Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Major Interlocks

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Posted by Alex Edwards (Member # 5413) on 09-21-2009, 12:18 AM:

Ive gone through posts in the past few years and seen interlocks of 5 or 6 mentioned where it was regarded as out of the norm. I was curious to see if 8 years ago people wern't as eager to even attempt a larger interlock for a paying audience. In the past year our theater has interlocked 10 projectors for the Dark Knight midnight show and the recent Harry Potter midnight. I've seen the Interlocking 101 but that wasn't with an audience was it?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-21-2009, 01:00 AM:

Interlocking 101 was not done for an audience, but I have done many, many one-print/all-complex interlocks in the past. Its really no big deal so long as you know what you are doing.

Posted by Greg Anderson (Member # 235) on 09-21-2009, 09:45 AM:

When I think about major interlocks, I sometimes wonder about the potential for disaster. Granted, I can't remember any interlock disaster stories around these forums (maybe I just wasn't paying attention) but... come on! Ten projectors running the same piece of film. If any one of them malfunctions then you lose all ten shows, right? Does anyone freak out over that kind of risk? Do any companies or managers prohibit interlocks beyond a certain number of screens?

quote: Brad Miller
Its really no big deal so long as you know what you are doing.

And I admit that I haven't been a projectionist for many years now, so I never learned interlocking. Then again, I never did changeovers until someone needed me to run one screening at the Sundance Institute a few years ago. I watched another guy run a show and that's all I needed to know. Of course, he thought I'd never figure out how to do it but it was a piece of cake.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-21-2009, 09:59 AM:

I have done a five theater interlock as a test a few times on equipment that wasn't setup to interlock just to prove that it was possible to the management. I agree with Brad... not a big deal if you know what you're doing.

On the other hand...

I've seen a two auditorium interlock of a midnight show of Return of the King break after the projectionist and everyone else but one manager and one usher went home resulting in a near riot, the police being called, and a front page news story the next day. (I wasn't working that night.) So you have to be smart about interlocking too. If the manager on staff is not capable of running an interlock show (or more importantly fixing a broken one) with one hand tied behind her back, you don't send the projectionist home to save a couple of payroll hours.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 09-21-2009, 10:11 AM:

Wait!
1) They actually have projectionists
2) They actually send them home while film is still running?!?!

Is this a standard practice everywhere?

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 09-21-2009, 10:33 AM:

Now with Digital the usher presses the play button [Big Grin]

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-21-2009, 10:41 AM:

It's actually not uncommon for the projectionist at an automated multiplex to only be scheduled until 15-30 minutes after the last show start. The manager is then supposed to keep an eye on things and shut down the equipment at the end of the night.

I don't feel good about this (and have actually left a 3-screen interlock running), but it causes few problems in practice, much as I hate to say that.

I've also seen schedules where the manager threads and starts the first shows of the day and the operator comes in about half an hour before the first shows end to run the rest of the day's shows. Again, it's not an ideal situation, but it's what the major chains seem to want.

As for interlocks, the most I've ever done is only three screens, and I doubt that I'll ever do an interlock show again.

Posted by Matt Skilton (Member # 5288) on 09-21-2009, 11:03 AM:

The mere thought of our managers starting and/or finishing shows makes me laugh but also shiver in sheer fright. One of them doesn't even like helping me move films because he's scared of them.

I had to do a three screen interlock with Quantum of Solace at our multiplex - first time it's be done for a public show. Usually we only do two screen interlocks. For the big films we get 2-3 prints so that reduces the need for them.

Posted by Alex Edwards (Member # 5413) on 09-21-2009, 12:47 PM:

The way our theater is layed out, we have 2 long booths with 10 projectors each and then 2 projecters in their own rooms and then 2 more in the same room. For Harry Potter we used 5 prints and sold out the entire 20 auditorium theater. It did take 3 projectionists and our booth manager but it went off without a hitch. One projectionist stuck around booth until the end but that is common practice for our theater.
I guess one advantage we had was that we were able to start threading a couple hours in advance and check over all the threading multiple times.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 09-21-2009, 01:00 PM:

Did 12 screen
interlock in Washington DC back in 1985. Louis

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-21-2009, 02:23 PM:

At a recent theater I worked at, the owners weren't too fond of interlocking due to the potential dangers (at least this is what I was told by management). I told the managers I could do it. The managers told the owners and they gave the OK on a Bollywood rental which scored us $400 more and some more concession sales (which is the price we rented out auditoriums on a Saturday night, though I think we gave that particular customer a deal in pricing). We did a bunch more interlocks in the following months, me doing all of them. No one from downstairs was very interested in seeing it run. The machines were not wired for interlock. I was even able to manage a 6-way interlock in the same theater, though not for an audience.

The first movie I ever interlocked was The Lion King and had no issues with that (and I had just learned to thread not long before). Then it was 101 Dalmatians with Glen Close. Again, no problems. I had to teach the other projectionists how to interlock with a short test reel using our 3 small auditoriums. Then there was Lost World which I did have an issue. It was running fine and then later in the evening when I went to close down the projectors, I noticed the tail end of the film was still threaded through both projectors and a bit tangled in the brain. Both projectors had shut down properly, no burnt film, no complaints from anyone in both the sold out theaters. Weird.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 09-21-2009, 03:22 PM:

Most I've done is 4 on opening weekend for Transformers 2. Had to call my booth manager to get the setup code so I could change one of the automation's loop number, otherwise it would've been run manually. Apparently, he didn't realize I was doing that many theaters and was surprised to find the gigantic thing of leader I had used when he came in the next day.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 09-21-2009, 03:29 PM:

Where I used to work once a year we had to show cartoons for children. 11 screen, 3 or 4 interlocks simultaneously. From 2 to 4 auditoriums together, 10m delay between each show.

As Brad said, if you know what you are doing, it's not so scaring. First year, with newbie projectionists, was a bit hard. Then was really easy.

Marco

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-21-2009, 06:49 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
I've also seen schedules where the manager threads and starts the first shows of the day and the operator comes in about half an hour before the first shows end to run the rest of the day's shows. Again, it's not an ideal situation, but it's what the major chains seem to want.

Those are usually the days when I come in to find three of the prints are scratching.

In the case of the Return of the King show, I would NOT have left. That booth has notorious static problems... which are amplified when interlocking and the film is traveling through the air... and amplified even more with Fuji film for some reason... which is what ROTK was. Not to mention it was a new print, and it was three hours long. About 1/2 way through the film static brought a few extra loops of film into the brain and that was that. They should have been film-guarding that thing every round to help the static and babysitting it to get a feel for how much it was being impacted by static. They weren't.

Not only do you have to know what you're doing with interlocking, but in that case it would have helped them to know a few other things too.

Posted by Jonathan Althaus (Member # 5042) on 09-21-2009, 08:21 PM:

We havent done any public interlocking since we stopped running kid shows a few summers ago. I did run a 4 screen interlock this past spring just to show new projectionists what an interlock is and how its done. Our theatre just isn't set up for major interlocking.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-22-2009, 04:50 AM:

The biggest interlock extravaganza I've heard of was with the midnight premier of The Matrix 3 at the Muvico Egyptian. Four prints on 18 screens. Two on five screens, and two on four. All sold out. I would have loved to have walked through that booth to see the film running all over the place.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-22-2009, 09:56 AM:

Up here interlock is not popular because the studios only allow house allowance on the first screen and a decreasing rati for the extra screens so all theatre insist on seperate prints
Which has the benifit of different show time options

Posted by Alex Edwards (Member # 5413) on 09-22-2009, 11:03 AM:

I was an idiot earlier and said we interlocked 10 screens but it was actually just 8. That is still a lot but I guess it is easier since they are mostly all in a row in the same room.

Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 09-22-2009, 11:33 AM:

I managed a 10 screen Loews theatre in Cambridge, Ma that had 5 booths on 2 floors. I did a few pretty cool interlocks there as the auditoriums were on the small side and I wanted to take advantage of the business when we could.

I did a few between theatres 1,2,3 which were on the second floor and each in a seperate booth. You had to run the film up the wall by climbing a ladder and through a small crawl space between the walls. Thankfully for these the hardware was all in place even though the interlock circuitry did not function. (Xetron Econolock and Maxi 8's)

Another one I did was from theatre 10 on the ist floor up a back stairwell in theatres 1,2, and 3. In this situation there were no rollers or accumulators set up in the stairwell so we had to improvise with make up tables. Again no interlock curcuitry.

I always pushed to interlock anytime I could as I find it to be lots of fun and wicked cool!

Posted by Geena Phillips (Member # 3726) on 09-22-2009, 08:42 PM:

Back when we did kids' shows this past summer, we ran two simultaneous four-screen interlocks three days a week; one of those was U-shaped, and involved two 90-degree turns.

With the most recent Tyler Perry movie, we ran a four-screen and a two-screen, although those were (luckily) staggered.

Posted by Michael Voiland (Member # 5386) on 09-25-2009, 02:35 AM:

When we had hangover and I was at the other theater we interlocked that thing almost every other day between 2 projectors.
No sync motors just an accumulator this was well i was in training. Machines running with ta10s in automation without the data bus mode.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 09-25-2009, 11:34 AM:

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Four prints on 18 screens. Two on five screens, and two on four.

Um....sounds like 9 screens [Razz]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-25-2009, 12:06 PM:

I believe he means two separate 5-screen interlocks and two separate 4-screen interlocks. I'd rather do one print on all 18, but what do I know?

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 09-25-2009, 03:24 PM:

I assume some sort of synchronous start mechanism is in place for a 10-screen show?

We have done 2s and 3s, but never more than that, because our projectors don't have any slave features, at least installed.

You have to press the start button on each one manually.

Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 09-25-2009, 04:49 PM:

quote: Karl Borowski
I assume some sort of synchronous start mechanism is in place for a 10-screen show?

Not necessarily. As long as you have enough people to start the projector motors simultaneously there's no need to have an automated interlock.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-25-2009, 04:53 PM:

quote: Karl Borowski
You have to press the start button on each one manually.

You can still interlock hundreds of screens without any synced automation and just one jackass starting them all with a little planning and some good running capability.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 09-25-2009, 04:57 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
I'd rather do one print on all 18, but what do I know?

That would truly be impressive but would take a while to thread up!

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 09-26-2009, 12:06 AM:

IDK guys, sounds like an awefully big risk to be taking with a $1600 piece of property.

Just doing a two-screen interlock makes me intensely uncomfortable.

Let me put it another way: What does a ten screen interlock that goes *wrong* look like? What do you say when a customer comes up and asks you why ten minutes of their movie are cut out?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-26-2009, 12:59 AM:

Oh that's nothing. Just imagine what would happen if a 3 screen 40 minute delayed interlock had something go wrong. That's over 2 reels of film flying between projectors! [evil]

Guess its good there is such a thing as a professional projectionist, eh? [Big Grin]

Posted by Joris Springer (Member # 4175) on 09-26-2009, 02:09 AM:

Wow, very impressive those interlock stories. Here we have for 8 screens the amount of 7 booths, yes, the building was created for a cinema just the architect apparently never really informed about how to build a cinema and so we can only interlock in 1 booth. We dont often interlock because it doesnt really get that busy and because we get multiple prints if the movie is not digital. (due to some laws about weight to lift they also often bring more prints so we dont have to move the prints up and down on the stairs).
In the old cinema in the city we often interlocked the 4 theaters (it only had 4 theaters so it was the maximum).

Posted by Tyler Potts (Member # 4952) on 09-26-2009, 10:22 AM:

I haven't done anything more than 3 screens interlocked but have seen 5 (this is when I first came into projection). But with New Moon's midnight creeping up and advance sales putting up some impressive numbers I'm probably going to be doing some interesting interlocks in November.

My question is, do you guys keep a regular supply of interlock poles on your property? How'd you talk your GMs into getting more?