Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Keeping riff raff out of the projection room

This is topic Keeping riff raff out of the projection room in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=003034

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-11-2017, 06:26 PM:

Sometimes people who have never been here before manage to get lost on the way into the auditorium and end up standing in front of my projection room door. (I've never quite managed to figure out why this is but they do it!) And once in a while they open that door and by then I've hopefully noticed them there so I can tell them that they've gone the wrong way.

Every time this happens (maybe a couple of times a year) I think I've got to do something to keep people from opening that door, though as far as I know nobody has ever actually entered it and walked up the stairs).

I don't particularly want to put a lock on that door since that sounds like an ongoing nuisance. When it happened last night my wife told me that I should just put a "No Admittance" sign on that door but I suspect that would have as much effect as putting up any other sign, i.e. none at all.

I vaguely remember seeing some sort of a trick doorknob years ago that was designed for situations like this, where you had to squeeze the knob or push a button on the back of the knob or something like that to be able to open the door.

I asked at the hardware store today and the owner there says that he vaguely remembers something like that too, that was designed to keep Grandma from opening the door and wandering off. Unfortunately, he can't find it.

And after much google searching I can't find it either, probably because I don't know what it would be called.

What do you folks use to keep the riff raff out of your projection room? And does anyone know where to find one of those trick doorknobs?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-11-2017, 06:49 PM:

Our booth door has been right at the top of the balcony stairs for 86 years with no lock on the door and I don't think anybody has ever walked into the booth unauthorized. We don't allow anybody under 21 into the balcony so that could be most of the reason.

Since the projection system is password protected, there's not much they could do if they did walk in anyway. Maybe fiddle with the movie volume, that's about it, but I have a remote volume control in the office so I could fix that instantly.

I guess if some drunk/stoned goofball wanted to go in there and start knocking stuff over, that's a possibility but after all these years I'm pretty confident it won't happen. (Now watch it happen this weekend during "Fate of the Furious" - excuse me while I find some wood to knock on)

Posted by Donald Brown (Member # 5427) on 04-11-2017, 08:10 PM:

While access to the projection room is an obvious security consideration, several years ago, I went into the booth briefly, leaving a rear door to the snack bar back room open momentarily. When I returned to the concession, I noticed what I thought to be water on the floor in a dark corner near the electric service. I checked the ceiling for evidence of a roof leak, since a light shower had recently passed. Fortunately, that didn't appear to be the source, so I discounted the puddle as a spill until I began to notice a peculiar smell.
Evidently, an older patron entered the area and urinated on a box of lawn mower parts on the floor! One of the snack bar crew noticed the gent' and directed him out but didn't realize his undiscovered intent!

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-11-2017, 08:10 PM:

Mike--you don't use the default passwords like every other theatre in the world? Seriously, no one ever seems to change the defaults on D-cinema equipment.

As to the original question: do you have a "safety film only permitted in this room" sign on the door? That might clue the clueless in to the idea that perhaps the door is best left unopened. Or maybe just put a "broom closet" sign on the door.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-11-2017, 08:39 PM:

Beware of the tiger?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 04-11-2017, 09:06 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Mike--you don't use the default passwords like every other theatre in the world? Seriously, no one ever seems to change the defaults on D-cinema equipment.

The Roxy's password is"Password" just like Sean Spicer uses!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-12-2017, 01:00 AM:

We haven't changed the default password but who's going to know what that is? Plus, I didn't think they were changeable. At least, I've never found a "change password" menu option anywhere.

No sign on the door at all, it's just a plain unmarked door...and I guess it helps that about 90% of our customers are repeats who know that the bathroom isn't in there.

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 04-12-2017, 02:18 AM:

Sorry for my past of being a "projection room pest". In my defense, let me say that if I hadn't troubled some boothmen (and one booth babe) I would have missed out on this whole field.

I would never have spent half an hour in the two-theater booth at the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center, when I was 17, and come away with about 20 feet of an old print of utterly unique 70mm (reduced from VistaVision).

I would have missed out on producing my first and only film festival (local 16mm films) which was an utter flop but the owner thought it should be one of his duties to the community.

I would have missed out on a "relationship" of sorts amid the most boring Summer EVER.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-12-2017, 04:44 AM:

A simple sign: Staff Only or a more descriptive one: Projection Room, Staff Only, would probably suffice for most.

I personally prefer a more polite signage, you don't want your guests to feel like potential criminals. I don't like those "KEEP OUT" signs all around. It makes me feel unwelcome.

Also, I doubt most people wanting to look inside the booth are really trying to do any harm. You might as well give them a tour and inspire a few of them. [Wink]

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 04-12-2017, 04:49 AM:

I think you should start with a sign. Choose something like 'High Voltage' or similar. Everyone believes that a cinema needs high voltage. That's not on the offensive side, but triggers the survival instinct (well, for most...).

- Carsten

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-12-2017, 05:35 AM:

What we've done at some of our locations, is to purchase the pads with the combination lock on them.

This way, you don't need a key to gain access, but a four digit pin number.

With as expensive as this digital equipment is, and a similar problem with people wandering upstairs - it's been worth the investment.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-12-2017, 07:19 AM:

In Massachusetts, locking the projection booth door is illegal when the building is occupied by the public. Which is not to say that it is not done.

I agree that mechanical push-button locks seem to work well. Electronic versions exist, but the batteries will eventually fail.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-12-2017, 09:39 AM:

Why would it be illegal to lock the projection room door? Is it also illegal to lock the door to supply closet with the spare candy stock, or the boiler room or the elevator maintenance shed?

Posted by Richard P. May (Member # 3598) on 04-12-2017, 10:01 AM:

I'd guess that rule goes back to nitrate days, to be sure a projectionist doesn't get caught in the booth in case of a fire.
These things tend to never get removed.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-12-2017, 12:00 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
As to the original question: do you have a "safety film only permitted in this room" sign on the door? That might clue the clueless in to the idea that perhaps the door is best left unopened.

Happy to provide a "Nitrate film present: no admittance to unauthorized personnel" (complete with a triangular explosion logo) one if it would help! However, such a placard was present on our booth door throughout last weekend, but it failed to prevent a number of booth invasions.

The only nitrate-related legal requirements I'm aware of are that the door has to open outwards, and that it has to be openable from the inside without needing a key or combo, which our doors are: a key lock on the outside, and a lever to operate the lock on the inside.

I just keep the door locked whenever the risk of a booth invasion is significant. It would be nice to have a combo keypad on the door, to prevent the need to fumble around for the key, though.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-12-2017, 03:47 PM:

I suppose Carsten's High Voltage idea works better than explosion warnings. [Smile]

Mechanical keypad door-locks are available for sub $100. I'm not a fan of anything battery-driven, even if the battery lasts for quite a while. Batteries have the nice tendency to fail whenever you need them the most. They must be sentient and sadistic.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-12-2017, 05:39 PM:

I sent Brad a copy of 520 CMR 3.00, which specifies that projection booth doors may not be locked in Massachusetts when the auditorium is occupied by the public. I hope that he posts it here.

Posted by Stephan Shelley (Member # 8587) on 04-12-2017, 05:48 PM:

Massachusetts has always had stricter laws. Look at an old super simplex price list there is a section of parts requited in Massachusetts but not other states.

Posted by Donald Brown (Member # 5427) on 04-12-2017, 08:10 PM:

When I first entered the booth, I had the privilege of being the last operator trained by Joe Cook, the senior projectionist with Interstate Theatres' circuit on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Joe's experience with projection equipment dated back to Holmes hand cranked machines! When I applied for a Massachusetts Motion Picture Machine Operators license, Joe explained that many of the seemingly obsolete safety statutes that were still on the books in Massachusetts dated back to the aftermath of the notorious Coconut Grove Fire.
Manuals from a number of equipment manufacturers list magazine fire trap rollers as "Massachusetts Only" requirements.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 04-12-2017, 10:09 PM:

Just get a door sticker that says "Radioactive."

And another for "Toxic Projector Waste."

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-13-2017, 12:07 AM:

Interesting that a lot of these MA laws dated from the Cocoanut Grove fire. I read an article in the aftermath of the fire in Oakland last December, in a warehouse that was being illegally used as an artists' studio, residence and nightclub. It noted that some of the many CA laws that were being violated in that building were passed in response to the Cocoanut Grove fire, which led to a tightening of safety regulation of public entertainment buildings nationwide.

I can't quote the chapter and verse of either the CA laws and/or City of LA ordinances around projection booth doors: all I know is that the architect who supervised the refurbishment of the Egyptian's booth for nitrate told us that it was OK for a door to need a key or combo to enter the booth, but not to exit it.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 04-13-2017, 05:43 AM:

Massachusetts laws on projection booths

See section 3.08, item 10.

Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 04-13-2017, 07:18 AM:

I'm a little surprised to see how many theatres leave the center of their presentations basically open to anyone.

When I was in the Seattle local, I don't recall that any theatre I worked in had an unlocked booth.

Having paid for my digital upgrades out of the company checkbook, I'm especially cautious (OK, paranoid) about unknowns wandering up there. Even back when we had film, there was always the concern a youngster would wander up and, perhaps innocently enough, lean against a turning platter and shut down the show. As a result, my booth is not only locked, but set so it doesn't unlock when the door is keyed open.

As for tours, we frequently conducted them on request... always supervised. Don't get much of that these days though. By what you can see through the windows, the machines just look like big toasters.

Guess I don't quite get this one. Seems about as reasonable as leaving your safe open.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-13-2017, 07:32 AM:

I think you'll find that it all dates back to nitrate and the potential of fires in general. In the event of an emergency, where the projectionist was knocked unconscious (or dead), you don't want to hamper the firemen from getting access to the center of the fire by any amount of time. Whereas most Nitrate booths were steel and concrete bunkers with some hefty doors, breaking in would have added significant time.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 04-13-2017, 10:59 AM:

Because, in the movie business, we're still to some extent fixated on nitrate and its legacy, perhaps we underestimate the "potential of fires in general" aspect to all of this. Any public building that is dark, containing lots of people in close proximity, high voltage and/or high current electricity, and lots of combustible material is a heightened risk, both of fires starting, and of causing a disproportionately high number of casualties if they do start. I'd be interested to know if the CA law prohibiting doors from needing a key to open from the inside is movie theater-specific or if, as I suspect, it applies to many other types of public building as well.

Of course nitrate is a uniquely dangerous fuel (especially given that using it for its intended purpose involves heating it almost to the point of ignition), but it's by no means the only one; and cinema fires did not end when it disappeared from mainstream use. I'd speculate that the number of deaths and injuries per year worldwide sustained in cinema fires probably didn't diminish significantly, either. The most recent one causing mass fatalities that I know of killed and injured as many as it did for the same reasons as every other mass casualty fire in a place of entertainment: poor leadership and management, which enabled the violation of multiple codes, regulations, and common sense safety precautions.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-13-2017, 05:01 PM:

quote: Jack Ondracek
I'm a little surprised to see how many theatres leave the center of their presentations basically open to anyone.

I guess here, it falls under the heading of "that's the way it's always been."

In the past, the only 'trouble' we've ever had from upstairs is if people had sneaked booze in and got "noisy." Even that problem is very rare, maybe once in 3 years if that.

Our place is small enough (and my ears are "tuned in" enough) that if somebody opened the booth door, I'd hear it instantly and be up the stairs pretty fast. If we were a larger complex I'd definitely want a lock of some kind on the door.

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 04-13-2017, 09:49 PM:

"Smile!" Security camera in use.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-14-2017, 06:44 AM:

If it wouldn't be so horrendously expensive, it would be a great idea to install a gaseous fire suppression system into your booth, like many datacenters use. It's not like the equipment in there nowadays is anywhere close to cheap and affordable.

At least you'd have a very good reason to stick another big warning label to your door. [Wink]

Posted by Rick Raskin (Member # 1561) on 04-14-2017, 12:41 PM:

From 520 CMR 3.00 "Booths shall be constructed of asbestos lumber ..."

Another reason your theater may not be code compliant. [evil]

All kidding aside, just put up an authorized personnel only sign.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 04-14-2017, 12:58 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
520 CMR 3.00, which specifies that projection booth doors may not be locked in Massachusetts when the auditorium is occupied by the public.

Easy solution. It is not a projection room, it is your computer server room, which certainly can be kept locked. Those big video projectors are actually computer monitors (they really are). So if anyone asks, your theatre no longer has a projection room since the day all the 35mm equipment was removed.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 04-14-2017, 03:48 PM:

quote: Mitchell Dvoskin
Easy solution. It is not a projection room, it is your computer server room, which certainly can be kept locked.

But first be certain there aren't any stricter rules regarding "server rooms" in the local building code. [Smile]

quote: Scott Norwood
520 CMR 3.00, which specifies that projection booth doors may not be locked in Massachusetts when the auditorium is occupied by the public.

So, when there are no people in the auditorium, it doesn't matter that the projectionist burns? [Smile]

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 04-14-2017, 04:14 PM:

The smell won't bother anyone then.

Posted by Manny Montes (Member # 5639) on 04-14-2017, 07:46 PM:

I'd never leave the booth door unlocked, just buy one of these and call it a day

http://www.homedepot.com/s/keypad%2520door%2520lock?NCNI-5

Posted by David Buckley (Member # 2600) on 04-16-2017, 03:58 PM:

You could do what they do in mental institutions to have the doors unlocked but to stop the inmates wandering through them; just a standard door handle, of the lever type, not a knob, but put the latch in the wrong way round, so instead of pushing the handle down as we all know to do, one has to lift the lever to open the door.....

Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 04-17-2017, 04:03 PM:

That is how I got out. I lifted the lever up and the door opened.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 04-17-2017, 06:28 PM:

In each of the booths that I've worked, which I admit is not more than a half dozen, most in NY, some in TX, one in CT and one in MA, the booth doors were always locked from the inside even though, just like MA, NY regs specified that the booth door should remain unlocked when the theatre is opened to the public. Fact is, security seems to trump the regulations in every case. Who is going to risk the havoc teenage gremlins can reign down on a cinema if they were to get into a multiplex booth while a show was running and a dozen platters spinning, film crisscrossing everywhere? Even if inspectors would site a theatre for such a minor violation, the cost of the fine would certainly be well worth keeping the doors locked given what damage miscreants could do in booth even in as little as 10 minutes.

In our big theatre, there is a corridor leading to the control rooms that we keep locked from the inside at all times. It has a crashbar so you can get out with no key, but not in. Theoretically the booth doors themselves could be kept unlocked because the public can't access the control room corridor but no matter, we still keep those control booths -- lighting, sound and projection -- locked while the shows are running in order to protect our techs from the hordes. Safety of our crew is a primary concern -- not so much when we are running movies, but rock and roll shows...[i]championship boxing matches[/i}! You don't want the public getting access to those isolated booths at any time. Massachusetts regs didn't seem to be followed there either.

Thing is, I recalled reading in the NYC regulations manual years ago, there was an explanation as to the reason the booth door was to be kept unlocked, and it had nothing to do with concern for the safety of the projectionist. The reg went on to say that the booth was to always be available to inspectors from the licensing agency -- then it was the Bureau of Gas and Electricity or NYC Fire inspectors who also did inspections. It went on further to say that (paraphrasing) "there shall be no mechanical or electrical device installed in the Box Office, Manager's Office or elsewhere in the theatre that could be used to signal the booth of the presence of a City Inspector on the premises." Seems like managers would warn operators that an inspector was about to visit, I imagine so an errant operator would get rid of evidence of violations, maybe like cigarette butts or the like? Maybe MA's reg was similarly motivated. So I guess having a telephone or intercom in the both was also a violation?!

Silly bureaucrats.

Posted by Donald Brown (Member # 5427) on 04-17-2017, 07:53 PM:

I will never forget one particular night at Massachusetts infamous Motor-In Theatre in Sutton. I was operating the booth, which was one door forward of the ladies rest room.
The projection booth at the Motor-In had a pair of Brenkert Enarc lamps and two Brenkert 80s mounted above RCA 9030s. The door was open, and I was inside. After leaving the rest room, a lady entered the booth. She attempted to explain that a toilet in one of the stalls was blocked and that she had loosened things up by hand! As she motioned with a clearly wet hand, I backed up further into the room desperately trying to avoid contact!
During its renaissance in the late '80s, the Motor-In had a reputation for attracting a rather coarse crowd!

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-17-2017, 10:18 PM:

The DI outside of College Park, MD (I think the Greenbelt, but some of the DC guys can correct me) was an 1930's DI that had become hardcore porn by the 70's. The manager's office and the projection booth shared the same space. The DI used to hire biker types as lot boys, and would bring people who snuck onto the lot into the office to either beat the crap at of them or at least threaten to. One night, they left someone in there for an unknown reason and the guy picked up a reel and smashed the projectionist over the head and escaped (not like the projectionist was going to do anything to stop him). The projectionist got several stitches.
The rest of us were not too happy to be working there after that.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 04-18-2017, 08:09 AM:

While, I cannot confirm the story, the closest drive in to College Park would have been the Beltsville Drive-In (where the Costco is now).

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 04-18-2017, 09:58 AM:

Yup, the Beltsville.
Beltsville DI

Looks like I had the opening date era wrong, though in my defense, that's what the people there told me when I worked it.

Can't remember the projectionist who got attacked last name, first name was Ed.