Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Regal Shows Wrong Guardians Movie... Mutlple Times

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-01-2014, 10:04 PM:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/guardians-galaxy-theater-repeatedly-shows-722926

quote:
Well, at least they got the Guardians part right.

Expletives flew at a Guardians of the Galaxy screening Thursday, when a Regal Cinemas in Virginia repeatedly showed the opening segment of 2012's Rise of the Guardians instead of the Marvel Studios tentpole.

Dean Browell, who was sitting in the audience with his 10-year-old daughter, says they sat through 15 minutes of previews, followed by five minutes of the animated movie before an employee popped in to say they were trying to fix the situation.

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The audience then withstood the same 15 minutes of previews again … only for Rise of the Guardians to start playing once more. At this point, the theater offered to give people tickets to a later 3D Imax showing, and about half the people at the 2D screening took them up on the offer.

But the other screening was too late for the Browells, so they persevered.

"There was a 10 minute wait, then the lights went down again and the third go of previews started, this time with the new Interstellar one, which gave us hope," Browell tells The Hollywood Reporter.

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No luck. Rise started playing a third time — to major expletives from the agitated crowd.

"It was now 9:15 p.m., from an 8 p.m. movie," says Browell. "Those left in the theater stormed out and then joined a line 50-people long trying to get their money back, anything. We were so disappointed."

Don't worry, true believers. This story has a happy ending. The theater refunded their tickets and gave them a poster as well as tickets to a Friday show.

Why do they need to run through the trailers each and every time? Can't they build a temporary playlist without them? Surely the technology exists to skip the damned trailers, does it not? Even Blu-ray lets you do that. Also why do they have a shitty movie from 2012 along with working keys on their server?

I bet the file names of the files are to blame, honestly. I mean how can they not be when they're so convoluted when they need to be plain Engrish. So the staff probably confused 6343527_GUARDIANS_SC_9689587_51_483594395 when they should have been running 56985476_GUARDIANS_567846_51_348975 instead! Hell, are the file names even THAT descriptive?

Posted by Harold Hallikainen (Member # 5405) on 08-01-2014, 10:50 PM:

The naming convention is at http://isdcf.com/papers/ISDCF-Doc1-Digital-Cinema-Naming-Convention.pdf .

I understand the other movie was from 2012. It's interesting that the keys were still valid.

Harold

Posted by Randy Pryde (Member # 7488) on 08-01-2014, 11:14 PM:

I believe that "Rise of the Guardians" is part of Regal's Summer Movie Express kid show series. That may explain why validated copies were on servers in so many locations.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 08-01-2014, 11:27 PM:

The fact that they need a 24-page document just to explain the naming conventions is... sad.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 08-01-2014, 11:58 PM:

On the Doremi server, one just opens the playlist, delete the trailers and hit play. However, if the wrong Guardians is on the SMS, and the right one isn't...it may take too long to migrate the right one over.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-02-2014, 12:06 AM:

quote: James Westbrook
On the Doremi server, one just opens the playlist, delete the trailers and hit play.

Why would you even need to do that? Just pause the movie, hit FF until the feature is cued up and hit play again.

They've probably got some setup where no humans can get within a mile of the projector controls without a special key or something like that.

I can see the problem with the SMS though. I'll bet the old Guardians movie just had Guardians as the first word of the filename, just like this new one does.

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 08-02-2014, 12:16 AM:

Fast forwarding works too.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-02-2014, 01:09 AM:

I have the same FOX package that "Rise/Guardians" content comes from and FOX did send down two week keys for this feature.

Some locations with REGAL are now getting their content directly by satellite instead of local HD ingesting along with the automatic deliver of the keys.

Thus, all content is assembled via the office terminal and the scheduling comes off of the main terminal. Shows that a keyword "Guardian" was used and the other feature was included by mistake.

But still ... total human error on why it wasn't caught the first time and the POS terminal wasn't changed to reflect the error.

Shows how bad the industry is going where "Suits" don't have a clue on how to operate their location.

-Monte

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 08-02-2014, 01:10 AM:

This is absolutely hysterical. And yes, it's even easier than fast forwarding to skip the trailers. Just look at the time cue for where the trailers end, type that in, hit play. Skip directly to feature.

I am EXTREMELY amused, I have to say.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 08-02-2014, 02:31 AM:

Still I don't get it...

Did they have an "illegally" ripped version on there somewhere? Where they showing Rise of the Guardians as a re-run? (Which also could explain the fact that the movie was still in there, I doubt they have unlimited storage and can afford to keep every movie that passes by for two years or longer.)

Or how else do they explain that the KDM was still valid?

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-02-2014, 02:49 AM:

quote: Marcel Birgelen
Did they have an "illegally" ripped version on there somewhere?

A review:

REGAL issued out a drive (and even though I'm not REGAL but got the same drive for our kid show series this summer...) for their "Summer Movie Express" kid show program, and this drive, from Deluxe and FOX, has 6 features containers and one of these containers contains the feature, "Rise of the Guardians."

This one feature probably played the two days before "Guardians/Galaxy" was released and FOX issued out a key that lasted 7 days.

This one theatre probably played "Rise" on a Wed and Thurs, with the key becoming active on the Tuesday before making it ends on Monday of the next week.

Thus "Rise" played the same week that "Galaxy" opens up and "Rise" was still active to be played normally.

Sad thing is that REGAL forbids pre-screens of any kind, thus it leaves one open for massive errors on opening day.

Posted by Allan Riddelll (Member # 5090) on 08-02-2014, 04:11 AM:

We always have two versions on our show playlist.

eg. Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy only

This is done in the event that we might have had a technical fault on the previous show or we're just running late so we dont have to skip the previews or mess about with fast forward / pause buttons etc.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 08-02-2014, 04:17 AM:

CPL for Guardians of the Galaxy 2D: GuardiansGalax_FTR-2_S_EN-EN...

CPL for Rise of the Guardians 2D: GUARDIANS-2D_FTR_F_EN-XX...

The two are similar enough that it would be pretty easy for someone to mix them up. Even someone competent in the booth could easily make a mistake if they weren't paying close attention.

I partially blame Paramount for this one. When they allowed Rise of the Guardians for summer kids shows, they should have had the foresight to see this might be a problem and renamed the CPL RiseGuardians.... And someone high up in Regal should have been monitoring tech issues close enough to see this possibility and created a company wide memo. It also could have been avoided by ensuring play dates were far enough apart there would be no overlap in the valid dates of the keys.

Lastly, I blame the management at this location for not doing a QC check prior to opening the movie. This wasn't a case where you can blame a narrow key window as they keys were good at 00:01 7/30 - or Tuesday night at midnight. But it is a good warning for the studios which provide very narrow key windows that make it difficult to do a proper QC check prior to the first public performance.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 08-02-2014, 10:58 AM:

Before anyone blames this on "digital" I'm going to point out that this sort of thing happened back in the film days too.

A typical scenario would involve two movies sharing a screen, and a careless projectionist threading the wrong one. That's how I got to see "Clueless" for free. We were there to see "Indian in the Cupboard."

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 08-02-2014, 11:22 AM:

Justin, As Monte mentioned, Regal locations have everything monitored and are not allowed to preform prescreenings. Yes, seriously.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-02-2014, 01:58 PM:

But the playlists are still being assembled at the theater, regardless if Regal is monitoring the buildings. It would be very easy as noted above for someone not paying much attention to make that mistake. Film-Tech is the only NOC that offers an automated database to prevent this and handles all of the playlist building.

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 08-02-2014, 03:54 PM:

quote: Joe R.
Why do they need to run through the trailers each and every time? Can't they build a temporary playlist without them?

We just had our digital install about 4 weeks ago, and last week one of our shows started fine, but then somewhere in the trailers, the sound went out of sync and the screen was pixelating badly. Nobody came out to say anything until Apes had started.

I built a temporary playlist with just the feature and my lighting macros. Rebooted the IMB and all was fine. No way would I make people sit through trailers again.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-02-2014, 06:00 PM:

Sorry Manny...while yes there were some incidents of the wrong movie being threaded...how many times did they thread the wrong movie in a row for the same audience...to the point where they had to can the show?

This is not only a DCinema issue it is a mentality issue. That is...when you automate something to the point that your local staff hasn't a clue on how to overcome a problem, you have set yourself up for this sort of disaster.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-02-2014, 07:01 PM:

In the case of film, once the wrong show was loaded up (presuming 2 prints on that screen and presuming a platter multiplex), it's pretty hard to re-thread that same movie and not the only other print sitting there on the platter.

Granted that's not necessarily the case for changeover houses or a platter array, but we're talking about a traditional multiplex here.

Still though in this instance I DO understand why the ORIGINAL screwup happened due to the similar movie titles.

Speaking of "similar labeling", I once started working at a theater where they did not label their prints. That may not seem like a big deal, but they wrapped lots of extra tail leader on the end like any projectionist worth a flip did, so that made it quite difficult to tell what was what and they DID occasionally thread the wrong movie. The lead guy at the time I took over said he could keep up with what was where and on double ups, one was usually noticeably longer than the other, so they could tell that way. Of course I promptly started labeling the tails anyway, as there just wasn't any solid logic in skipping that step. I also thought it was a bit foolish to assume everyone kept up with the format of the print. Sure *I* could (and did) keep up with what was what, but the extra 30 seconds it took to label the print was cheap insurance since there was obviously more than one person in the booth operating.

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 08-02-2014, 07:20 PM:

quote: Steve Guttag
yes there were some incidents of the wrong movie being threaded...how many times did they thread the wrong movie in a row for the same audience...to the point where they had to can the show?

Thank you Steve, for coming up with a response I was having trouble phrasing myself.

I'll admit that many years ago, in my film days, even < I > once managed to
put on a reel of "The Godfather" during a childeren's matinee of "Tipsy Longsocks"
(or whatever her name was)

- - But I realized my mistake within 10 seconds, & I got the correct reel on screen
within two minutes or less. And I didn't do it 3 times in a row.

EDIT: I just remembered the name of the kid show I mis-reeled:
"Pippi Longstocking" -jc-

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 08-02-2014, 07:44 PM:

I run into the same similar situations with these "Marathons" for one feature - like the "Transformers" marathon where the first one and this recent fourth one were shown together for one night only.

One gets all acclimated with a common title and not pay any attention to the sequel numbers or secondary titles and it's easy to get things a bit turned around.

This is where understanding the naming convention and how it's laid out can be beneficial, especially with paying attention to the date code on the end of the naming string where the year is first, then month, and finally the day.

I just about got caught in trouble with this with this "Transformers" marathon when doing the SPL builds where luckily I caught the date between the two CPL's since I was acclimated with just the main title of the feature and not paying attention to the secondary titling.

It can happen ... - Monte

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 08-02-2014, 08:06 PM:

Although I do all the scheduling, trailer & ad placement, and title mapping at my theatre; I spend a good deal of time ensuring all of my assistants understand how the projectors work. I don't just show them how to play, pause, and stop. I spend time teaching them how to load playlists, skip to different points in the playlist, manually execute automation, and so forth. I also spend time teaching them how to read a CPL. While they probably wouldn't know how to fix a problem like this on their own, they know enough that I could easily walk them through the process.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 08-02-2014, 09:03 PM:

It's just too bad that there was nothing in the wrong movie that would have offended the audience there to see the other movie. I always hoped showings of Di$ney's "Frozen" would instead show that OTHER movie called "Frozen" [evil]