This is topic Shipping out DCP drives after ingestion but before the show - a cautionary tale in forum Digital Cinema Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-01-2016, 04:07 PM:
We quite frequently get requests, almost all of them from arthouse and niche title distributors and festival print traffic co-ordinators, to ingest a DCP on receipt of their drive, and then to ship the drive on to another venue before our playdate. I always protest at this, to which their response is that the DCP is on a RAID in our server, so what's the problem?
I had an issue this afternoon which illustrates what that problem can be. We are playing a preview screening of a soon-to-be-released movie for a private rental. The DCP drive was ingested by my co-worker last week, plus the KDM, both of which went in without any error messages, verification fails, or any meowing and hissing from the server at that point.
The KDM opened two hours before showtime. When I pressed play (DSS200), it said "Checking content and licenses...", but then instead of "Selecting..." and then lighting up the transport buttons, it just went back to "Please select a show for playback."
So I checked the server and projector logs - no sign of any weird sh!t. I then tried to play the DCP straight from the distribution CRU drive, which worked - it played fine. After that I deleted the DCP from the server's RAID, reingested it from the distribution drive. That worked, just in time for the show.
The only explanation I can come up with for what happened is that some data got corrupted during the original ingest, which transferred successfully on the second attempt. If so, that raises the question as to why the bad transfer passed verification, but that isn't a question I can answer.
The moral of this story, especially for those of us working in the arthouse/rep/festival world, is that if you are asked to let a DCP distribution drive out of your booth before the actual show, there is a risk involved, even if it has ingested without reported errors, and especially if the show is encrypted and the KDM is not yet open.
A secondary moral is that the ability to play a DCP straight from a CRU drive, while not something that should be done normally, is potentially a show-saving last resort option, and to avoid servers that don't offer this feature.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-01-2016, 04:10 PM:
And a third moral: Watch the damn thing yourself, by yourself, before playing it for the public!
I remain amazed at how many of you folks seem to operate on the "push play and pray" principle.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-01-2016, 04:26 PM:
We never ship-out drives before we finish playing the title. Aside from the problem Leo described, it can always happen you ingested the wrong version, then you end up with a mismatch between KDM sent out and the CPL on the server on the first day. Reingesting a VF usually takes only a few minutes and is never a problem to do in the last minute. We receive most of our KDMs very late, and they rarely allow to check the content earlier than one day in advance.
Someone also may accidentally delete the feature or part of a feature during the engagement, or you may need to reinit the RAID and reingest the content.
Some distribution facilities request to ship back the drive while we are still playing it. We never adhere to that.
And it's easy to follow a straight policy like that. Drives never leave the cinema before we stopped playing the feature. No big deal for us since we rarely play a feature for more than one week.
- Carsten
Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 05-01-2016, 05:46 PM:
quote:
Watch the damn thing yourself, by yourself, before playing it for the public.
I remain amazed at how many of you folks seem to operate on the "push
play and pray" principle
Well, gee, Frank. . . in a perfect world it would be nice to do that.
For one thing- - I get paid anywhere from $45 to over $60/hr, (with a 4hr
minimum) depending on the venue, and very few of them are willing to pay
me at that rate just to run something for myself.
Oh, sure. . . if I have an especially big screening with important guests, I'll
arrange to do a pre screening, often 'on my own time' just to insure there
will be no problems.
. . and most of the venues will find some way to make it up to me somehow.
But as a rule- - they don't have the money to do it, and I'm usually busy
enough that I don't have time.
. . . besides - it's digital, so it's supposed to be perfect; first time-- every time.
............What could possibly go wrong? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-01-2016, 05:57 PM:
So let me see if I understand what you're telling me here:
"Film done wrong" is bad and we call out people by name on this forum when they screwed something up, but digital done wrong is just fine and dandy because nobody has time to do it properly?
Somehow, there's something wrong with this picture (and maybe the sound, too.)
Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 05-01-2016, 06:28 PM:
If the keys would activate the feature a few days in advance, and the feature would arrive more than two days in advance, I might have time to run it for myself. As it is, the best we can do right now if make sure the cues are properly set and that the key actually works and the movie plays.
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-01-2016, 06:44 PM:
We never send a drive back before our run ends and, generally, Deluxe doesn't ask for it.
Our light and sound cues are on the playlist and don't always line up the way the cue sheet says they should. Or... maybe they do and I just take a bit of license on when I choose to turn them up. In any case, we do that on Thursday night, so we've run at least part of the show before the paying crowd shows up.
As Jim says... it's digital. In practice, we haven't had a failure doing it this way in the 3+ years since we converted. Don't know that running the whole show through would make a difference now.
Maybe we've been lucky?
Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 05-01-2016, 07:02 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
"Film done wrong" is bad and we call out people by name on this forum when they screwed something up, but digital done wrong is just fine and dandy because nobody has time to do it properly?
I'm not sure why you're being so harsh here but I think you must have glossed over everything Leo said about his specific venue. He is at a private repertory house that has many one-off screenings and festivals. If you've never run a festival before, especially an indie festival, then you have no clue what you're up against. If you're lucky, half of the drives sent to you will be CRU but most likely they will come on portable usb drives which can take forever and a day to ingest compared to CRU. On top of that, half of them will be encrypted, and half of them not. You may or may not have time to do a quick spot-check of the non-encrypted content but sometimes the festival scheduling doesn't allow for enough time to do a QC and you just have to press play and pray. The ones that are encrypted can be a crap-shoot as well with timezone discrepancies being the most common culprit. You don't have the luxury of calling Technicolor/Deluxe and have them e-mail you a new key in the next 10 minutes. No, you have to find the festival print coordinator (if there is one) and get the contact for the content distributor and hope they have somebody there who can respond to you. This, by the way, is all happening in the middle of all of your other bullshit going on during the already hectic day.
Anyway, my point is that not every venue is playing only first-run content that always comes on a CRU from a major studio with KDMs distributed my Technicolor/Deluxe. For that matter, I when I did used to work at a multiplex, oftentimes the keys they sent to us unlocked the feature literally 1 hour before showtime. Well guess what? Management has already started seating the house. There goes your opportunity to QC!
When I know I will be working a festival event somewhere, I try to tell the organizers that we need both DCP content *and* Bluray/DVD backup. If shit hits the fan with the DCP whether it be corrupted, bad hard drive, or KDMs that don't want to work, you will at least have a disc to go on-screen with so you don't lose a show.
I've worked with Leo many times and he is *always* on point with these things. You were wrong to judge him.
Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-01-2016, 08:15 PM:
I also have no time to watch all these movies other than a fast forward check to put credit and curtain cues where I want them.
I'd have to stay up Thursday night into Friday opening without pay to watch it all in real time.
With film...I could tell from experience, any major issues other than digital sound drop outs...if it was within spec while making up the shows.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-01-2016, 08:24 PM:
Mike (and Victor):
Didn't you just agree with everything that I said?
Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 05-01-2016, 09:05 PM:
Several things:
I have had several theatres learn the lesson the hard way when they have sent the hard drive back for a feature that was still playing on a server. I instruct all managers to keep the hard drive in the building until the run is over.
We try to watch every film before it hits the screen for the public. But quite often the keys are not valid until right up to showtime.
Typical issues can be ironed out when a film is pre-screened. It's the film companies that apparently don't care about the presentation of their films...
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-01-2016, 09:20 PM:
As everyone above has pointed out, previewing a show in its entirety is usually impossible, because:
1 - The budget isn't there to pay a projectionist to do it, except if it's a really high profile event (e.g. a premiere, or a VIP is doing a Q & A);
2 - For mainstream titles, the KDM often doesn't open until just before showtime (which was what nearly bit me in the ass this afternoon).
3 - For arthouse/rep/festival titles, you're dealing with so many arriving at once that there often aren't the hours in the day needed to do this.
When the DCP replaced 35mm for most releases, its cheerleaders in the arthouse world confidently predicted that it would see the end of minority interest titles being released on a small number of 35mm prints (because the distributor couldn't afford more), being used very intensively for lots of short bookings, and thus wearing out very quickly. Digital stuff can be copied for almost nothing, right? Everyone expected that you would be able to send the DCP to as many venues as you liked, on the opening night, for a one-time outlay.
Ironically, what is actually happening is that these small distributors are only having a small number of DCP CRU drives and cases made of a given title (and if it's really low budget, the drives are consumer USB ones). Although the cost of having a post house make each copy is less than that of a film print, it still isn't nothing. So what will happen is that the DCP arrives in my booth, is ingested, and then a day or two later our programmer emails me: the movie has just been accepted for a fest in Seattle, or an extra booking has come in for a campus theater in Wisconsin, and would I please prepare it for shipping ASAP? You've already ingested it, so it can go out now, right?
It's the same problem as existed in the 35mm days (well, almost: then it would be a case of staying until 2am on Friday mornings breaking prints down), only this time if there's a problem, you don't see a scratchy and dirty print: you see the backup DVD or BD instead if you're lucky and they've given you one, or you lose the show if they haven't.
Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 05-01-2016, 10:25 PM:
I couldn't agree more with Leo and Mike, although the most ridiculous part of the indie/festival circuit is that yes most often they will send a bluray backup...but they still encrypt their DCP. Ridiculous!
Then of course there is the random bad authoring which is met with "that exact same hard drive played in a theater in Los Angeles, so it's your equipment at fault". I think we all know sometimes a DCP is unplayable on a particular type of machine and the firmware it is running. For example, we have seen them that would not play on a Doremi, but played fine on Dolby. I've also see the reverse. I've also seen where a GDC wouldn't play it, but a Dolby would.
Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 05-02-2016, 12:14 AM:
quote: Frank Cox
And a third moral: Watch the damn thing yourself, by yourself, before playing it for the public!
I remain amazed at how many of you folks seem to operate on the "push play and pray" principle.
Boy that'd be nice. Some theater companies won't authorize pre screenings at all "too much electricity/bulb hours" let alone PAY an employee to do it! That of course on top of KDMs that don't release a feature until a few hours before it is scheduled to go on screen.
And then Tehnicolor has the nerve to call and ask if someone has QC'd it. LOL NOPE SORRY
Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 05-02-2016, 04:42 AM:
quote: Brad Miller
Then of course there is the random bad authoring which is met with "that exact same hard drive played in a theater in Los Angeles, so it's your equipment at fault".
Oh man, I love this one! In fact I just had this happen to me last weekend. I had a portable USB drive with the DCP content on it and I plugged it into the DSS-200 and after it mounted the drive, nothing. Blank. I tried plugging it into a couple of other USB port to be met with the same result. Next, I plugged it into my laptop to see what the deal was and it had a ext3 partition but the drive was completely blank with 0% of the space used so no hidden files either. We did have a Bluray backup in the booth so I wasn't too worried about it but sure enough when the director showed up a little later and noticed I was QC'ing the Bluray he got all agitated and after I explained that the drive was seemingly empty I got the infamous "We just played our movie at 3 other venues before this one and used this same hard drive so something has to be wrong with your equipment!". He was pissed but what was I to do unless he wanted to rush over another hard drive from somewhere? I never heard back from him or management so my guess is that when they checked the drive back at their office, it was blank.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-02-2016, 01:32 PM:
Veering slightly OT, but a drive arriving totally blank is quite unusual. The two most common problems I encounter with homebrew DCPs on the low-end fest circuit are (i) the DCP files being in a zip or TAR on the supplied drive, or (ii) the DCP files being more than one folder level down, so the DSS200 can't see them. The latter often happens when you've been given the filmmaker's one and only portable hard drive, which has their entire life on it, and on which the DCP is buried among 1.8 terabytes of other stuff. Of course that's a double bummer, because the DSS200 takes 5-10 minutes searching the drive before pronouncing it to be empty.
When Dolby updated the software such that the DSS200 can read HFS+ volumes (if the partition table is MBR), a lot of festival DCP angst disappeared in an instant. I don't understand why it can't read DCPs in zips, given that it can read KDMs in zips.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-02-2016, 01:52 PM:
Having just spent a week dealing with DCP disasters at a "film" festival, I have seen the following issues:
- completely blank disk (no partition table, no data, no nothing) - required getting another copy from the "film" maker
- tons of exfat-formatted disks - required copying to ext3 disks
- GPT-formatted disks (content usually shows up under partition 2) - not actually a problem, but annoying
- unrecognized DCP, but with good MXF files - needed to be re-wrapped with OpenDCP
- DCP encoded at very high bit rate that had sync issues on a GDC server that arrived too late to properly inspect - had to be swapped with Blu-Ray backup during screening
- DCP at 23.98fps frame rate - had to be re-made using DCP-o-matic at 24fps
- multiple interop DCPs at frame rates other than 24 - had to be re-encoded as SMPTE (non-24 frame rates are not supported under interop)
- many HFS+ -formatted disks - content had to be copied to ext3-formatted disks
- disk labelled "DCP" but with non-DCP content (usually Pro Res files) on them - required making DCPs from whatever content was there
- disk with multiple CPLs per disk - required extra time to figure out what was what
- DCPs more than one directory level from root (as Leo mentioned) - required copying DCP files to new disk
- DCPs encoded with awful software ("Wraptor" is a major culprit) that simply did not play - required creating DCP from whatever backup format the "film" maker provided
- DCPs encoded with Lt/Rt soundtracks (often on shorts) - not so much a problem, as a lack of understanding of how cinema sound works
- DCPs that played elsewhere (apparently with success) but did not play properly on the specific set of equipment that we used (see Brad's point above)
- DCPs that were simply encoded wrong, with the sound out of sync or other major issues
The biggest issues overall were HFS+ disks and sound sync issues in general.
This was a week full of major headaches. And it was not just bad DCPs at fault. This festival accepts 35mm, HDCAM, and DCP (and says so in its submission application), and at least a half-dozen or so "film" makers were either unable or unwilling to provide one of those formats. The lack of concern about exhibition among the people who are making "films" now is just astounding.
Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 05-02-2016, 02:04 PM:
Reading through this thread, it is clear that those venues/festivals that accept DCP's need to specify further what standards the DCP must meet to be accepted. Those that do not meet the standard should be rejected, or the distributor/video maker needs to be charged for the re-formatting at computer consultant rates. If they do not agree, back it should go.
Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-02-2016, 02:29 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
"Film done wrong" is bad and we call out people by name on this forum when they screwed something up, but digital done wrong is just fine and dandy because nobody has time to do it properly?
If somebody told you that you couldn't drive your car except during the hours of midnight on Friday until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, you'd be out for blood. If somebody sent you a set of wheels for your car which had five lug nuts instead of six, you'd send them right back.
But, why is it that because something is ~D~I~G~I~T~A~L~ it's okay to send you anything and everything under the sun and just expect it to work without complaint?
Like others, I have had people send me everything from oddly formatted or corrupted files to completely blank disks and, when I tell them that their content can't be played, somehow it's my fault.
I even had a woman complain to me when her CD disk that she brought with her wouldn't play in my Tascam CD player. When I examined the disk, I found out that she had used a Pentel paint marker to write the title of the disk on the DATA side of the disk. Somehow, this became MY responsibility to fix!
Only after more than an hour's worth of time and painfully slow, careful application of paint thinner with Q-Tips was I able to get the disk clean enough that I could copy it to new media. At the same time, it became my fault that the rehearsal was late.
If I had been handed a vinyl record with paint spilled on it, I would have said, "Sorry," and nobody would have even batted an eyelash.
So, why is it that people think that they have the right to disobey every standard and do lazy, slipshod work just because something is digital?
Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 05-02-2016, 02:33 PM:
In my admittedly limited experience, on the DSS200 the only time I have seen a show listed on the "Please select a show for playback screen" where selecting it bounced me back to the same screen it was because the system clock had drifted ahead to the point where the key was allegedly open while the media block clock still said no no (they both must agree that it's time to open).
A few weekends ago I went round and round with a studio for a special VIP screening where they kept sending me keys that did not match as per the server. And of course they kept telling me that it played successfully elsewhere. Keys were being made by the post house. First they thought maybe they had the wrong cert so they tried again. No good. There were at 9 on the email chain including their VP of post production. Then someone said maybe you should delete keys, reboot the server, and try again. I figured it was useless but not to contradict anyone I did as asked (which on Dolby requires a site visit). No good. Then they said well, let's have Deluxe make him a key. Again, no good. I got in touch with Dolby whose tech asked to see the logs. (Another site visit for that.)
The tech's review of the logs with ample quoting said here this indicates a key valid for your system. And this indicates valid content. Don't know why you are seeing what you are seeing but it should open on time. I sent out the word but also followed up with a question: You are saying this is good and that is good but where does it indicate that this good key will open that good content? He phoned back the next morning to say actually there is nothing that says it will. By then the studio had decided to make another key which would open sooner so we can see if it does. As soon as they can arrange security so I don't pirate the movie, of course.
Then a curious thing. The post house woman asks me to send her the CPL file, which I get straight off the drive. And finally, an admission that they are having problems with playback at their own screening room. The answer: They'd made keys from a wrong CPL file. New key came, I could see right away that it was a match and both the test run and screening went fine. Whew!
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-02-2016, 02:47 PM:
quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Those that do not meet the standard should be rejected, or the distributor/video maker needs to be charged for the re-formatting at computer consultant rates. If they do not agree, back it should go.
Agreed, in principle, but, if this festival did that, there would be cancelled screenings (for which tickets had already been sold) and shorts programs reduced to half of the intended length. The sad reality is that incompetence is being rewarded.
Posted by Phil Ranucci (Member # 3820) on 05-02-2016, 03:04 PM:
Another reason not to ship drives-satellite delivery and network failure.
We had a screening that came by satellite just fine, but the media network failed to transfer the content. Of course the staff didn't notice this until the last minute. Ended up having to get a drive from another location and live playing.
We had a showing where the DCP didn't show up in a GDC server. Same response, it just played fine on a Dolby server at another theatre. So I asked how they QC the drives. They played it on a Dolby server at the post house
and after it was over cloned it to another drive.
Ran over to a local video guy and he found it was missing various files that had to be e-mailed by the post house and added to their drive. Went back and it loaded and played on the GDC fine.
I can't remember what files it was missing, but the reason they were missing is that Dolby servers don't require them and so when they made the clone they weren't transferred. But a GDC requires them.
Anybody know what those files are?
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-02-2016, 04:20 PM:
Some years ago, not too long after I got my digital setup, I had a movie that played in the wrong order -- just as if I had the reels mixed up on film. Deluxe, Technicolor or Cinedigm (one of them) emailed me a tiny file that solved the problem. I can't remember what that file was, though.
Had I not watched the movie in advance from start to finish *AHEM*, I wouldn't have known about the problem. Even spot checking it wouldn't have told me there were issues.
Once again, folks, if you're not watching the movie yourself, by yourself, before showing it to the public, you're begging for trouble.
Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-02-2016, 05:25 PM:
quote: Leo Enticknap
I don't understand why it can't read DCPs in zips, given that it can read KDMs in zips.
The problem with ZIP files is that it's rather difficult to do this in a real-time stream. So essentially, you need to extract the ZIP first and then apply your ingestion "magic" to it. So, this whole process would require a few hundred gigabytes worth of temporary storage to do this.
A KDM is easily measured in bytes, so it's no problem to extract it first to a temporary location and then import the extracted version.
Posted by Ian Freer (Member # 1940) on 05-02-2016, 05:41 PM:
quote: Scott Norwood
- DCPs encoded with awful software ("Wraptor" is a major culprit) that simply did not play
Scott; I've experienced similar things with GDC/Wraptor also, but if you haven't got it already I suggest upgrading to Build 383v2 (if you're on a SX2000AR or SX3000 server); in this Build they have implemented a work-around to correctly force-read the bad Wraptor DCPs that has worked for me the once I've needed it since
quote: Frank Cox
emailed me a tiny file that solved the problem. I can't remember what that file was, though.
Frank: that most probably would have been a VF or Supplementary Package, in that case basically a new CPL and associated files that specified the correct reel playback order. It can be emailed as it's very small and references the existing audio and video you had already ingested, but played the reels in a different order...
Posted by Carl Hetherington (Member # 7107) on 05-02-2016, 06:10 PM:
I guess in an ideal world DCP authoring software would have an option to write the "distribution" disk in its entirety; i.e. formatting it with EXT2 and copying the right files into the right places.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-02-2016, 08:44 PM:
quote: Phil Ranucci
I can't remember what files it was missing, but the reason they were missing is that Dolby servers don't require them and so when they made the clone they weren't transferred. But a GDC requires them.
Anybody know what those files are?
Quite typical - if you pull content from a Dolby, it is missing assetmap and packing list.
You can ingest this 'DCP' (actually it doesn't qualify for a DCP that way) on other Dolby servers, but not other non-Dolby DCI servers.
You can, however, find all the files under 'Generated Packages' when FTPing into the Dolby.
quote: Leo Enticknap
I don't understand why it can't read DCPs in zips, given that it can read KDMs in zips.
Large ZIPs can be a bit of a problem - to the same extent as HFS+ once was...
- Carsten
Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 05-02-2016, 10:17 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
Had I not watched the movie in advance from start to finish *AHEM*, I wouldn't have known about the problem. Even spot checking it wouldn't have told me there were issues.
Once again, folks, if you're not watching the movie yourself, by yourself, before showing it to the public, you're begging for trouble.
Ok Frank, we get it already, you are obviously better than the rest of us and live in the ideal world where you always get the Keys and drive early enough, the key unlocks early enough, have free time enough, and possibly even get paid for your time to screen EVERY DCP in its entirety.
You point is being undermined by that arrogance, give it a rest please.
Even in the film days ALL of my screenings at UC Irvine had NO time for a trial run, no matter what the format. The facility (you can see it in the picture warehouse here) was a (very busy) lecture hall. I often had 10 minutes or less to set the speakers and screen and masking before we had to open the house to get the audience seated.
And in the case of the film festivals I ran there, we often had film prints (and almost always with video media) arriving less than a half-hour before showtime. More than once I had to fast-inspect the first two reels of a 35mm feature checking only for gross tears or really bad splices and making sure there were proper changeover cues, praying I didn't miss a splice with bad framing..then as soon as I got rolling inspecting subsequent reels as the show ran.
Video? Fuggeddaboutit....it was almost always play and pray, and hope the player, media and video projector were all in a good mood that day.
Exhibition has always gotten the short end of the deal it seems, especially in the film festival and special screening world.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-02-2016, 10:18 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
Once again, folks, if you're not watching the movie yourself, by yourself, before showing it to the public, you're begging for trouble.
Even that doesn't guarantee anything. I had a movie once (forget which one) that "corrupted itself" on night 3 of our run. It worked fine for 2 nights, then on the third night it popped up that "Unknown CPL" message. As if the show was referenced in the play list but didn't exist on the server -- even though it was RIGHT THERE in the list of features.
Since we were up against show-time I just live-played it from the shipping drive for the rest of the run.
So yeah, we never let a drive out the door until the run is over.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-02-2016, 10:39 PM:
quote:
Ok Frank, we get it already, you are obviously better than the rest of us and live in the ideal world where you always get the Keys and drive early enough,
I don't know about the "better than us" part, but I usually get my movie on the Thursday morning bus so I set everything up right after lunch and watch it on Thursday afternoons.
On rare occasions the key isn't valid or the drive doesn't show up until Friday morning. In that situation, I get up earlier in the morning and get things done so I can check things out before showtime.
About once in two or three years, usually due to a screw-up somewhere down the line, I don't get my movie until late Friday afternoon. In that case I don't have time to watch it all the way through before showtime, and I don't like that at all. Fortunately, that's only happened maybe three or four times since I got the digital setup installed.
quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
have free time enough, and possibly even get paid for your time to screen EVERY DCP in its entirety.
It's not that I have the "free time", but rather that running my theatre is what I do do and I take steps to make sure that I have or make the time to do what is needed to accomplish that task. I try not to schedule anything else on Thursdays (dentist appointments, hair cuts, whatever) and therefore I keep the time available to do what needs to be done in order to provide a good experience for my customers.
Since the theatre belongs to me, I don't get "paid for my time" for anything at all. It's just part of running the place.
quote: Tony Bandiera Jr
You point is being undermined by that arrogance, give it a rest please.
I honestly don't see how getting the job done as well as I can is arrogance.
With film, you can see the film sitting there, you can check the heads and tails to know that it's in the right order, and you can see if it's in good shape or spliced 40 ways from Sunday using cheap masking tape. There were a few times that I watched a movie through start-to-finish with film if I was unsure of its condition but I didn't do it every time or probably more than once or twice a year. Unfortunately, with digital there's nothing to see, I can't check it by just looking at it laying there, and the only way to know what I have is to watch it. The time that it takes to do that is the time that it takes. I guess it's equivalent the time that I don't use setting stuff up and tearing it down on the platter, just reallocated to actually watching the movie now that it's digital.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-03-2016, 09:12 AM:
I think a misunderstanding has developed here, because Frank is working in a fundamentally different theater environment from many of the rest of us: it's a small business of which he is the owner (and therefore he doesn't have to get anyone else's permission to, in effect, spend someone else's money on QC), showing only one or two features a week, using DCPs that almost always arrive with enough time to perform a real time screen check before the first public screening.
Given the prominence of his theater in a relatively small local economy and the extensive, negative PR that would result from a technical problem during a screening, Frank's policy makes total sense - and more to the point, it's actually possible to do it.
I am responsible for projection in an orgnanization that operates three theaters in two locations, 11 miles (and anywhere between 45 minutes and two hours' driving through one of the most congested metros in the world) apart. We typically screen between 20 and 35 features a week, consisting of double features on four or five nights a week in each house, and split roughly half and half between film and DCP. There is no projectionist scheduled to work on "dark" days. The budget simply isn't there to schedule one to perform real-time viewing of anything except titles relating to a high-profile show (e.g. with a VIP in attendance), and even if were, late arriving prints and DCPs, and/or KDMs that don't open until just before showtime would make it impossible to do that in many cases.
For a typical full-scale festival, you're looking at 60 to 100 hours of content playing over 3-5 days. Much of that is shorts, which are even more time consuming to tech check than features (because the basic technical information about each print or DCP has to be recorded and verified per title, whether it runs for 2 minutes or 200). Festival programmers often don't lock their programs until around a week out from the opening night, and only then do materials start to arrive. Every hour we spend tech checking their stuff is billed to them at union rates, and therefore is something they need to find the money for, and need to be convinced that it's worth finding the money for.
I didn't mean this thread to drift into an "isn't it hard projecting homebrew DCPs at fests" rant, but rather to point out a specific technical issue that often comes up at theaters that show arthouse content and do festivals (requests to ship out DCP distribution drives after ingestion but before the show).
quote: Carl Hetherington
I guess in an ideal world DCP authoring software would have an option to write the "distribution" disk in its entirety; i.e. formatting it with EXT2 and copying the right files into the right places.
That would be such a cool feature to have on DCP-o-Matic (hint, unsubtle hint)! As well as an "Upload to TMS when done" check box, have another one underneath it that says "Create distribution media on [pull-down to select drive]". If the Windows and Mac versions could then rewrite the partition table with a GPT one, format a single volume partition as ext2 or 3, with the correct inode size, then write the DCP files and set the permissions per ISDCF spec and dismount the volume, that would solve so many problems, because you'd effectively have an idiotproof way for PC and Mac users to produce totally ISDCF-compliant distribution drives. The only problem, I guess, would be if the user accidentally selected the wrong drive to nuke and re-write. You'd need a "Think before you click" popup in that procedure at the very least.
Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 05-03-2016, 09:43 AM:
Yeah opening one movie a week for Friday evening shows is where I would love to watch the movie in real time for quality control.
Especially 35mm film. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I usually have 5 new titles opening on a Friday starting at noon and I don't get the DCP/Blu-rays and keys until Thursday. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
I suppose I could force myself to watch one movie a week but my job as a projectionist is the least of my duties now...thanks to the digital miracle. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posted by Tony Bandiera Jr (Member # 2365) on 05-03-2016, 10:26 AM:
Please don't get me wrong, I wasn't after Frank because of the fact that he does own his business and can, as Leo pointed out, take the time to QC his features..that is smart business and admirable. (If I ran my own cinema with a play schedule like his I would also QC every feature..)
What irritated me was the follow up post I quoted, and the bolded key points, which were, IMHO, very condescending and totally unnecessary. Perhaps he didn't mean them to come off as they read, but still....
The unfortunate fact is that not only has digital not lived up to the perfection it was touted to be, but the methods of distribution are problematic..something that, after all these years and literally millions of shows, you'd think would have been resolved.
All that said, one thing has become apparent though..the vast majority of showings (maybe even a higher percentage than in the film days) DO get on screen and run without any issues.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-03-2016, 02:02 PM:
What Leo said above.
For whatever it is worth, the final tally on the aforementioned festival was that upwards of 17% of the DCP content that we played was unplayable as received. About half of this consisted of people who sent non-DCP formats (Pro Res, Blu-Ray, etc.) that needed to be converted and the other half consisted of DCPs that had issues. This does not include easily-fixable issues like HFS-formatted disks and such, though that would probably push the "unplayable as received" value to 20% or so.
This becomes especially problematic with material that arrives at the last possible day before it screens, when time to fix any issues is limited. I thought that one of the promises of D-cinema was that duplicate copies of the disks could be made cheaply, but people are still making festivals circulate disks from one festival to the next, often on short notice. And, for some stupid reason, people even want Blu-Rays returned to them (despite the issues of fingerprints and such and the fact that the return shipping cost probably exceeds the cost of burning another disk).
I really have no idea of how to fix this. I thought that DCP would be a step forward in reliability and quality from the various tape and optical disk formats of the past, but this has really not proven to be the case yet. I have seen a fair number of "coaster" DVDs and Blu-Rays, but the broadcast tape formats have generally been solid (aside from the occasional chewed tape and the time when someone sent us a dub of a 90-minute feature on a 64-minute tape).
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-03-2016, 02:42 PM:
This whole thing started when I said that "everyone" seems to just accept digital-done-wrong as a normal thing. Frankly, all of the comments following appear to reinforce my initial observation: You don't have the time or budget to do it right so you have somehow just accepted that doing it wrong is fine and live with the consequences that flow from that.
If this was an issue of safety then nobody would allow it to continue. "We don't have the budget to purchase a hard hat for everyone on this construction site but we'll continue to build this skyscraper anyway." But since this is "merely" an issue of presentation quality for paying customers, it's somehow ok?
I'll say that this thread has been a real eye-opener for me in that prior to this point I had never realized that few operations other than small ones like mine actually pre-screen their features. I assumed that it was a standard practice across the industry -- if you have more screens you have more staff so you would just assign more people to do the pre-screenings or maybe put a staff member on an overnight/all-night shift on Thursday to screen and check the Friday releases while the complex is closed. I might have forty or fifty people at my Friday night show and I care enough to check my presentation in advance; you guys have what... 1000 people or more at your Friday night show? And nobody checks the presentation. I'm actually a bit surprised that the film companies put up with it since in most cases, the paper that comes with the hard drives says "Pre-screen this and let us know if there are any problems". And still nobody is actually doing it?
It's truly a revelation to me that this doesn't happen and, frankly, I'm disappointed to discover that folks like yourselves who I know are dedicated to great presentations have somehow come to just accept that this is the way that it is in the world of digital cinema.
I'm glad that I own and operate my own small independent theatre where I can do it "my way"; I don't think I would survive the environment in a larger venue.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-03-2016, 03:47 PM:
I think the biggest and most obvious reason that "big" cinemas don't pre-screen is this: The failure rate is so tiny as to not make it worth the time and money. When you figure the cost to pay an employee, the cost of running the projection/sound system, and multiply that by the number of new movies opening in a multiplex vs the cost of refunding a couple of shows a year (if that) due to a malfunction, then the choice is pretty clear.
I don't think we've had to refund a show yet that would have been 'saved' by a pre-screening. The few problems we've had have been equipment-related, or (as noted above) occurred mid-run.
What is the failure rate for mainstream movies in digital cinema? How many shows are lost on a typical Friday night due to a problem that would have been uncovered in a pre-screening? If there was, say, a 15% chance that the movie wouldn't work, THEN you would see a lot of pre-screenings. But it's probably more in the neighborhood of a .0001% chance, hence "press play and pray."
Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-03-2016, 04:09 PM:
The biggest issue with running a movie early is the keys are not usually active in time for a QC screening to be done. With some of these blockbuster films the keys are not active until 2 hours before the first show. In that narrow window it's not always possible to QC a show before it plays because the auditorium may be in use with another feature.
At my theatre we try our best to at least 'check' the movie, meaning we start the playlist to make sure all the automation cues are in place and the content starts fine. Then we will skip through the movie playing a couple minutes at several different spots. Once we know the movie plays fine and the cues are in place, there isn't much else that watching the full movie will tell you.
Problems like a degraded array or blown speaker can come up at any time, so a QC check is only going to tell you if the problem exists at that moment in time.
As Mike said, the failure rate with DCP's is so small that eliminating human error is generally the most important aspect - assuming you regularly check your auditoriums for problems.
Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 05-03-2016, 04:34 PM:
I have to ask: Are there not published standards for interoperability among servers? If so, then maybe there are significant holes that need to be plugged.
Not to rain on anyone's parade but when I was in the data standards world we had issues with inverse multiplexing that required V1.1 of the spec to correct.
Maybe something similar is cropping up in the exhibition world; standards compliant equipment that will not interoperate.
Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 05-03-2016, 04:48 PM:
quote: Mike Blakesley
Even that doesn't guarantee anything. I had a movie once (forget which one) that "corrupted itself" on night 3 of our run. It worked fine for 2 nights, then on the third night it popped up that "Unknown CPL" message. As if the show was referenced in the play list but didn't exist on the server -- even though it was RIGHT THERE in the list of features.
Heck, I've had content straight up disappear in the middle of a run before. Sunday afternoon, "A customer says the movie hasn't started yet" Go and check, nothing in the playlist, content not even on the server. Gone.
quote: Frank Cox
I assumed that it was a standard practice across the industry -- if you have more screens you have more staff so you would just assign more people to do the pre-screenings or maybe put a staff member on an overnight/all-night shift on Thursday to screen and check the Friday releases while the complex is closed.
At least one of the top 3 chains in the country opens all the movies they can on Thursday night. ![[Mad]](mad.gif)
We typically open 80% of our new releases at 7 and 10 on Thursday nights an I really really hate it. Just further making pre screenings impossible.
Frank, I don't, and probably most here, don't disagree with what you're saying. I would certainly pre screen every feature if I could, and absolutely without fail if I ran my own theater. But.... The way things are(shitty), we can't.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-03-2016, 05:01 PM:
quote: Rick Raskin
I have to ask: Are there not published standards for interoperability among servers? If so, then maybe there are significant holes that need to be plugged.
No. Neither DCI nor SMPTE covers interoperability of DCI compliant servers. That's beyond the scope of the standards.
Export and reingest are manufacturer-specific 'extras'. They don't need to be compliant between manufacturers.
As a matter of fact, it does work between all manufacturers if you know how to tweak it for the Dolbys.
- Carsten
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-03-2016, 07:02 PM:
Also, some servers will play files that do not meet the DCI specifications, while others will not play a compliant file. Try making a DCP with picture but no soundtrack (or vice versa, either of which is perfectly legitimate) and see how reliably it plays on various servers, for example. All of this leads to people complaining that the same files played just fine at the previous engagement.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-03-2016, 08:59 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
If this was an issue of safety then nobody would allow it to continue.
Actually, safety issues frequently are allowed to continue, often until they kill a bunch of people. When I was a teenager my uncle gave me a book charmingly entitled Great Disasters, which includes gory and graphic accounts of a variety of them, including the Titanic, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, the Morro Castle, the Quintinshill train crash, the Flixborough chemical works explosion, the DC-10s with dodgy cargo hold doors, and, in our business, the Glen Cinema fire. Of all the disasters described in that book, every one, with the possible exception of the San Francisco earthquake (and even then, I'm sure the death and injury toll was, erm, "enhanced" by buildings that didn't meet code and that sort of thing) were caused mainly or exclusively by safety measures that could have been taken but weren't. After the disasters, those safety measures were either introduced for the first time, or started to be enforced properly. But it took a large pile of bodies for that to happen.
But, as you point out, a DCP that won't play isn't going to kill everyone, and so the industry aims for a "press play and pray" reliability rate that justifies the cost of it, and no higher.
Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 05-04-2016, 05:45 AM:
Ordinarily I'd say that there is fertile ground for a contribution to the appropriate standards working group. But Leo's last statement above leads me to believe it would never fly.
Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-04-2016, 09:56 AM:
I probably do the drive-in version of Justin's procedures...
A question, though. Doesn't the process of copying the drive have some kind of integrity check? The only issues we've had, going into 4 years now, have been in the ingest process, and those features didn't make it into the playlist. That's happened only once that I recall, and was caught well before showtime.
I expect our features to be delivered by Tuesday and keys to be in the inbox by Wednesday, so we get going on Deluxe if that doesn't happen. I'm more concerned about key issues than anything else, but once they actually show up, we haven't had any problems with them.
Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 05-04-2016, 01:51 PM:
quote: Rick Raskin
Ordinarily I'd say that there is fertile ground for a contribution to the appropriate standards working group.
The issue is more one of law enforcement than lawmaking. In the same way that you will almost never be pulled over for doing 10mph over the limit on a freeway in California but you very likely will be in Washington, many servers will tolerate HFS+ drives, errors in the CPL metadata and some other aspects of DCPs that do not conform to the letter of the relevant DCI, SMPTE or ISDCF law, but not others.
The only consistent law enforcement that takes place in the DCP world appears to be the encryption and KDM stuff.
So, as Scott points out, you get the "But it played OK at the Gnarly Creek Film Festival - why not here?" syndrome.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-04-2016, 02:55 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
If this was an issue of safety then nobody would allow it to continue.
Again, it all boils down to frequency of problems. Take stairs, for example....people can and do fall down stairs and get injured, but it doesn't happen too often, so there are still stairs everywhere. If there was a 25% chance that anybody using a stairway is going to be hurt, you'd see a huge increase in elevator installations and/or flat buildings.
Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-04-2016, 04:30 PM:
Let's remove the 'digital' word from the equation. The same arguments can be made for previewing film prints. Say you receive a 35mm print with just enough time before the show to platter it, do you cancel the show because you won't have the opportunity to pre-screen it?
In the case of festivals and special venues, the pre-screenings aren't happening because things are (mostly) digital now; pre-screenings of film prints were also impractical for the reasons Leo and others have listed here.
As for mainstream product, it's been a few years since I left the biz, but I distinctly remember a lot of those Thursday night openers not having their keys good until just before the first show. Sometimes we'd get a special key to test part of the file (one 'reel' I guess), but this doesn't meet your standard for previewing the entire file. So what's your solution when this happens? Do you demand a key that is valid early enough for you to screen the show? What do you do if the distributor refuses, refuse to paly the movie?
Finally, is it satisfactory to preview just one screen, or if you owned a multiplex would preview every screen a movie was sent to, on the theory that something could go wrong with the transfer? If you have 6 screens worth of new movies opening on Friday and your employer won't authorize the necessary staff to preview all of them Thursday night/Friday morning, what do you do, quit?
It's perfectly fine, and admirable, to adhere to the highest standard possible when you are your own boss, open one movie per week, and always get keys in plenty of time to preview. But to call others unprofessional because it is physically impossible to do pre-screenings (festivals and special venues) or because the people they work for won't authorize it, well, that's just insulting. It's really easy to say that you would quit such a job, the reality is we all need to earn a living, and as compromises go, not prescreening content that is error free 99.99999% of the time isn't a really big one.
Just my $0.02.
Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 05-04-2016, 05:14 PM:
Leo: There were three aspects to testing implementations. Conformance, Performance and Interoperability. There was never any requirement for a manufacturer to adhere to anything, but if they wanted to sell their equipment they'd give due consideration to the appropriate standards. Interoperability was probably the least tested because if a service provider wanted to live with a single vendor solution, it was meaningless. However, public providers did give due consideration to interoperability because they would never know for sure what "standards compliant" equipment a customer would be using.
The universe is somewhat smaller for the exhibition industry and the equipment providers somewhat limited. Therefore I can assume that strict adherence to standards is less of an issue.
Still, I find it somewhat perplexing that a DCP may work on one vendors equipment but not on another's.
I'd hate to be in the position to have to deal with these issues today.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 05-04-2016, 05:46 PM:
I think that the ideal solution would be to have a "strict mode" and "permissive mode" on each server. The default should be to refuse to play an invalid DCP, but this should be able to be overriden by the operator to play a nonconforming set of files. That way, the operator has a warning when something is not correct, but can still play the video.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-04-2016, 06:17 PM:
I can see where the security goons at the studios would have a big problem with that idea though.
Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-04-2016, 07:36 PM:
When the Hunger Games series came out, there was a 'screening key' issued that let the content run for 20 minutes and the key was good for four hours on that screening day.
Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-04-2016, 08:30 PM:
quote: Rick Raskin
Still, I find it somewhat perplexing that a DCP may work on one vendors equipment but not on another's.
As I wrote before: All servers are able to play DCI/SMPTE compliant DCPs.
An export from a Dolby DSS server is not a real 'DCP', and not meant to be one, as it lacks assetmap and packing list. It is only meant to be ingested into another Dolby DSS server. This is not a question of interoperability.
If you know about this issue, you can easily recompose the original DCP by adding assetmap and packing list, in order to ingest it on non-Dolby DSS servers.
And if I remember right, Dolby is about to fix this issue anyway.
- Carsten
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-04-2016, 09:06 PM:
I disagree that this issue is in any way comparable to playing movies on film. With film you can see what you have; there's film on the platter that can be inspected as needed. And in the worst case scenario, say an out-of-frame splice that you don't have time to find, you can ride the framing knob if you have to. Bad section of film? Cut it out. It broke? Time for a quick splice job and get it back on screen.
With digital, there is nothing and no way to inspect the movie or fix any problems without watching it since all you get is magic ones and zeroes on a disk.
So yes, it's perfectly possible to put on a show if you just have time to get it in the door and get the film on the platter -- if it's in uncertain condition then sit on the projector and watch the wheels turn; if a problem arises, fix it right now.
It's just not possible to do that sort of thing with digital. It either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't, there's not much you can do to fix it while an audience is waiting.
I'm sure that you already know all of this. This is why I would rather solve any problems without any audience present, and the only way that I know of to do that is watch the movie in advance since there's simply no other way to know what you have.
I understand that some of you work in environments where this isn't possible. In my opinion, this is less than ideal and I think most of you agree with me in that some of you have said that you will do test screenings in advance of a show where a VIP is present, Sadly, it appears that an Unimportant Regular Person isn't entitled to attend a show with that same level of care, attention and service.
As for myself, if someone told me that the Grand Poobah of Frobnitz was going to be attending one of my shows, I can't think of a single thing that I would do differently than what I do every night anyway.
What should you do about it in your situation? I can't advise you on that since I don't work in that kind of an environment. It appears that the answer to that question on the part of most of you is "nothing", and perhaps that's the right answer. Or maybe it's not but again, I'm not in a position to say.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-04-2016, 09:31 PM:
quote: Frank Cox
What should you do about it in your situation? I can't advise you on that since I don't work in that kind of an environment. It appears that the answer to that question on the part of most of you is "nothing"
I guess one other advantage a large multiplex has, in the case of a problem they can often move that audience over to a different screen or maybe another showing starting in a few minutes, where you (and I) don't have that option.
Frank, you've had digital a few years - how many problems would you say you've uncovered via pre-screenings? (Meaning -- problems that would have lost you a show or a weekend had you not done the pre-screen.)
Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 05-04-2016, 11:32 PM:
Carsten, you are correct. Look for that feature in System 4.9.
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-05-2016, 05:02 PM:
Having given your question some thought, I think the answer is either three or four. Once when the movie played out of order, and either two or three times when the key simply wouldn't play the movie even though it showed up as playable. In those situations, the powers-that-be issued me a new key in a different format(?) that worked and that took a while to get past the inital "What the hell?" to the phoning in to report a problem, then wait for the newly issued keys to show up, ingest and see if it works now.
I wouldn't want to try any of that while people are sitting in the auditorium here.
I just checked and the paper that came in the box with the movie that arrived this morning does indeed still say "Ingest the contents as soon as possible and schedule a quality check screening after the keys unlock the feature." Based on what you folks are telling me here, I guess that requirement isn't actually being enforced any more even though it's still listed on the paper.
I remember when I first got my digital setup some movies came with a form to fill out and fax back to Technicolor: "Quality check screening for (name of feature) completed on (date) by (name) at (theatre name and address)." And some others had a note saying to complete the screening and email a report saying that it's ok (or not ok) upon completion. I haven't seen one of those for a while -- now it's apparently just report in if there are any problems -- but again, the paper still tells you to do it so the movie companies do still expect you to do it.
Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 05-05-2016, 08:06 PM:
While in an art house environment it's almost impossible to do screenings especially during film festivals, I blame this on the distributor and studio more so than the exhibitor. If you want me to have a perfect presentation, you send me your drive and key ahead of time, even with a last minute booking you can always overnight the drive and email the key. The laziness that digital has allowed for studios is absolutely annoying and has lead to worse presentations.
Also for your mega/multiplexers, saying "well we have too many screens and payroll, etc is no excuse". What I usually do is run all the movies, then walk from aud to aud to check them and ensure the presentation is good. With the exception of VERY few problems, you will notice any issues because they prevent the playback completely or will cause issues once they hit a certain point. I have only ever seen one issue (Amazing Spiderman 2) where for some reason the DCP turned green for 5 seconds in the middle of it, then went back to normal. Other than that you can usually catch it just by running around and checking each auditorium every 15-20 odd minutes.
Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 05-05-2016, 09:43 PM:
Well, Frank, by your own admission then, your full run-through policy has only caught a problem with a DCP once that other methods wouldn't have caught.
Again, I don't think anyone is saying your method isn't the ideal; it's more that your attitude seems to be the lack of adhering to that method is a reflection on the operator, that any operator that runs a movie without first pre-screening it in it's entirety - no matter what the reason - is somehow sub-standard.
Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 05-05-2016, 10:13 PM:
The other thing to remember about Frank is that his theater is run solely by him -- so I agree with him, it wouldn't be good to have to leave the downstairs just hanging there, while he was up in the booth trying to figure out what the hell happened.
I don't know how he does the solo-thing, quite honestly. I've had a couple of occasions over the years when an employee didn't show up and I've had to run the whole place myself. It was maddening. But, I guess there are two considerations -- we're not set up for that, so it makes it really hard to do, where his place is built to run that way; and, I am not used to working in the concession. I try to stay outta there as much as possible because I just get in the way!
Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 05-06-2016, 01:57 AM:
Frank, if you don't mine me asking, how many seats do you have? How many showings do you offer in a typical week?
Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 05-06-2016, 02:10 AM:
I have 153 seats plus two wheelchair parking spaces. The theatre very rarely fills, though -- my average nightly attendance is usually somewhere between 5 and 50 people.
I usually play one show per night, 7 nights a week, plus Saturday and Sunday afternoon matinees if I have a kids show. I close two days per year -- Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This gives me a once-yearly opportunity to paint the auditorium floor and give it a chance to dry and have the smell dissipate.
I rarely play more than one show per week, but maybe once or twice a year I do that. For example, I played Miracles from Heaven at 7pm last week from Friday to Thursday (last night) and 10 Cloverfield Lane at 9pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday only. But starting tonight (Friday) I'll be playing The Huntsman at 8pm, every night up to and including next Thursday. I watched it myself this afternoon, and now the people around here will have 7 opportunities to see it over the course of this coming week.
That's pretty much my usual schedule and routine.
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