This is topic Former Employees Sneaking In To An Employee Screening. in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 03-19-2004, 10:06 PM:
 
I have a dilemma.

Last night, we had an employee showing of Dawn Of The Dead.
This theatre has a large balcony where the rear speakers are. No access is possible without climbing on the seats and walls like a monkey.
During the previews, I hear a loud shriek behind me and up. I look up to see a person on the balcony in a white shirt. I have absolutely no clue who it is. I get up to go upstairs to look out the port window and see who it is when I am stopped by another employee watching the show.

He tells me that it might be 2 former employees that quit about a week ago. I tell him that I am only going to look and I wasn't planning on telling the boss. I go upstairs to look out the window when I am confronted by the boss.

Her: What the hell are you doing up here?
Me: I thought I saw someone on the balcony.
Her: Who?
Me: I don't know, I was about to check.
She then stuck her head out the window and couldn't see anyone.
Her: Who is it?
Me: I think it might be (the 2 former employees).
She then shuts the projector down, goes downstairs w/ a ladder, and gets them down.

She then called the police and had them both tresspassed for 90 days. After that, she started up the movie again and that was that.

Today, I'm now being called a narc, a rat, and a sell out. I think what I did was right. I had no intentions on telling the boss but I was questioned upstairs.

My question to all of you, Did I do the right thing? Would you have done the same thing in my position? I know that if I snuck up on the balcony, I would be ratted out in a heartbeat. I'm starting to doubt if I made the right decision.

Finally, I was told today that the boss talked to the DM and apparently there won't be anymore employee showings with the exception of when I build, I can watch.

What do you think?
 

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Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 03-19-2004, 10:27 PM:
 
Richard - You did the right thing. The DM also did the right thing. Employee screenings are nothing but trouble waiting to happen. The projectionist who built it and a manager should be the ONLY people allowed to screen a film.
 

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Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 03-19-2004, 10:31 PM:
 
Richard,

You did the right thing. If, for nothing else, look at it this way.

Say one of these kids happened to fall and get hurt or even killed. Guess who is held accountable for it? Yes, the theatre. These two were trespassing and shoudl have been arrested, not just given a trespass warning. You can bet your sweet ass that I have, in my days, stopped many a show and given people that had been let in by employees the option of either leaving voluntarily or being 'escorted out'. Those employees, by in large, didn't last very long after these 'ejections'.

So far as I read, the rest of your staff, and I presume they are mainly kids, haven't quite reached the level of maturity that perhaps you have. Or, quite frankly, they probably just dont' give a damn. At any rate, we have a standing CORPORATE policy that prohibits ANY employees, save management and operators from screening films. Your manager should already know that. If she doesn't, she doesn't know policy that well. If she does, and she allows employees to screen, then she has openly allowed herself to be held fully accountable for anything and verything that could possibly result from having employees and/or friends in the building. Trust me, it's not a good position to be in.

Talk to 10 different managers and you'll likely get 7 different responses. In my opinion, the two who were disrespectful enough to climb walls and be where they shoudln't be weren't punished enough.
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-19-2004, 10:45 PM:
 
Employee screenings suck. I don't know many people that work at my theater so it is hard to keep track of whether they are all employees. It is only a matter of time before I decide to do away with screenings for all of the staff. Only booth and managers should be in the screenings. Allowing the rest of the staff to screen only causes problems and annoyances for the booth staff. Let them watch it during a regualat show.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-19-2004, 10:48 PM:
 
Did current employees let them in or was it truly trespassing?
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-19-2004, 11:37 PM:
 
You did the right thing... if for no other reason than you weren't deceptive when your manager asked what was going on.

You are only a narc to those who were trying to get away with something, knowing it probably would not have been approved by the theatre management, had it been run through proper channels. I might not have gone to the point of trespassing the former employees... but then you didn't indicate why they're "former" employees. There might be a good reason for it. Still, the other staff made a judgment call that wasn't within their right to do. The fallout is their problem, not yours.

Don't sweat it. You've shown that you know who your work for... something maybe others there need reminding of.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 03-20-2004, 12:33 AM:
 
Employee screenings, if they happen at all, are SPECIAL TREATS.

Let's say that a certain movie is a real blockbuster. The boss knows that a lot of employees are going to want free passes to shows. If he has a special employee screening it will take the heat off so that employees don't take seats from paying customers. Employees get a little treat in return for not asking for passes for the rest of the week.

How about having a special screening for people who have worked extra hard? At the end of the year, the boss decides that the "good" kids can come to watch a movie.

I don't really know what reasons, but it's up to the boss to decide what they are... IF there are to be any at all!

No matter how you slice it, kids who don't work there shouldn't be in the theater AT ALL unless they bought a ticket. Furthermore, nobody, whether employee or not, should be climbing the walls to get up to the balcony which is obviously off-limits to everybody but booth workers and managers.

These kids were WRONG to even be in the building, let alone stealing movies and committing wreckless acts!

What if one of them had an accident? What if one of them damaged the seats or something? Could you be considered a witness? Probably!

Let's imagine that nothing went wrong but the boss found out later. Could you be called onto the carpet because you were complicit in the affair? Probably.

Would you want to put your job or your reputation on the line for these piss ant little punks? Probably not.

If the situation was reversed would THEY have taken the risk for YOU? Probably not.

Finally, most people don't just simply "get into trouble." They usually "get THEMSELVES into trouble!"

Don't worry about it! They're a bunch of no good little punks! I would have reported them in a heartbeat! They've got nerve trying to make YOU look like the bad guy! THEY are the criminals, not you!

FUCK THEM! Good riddance to bad rubbish!
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 03-20-2004, 02:28 AM:
 
i would say you didn't do anything wrong per se, as you answered a question you were directly asked, and in this case it looks like the perps were putting themselves and possibly the theater furnishings in jeopardy.

however, in general, i don't see any reason to be a hardass about screenings. if need be, lay down some ground rules for behavior (no smoking, no sex except in the back row , etc.). but what's the big deal if the staff as a whole (& a couple friends) gets a treat? it keeps morale up in the face of shitty wages.

still, that's a matter of policy and probably not something you have any say in.

carl
 

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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 03-20-2004, 11:09 AM:
 
As Ky once said to a lady in the lobby:

"Look lady, my theatre, my rules."
 

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Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-20-2004, 11:38 AM:
 

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but what's the big deal if the staff as a whole (& a couple friends) gets a treat?

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If the person building up the print is competent, why the heck screen it.

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Lots of reasons... many things you can't notice at the bench while building, like if the sound goes out of sync on a bad reel or drops out of digital consistently. You also can't see if there's any safelight fogging, or something like I found: the leader of the reel printed ON TOP OF several feet of film in the MIDDLE of the reel of our LXG print... strange, but true.

Pre-screenings, especially of films that are expected to do a high volume over the weekend aren't just a good idea, they should be mandatory! That being said, I agree they should only be for the projectionist and/or management. You're there to check the print, the other employees are there to watch the movie, which means they really have no reason to be there at that time.

But it's gotta go both ways... Management shouldn't be allowed to corral their friends into screenings, either. Back when Austin Powers 2 came out, my manager called me in on my day off to build the 3 prints. I came, I built, and he told me I can watch one of them with my brother. I come back to the theater later, and there's the manager with a LARGE group of his friends and a woman under each arm telling me that "I have the theater for the night" and that I had to go home. WTF kind of example does that set for the "no employee screenings" policy?? The guy was a dick. So I told the DM. He was "transferred" after that... to a theater closer to him & his WIFE'S house

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-20-2004, 04:00 PM:
 

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You also can't see if there's any safelight fogging

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Sure you can, as long as you have your eyes open, and look in the right places.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-20-2004, 05:36 PM:
 
IMHO, it is necessary to run a print through before customers pay to see it played.

As Thomas pointed out, you never know when there may be a big problem with the print itself.

Also, while some may be great at building up prints no one is 100% perfect at it. If you take pride in your print handling you'll be deeply embarrassed if customers wait until late in the weekend to tell you there is a frame line right through the center of Reel 5.

As the law sees it (and this sometimes get spelled out in printed notices in the cans of big title film prints) only the projectionist and perhaps the manager can view the print. Usually two people, tops.

Theaters can get into a hell of a lot of trouble if distributors find out you're letting a lot of people view the movie before opening day. Employees and friends of management have to realize just what kind of courtesy they're being afforded by being able to watch a movie before it opens. They need to understand the risk.

When you have a couple idiotically stupid teenage brats climbing into an inaccessible balcony, shrieking and doing all sort of other nonsense (probably up there puffing on meth pipes or each other's flesh flutes) they risk doing a shit load of damage to the theater. Not only will the theater get sued if they get hurt. Wind of the incident would indeed travel to distributors and cost the theater management their jobs.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-20-2004, 08:39 PM:
 

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I never understood why the need for screenings at all.

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there's the manager with a LARGE group of his friends and a woman under each arm telling me that "I have the theater for the night" and that I had to go home. WTF kind of example does that set for the "no employee screenings" policy?? The guy was a dick. So I told the DM.

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Thomas, why didn't you just take a crap on the floor?

( )
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 03-21-2004, 02:22 AM:
 
i agree that employees should be held accountable for their guests. personally i think a signup sheet is a bit much and shutting the show down rather draconian (and potentially damaging to the print!), but i'm sure there have been circumstances that warranted these decisions. just remember that maintaining a good working environment is also very important, and helps prevent the disgruntlement of employees which probably contributes a lot to these problems in the first place.

the more the staff knows about the films the better. that way they can better answer important customer questions like "does so-and-so get nekkid in the movie?".

nobody gets paid to screen our films. i do it anyways, whether it's just me and a pint of ben and jerry's, or a whole slew of people. hey, i like to watch films.

carl
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 03-21-2004, 02:38 AM:
 

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Thomas, why didn't you just take a crap on the floor?

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No, no, no, Mike! The trick is you don't let them KNOW who did it. You have to wait until one of those "senior citizen," low-percap, Kevin Costner movies comes out....

=TMP=
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 03-21-2004, 08:00 AM:
 
Brad Allen said:

quote:

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I never understood why the need for screenings at all... If the person building up the print is competent, why the heck screen it.

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Brad, you took the words right out of my mouth. I've wondered this for years. When I was a projectionist, I learned the hard way to inspect prints by hand, stop on every splice, remake the bad ones (with a chemical splicer at that), and ensure it was ready to go.

Typically, I could be finished with a 5 or 6 reel movie in 20 or 30 minutes (okay, I know you have longer movies today, so I'll give an hour). Even if I had a print in marginal condition, I might be in for an hour or less. No one should have to run it through a projector to see if they can splice in-frame. What a colossal waste of time!

Oh, by the way, screening a film to inspect it doesn't guarantee a splice won't come apart on you during the run -- my method did. I didn't have a film break, nor did I have a single out-of-frame on the screen in over 20 years (and much of this in the 70s, with bad drive-in exploitation prints)! The fear of a print problem during operation was one anxiety I never had.
 

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Posted by Mike Baer (Member # 1519) on 03-21-2004, 08:18 AM:
 
Screening a print is not only to ensure that the print is okay.
I also check the runtime.Better you(and the floorstaff) know from the first show on,how long the movie is.
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-21-2004, 09:37 AM:
 
Tim says: "When I was a projectionist, I learned the hard way to inspect prints by hand, stop on every splice, remake the bad ones (with a chemical splicer at that), and ensure it was ready to go."

The following is from a purely technical standpoint:

In my opinion, you want to hand check as well as pre-screen. Some kinds of issues are best caught on the bench (splices). Other issues are really only caught on-screen (digital and analog sound issues; on new prints: applicator splash, sound sync, odd printing problems, etc.; on used prints: intermittant scratches). Realistically, its also possible to miss lab splices when handchecking (OK, some people never miss them, but I certainly have), and screening provides a good cross-check.

As a nontheatrical, we get plenty of used prints, and we find pre-screening to be of immense benefit in grading those prints and determining when we need a replacement.

Issues of policy and guests and pretty complicated.

Bobby said, "As the law sees it (and this sometimes get spelled out in printed notices in the cans of big title film prints) only the projectionist and perhaps the manager can view the print. Usually two people, tops." Umm, I think you're confused here, what are you basing this on? I don't recall any mention of this in either notices with prints or in studio contracts. (I agree studios would be rightly upset to find rampant quality-assurance screenings being used as vehicles to reduce their revenue.)

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 03-21-2004, 12:43 PM:
 
We verify prints. The manager who builds them up can be paid to watch them. Any employee who wishes may attend. Spouses or spousal equivalents are allowed, however no friends may attend. We encourage our employees to see our films either at the screening or any other time so that they are informed when the discuses film with our patrons.
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 03-21-2004, 02:40 PM:
 
I was a union operator by the time I was 17. I'm now 50. (Damn, I keep forgetting I've been doing this a LONG time. )

I was trained by probably one of the most anal retentive operators you ever saw. He had been an operator since age of 13. Told me stories of the need to stand on a wood crate to see to make the changeovers. He was approaching his early 70's when he trained me.

In a small town. Back in the days when 400 prints was a huge wide release.
By the time I got a print, it had been thru the mill....twice.

It was nothing to spend 2hrs working on it to make it as runable as possible. Get a replacement print? Ha! We were lucky to have the one we had. Besides, probably would of taken days to get it.
We were still changing films twice per week at that time.

My point is, I was taught, and learned from experience to inspect and repair prints. Hence my questioning the practice of screening prints. I don't see it.

And I walked 3 miles, in knee deep snow, UPHILL BOTH WAYS to get to work.
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-21-2004, 02:45 PM:
 

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"As the law sees it (and this sometimes get spelled out in printed notices in the cans of big title film prints) only the projectionist and perhaps the manager can view the print. Usually two people, tops." Umm, I think you're confused here, what are you basing this on? I don't recall any mention of this in either notices with prints or in studio contracts.

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I know specifically such notices were in the cans for the "Star Wars" films.

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I can verify that. I stuck that notice on the auditorium door when I ran screenings of those prints.

I also ran midnight "World Premiere Showings" as they called them, in a couple theatres with mono sound. So much for their booking "requirements".

I had to stand on a milk crate to see out the port window for a few years Brad, but I still can't always tell if a digital sound track is going to play or not... sometimes I can. Maybe I should have stood on a wooden crate.

I still walk 3 miles up hill both ways to school. The snow is often waste deep though.
 

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Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-21-2004, 11:06 PM:
 
There's no way to screen the prints, for obvious reasons.

As long as you get the print by mid-afternoon you could test screen it. Just stick a piece of cardboard on the port and slide the lens out to a point where it will focus. You might have to use the flat lens for Scope and view it squeezed but it would tell you everything you need to know about the print. Bring sunglasses or use gray cardboard.
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 03-22-2004, 10:41 AM:
 
We never had to pre-screen a film unless it was a premiere or a double-system screening. It all depended on what part of the food chain your theatre was on as to what kind or grade of the print you got. In the first run Los Angeles market, select theatres got better prints than other first run houses in the market. You could be a high grossing theatre in a outer area and you would get a standard release print. While theatres in Westwood, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Century City, Beverly Hills and Universal City of the Los Angeles market. Would get EK prints plus a back-up print.
I was lucky to have worked first run Los Angeles area theatres. So I never had to deal with poor prints, unless I got a filler engagement and got a print from a hack theatre operator.

I can see now that with larger print runs of regular release prints. That you have to spend extra time on the inspection to screen problems that the lab has passed on to you.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-22-2004, 11:22 AM:
 
(from Steve):

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As long as you get the print by mid-afternoon you could test screen it. Just stick a piece of cardboard... Bring sunglasses or use gray cardboard.

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My point is, I was taught, and learned from experience to inspect and repair prints. Hence my questioning the practice of screening prints. I don't see it.

And I walked 3 miles, in knee deep snow, UPHILL BOTH WAYS to get to work.

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OK, Brad... you've got me on the walk to work. I had a Honda Trail-90!

As for experience, training & unfortunately, age... my background is fairly comparable. The comparision between what we're running today though, is much different. Back then, film wasn't run at breakneck speeds through the processors, then spliced to death in the booth. I never heard of a self-respecting projectionist who would consider cutting the leader off of a feature to splice in a trailer pack. Even those who put their prints on 6,000 foot reels were frowned upon. Except for the obvious issues of manual operations, proper threading and keeping enough carbon in the lamphouses were our major concerns. If you had a problem, it was generally limited to one reel that was easy to get to, because it wasn't wound on a huge platter spool. Oh... we usually didn't have more than one screen to worry about, either.

I'm sure many people here can build up a show and run it with a crowd in relative confidence... though I'd bet most of us would be in the booth... or nearby during the first run-through. However, with the number of screens we're responsible for, and the way we hook everything up today, I'm much more comfortable running my prints through before I present them to a paying audience... and I intentionally pass that ethic along to anyone I train these days.
 

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Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-22-2004, 01:50 PM:
 
In my experience, it's next-to-useless to have anyone besides myself prescreen a film anyways, because most people aren't as picky as I am. I once ran one for someone where right away I could see the picture was bouncing up and down during the first reel- I asked the manager watching it if she noticed it and she said no, then later proceeded to give a blowjob to the guy she brought with her (no I'm NOT making this up!)
Another time I had a used print and it turned out there was extra cue tape on the end credits that caused it to shut down early, but I only knew because I happened to be in the booth- the kid who screened the film left at the beginning of the credits. This place PAID people to pre-screen prints too!
 

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Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 03-22-2004, 02:25 PM:
 
...and you were worried about the bouncing. Ya should've just got in line!
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-26-2004, 08:48 AM:
 
Employee screenings are good in my opinion. As with anything else, if you have a couple of bad eggs spoiling it for everyone, then you have a bad egg problem, not an employee privilege problem.

Someone mentioned that the studios would frown on so many people seeing the movie without paying for it. I doubt that. The employees WORK at the theater, and it only makes sense that they know the products they are selling. How many times a night does a customer walk up to an employee and ask what they would recommend, or what's this movie about, or which is the Tom Hanks movie, or whatever. I think they should be encouraged to watch the movies when they're screened. Like everything else you do with your employees, you set rules, and if you have someone who can't follow the rules, you get rid of the employee.

I recently worked at a theater where there were no employee screenings at all. Yet the managers would come in on Thursday nights with ten friends, usually drunk, and screen the new movies. The employees of course took this as a big and it showed in their productivity and dedication.
 

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Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 03-26-2004, 09:54 AM:
 

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Typically, I could be finished with a 5 or 6 reel movie in 20 or 30 minutes (okay, I know you have longer movies today, so I'll give an hour). Even if I had a print in marginal condition, I might be in for an hour or less. No one should have to run it through a projector to see if they can splice in-frame. What a colossal waste of time!

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Then again, I did get the last three reels on as the film was running. I learned very quickly how to splice one end of a reel to another while it is spinning on a platter and get it right in a matter of three seconds.

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Aside from digital tracks (which can be checked on the first show and which aren't an issue in non-digital houses), there's no reason why any and all problems can't be spotted on the bench.

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Then again, I did get the last three reels on as the film was running. I learned very quickly how to splice one end of a reel to another while it is spinning on a platter and get it right in a matter of three seconds. Not recommended, but if you know what you are doing and understand the equipment and what film is, then you have a pretty good shot of pulling anything off

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quote:

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I once ran one for someone where right away I could see the picture was bouncing up and down during the first reel- I asked the manager watching it if she noticed it and she said no, then later proceeded to give a blowjob to the guy she brought with her (no I'm NOT making this up!)

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She was probably bouncing up and down too, hence the reason she didn't notice.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-27-2004, 03:20 PM:
 
Based on several private responses I've received to my comment in this thread, I obviously suck and don't care and my presentations are terrible. I am a bad persion and the industry would be better off without me.

Seriously, I haven't seen a correctable (by replacing the print) lab problem that hasn't been obvious on the rewind bench. Maybe I've just been lucky. In the hundreds (thousands?) of prints I've handled, new and old, I've seen only a couple of defective reels (one had scratches, one had been wound wet and the emulsion was sticking to the next layer of film; there might have been a handful of others). All of these defects were completely obvious.

The prints that I deal with at the moment and for the forseeable future are a mix of new, used, and repertory, and are almost all "limited" releases (anywhere from 1-1000 prints), where the lab work tends to be better than with mega-saturation releases.
 

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Posted by Dustin Mitchell (Member # 372) on 03-27-2004, 03:39 PM:
 
I'd like to state for the record that I don't doubt that Scott is a fine film handler. Although it might have come across as such my reply was not meant to be sarcastic or 'talking down' to him in any way; I was honestly wondering if my print inspection skills needed refining.

For what its worth, with virgin prints one could probably get away with no inspection/pre-screening 95% of the time. Skipping inspection and/or pre-screening can be rather dangerous though especially with blockbusters; there is that 5% to worry about after all.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 03-28-2004, 10:10 PM:
 
I for one am not bashing anyone or their film handling / showmanship skills. I'm just saying that there are problems that aren't detectable without screening. Like the Bruce Almighty reel 3 DTS problem. It's also a lot easier and more thorough to just build the damn thing and screen it rather than to try and study two miles of film on the bench.

But, to each his own, I guess!
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-29-2004, 03:25 AM:
 
I once had a similar example: a print of Hilary and Jackie in which the SR-D track was perfect, but the analogue SR was about a second out of sync on one reel. This being a film about classical music, it was instantly noticeable! We only found that out after moving the print from a digital to a non-digital screen at the end of its first week. When I looked at the reel after breaking it down there was no way you could have seen that for sure. There was no start mark printed through from a sound neg in the wrong place, for example. OK, the visible modulations on the SVA track did continue for a foot or so into the black at the end, but you often see that on perfectly kosher prints.

After that incident I made a point of always cycling through all the sound formats we could play, at least once during each reel, whenever I rehearsed a print.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 03-29-2004, 09:37 PM:
 
The most likely areas to have safelight fogging are near the head and tail, and near any ultrasonic lab splices. Safelight fog on print film is usually bluish in color, depending on the film type, type of safelight, and duration/intensity of exposure.

Edgefog can sometimes occur if rolls of unprocessed film were left out underneath a safelight too long.
 

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