Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Carmike and 35mm

This is topic Carmike and 35mm in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-02-2009, 09:14 AM:

A distributor told me that two weeks ago an edict came down from Carmike that they would no longer run any 35mm. Until now, they kept one 35mm screen in most of their houses.

Anyone seen or heard any confirmation of this?

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 11-02-2009, 09:34 AM:

That is one way to limit what they can run

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-02-2009, 10:07 AM:

Gordon, that's how I heard about it. We got a film because the distrbs digital budget was cut, so no digital of that particular film.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 11-02-2009, 10:21 AM:

Isn't Carmike known for their savvy decisions and exceptionally run theatres?

If I were a company that owned a fleet of trucks and I only hired low paid drivers who keep damaging my trucks because they didn't know how and couldn't learn to drive a stick shift, but I still didn't want to spend the money to hire drivers who could drive stick shifts, then I would finally realise that the best thing to do was to just replace all my trucks with ones that had automatic trannys.

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-02-2009, 10:34 AM:

Apparantly one of the Patrick boys is going around bragging about how much money they are going to make building theatres with operatorless projection rooms.

They really the used car salesmen of the biz

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 11-02-2009, 11:43 AM:

Geez... for what an operator brings to the party, is the position that expensive? Seems if that's enough to make a location profitable, it's probably not worth the effort.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 11-02-2009, 11:51 AM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
Apparantly one of the Patrick boys is going around bragging about how much money they are going to make building theatres with operatorless projection rooms.

Because this has worked so well for them in the past [Wink]

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 11-02-2009, 11:51 AM:

Jack: that's my position exactly. Could it be that "good people" wouldn't work there to begin with? Louis

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 11-02-2009, 12:34 PM:

Ya. Kinda funny that if they would have paid one individual a good salary to be a booth manager, they could have saved millions in the long run instead of spending millions to earn pennies..

..oh well..can I steal a quote from Oscar Wilde on all of this?

quote:
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

(...seems this the on-going trend nowdays in this industry...)

Really makes you wonder why some people don't have a clue in keeping their "resumes" looking good for the future..

-Monte

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-02-2009, 12:46 PM:

quote:
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

HA! Monte... great quote! Reminds me of the last place I was employed at!

quote: Louis Bornwasser
Could it be that "good people" wouldn't work there to begin with? Louis

Exactly Louis! I service a theater that once hired an ex- Carmike employee. When I was doing service work there he came up to me and told me he had worked for Carmike, how great they were and that he had lots of experience and so on. I told him that I was sorry he worked there and that it certainly doesn't give him any bragging rights. He only lasted about a month and left the location. The rest of the employees were glad when he left.

Mark

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 11-02-2009, 01:02 PM:

To put that Oscar Wilde quote in practical industry theatrical terms, it's the mgmt. and concessioneer spending 10 minutes' time each to glue a popcorn bucket back together, because they could make $6 in a popcorn sale.

"Is there a shortage of popcorn buckets in the stockroom?" I ask, having come down for a refill on a beverage.

"No, but we can make $6 with this bucket here."

["Yeah, but you just dicked away $3.50 gluing it back together when you could've thrown it out and wasted less money filling out an idiotic report on the matter."]

"Oh, I see, OK."

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 11-02-2009, 02:12 PM:

And if they really did do that...then there is the whole health liability. Odds are...if they are doing that they are stealing (selling the tub but pocketing the money). At the chain I started in, K-B, we had a "give away" system where each tub had a tear away number at the bottom. The idea was to get the customers to damage the tubs to ensure they were obviously used at that point and prevent resale.

Steve

Posted by Kevin Fairchild (Member # 4985) on 11-02-2009, 03:27 PM:

I think this has to do with what happened with Inglourious Basterds. Since they had at least one projector with film capabilities, they had to run Inglourious Basterds on 35mm. Haven't most Carmikes been converted do digital for 2+ years? Most locations probably didn't have any good projectionsists left.

I don't think having a 35mm backup is that important anymore. How many times has a hollywood movie not been available in digital? As was said in an earlier thread, Inglourious Basterds was available in digital, except the theater had to have all 35mm removed.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 11-02-2009, 03:46 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
Apparantly one of the Patrick boys is going around bragging about how much money they are going to make building theatres with operatorless projection rooms.

So wait, were they actually PAYING a decent wage before?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 11-02-2009, 05:30 PM:

I don't think they've had dedicated projectionists for a long, long time (at least here in). They will probably save a couple of hours a week on build-up and tear down. That should cover the cost of an all digital operatorless booth in about 1500 years [evil]

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 11-02-2009, 09:56 PM:

I would never work for Carmike again. They are officially the cheapest bastards on the planet. I thought Cinema World was bad until Carmike bought them out and proved me wrong. [Eek!]

Posted by Paul J. Neuhaus (Member # 3205) on 11-03-2009, 09:58 AM:

Carmike bought out the six screen that I was working at in Hanover, Pennsylvania. After that I managed a 4, 8, and a 12 screen for them. The 4 and 8 were also aquisition theatres from Fox Theaters. The 12 was one of the ones they had just built.

These are some of the cheapest bastards in the industry. It blows my mind too because their designs aren't that bad. They have a good starting idea but absolutely no f'ing clue how to run a business. They go cheap every chance they get and micro manage the shit out of everything from their corporate office [sex]

I tried to like them, I really did but professionalism got the best of me and I had to jump ship for another company before I woke up one day and thought their way of doing business made sense.... Hell No

Posted by Karl Borowski (Member # 5424) on 11-03-2009, 01:55 PM:

Steve, no, that was management, so they weren't pocketing money.

Posted by Louis Bornwasser (Member # 3063) on 11-03-2009, 02:49 PM:

Sometimes "labor savings" has nothing to do with $$$$$; but it more to do with power and management ego. That is why investment are made where labor saved is less that the debt service. In other words, you could endow the labor for 1000 years with the interest on the money not spent. Louis