Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Tagged Theaters

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Posted by Jeff Stuckey (Member # 1718) on 09-01-2004, 11:18 AM:

I was at the AMC Quail Springs theater the other day and noticed that one of their larger auditoriums had been 'tagged' with graffiti all over the entry way. I am sure they were taking steps to clean it up, but it just makes me angry the lack of respect some people have.

Just out of curiousity, have any of your theatres been 'tagged' in any way (either inside or out). What did you do to get rid of it? And what would you do if you caught someone doing it? I just remember my old theatre in Tulsa being marked up all the time on the outside. It seemed we were calling out sandblasting people every week.

Thanks in advance for all of your replies.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 09-01-2004, 11:42 AM:

Our theater's bathroom and trashcans get "tagged" regularly. Usually by those punk pre-pubescent kids with those do-rags on their heads. It's fun sometimes to write a degrading remark such as "*TAG* Is a _____" before we get in there with the graffitti remover. Hopefully they have a chance to read it [Wink]

A theater I worked at previously had one of the screens tagged in the lower left corner. Done with permenant marker, so there was little that could be done. It was still there when I left.

=TMP=

Posted by Mike Spaeth (Member # 524) on 09-01-2004, 11:53 AM:

A good temporary fix for a tagged screen is white shoe polish

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 09-01-2004, 12:21 PM:

"A theater I worked at previously had one of the screens tagged in the lower left corner."

Must've been someone who works for one of the TV networks [Wink]

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-01-2004, 12:22 PM:

quote: Mike Spaeth
A good temporary fix for a tagged screen is white shoe polish

But don't use shoepolish or white-out to mark the splices on a print! [Eek!]

White shoepolish has a gain of about 1.0, suitable for matte screens. Anyone know of gain screen "touch up" paint?

Posted by Bill Carter (Member # 156) on 09-01-2004, 12:42 PM:

We have problems every now and then with tagging, mostly in the restrooms. The trick is to get rid of it as soon as possible.

We might go literally for months with none, but if we don't remove graffiti as soon as we see it, it only takes a couple of days for all the others to join in. If somebody tags the restroom stall on Friday afternoon and we leave it up, by Sunday nearly the entire restroom will be covered.

Also, I think once the "regulars" realize their handiwork won't stick around long enough for other folks to see, they quit wasting their time.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 09-01-2004, 04:09 PM:

I remember in Las Vegas - the theatre was tagged on a daily basis. Especially in the restrooms and stalls. Usually with the stereotypical "L.A." gang-type graffiti. Although I am sure it was younger teens just trying to emulate their heroes.

Here in Maryland it is not quite as bad. Every once in a while we get it - but not as often as on the west coast.

Posted by Christopher Duvall (Member # 284) on 09-01-2004, 06:25 PM:

All tagging reminds me of is a bunch of low life sub-human animals needing to piss all over the place to mark their territory. It is no better than cat piss. [Mad]

This is to the animals that carved my mirrors 2 weeks ago. They actually went through the protective coating. [fu]

Posted by Ky Boyd (Member # 23) on 09-01-2004, 09:52 PM:

Yep, we've been tagged a bunch of times in the last 4 and a half years. We have a can of our exterior paint and exterior trim paint handy. We try to paint it out as soon as we discover it. If it's excessive, which it has been in a couple of cases, we call the police and file a report. The city used to have a graffiti task force, but with the ubiquitous budget cuts that is a thing of the past.

We've gotten tagged a few times inside. Twice in auditoriums and several times in the rest rooms. The first 3 times were all by the same person, writing the same message in the women's restroom. After three appearances of Suzie X is a $#%@, I posted a sign with this message in the women't restroom:
Vandalism is an ugly thing.
Apparently one of our female customers doesn’t care for a person they know and has decided to share this thought with all who enter this restroom. In fact, they have shared this thought with us three times now. We are getting tired of having our women’s restroom grafitti’d. It just doesn’t go with our aesthetic.
If you are the person doing this, please don’t do it again, we got the message the first time. If you really feel the need to express yourself, please ask the box office for a piece of paper, we’ll be happy to provide you with some.
If you know who has been doing this, we’d love to know.
Thank you.

Apparently the person got the message because we never got that graffiti again.

Posted by Brandon Willis (Member # 2345) on 09-02-2004, 10:49 AM:

We've been tagged several times in the past few months, always in the handicapped stall in the men's room, always with a blue paint marker. It usually happens on the weekends so it's got to be one of those hoodlums who hang out in the lobby all night on Saturday.

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 09-02-2004, 08:02 PM:

We got tagged last year on the back side of our building, although I don't know if there's any gangs in the southern suburbs around Minneapolis. We used some of our stock grafitti remover and it was clean gone in a few days.

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 09-02-2004, 09:53 PM:

A few years ago in Houston, a theatre owner was painting the screen with KILT [Eek!]

I walked to do an emergency call when I asked him what was he doing, he said someone the night before wrote names on the screen with a black marker & he was painting over the writing...I said NOOO !! you just killed that screen, he said he painted all four screens & they look great....Wait until I go upstairs & put a light on the screen....WHOOOAAAA WEEEE it was bad !!! needless to say all 4-screens was replaced...moral of story "Do Not Paint A Screen With Kilt".... [Big Grin]

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-02-2004, 10:43 PM:

quote: Don Sneed
..moral of story "Do Not Paint A Screen With Kilt"....

I am sure it had to be the PLAID that messed up the screen image [Big Grin]

Surely you meant KILZ, not KILT?

-Aaron

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 09-03-2004, 11:19 AM:

Again, any white paint will usually not match the characteristics of a gain screen, and show up as a dark spot when you project an image. For a matte white screen, test any "coverup" first -- project open gate "white light", and see how obvious the patch is from a variety of angles.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 09-03-2004, 05:59 PM:

I have found that white athletic tape makes a pretty good coverup for splotches, marks and small holes in the screen.

There was one time I had to patch a screen because some shit head cut a three foot long gash across the bottom of a screen. I sort of sewed it up with "Spider Wire" fishing line then taped it front and back with white athletic tape.

It was almost perfect except for the slight pucker in the material because I couldn't put enough tension on it to make it perfectly flat without the risk of tearing. Since the damage was in the bottom corner of the screen it wasn't very noticible.

There was another time when I had to fix a small "barn door tear" in a screen. This time the damage was almost dead center. Once I taped over it (front and back) and rubbed it down it was almost impossible to tell where the repair was unless you were a few feet from it. Since the closest rows were more than 10 feet back and the spot was more than 10 feet up in the air, you couldn't find the patch even if you were looking for it.

Don't use the shiny vinyl kind of adhesive tape often sold as First Aid supplies. Use the matte, cloth backed stuff that athletic trainers use to tape up anlkes and stuff with.

It's been a long time since I had to do any screen repairs but I bet white gaffer's tape would do the trick as well. Honestly, I'm not eager to find out. [Wink]

Just for the record. When people write grafitti on walls, it's NOT "tagging". It's VANDALISM! Calling it "tagging", "marking territory" or any other popular name only serves to romanticize it. Call it what it is, lest you encourage others to do it.

As to removal, I agree that it should be removed or at least covered up as soon as possible after you discover it. As others have said, it discourages others from "putting in their 2 cents". Second, if it IS some kind of gang marking removing it prevents whoever is responsible from claiming your theater as their "turf". Remove it... Paint it over... Scratch it out or cover it up the same day you discover it.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 09-03-2004, 09:04 PM:

The only time I've seen any signs of theater "tagging" was at the Edwards Irvine Spectrum. Someone had ruined the mirrors in the mens room with whatever that chemical is that etches glass. It was way ugly.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 09-03-2004, 09:16 PM:

I think I have told this story before but it bears repeating here.

Somebody threw a huge wad of very sticky gum onto our several-year-old screen and when I pulled it off, the pearlescent coating came off with it. Needless to say it looked like crap, and we had "Titanic" coming up that weekend.

I was singing the blues about this to a friend of mine who's wife was a fingernail-art person. When I used the word "Pearlescent" her eyes lit up and she said "I have that kind of stuff in my nail paint." So, against my better judgement I said we could give it a try. She used the colorless "pearl" nail paint to fix the spot. It looked almost perfect.

We still replaced the screen (insurance covered it) but we got through the "Titanic" run with no complaints.

Posted by R. Andrew Diercks (Member # 1725) on 09-05-2004, 11:17 AM:

We have never been gang tagged, but our newest addition was spray painted in bright orange F#$@ You. Some little punk kids I'm sure. We weren't even open yet.

Posted by Brent Neal Jones (Member # 1048) on 09-10-2004, 02:18 PM:

Two words, I'm suprised no one else said; nail polish.