Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: What is the worst film mess you've had to deal with? How did you fix it?

This is topic What is the worst film mess you've had to deal with? How did you fix it? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009319

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-30-2008, 04:11 PM:

I'm just curious to hear how people have fixed some of the worst film messes they've encountered.

I have 4 that particularly stand out.

Problem: Loading Inspector Gadget onto bottom platter, Star Wars Episode 1 ends and the tail whips out of the rollers and gets tangled in the film winding on. The problem isn't caught for several minutes and we have a major wind bind up under the platter around the hub.

Fix: In this case we had some seriously damaged film. I cut the film in sections to make it easy to untangle. I had to cut out several sections and always tried to splice at a cut.

Problem: Carrying a clamped print of Cars from our cinema to our drive-in, the print was knocked out of my hands by an overhead box.

Fix: I kept it as round as possible and use the MUT to unwind it onto 6K reels. I had to cut several times because the film was too seriously tangled. But only the last 3 reels were messed up, The first 3 were in good shape.

Problem: Bad News Bears: for some reason the take-up platter lost tension and the take-up side fail-safe didn't work. Wound up with about 2 reels piled under the projector. This happened right after I started at my current theatre before I knew all the problems with the various equipment.

Fix: This one was surprisingly easy to fix; I manually wound the take-up platter which pulled the film from the bottom of the pile. I had someone help to make sure I didn't have tangles feed into the bottom roller.

Problem: Lastly, a print I can't remember. Projectionist/Assistant Manager is threading the projector and as they start to motor down to the start position, they are distracted by a customer problem and walk away - only to return after about 2 reels have piled on the floor. Before calling me, they attempted to fix it themselves. They manually wound some onto the take-up platter. Then for whatever reason decided to pull the film off the payout platter onto 6K reels without a centering ring in place. The film didn't come off the platter, but it was seriously out of round. Fortunately they were only 2-3 minutes into the credits when they stopped.

Fix: cut the film on the take up platter and manually wound up what was on the floor. Then spliced this back onto the take-up platter and wound it on. For what was left on the pay-out platter, I made a cut where it was going onto the MUT and then got the print centered and as round as possible. I took the 1/2 reel that was seriously messed up in the center and cut it and wound it manually. This was attached to what was on the take up platter and wound on. Then I placed suction cups around the print on the pay out platter and attached to the take-up and threaded through the projector and ran in automation. Afterwards the part on the MUT was wound on normally. For the first show following, the film was run with a media film cleaner. No frames were lost, not film was bent or crinkled and dust and scratches were very minor. I feel really lucky on this one.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 05-30-2008, 09:01 PM:

Problem: A Thursday morning I open door to one booth at start of day. Immediately see two prints on the floor, one with it's ring popped out and the trailer pack had flown off to the side where it was tangled together with the tail of the second print. There was a cryptic note saying "I couldn't find the new movies and I dropped these 2." I begin trying to untangle the ungodly mess but then realize that I open in 2 hours and have to thread the rest of the 30 auditoriums (minus the 2 digitals and the 2 prints on the floor).

So I call a manager who had worked with me in booth who came up and he also got hold of the booth manager who came in early to fix the crap. Then I start to look around and notice that some things didn't add up: a few of the booths had no prints on them at all and others had all 3 platters filled up. So I start moving prints and shortly afterwards realized that on Wed night they gave the closing operator Friday's schedule (and the newbie didn't realize he needed to check what day/date the thing had on it) so he moved all the prints where they were supposed to be for Friday and left the ones that would have new prints Friday with nothing. And since he had 20 print moves he got tired and dropped 19 and 20. So in the end I moved 18 prints in 2 hours threading up as I went. My back hurt like hell for about 2 days.

And it ended up taking the 2 managers along with a technician who just happened to be there that day probably 2 1/2 hours to get that crap untangled. That day sucked balls.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-30-2008, 09:32 PM:

I think my worst were:

Forrest Gump (reissue): The film was one of those last minute deliveries where I had no time to inspect, let alone pre-screen; I was still spinning reels onto the platter when the audience was coming in. There was a splice near the end of reel 5 that had "air" between the film ends that I didn't catch on buildup.

That splice ran thru just fine for the first days of the run, but on the very LAST show, the splice hung up on the failsafe reader. Thus the projector kept going, until it was packed tight full of film. This being the last night, I was in the office doing bookwork while the damage was being done upstairs. Finally the projector got full of film and it sheared a gear in the intermittent. So it cost me an intermittent rebuild and a night of shows waiting for a loaner intermittent.

The other one was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Our platter's makeup table motor had burnt out, so my plan was to run the movie thru the projector onto two 6000' reels, then take it apart on the Goldberg bench. Well, I started the first half of the movie and went outside to yak with some friends.... You can guess the rest; I lost track of time, the reel filled up and the film jammed against the bottom of the projector, and (as Sam Graham might say) "wackiness ensued." Fortunately this time the pile of film managed to pop the soundhead door open so the projector was not damaged, and film was cascading onto the floor when I had my "Holy shit!" moment and rushed into the booth. I fixed it by cutting the film, and just attaching the tail end of the film to an empty reel and taking it up onto the Goldberg bench.

I also had a print-throw during the first night of "The Game" that happened because the film was LOADED with static electricity. After a couple of runs, it was better but I taped down Poos, trailer cores and everything else I could find around the film to keep it from moving. This was before the "Film-Tech Platter Safety Ring," of course.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-30-2008, 10:44 PM:

Problem: Shitty-ass Christie/Pennywise CA21 automations. These automations were perhaps the worst ever made. They did not even bother to look at the failsafe for at least 30 seconds after the show had started. We were having issues with our Christie platter LEDs or some such (hard to recall) where the take-up deck would not spin fast enough when the movie started and would therefore stop completely. Since the automations didn't look at the failsafes, it would just feed film out on to the floor. When the CA21 could finally be bothered to look at the failsafes, it didn't seem to mind that they were down since it kept feeding the show onto the concrete floor in our 16-screen complex and the status panels would indicate that the projector was in the feature (trailers had ended, show started, etc). It wasn't until the hapless projectionist wandered over to check something else until the huge, messy pile was discovered, the projector manually stopped and many refunds given. This happened a lot and took lots of time to fix and caused much damaged film.

The fix: Kick-ass awesome Christie/Pennywise CA21 automations. Since the technicians at Mann were either too inexperienced, lazy or unwilling to investigate projection booth matters at this theater, we took things into our own hands. I contacted Christie about several of our problems and they were extremely helpful. They put me into contact with Pennywise (who make the automations in Australia) and we personally came up with a custom firmware which fixed ALL issues and added several new awesome features to the automation. This is the best automation in the world and these particular ones I had are very reason Brad is a huge CA21 fan to this day. Oh, and we didn't have to pay a penny for the fixes. Pure awesomeness in a bottle!

The rest of the story: The techs didn't like that we were fixing things, complained to district manager, DM told us to stop fixing things, we gave DM examples of all things ignored by techs and fixed by us, DM tells us at a big group meeting with us and all of the techs to go ahead and keep fixing things. We had won!

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 05-30-2008, 11:25 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
Problem: Bad News Bears: for some reason the take-up platter lost tension and the take-up side fail-safe didn't work. Wound up with about 2 reels piled under the projector. This happened right after I started at my current theatre before I knew all the problems with the various equipment.

Fix: This one was surprisingly easy to fix; I manually wound the take-up platter which pulled the film from the bottom of the pile. I had someone help to make sure I didn't have tangles feed into the bottom roller.

The correct solution to this issue would have been to use a rewind table with a 6K reel and pull the film onto the reel off of the top of the pile. That way you avoid pulling the film against the weight of the film pile and reduce the potential for scratches. You can then run the reel onto the platter and run the rest of the film through.

Posted by Michael McGovern (Member # 4807) on 05-30-2008, 11:29 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
Problem: Carrying a clamped print of Cars from our cinema to our drive-in, the print was knocked out of my hands by an overhead box.

Transporting a print whole? [Eek!]

Yikes, bad idea!

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-31-2008, 01:14 AM:

Since I usually have to be both manager and projectionist for both the cinema and drive-in, I don't always have the luxury of taking the time break it down on 6K reels and then build it back up. But I will break it down when time allows. And when it's a print that ends at the cinema and goes to the drive-in the next day, I'm going to try and use the Goldberg reel we got a few weeks ago.

I know the fact that it's been done many times (before and after) without a problem doesn't excuse a bad practice, and I won't try to justify it beyond saying that sometimes you have to do what you have to do. At least I do have the films clamped when moving them whole.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-31-2008, 01:34 AM:

Mine was on a AW2 and being stupid on tucking the tail under the filmroll:

I tucked the tail end under the filmroll,but didn't leave the tail out exposed.

Thus, with a full house and a 175min print on the deck with 20min left on the deck, the AW2 decided to whip into high speed (think the module unit was having hiccups) intermittently.

This shifted the print on the deck to where that tailend really found its way under the print to where the tail end managed to expose it self at the inside of the filmroll. That tail end decided to hook itself on that inside filmroll and pull the remainder of the film on the deck, OFF off the deck and over the side (and this was back in acetate days...) with the majority of that 20min of film snarling under the platter.

......and I was the only one on the premises (being the ast-mgr)at the time being this was the last show of the night.

Luckilly, the owner's wife was in this house and she helped me issue out passes

Then, I spent the rest of the night by disassembling the platter off the arm so I can untangle that huge mess of "spaghetti" wrapped around the platter arm.

Even though it took me a good 3 hrs untangling that mess with cutting here and there (not losing a frame) to get that all back on the deck, I actually lost only 3ft of that 'spaghetti'.

I learned since then NEVER have the tailend of the film completely under the filmroll, but have a good foot out so this wouldn't happen again.

............................................................

In my early years of operating platters, another situation happened to me, and also with AW2's:

At one twin that I did filmwork at, these AW2's managed to wind the film very tight to where the film was rock hard around the ring. Thus, when moving prints, it was a snap since it was like moving a big disk of film.

BUT, on one occasion, one print that I was beginning to move seemed a bit looser than normal, but I didn't pay any heed to this. Thus, I just had moved it from one unit and just about had it to the other unit (top platter) when the ring popped out and suddenly, I had 135min of film in my arms like a massive wet rag.

I suddenly dropped to the floor to do my best to prevent a major mess that was beginning to occur. That was the only thing that saved me and I managed to piece it all back on the deck within 2 hrs - only we had to cancel this one show, but the mgr of this twin was impressed that I had the sense to drop to the floor so the filmroll wasn't too messy to reassemble back on the deck.

And how I reassembled this mess, was break the reel change splices and invidually placed them back on the platter and wind each of these reels back on the ring as if actually building up a print. It was a slow and tedious process, but I managed to get it all reassembled in a reasonable time.

Then, from this lesson was the introduction of using a vinyl floor mat that we had extra on location as a print mover - the beginnings of boards and present film moving devices.

True, THE things you learn in the booth the hard way .... Monte

P.S. ..

quote:
Transporting a print whole? Yikes, bad idea!

This practice we do all the time - clamp up a print and haul it to our prospective theatres. We never had a problem with this - as long as the clamps are tight and we also use a board to lay the print down to aid in moving..

Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-31-2008, 03:30 AM:

A booth person left a group of contractors doing a site survery for installation of network cabling for our digital upgrade unattended in a booth. While walking around one of the technicians must have tripped over the film (Ice Age 2) between the projector and the platter, tripping the failsafes (this is conjecture on my part, but its the only series of events that fit). The contractor, instead of informing us of the problem, managed to restart the show manually; we had strong SPA-5 automations, not hard to figure out I guess. Hit the button that say 'Projector' and the one that says 'Lamp' and your good to go. This is where the 'one a million' event occurs-the film had slipped off the last roller before it gets taken up onto the platter. It got caught in the brain that was sitting in that deck and continued to 'rewind' on top of the first two reels that were already there. So when I go to thread the next show I am greeted by something I had never seen before-a solid stack of film all the way up to the next deck, two reels wide.

It took me 3 hours to re-assemble the last 3 reels of the print. We ended up having to order an entire new print.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 05-31-2008, 03:48 AM:

Sounds like they did that intentionally to show how digital is superior to film [Razz]

I think the worst mess I dealt with was helping someone else after they had tried moving "A Knight's Tale" to another screen and gotten it all over the floor. I showed him how to deal with it while causing the least amount of additional damage, I made him do most of the work since it was his fault and I had a ton of other things to do, but I still didn't get out of there til about 8 the next morning. Another manager punished him by making him watch the whole movie after he'd fixed it.

Moving a clamped print between buildings was another one of the worst messed I dealt with- "The Preacher's Wife" (7 reels) had a sneak preview on a Sunday night (odd night for those, but that's when the studio wanted it) at a single-screen theater which was about 2 blocks away from a 6-screen theater, which were both run by the same projectionist at the same time. (The single-screen usually ran unattended for most of the show, but there were never any major disasters resulting from that.)

Anyways, the sneak played at the single-screen, then its regular engagement started at the 6-screen on Friday so after the show I clamped it, carried it down the stairs on a board then wheeled it to the other building on a cart. So far so good, until I get halfway up the stairs and it falls out of my hands onto a step. I catch it right away, but the center ring broke which made it harder to carry. I get it over to the platter, set it down and think I made it until I realize I put the film on UPSIDE-DOWN! There was no way I could flip it over without making a mess, so to get it right side up I had to manually run it through the rollers onto the takeup platter, turning the feed platter backwards since the film was upside-down. It took a couple hours but at least it ended up the right way undamaged. After that I always put films on 6000-foot reels when they had to be moved between buildings.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-01-2008, 06:34 PM:

Problem-uncertain suspected puck kid projectionist.

Symptom-Star Wars Episode 3 in a pile of spaghetti at the bottom of the booth emergency stairwell, including ring.

Solution-force the shitty projectionist to clean up his mess before he can leave (this was found in process of releiving him), and cancel that showtime, and lastly, after he reports that he's done, and it is double checked, present him with his "pink slip". "Ok, now that you've fixed you major screw up, turn in your vest and bowtie, we're letting you go" Yeah, he could've been fired on discovery of the spaghetti, but I figured it'd be more creul to make him clean it up first, and then fire him. It had to have been intentional, being the fire escape straiwell has a door there, he had to at least opened the door to allow the film (an entire platters worth and ring.) out the door and down the stairs. [Mad]

Posted by Michael Dolan (Member # 4808) on 06-01-2008, 07:22 PM:

Problem: 2 Ushers thought they didn't have to wait for some help and decided to move king kong from one end of the booth to another. They had been in the booth maybe one time before that. Needless to say no boards no clamps and a not so tight movie equalled a phone call at 1:00 a.m.

Solution: Alot of splicing alot of finger running and alot of.............. @#%@#& words to the ushers. Fairly simple fix only about 10-15 damaged frames wich was hard to believe. the rest was just time consuming. took all together about 5 hours with myself another projectionist and 4 regular employees.

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 06-01-2008, 07:43 PM:

Two Words: Super Platter

Two More Words: Thrown Print

You can fill in the rest with your imagination. It wasn't pretty. [Frown]

If you search the forum for Super Platter I have described the whole mess in great detail before. [Wink]

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 06-01-2008, 08:51 PM:

Problem: Customer complained that something was building up at the bottom of the picture. One of my Asst. mgrs was running the show, and went to check. Turns out the take-up on the platter had stopped working (along with the failsafe) after the first reel, and the next 3 reels paid out onto the floor until it had piled up to the height of the window. He then grabs armfuls of film and drags them down the booth until he has it all cleared, cuts the film, and plays the last reel and a half onto another platter. He then tries to fix it himself, and what gets tangled (thanks to dragging it out), he clips (the other two assts refused to participate and ran out of the booth after the first few clips). It took our head projectionist and I about 4 to 5 hours (and a lot of cursing) to re-assemble the remainder of the movie. It ended up having 30 or 40 splices in it, but other than that, did not have any scratches or other damage. Don't remember the movie, as it has been over 12 years, and truthfully, I probably have been trying to block it out.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 06-01-2008, 09:02 PM:

Chris [Eek!]

What happened to that "projectionist"?

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-02-2008, 12:35 AM:

He got abducted by the Deprartment of Homebooth Security, and hasn't been heard from since. :-) I'd hope. LoL

[ 06-02-2008, 01:39 AM: Message edited by: Charles Greenlee ]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-02-2008, 02:04 AM:

He got yelled at later that day when he arrived. Not sure if he was written up or anything like that as I'm not the booth mgr and don't feel like asking him and dredge up the memory.

He's actually an OK kid.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-02-2008, 06:52 AM:

Problem: Manager comes in on his day off to check the details of a forthcoming special show with me, and enters projection booth with his black labrador puppy. While we're going over paperwork, the dog jumped onto the top platter deck while it was feeding a print of Goldeneye. That print ended up being shaken and stirred, alright! After the dog had extricated himself from the pile of film on the floor, it was a right old tangled mess which took a good three hours and two lost shows to recover. Annoyingly, the film had only just started and so less than half the first reel was on the take-up plate at the time of the accident.

Problem: teenage yobbo sprayed purple graffiti spray paint over all four projection portholes during the closing credits of a kids' show.
Soloution: the death penalty (ideally); white spirit and elbow grease (in practice).

Posted by Paul H. Rayton (Member # 1817) on 06-03-2008, 12:40 AM:

Doesn't anyone have any photos of some of these disasters?

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-03-2008, 03:53 AM:

No digital camera. I'm that hard set on film, and as a result against digital. [Mad]

No, I'm just that poor. LoL Either rate, no digital camera.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-03-2008, 04:47 AM:

I do wish we'd taken a photo of Nelson the labrador scrabbling around in the pile of film, but this happened in 1994 or 5, when digital cameras were still science fiction to lowly consumers. As for the kids who sprayed the portholes, I would have preferred to have an AK-47 in my hands than a camera at the moment I discovered that.

Posted by Andres Briano (Member # 4621) on 06-03-2008, 11:27 AM:

Amen to the AK47, brother!

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 06-03-2008, 11:39 AM:

quote: Charles Greenlee
after he reports that he's done, and it is double checked, present him with his "pink slip".

You know, I made a lot of stupid mistakes when I first started projecting and ended up learning a lot everytime I had to fix that mistake. Maybe it was because I was thrown into a booth with no training and had to teach myself everything but fortunately I worked for people who understand that everyone is human and that people make mistakes. They understood that I would learn a lot more from making those mistakes and fixing them than if I had never made any mistakes. They stuck by me, and allowed me to learn. I am glad they did because I ended up managing some of the busiest megaplexes that Loews Cineplex had and then became a projection and dolby certified sound tech. If my first theatre had fired me the first (or second, or third) time I screwed up and dumped film on the floor I never would have been able to learn how to fix it, and how to not make the same mistake in the future. I also never would have been able to excel in this business and earn the positions I have.

I don't know the whole story behind this kid but if it was his first time making that mistake, and if he genuinly wanted to learn and do a good job then I think firing the poor kid is management done WRONG! If I had worked for someone like that I would never have been able to learn and have the skills I have today. [thumbsdown]

Posted by Robert LaValley (Member # 4319) on 06-03-2008, 11:51 AM:

Most memorable mess was my first booth it was one of those crazy regal openings where I had 14 prints to build and 12 to break down all in a 48 hour time span. And the GM loved me so much to only schedule me and one other manager to accomplish this. Needless to say 37.5 hour shift later, the guy whom was helping me had a problem with the print of dogma and I dont know to this day why he started doing this but he started taking rolls of film off the platter and throwing into a cardboard drink cup box to get to a splice or something he thought he messed up. So 13 out of 14 prints made it on screen by opening. that dogma print took till the next day to untangle and resplice back together again. It was very exuasting.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-03-2008, 12:00 PM:

I concur [edit: With Sean]. Not only that but I think it is wrong for you to have him force him to fix the stuff just to let him go solely because it would be the cruel thing to do. That's extremely immature.

And how did you determine that he did it on purpose just because he had to open a door? I'm confused on that.

[ 06-03-2008, 02:11 PM: Message edited by: Chris Slycord ]

Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 06-03-2008, 01:54 PM:

In my years of operating platters I've dumped two prints. One from a AW2 and the other from a Super Platter. I was not in the booth when either hit the floor but in both cases I didn't miss any additional shows. The other biggest mess was a print I received (dollar house) that after the first reel there were NO heads and NO tails on a 7 reel print.....no reel bands either....just masking tape. Bastards.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-03-2008, 03:00 PM:

He has a history for things like that. Got in trouble for throwing rocks at cars from the roof the day prior. That event was kinda a last straw. The entire movie, ring and all was all the way to the bottom of the steps, totally missing the rail, and all but the last couple of steps, including another landing. I'm sure had it have been a sling print A) It probably wouldn't have made it even to the door; its just too far away. B) if it did, definately wouldn't have opened its own door and if some it amazingly did that; C) It wouldn't have cleared the rail without at least snagging something, it could have toumbled down the steps maybe, but there'd have been film all down the steps themselves with the tail now free and D) I'm sure someone has seen a print sling with a ring in it, but it is rare. The rings hold it on the platter pretty good, or at least ours did. The sheer amount of obstacles shoots the chance of that randomly/accedentally happening into astronomical chances against. Hey, maybe I should've played the lotto that day. But you're right, there may have been a 1 in 10bil chance it wasn't intentional, or at least helped along. And he fixed it, mostly because I beleive in people correcting their mistakes, but it was a little crewl as well. And that was way back in my newbie managment days. Long before I even went to Regal.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 06-03-2008, 03:12 PM:

So this wasn't a case of there being another floor of the booth at the bottom and he dropped it while moving it. That explains it.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-03-2008, 03:21 PM:

Correct, those stairs go down to the fire exit, and do have a door leading into the patron hallway. But since our booth is contiguous, there's no reason to have to carry a built print down those steps. The booth is U shaped. The 2 side wings are slightly lower than the cross hallway, and there are steps there, like 2, so definately not the offending stairs. I wish they were, less spagetti will happen if a film drops 2 feet versus the 10-15 down the stairwell.

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 06-03-2008, 03:29 PM:

quote: Charles Greenlee
He has a history for things like that. Got in trouble for throwing rocks at cars from the roof the day prior.

... and he was still on the payroll because...

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-03-2008, 03:56 PM:

Because that managment staff allowed him to remain of payroll. I normally wouldn't have had that kind of authority over him, excpet that the mess was a booth issue, and I was booth manager. That and it was so blatently stupid, even without history, he could've been let go on the spot. Intentional abuse of property. Hell, he probably could have been legally prosecuted.

Posted by Benjamin John Doman (Member # 4365) on 06-03-2008, 04:20 PM:

My most bizarre incident as an engineer, call from ex-circuit house, now Indian cinema that went like this (30 year old Phillips / Kinoton ST200 platter):
Hello Ben, this is *****
Hello *****, how are you?
My platter, it is broken.
What’s wrong with it?
It is broken.
Is it running to fast, to slow or not at all?
It is broken.
What exactly is wrong with it?
It is in two pieces.
(much expression of disbelief)
Upon arriving at the site I found the column at a 45 deg angle to the A frame. Apparently they had just slid the film onto the plate, a 3 ½ hour Tamil film. Two of the A frame bolts had snapped, two bent. Being in denial I neglected to take a picture! I have heard of platters being pulled over, but this was a first for me.
[Eek!]

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-04-2008, 03:56 AM:

I once had a 13-reel long Bollywood filmzilla arrive wrapped in newspaper and in Safeways carrier bags (this was in the early '90s, long before Bollywood went mainstream in Britain), delivered personally by the lady who ran the Indian film society (who hired our place for late screenings after the last show on a Friday evening), a member of whose extended family brought it with her on the plane from Bombay. The problem is that all the heads and tails were marked up in Urdu only, and by the time I realised this the lady had long since disappeared. When we managed to get her back again, it transpired that she, being the daughter of the film society's organiser and a second generation immigrant herself, couldn't read Urdu either! So, no problem, you thinkL I can piece the film together by matching up ID frames at the start and end of each reel, can't I? Oh no I can't - every friggin' reel started and ended with a fade to or from black (this was a common practice in the days before platters, in order to minimise the impact of a missed changeover - presumably the Indians still did it because most of their cinemas still used changeovers)! So in the end I just had to make the film up based on the order I found the reels in the bags. There were no complaints, so presumably either the audience didn't care, the plot made no sense anyway or they were being too polite.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-04-2008, 05:02 AM:

Leo, that exact same situation happened to me running some sort of Chinese film back in college. If memory serves the thing was 10 reels long, but what I do specifically recall is the Japanese jibberish all over the leaders. The reels were all heads out and the top reel was definitely the opening credits and the bottom reel ended in ending credits, so I just assembled it the way it was stacked in the box. Just like you, no complaints. [Cool]

Posted by Jaime Tuzzio (Member # 4760) on 06-04-2008, 05:03 AM:

quote: Robert LaValley
Most memorable mess was my first booth it was one of those crazy regal openings where I had 14 prints to build and 12 to break down all in a 48 hour time span.

I helped with dollar days prints pre-opening once. Eleven prints arrived on a day there were no projectionists and no booth training of new managers, so I built all eleven (used - and Without Limits was REALLY used) prints myself. Thirteen hours later, after removing tons of old splicing tape, redoing every splice I found, removing brittle old lab splices, removing mutilated and wrong-type cues, removing damaged film, removing gobs of masking tape labels slapped onto the feature (!!), labeling prints and moving them to their opening houses, I was done.

Needless to say, I could not lift my head the next day.

Fortunately, I did not have to be involved in breaking any of them three days later, but I'd had to mostly build & break 14 prints at my own theatre's opening five months earlier.

OT: I've only dropped one print and it was straight into my lap as I huddled under it as it started to separate. Thankfully I was able to lift sections back onto the platter perfectly to put it back together. I am ridiculously grateful it was a 75 minute print. Ran it with Film Guard next show and it was perfectly fine, albeit a tad staticy coming off the platter.

Posted by Andy Frodsham (Member # 4061) on 06-06-2008, 03:05 PM:

Our theatre (although open to the public) is based on a university campus. Although most of the films we run are on 35mm, in the old days we used to run 16mm prints for specialised groups or societies. Anyway, one weekend, about 20 years ago, we were booked to screen a couple of 16mm feature films for a local ethnic community. Each feature comprised two 16mm reels and each of these reels had itself been made-up of two original parts. So, I'm thinking this will a straigtforward job of joining the two reels together and screening each feature. I knew that the head of reel 1 and the tail of reel 2 were correct beacuse of the opening and closing credits. On closer inspection however, I had a suspicion that the second part joined onto the tail of part 1 wasn't actually part 2 but part 3. Conversley, what should have been part 3 was actually part 2! I asked the guy who brought us the print to translate the language written on the leaders and tails and he agreed that things didn't look right. On the basis of this, I took the plunge and re-joined the reels in the assumed correct order. I also had to do the same thing on the second feature.

After the screening, the guy who had brought us the prints told me that he had seen the films about ten times up to that point (at various venues throughout the UK) but that this was the first time they had made any sense!!

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-06-2008, 04:03 PM:

Someone asked for some pictures.

These images are not from the Bad News Bears problem I mentioned, but the exact same problem happened on our drive-in projector just a couple days earlier. Fortunately I didn't have to clean this one up.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-06-2008, 06:35 PM:

The random bits of random crap (such as the yellow splicing tape) just add to the horror.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 06-07-2008, 02:09 AM:

Had a 6k core pop out on me once (apparently, whomever built it up didn't do it tight enough). It was simple enough for me to fix the middle piece that popped out, but then I was left with a giant loop of film that it had popped out from. How did I break it back down to a reel? Very carefully. Could have been much worse.

Posted by Jaime Tuzzio (Member # 4760) on 06-07-2008, 07:47 AM:

quote: Joe Redifer
The random bits of random crap (such as the yellow splicing tape) just add to the horror.

You know, I wasn't going to say anything about that, but since you did...

My thoughts when looking at the pictures were as such:

1. I've seen worse.
2. Look at the garbage on the floor.
3. Man, if I had some way of getting day light in my booth just imagine how CLEAN I could get it!
4. Is there no vacuum? What's with the dirty floor?
5. Is that splicing tape?
6. At least Strong equipment isn't that horrid blue color.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-07-2008, 12:33 PM:

I can tell you that awful 1970's shag carpet has been removed. The floor is now just painted wood and much easier to keep clean. I also want to mention that this picture was from before I took over as manager; the person who was running the projector had about 6 months of the total experience.

BTW, the reason there is so much daylight is because this is a drive-in.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 06-07-2008, 01:50 PM:

Loop cabinet crash caused by adhesive tape repair to failed ultrasonic weld of right eye of 10-minute two-strip 70mm 3-D show. Had to cut chunks of the film out before repairing the equipment.

By being called in to investigate this problem I learned how a loop cabinet works, what fails in a loop cabinet crash, how to load film into a loop cabinet, how to make an ultrasonic splice, and how to synchronize the two strips for 3-D projection.

Location is no longer open.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 06-08-2008, 12:06 AM:

Jeff, FWIW, what was the title of the film?

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-08-2008, 02:58 AM:

When I first saw it I thought they were processing racks, lifted out of the tanks. How much film can you get in this thing?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-08-2008, 06:29 AM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I can tell you that awful 1970's shag carpet has been removed.

If people were shagging on it in the 1970s, I'm not surprised it had to go.

Posted by Charles Greenlee (Member # 3856) on 06-08-2008, 12:24 PM:

quote: Leo Enticknap
If people were shagging on it in the 1970s, I'm not surprised it had to go.

LMAO, pricless. I needed the laugh.

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 06-08-2008, 01:12 PM:

quote: Jack Theakston
Jeff, FWIW, what was the title of the film?

_Pirates_ (1999) IMDb web page

Posted by Fred Tucker (Member # 4482) on 06-10-2008, 01:17 AM:

I've cleaned three prints off the floor in the year and half I've worked in booth. None my fault, thankfully. The worst was just the otherday, an employee tried carrying sex and the city across the mezzanine.... yep you guessed all 8 reels on the carpet.

How did I fix it: luckily the last four reels were somewhat intact, the first four..... lets just say there are a whole lot of splices in that print. Another projectionist and I got the print on screen in three hours, cleaned it with filmgurad and was good as new. Oh did I mention the carpet was still wet from the previous nights steam cleaning?

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 06-11-2008, 05:16 PM:

quote: Justin Hamaker
I cut the film in sections to make it easy to untangle. I had to cut out several sections and always tried to splice at a cut.

Are you saying you cut at a shot change? Wouldn't that make it infinitely more confusing when putting it back together?

My worst will seem tame compared to most but it was quite frustrating for me at the time. It was the first week "Blair Witch Project" was going wider than art houses and we had two prints. By noon on Friday all shows for that night and most for Saturday were sold out. I suggested the "junior" manager on duty make an "executive decision" and after a brief consult we started slashing other shows from the schedule. By Saturday night our two prints were on six screens. I waited till the last set of shows was running on Saturday and then left the booth in the hands of an operator. All he really had to do was the standard end-of-night tasks as the shows ended. Oh, and not walk into the interlocked film. Of course that is what the knucklehead did shutting down the show for about 700 patrons. Worse he tried to cover it up by starting it quickly but in his panic he failed miserably. Soon the unknowing manager was bombarded with angry patrons. Needless to say that fellow didn't last long after that.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-11-2008, 06:39 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
Are you saying you cut at a shot change? Wouldn't that make it infinitely more confusing when putting it back together?

I tried to cut the film at camera changes so that there wasn't a major jump in the middle of a cut. I'm fairly certain there was only 3-4 total cuts and I believe there were in the middle of a reel. Furthermore, we used clear tape when splicing mid-reel and a stripped yellow tape when splicing reel changes. I think I had to take out a total of about 30 frames and the longest section was only about 12.

Posted by Phil Housh (Member # 1721) on 06-16-2008, 06:18 PM:

Many years ago, while working with a 70mm print of Quest For Fire: I got the print only about 2 hours before showtime. opened the cans and starting inspecting and found that almost all the reels we damaged on the edges of the print. While inspecting the print the edges were folded over and were peeling off. This was terrible! I didn't know what to do at such short notice. Called the manager and arranged to get a new 35mm print for the next day.

No fix: finished making up the print on the platter. Got instructions to run it anyway. When I ran it, the whole edge peeled off out of the mag penthouse. One destroyed print! [Frown]

Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 06-19-2008, 01:54 AM:

Years ago as a tech I was told how a local theatre that shall remain nameless destroyed a brand-new 70mm print of "Empire Strikes Back" in a Century JJ. They stripped the entire mag track off the print on both edges, during the midnite press screening.

Seems the booth monkey dropped the film gate on the concrete booth floor, breaking off the spring metal stabilizer fingers, which left two nice spring steel knife edges to efficiently scrape the track right off. At the end of the show they noticed the print had wound very unevenly on the platter (Phillips/Kinoton) and that there was a huge pile of red dust on the floor.

Lucasfilm was so incensed that they pulled the other 70mm print from that theatre and made them run the 35mm backups.

Posted by Marc Jensen (Member # 3561) on 06-20-2008, 10:30 AM:

A few months back I got a phone call with an opening line that went a little something like this: "I-was-doing-a-trailer-change-and-I-got-some-of-it-on-the-floor-and-I'm-really-panicking-man!"

In some ways it was a sentence, but some people might have reason to argue that it was more like a single, very long, compound word. It had been fired at me as if from a machine gun in the kind of staccato delivery that can be a bit worrying coming from a freshly trained projectionist.

Asking him how long he had before the next show I learned that it was still 45 minutes away, so I figured there wasn't much to worry about. I'd be able to give him some advice over the phone and that would be the end of it, right?

Wrong. [Razz]

As I listened patiently to the rapid-fire anecdote that didn't really make a whole lot of sense, my brain latched onto something he'd said and it was like seeing a light bulb labeled "Impending Doom" getting switched on.

"Wait, you're telling me there's a reel of the feature film on the floor?"

"YES!"

"K, I'll be right over." *click*

What greeted me as I walked in the door to the projection room was this:

The entire trailer pack for the movie sitting in a scrambled heap on the floor.
Reels 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the movie safely wound head out on a 7K spool near the rewind bench.
Reel 2 was similarly on a 6K spool, also head out and attached to...
Reel 1 out in the middle of the floor, apparently having flown there like a badly aimed flying saucer.

Naturally all my WTF moments for the week were taken care of right there. My head was reeling with questions like, "How does a simple trailer change reach the point where it becomes a polyester frizzbee?" "Ah, who gives a shit? The show must go on!" [fu]

The funny thing about film spinning at high speed is that it has a half-way decent chance of staying vaguely intact. I was was lucky in that respect, because it was a simple matter to slide the reel onto a wide sheet of cardboard, lift it onto a transport board, drop a spinner into the middle and drag it in onto that. From there it was easy to up-end onto the rewinder and wind it onto that 6K spool with reel 2. Once I'd done that I had two spools worth of movie, all head out and a platter waiting to receive.

Throughout my race to the show deadline the new projectionist to his credit moved away to attend to his show threading responsibilities. He also started dealing with the messed up trailer pack whenever he could spare the time, so I had something to be pleased about with that effort. As for me, I managed to get the print reassembled and threaded up in time for the show with a few minutes to spare.

Leaving the big question, "How?"

He'd had a trailer change to do, which was a fairly straight forward process with a movie sitting there and not playing. He had removed the ring and then started removing the trailers. So far, so good and everything was situation normal. Then the print had bulged inwards from a splice and getting the trailers out had started getting a bit awkward, so He had run into one of those one-thing-led-to-another situations with a bit of a problem developing. At this point the recommended strategy might have been to strip back to the nearest clean part of the presentation and run a show from there, or call me for advice, but instead he reverted back to what he knew... Print breakdown.

His theory that tackling the problem from the outside when tackling it from the inside was failing had one almighty flaw in it and as a result he learned a few valuable lessons that day:

1. It's best to seek advice early on when things start going wrong.
2. An inward bulge in the print is not really that big a problem (I actually shoved in the side of a running print just to prove the point)
3. A full speed platter to MUT print break down, with no ring securing the print, is a really bad idea. [Big Grin]

Posted by Patrick Dunn (Member # 3333) on 06-20-2008, 12:11 PM:

I went to break down a print a while back and didn't know that it was moved before hand, and I didn't think to check and make sure the center ring was secured before I started winding it on to it's shipping reel. I started rewinding the film and looked up just to see the film slide. I quickly went to stop the rewind table but the film had already fell off. I was lucky that all that the film stayed in the roll and didn't get messed up, but the ring was completely busted. But this is where all the time of keeping film off the floor is undone. This was a few years back.

Several months ago one of my managers did the same thing. I don't know exactly why he moved the film because it was one of the bollywood movies and being taken apart right after it played. The film was built up into two halves so there was an intermission. After the intermission he was supposed to break down the first half. I'm think he had one of our regular movies on the platter system so he moved the first half to another platter system to break it down and didn't secure the ring. His exact words to me were "It just slid off the platter, turned sideways and exploded."

What I have learned is always secure the ring, I do it even though I know the print isn't being taken apart since the film is supposed to be centered around the brain while it's playing.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 06-20-2008, 02:32 PM:

Not the worst problem, but a fun one none the less...

I came in to take over booth operations from a manager. Said manager was training a new booth guy, and for the moment, he only knew how to thread from the platter to the top roller of the projector then back to the platter, and that was what he was practicing.

The Problem
I came over to thread up Harry Potter V, and saw that his payout platter was spinning at a pretty good clip, and had apparently been spinning for quite a while because he had a brain wrap that went almost into the second reel of the feature. I stopped the platter and looked at the huge wrap of film thinking about my next move. The film was wrapped around the brain fairly tight, and there wasn't much hope of running it without figuring out how to undo or slack off at least part of the wrap. The show was scheduled to start in five minutes. It was the second biggest house, and it was sold out. I'm reminded of the line: "What would you do, hot shot... what would you do?"

The Solution
Step 1. Pulled the brain out of the platter, and some of the film that was wrapped around it with it. Found the splice between the leader and the first snipe, and broke it, leaving the leader on the platter. Then found the splice between the last two snipes before the feature and broke that. Lifted the resulting roll of film that made up the trailers out of the wrapped film on the platter, and laid that roll of loose film on the rewind table, tucking it all back together making it one nice neat roll.
Step 2. Put that roll of film on a split reel with a 4" core, and taped the inside of the roll of film (our first snipe) to the core itself. Mounted the split reel on the rewind table and ran the table at medium speed while holding the film loop in my hand. As the core on the split reel spun around inside the roll, it pulled the film from the roll in my hand to wrap around the core. No scratches.
Step 3. Took the 4" core off the split reel, and held it in my hand. Rewound the film on that core onto a new reel, bringing the head back to the outside of the reel, so I could run it back onto the platter.
Step 4. Put the reel on the make up table, and ran the trailers, heads in back onto the platter on an empty take up ring.
Step 5. Removed the take up ring, threaded the trailers through the brain, attached the first snipe back onto the leader that was hanging there. Finished threading the projector, and started the movie... on time. I now had about 12 minutes to figure out what I was going to do next.
Step 6. Installed a second brain back into the platter that held the print, where almost the entire first reel was wound backwards into a smaller diameter roll than the rest of the print. I threaded the head through the brain and placed it onto the left side of our Kelmar splicer which I had sitting on the platter, and disengaged the platter motor. Then we waited for the last trailer to go through. After the last trailer there would be two more theater snipes. One was our Silence Is Golden snipe which was attached to the film running through the projector now, the other was the Feature Presentation snipe which was still attached to the feature print.
*** WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS NEXT STEP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, SO DON'T EVER SAY "OH, I SAW THAT TRICK ON FILM-TECH!" IF YOU TRY THIS, THE OUTCOME IS ON YOU, NOT ME! SEE MORE DETAILS BELOW! ***
Step 7. When last trailer went through, we proceeded to pull our Silence Is Golden snipe through the brain and off the payout platter faster than the projector was pulling it, but not too fast - we didn't want to scratch it. Once we had it all off the platter, and I had it's tail in my hand, I attached the tail to the right side of the Kelmar splicer and made a quick splice to the Feature Presentation snipe on the wrapped print. Oh, I forgot to mention that I had peeled the tape off of the two ends earlier, so this was a new clean splice not a splice over another splice. Once the film pulled tight, we started spinning the payout platter (which was now the one with the wrapped print on it) backwards by hand. Since the film was wrapped backwards, if we didn't do this, we'd start wrapping the film around the brain again and we'd either scratch the film at the least, or worse risk a break and a show interruption.
Step 8. Once the feature was on the screen, we found a milk crate and set it on the floor next to the platter, sat the new guy on the milk crate and told him that his job was to spin the platter backwards by hand for the next 20 minutes until that whole wrap was through. I was back in time to re-engage the platter motor because I wanted to make sure he didn't do it too harshly and end up throwing the print off.

For good measure we cleaned the print during the next round, and everything was fine. No scratches, No dirt. But that didn't matter. Some dope scratched the movie before the week was over anyway.

For the splice on the fly routine, we had three guys. One guy pulled the tail of the film off the platter, and kept it untangled and off of the floor. I made the splice. A third guy stood by the "STOP" button on the projector just in case something went wrong and we had to stop. I do NOT recommend anyone ever try this, ESPECIALLY by yourself. It's very tricky and can easily result in a much bigger mess than you're trying to deal with. In about twenty years of projecting, I have only had to do this less than half a dozen times, always to try to keep a show on the screen... never for fun. It's not fun. And every time I do it in front of someone, I always tell them to NEVER attempt that.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for using this technique, and that's fine. The fact is the show went on, on time, the print was fine, the projector was fine, the splicer was fine, and even the new guy was fine, although he said he didn't want to be in the booth anymore after that day. All of the customers left happy and completely unaware of what happened upstairs. All in all, it was a happy ending.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-20-2008, 03:57 PM:

I've had to do something similar, but I did it differently since it wasn't caught until showtime. I just pulled the film out of the brain, removed the brain, took a 4 inch 70mm core (it was actually two 35mm cores taped together), wrapped it in film cleaning media, and with a loop of gaffer's tape I stuck it to the middle of the platter where the brain would have been. I then disengaged the platter motor and started the show.

For that next half hour or so, I had a worker spin the platter backwards. No big deal, it didn't flip over on itself since that tall core was in the middle. Then once the wrap was almost done with only a few revolutions left, I pulled the core off and popped the brain back in. Since it was a Christie platter and not a retarded design unlike the Strong brains, I was able to effortlessly drop the film back into the brain and the show continued. No marks of any kind and I had it up and running within a couple of minutes.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-20-2008, 03:57 PM:

quote: Marc Jensen
A full speed platter to MUT print break down, with no ring securing the print, is a really bad idea.

I highly recommend having suction cups with brackets like the ones pictured below. In the case where you need to breakdown a print where the ring has been removed, the cups can be placed around the inside to help hold the print in place. Although you still wouldn't want to spin too fast.

We put these things around any print that might cause a problems (following a move, static problems, etc.) and any time a print gets off center for any of a variety of reasons. 6-8 around the outside works great in a normal situation, but I've used as many as 20 when the print was out of round or off center. Beats the hell out of taping down trailer cores.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 06-20-2008, 03:59 PM:

Oh wow Justin, where have you been???

Click and learn

Suction cups are a foolish way to break down a movie without a ring. If you cannot fit the ring back in, you should simply remove a few rounds of the film (the leader, or maybe the first trailer) to free it up just enough to fit that ring back in. Alternatively break it down the PROPER way by re-running it through the projector.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-20-2008, 04:32 PM:

Actually, I've had to use that method in a few different circumstances.

One was the first time I used the Goldberg reel to build a film. I didn't realize you had to be careful about the direction the film was wound or you'll wind up plopping on the platter the wrong way. This was Indiana Jones. And by the time I had realized the problem, I had already removed the hub and had a huge bulge in the print. Since running it through the projector wasn't an option, the only thing I could do was pull it off onto 6000' reels. And since the hub of the Goldberg reel is smaller than the centering ring on the Christie platters, I felt that using the suction cups while winding slow was a reasonable solution.

Another situation was where a projectionist had threaded the wrong movie and didn't catch it the trailers had all gone through. Normally I would just chop the film and drop what was on the take-up platter back in the middle for the next show. Unfortunately that particular movie didn't run again and was a hot pick-up. So again, I felt the suction cups on the inside was my best option.

I realize the suctions cups may not be the "best" option, but I thought it was a damn sight better than trying to pull the film off without something holding it in place.

Posted by Laurie Higgins (Member # 4843) on 06-23-2008, 08:11 PM:

About 2 months ago a young manager and myself were moving films on a late Thursday night. We had moved about 6 and had 2 left to go. Our theater shows 1st run American movies, but we also show Bollywood films. Most of the Bollywood films are 3+ house in length. We were moving one such film off the top platter. He was in a hurry and as we were sliding the board up under the edge of the film I asked, "Don't you think we should clamp this?" and he replied, "No, it will be alright." Approx. 2 seconds later he says , "Uh-oh." and the next thing I know there is a cascading waterfall of film raining down into the floor behind him. I immediately starting cussing my head off. He then admitted that he didn't know what I meant when I said we should clamp it and that he didn't even know that could happen. He has been an assistant manager here for about 3 years.

It turned out that there were very few sections that stayed together the largest was about 1 inch in width. So we had to go through the entire film by hand, cutting it into chunks and then we slowly started piecing them together and then rolled them up onto a 6k and then back onto the platter. The whole thing took almost 12 hours, it was a nightmare.

That's the last time I will ever listen to a manager over my better judgment. This same guy wanted me to rewind a film last year because a chunk was missing after a bad brain wrap I had just undone. So I should have known better.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-23-2008, 08:52 PM:

Those Bollywood movies always seem to wrap very loosely for some reason.

Posted by Laurie Higgins (Member # 4843) on 06-25-2008, 01:03 PM:

Yes, they do. They are also very prone to brain wraps and tail wraps. Plus then are so filthy when we get them they frequently want to stick. I once had to pull my chair up to a platter and on almost every turn reach over and tap the film so it wouldn't pull multiple layers through the brain. I did this for about an hour when I got the idea to tape a straw to the bottom of the platter above it and let the straw hang down and separate the layers just before they pulled away and headed for the brain. I had to move the straw a few times to keep up with the unwinding of the print, but it worked [Smile]

Posted by Sonja O'Reilly (Member # 1322) on 06-26-2008, 07:45 PM:

I think I may have posted this before, but we ran a Saw marathon for the release of Saw 4 last year. We played Saws 1, 2, and 3, then the new release. Because they were Technicolor and shipping out the next day, I was hustling to break down everything. As I got started on my last print, Saw 1, the ring collapsed, sending the print flying at me. I was sitting next to the MUT because I was tired and when the print came at me, I went "aaah!" and reached across to shut off the MUT. I reached across the spinning plastic reel that was going at full speed. I got a nice burn on my forearm and I still have that scar. The film was laying on the floor and I spent a few hours putting it back together to break it down.
And just the week before I had spent a few hours putting Superbad back together when my co-workers (who normally work downstairs and a day in the booth a week, not my choice) decided to move the print without a ring, barring the fact that they all knew you could move the platters instead. They seemed shocked when the print collapsed over the moving board and into the shopping cart we use for moving prints thru the booth. I got the 12 am phone call and screamed for them not to touch it.
My trick for putting a print back together is to use masking tape labeled with a number on either side of it as a reference. I cut straight through the tape and when I have the print untangled and straightened out, it makes it easier to put back together.
Oh and last year (I think) our ceiling leaked water all over the print of Spiderman 3. I noticed it before it ran and cancelled the show (it had been out for a while). I moved it to a non-leaky auditorium, stick-a-pooed the heck out of it and ran it thru the dry-web media cleaner. We had an incident before with X-men 3 getting wet, sticking to itself and throwing itself off the platter, so I knew what to expect. The dry-web media cleaner soaked up the water and the lamp got the rest as I ran it thru. I shoved a concessionist in there to watch for water damage and periodically checked. Nothing. The print was fine. yay!!

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 06-26-2008, 08:54 PM:

As long as the film isn't on some hot list, Technicolor will usually reschedule pick-up for Monday. Maybe not something to be used all the time, but it's great when needed. You just need to call them by about 8:00-9:00pm the night the movie is coming off screen.

Posted by Justin Gorka (Member # 3727) on 06-27-2008, 09:22 PM:

I can state without reservation we in the UK cringe when we get a print with the number US123 (for example). They are always a knackered. Film guard is not an excuse for poor workmanship.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-09-2008, 03:39 AM:

Here are some pics from my disaster referenced on page one of this thread:

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-09-2008, 04:30 AM:

...that ain't nothing...that can be cleaned up within a half hour.

..got one better.... all five reels of a movie is laying below this Christie - failsafe jammed and didn't catch a stuck splice in the trailer pak.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-09-2008, 05:08 AM:

That looks fairly recent (within a few years) judging by the lamphouse.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 08-09-2008, 06:43 AM:

Damn, you said it's 'all five reels of a movie'...so there's no way it can be Indiana Jones or Mamma Mia [Big Grin]

[ 08-09-2008, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: John Wilson ]

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-09-2008, 07:26 PM:

this pic was taken about 10yrs ago by this theatre's sup trying to put the blame on whoever did this and make himself look good with the mgr..

kinda backfired on the sup due to this wasn't an intentional practice, but a "shit happens" thing and the mgr repremanded the sup for trying to cause trouble.

But, it didn't take long to get this all up off the floor. The tail end was found laying on top of this mess and the operator used two 6k reels along with the MUT to wind this up...and a good couple of FG soaked media rolls on the Kelmar to make the print look new again..

It was a slow movie anywhos, thus he only lost one performance.

-Monte