusement-Park-Type-Booth Category

Andrés

Posted by Scott D. Neff (Member # 185) on 06-04-2008, 10:53 AM:

quote: Andres Briano
They have the Kelonik "Good-from-far-but-far-from-good" Lamphouses.

I sure hope that Kelonik is pronounced similarly to "colonic" because then I think I've used those lamphouses too.

Posted by Benjamin John Doman (Member # 4365) on 06-04-2008, 12:44 PM:

Hi Cameron,
Yes it was an amazing place. So much wasted space. My first office was in one of the old bars. It was in one of the foyers, but had a round about way to get to it. Hence only the chosen few knew the way in! When Virgin re-ferbed the place there was also a walled up double width steel re enforced concrete stair case that the architect didn’t know about. After I showed him that, he passed the job on to his partner and never came back!
[beer]

Posted by Andres Briano (Member # 4621) on 06-05-2008, 12:10 PM:

Scott,
Kelonik is a Spanish company that manufactures the (Super) Galaxy lamphouses. Here´s a picture of one.

Does it ring any bells?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 06-05-2008, 12:54 PM:

quote: Andres Briano
Does it ring any bells?

I don't know... how would they hook it up to ring bells? Wouldn't that break the reflector [Eek!]

?

Mark

Posted by Andres Briano (Member # 4621) on 06-10-2008, 12:56 PM:

(Tumbleweed rolling by...)

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-11-2008, 08:17 AM:

I've not had to run any truly horrible setups like some that have been posted here, though I have seen a few.

The absolute worst that I have ever seen (but not run, thankfully), is the old Tri-Boro Cinema in North Attleboro, MA. Some people here are familiar with it. Twelve (?) screens, each with different equipment in various states of disrepair. Projector heads included (if I remember correctly) Brenkert, Century, Cinemeccanica, and Simplex. Platters included Super Platters, Cinemeccanica, (old) Kinoton, and maybe a few other types. Sound was all over the place as well, but was mostly junk. The booth was a mess (very dirty and disorganized), too. That place is now (mercifully) closed.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-11-2008, 12:23 PM:

I projected (if one could call it that) at the Tri-Boro for a short period of time and while scott is right on the money about each screen being different I found it pretty easy tho... There were only one big booth with 10 screens and another smaller booth with 2. The only thing that made it interesting was the other operator (a former union guy) decided he didnt want me there and tried to sabotage things so I would look incompetent (childish really) but I never lost a show, or got on screen late. He was so incompetent he couldnt even sabotage things right... oooh take the fuse out of the automtation... wow! big deal!