Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Things in Movies that PISS OFF projectionists!!!

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Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 02-01-2001, 03:10 AM:

Just remembering a day that me and my finace were pre-screening the movie "Emperor's New Groove" in his theater. There is a scene where it appears that the picture slows down and you hear the sound of film stopping (at that point you are already out of your chair running to the booth)....Then the damn Lama jumps out on the screen and starts talking....GRRRRR

Anyone have any other movies like this?

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"Blood is thicker then blondes" - From the movie, Save the last Dance.

FUNNY!!!!!

Posted by Dwayne Caldwell (Member # 417) on 02-01-2001, 03:52 AM:

Gremlins 2 - The New Batch. I was still just an usher then (probably a little more than a month after I turned sixteen and therefore a little more than a month after I started the job) and was doing a theatre check of the auditorium. I was almost out the door after finishing up when I saw the film melt. It was my first time to see celluloid dissolve off the screen like that at a real theatre (and it wasn't even real!), so I just stood there like a dumbass for a minute when this customer gets up to leave and inform someone. She sees yours truly and approaches me to find out what's going on, and I'm finally getting the hint to take off and tell someone (Like I said, I was a dumb sixteen year old). Not more than a few words of exchange between the two of us and we both started to hear sound and looked at the screen to see the Gremlin hands making shadow puppets. We both just stood there for a minute and watched as the scene played out, then just looked at each other and rolled our eyes in annoyance. I'm sure we weren't the only ones in the auditorium who were pissed off at that stupid little gag. But it's funny in retrospect now. Of all the moments I chose to walk in on that show...

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The man with the magic hands.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 02-01-2001, 07:56 AM:

I know that we have mentioned this before but no too long ago with Fight Club, during a changeover or something you suddenly see the sprocket holes, analog sound line and I think the DTS timecode line too. Then it cleared up. When I screened it, it sent me upstairs instantly.

Paul.

Posted by Evans A Criswell (Member # 381) on 02-01-2001, 08:05 AM:

If I ever made a movie, I think it would be funny to include nearly every "projection mistake" in the actual movie.

1. Have a shot of a view of a room from the viewpoint of someone hanging upside down, and have the beginning of this shot be right after a reel change.

2. Right after another reel change, have a random warbling sound, and have the image reversed with a fake soundtrack showing on the side of the image.

3. Have a meltdown, Gremlins style, in the middle of the reel.

4. Have the sound of the film slowing to a stop and the screen going black, Monty Python and the Holy Grail style.

5. Have some intentional frame drift, with the frame line showing at times.

6. Print a short segment of the movie in the wrong format (like in a flat film, have everything vertically enlongated for a short bit.

7. Have some abrupt changes in motion to make it look like frames are missing.

8. Have intentional fake scratches in the image.

9. Make it look like dust or hair is caught in the gate. (A gag used in cartoons of long ago).

10. Have the intentional defects be an obvious part of the "joke" of the movie, which would be a comedy.

Remember in the movie "Man on the Moon" where in a TV show that Andy Kaufman was making, the vertical synchonization was purposely put in wrong for a short bit to make people think their TV's vertical hold was misadjusted for a few seconds?

I'll bet if such a movie were made, some projectionists would probably refuse to run it. Two of the defects would probably cause some to build the thing incorrectly.

Evans (Just too cruel)

Posted by Jerry Chase (Member # 660) on 02-01-2001, 09:11 AM:

What might be even more fun would be to take a print like this to some of the more poorly run theatres, and see if the yokels there would make errors that would correct some of the problems. Examples: set it up with scope previews and flat feature to let them get the lens turret change right; set the first frames out of frame by a sprocket or two, so the misframed film quickly goes _into_ frame.

How about getting a roll of chromed bumper tape, and using that to make all your splices at reel ends? Automations would be cycling every 20 minutes in some theatres.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 02-01-2001, 10:04 AM:

How about the Spike Lee film "Crooklyn" at the start of reel 5 he decided to use an anamorphic lens to set a mood of the film. At first I thought it was a bad reel or something then I found out it was supposed to be that way. Try telling that to the pissed off customers who think you have made a mistake. What was up with the useless 1.85 reel 1 of The Horse Whisperer. The rest of the movie was 2.35 I hate it when they do stupid crap like that. I remember the gremlins II trailer. I told an assistant manager to go in and watch the trailers for me. As I stood in the lobby I watched him run out and head for the booth. Curious question. When you played either of the gremlins films did you notice any extra problems in the booth.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-01-2001, 01:02 PM:

'Singin' in the Rain' - the disasterous preview screening in which the picture goes out of rack, out of synch and then the needle sticks in the Vitaphone disc.

More recently, 'State and Main' has sections of Academy leader in between each screen of the opening titles - I'm sure someone, somewhere will end up cutting them out in an attempt to 'repair' the print.

But what pisses me off most of all are representations of leaders in TV programmes, publicity materials &c., in which the numbers flash all the way down to 1. Whenever I am training new projectionists, they are always very surprised when I tell them that the last printed number is 3 followed by 48 opaque frames...

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-01-2001, 02:18 PM:

Leo said: "But what pisses me off most of all are representations of leaders in TV programmes, publicity materials &c., in which the numbers flash all the way down to 1. Whenever I am training new projectionists, they are always very surprised when I tell them that the last printed number is 3 followed by 48 opaque frames..."

Standard SMPTE 301 is for "Theater Projection Leader, Trailer and Cue Marks". This is the new leader that has the countdown numbers every 16 frames, from "11" to "3" with black in-between, WITHOUT the moving "clock". A similar previous leader was sometimes known as the "Academy" leader. Jeffrey Johnson (IATSE Cleveland) and Jess Daily (UCLA Film Archive) led the SMPTE working group that developed this standard.

Some prints may still use the "Universal" leader, that has a moving "clock" with countdown numbers every 24 frames, specified in standard SMPTE 55. The Universal leader was originally developed for prints used on television. It is often seen on representations of "film" being projected.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-01-2001, 05:29 PM:

It's interesting to see, though, that the clock-sweep leader is almost never seen on feature prints (with rare exceptions), while the footage count is almost never seen on trailers (when they even contain complete countdowns) or 16mm prints (even those not made as TV prints; there's a certain logic here, though, since the footage count would be wrong for 16mm, anyway).

Personally, I don't really have a preference for one type of leader over another, but I would like to see more standardization with respect to cue marks; labs vary between leaving about 20-24 frames between the second cue and the black tail leader (which, sadly, isn't always black). This is annoying. Longer tails (which are as close to opaque as possible) and longer head leaders would be preferable, though...some labs leave only a couple of feet of tail leader with some prints.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-01-2001, 06:32 PM:

At one time, it used to be that motor cues were located at frames 195, 196, 197, and 198, and the changeover cues were located at frames 19, 20, 21, and 22. (11 feet 4 frames difference). Why they changed, I don't know. But for those operators who have the pleasure and luxury of running manual with 2000 foot reels, (I wish I was one of them) they should check to make sure the blackout is attached to the very last frame of the reel. It is highly unlikely a professional projectionist will miss either the motor or changeover cues, but it does happen.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-01-2001, 10:37 PM:

If you run Coke trailers, don't forget the "Shadow Puppets" ones where the film breaks and the people make hand puppets on the screen and tell lame jokes.

First time I saw it I actuall shouted out, "What the hell..."

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-02-2001, 06:42 AM:

Standard SMPTE 301 specifies cues as follows:

"6.1 Picture: It is recommended that picture action start and finish on fades whenever possible. Otherwise, significant audio should be kept at least 80 frames from the start and finish of the picture."

"6.2 Motor cue: The motor cue shall consist of black circles or clear circles, printed from a negative which had four consecutive frames marked...Following the four frames containing the motor cue, there shall be 172 frames to the beginning of the changeover cue."

"6.3 Changeover cue: The changeover cue shall consist of four frames containing circles of the same dimensions and positions on the frame as those in the motor cue. Following the four frames of the changeover cue, there shall be 18 frames to the beginning of the runout section of the trailer."

"7.2 Runout section: The runout section of the trailer shall consist of 88 frames, the first 87 of which are to be black with framelines..."

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-02-2001, 12:01 PM:

John, the funny thing with specifications is that when the average person reads them, they know less about them than when they started. Using the last frame as a reference, it comes out as you have stated. I could not remember the run-out footage, but like you said, it is 87 frames. (3.625 feet).

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 02-05-2001, 12:19 PM:

I have seen the intentional frame meltdown
& soundtrack warbling in 'THE MUPPET MOVIE'
Since the chef was the projectionist,
I wonder what he did to cause the film
to melt&blister on the screen.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-05-2001, 02:53 PM:

We showed 'The Smallest Show on Earth' yesterday, in which Peter Sellers plays a dipsomaniac projectionist at a run-down old fleapit. When he eventually drinks himself into a coma, the manager has to try and run the show, with predictably catastrophic results. These included the predictable cock-ups like lacing up out of rack and missing changeovers, but the whole scene eventually culminated with the picture being shown in reverse, but with the soundtrack running in the right direction (i.e. you could hear dialogue)! I'd like to know how on earth anyone could achieve that (even on a Cinemeccanica)...

BTW, does SMPTE standard 301 include sync marks 3 frames after each number? Admittedly these are redundant if you're using a penthouse reader, but not providing tham takes a safeguard away from everyone else. I find that an increasing number of leaders don't include them, the worst offender being prints struck by Eclair labs in Paris, whose leaders never seem to have sync marks.

Posted by Matt Gardner (Member # 572) on 02-05-2001, 03:37 PM:

Did anybody run the film "GO". In the film a certain scene replays itself 3 or 4 times throughout the film. We had people come out of the theatre and say we placed the reels in the wrong order. It was fun though telling customers that it was part of the movie and that they are missing an important part of the film as we speak. Then watch them run back in to see what they missed.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-05-2001, 09:57 PM:

"Pulp Fiction" was a favorite for people to tell us we had the reels in the wrong order, since the entire movie is shown out-of-order.
Did anyone get to see the Screenvision ad for Wrigley's Polar Ice gum that was shown last November thru December? It started out with an old "An Now Our Feature Presentation" trailer looking like the projector is chewing it up- I had that on as the first thing when I was training a couple new people how to run the booth, telling them not to let that scare them!

The only time I came close to freaking was the first day "Spawn" was showing and I noticed out the window the end credits were chewed up real bad- they were of course intentionally printed that way.

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 02-05-2001, 11:33 PM:

Or the opening credits in 'Suicide Kings' with the tons of nasty green emulsion scratches, etc... I wanted to KILL the previous handler of the print until I realized it was printed this way.... aggh...

Aaron

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-06-2001, 05:30 AM:

The opening title for "Run Lola Run" had printed-in scratches as well. Same for the "newsreel" sequences in "Citizen Kane."

Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 02-06-2001, 07:53 PM:

What I hate is the frames of flat movies themselves.
They are almost always full-frame.
Is there not a way to film in 1.85....like a 1.85 lens or do you hve to film in full-frame and use the viewfinder to frame for 1.85?
And if you have to shoot in full-frame, why cant they just letterbox the film to eliminate poor framing due to guesswork?
It's a pain in the ass to have to watch a movie for a few minutes to make sure you have it perfect.
The letterboxing would make it so much easier.
And what's with Sugar & Spice being released in scope when looking at a flat trailer would make it obvious that it was filmed in full-frame?

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-06-2001, 08:05 PM:

Personally, I wish all 1.85 movies had a small amount of black bars printed at the 1.85 line proceeded by mostly a clear wide frame line. That would REALLY prevent people from running the films out of frame, but the small amount of black would prevent a sloppy aperture from displaying on the masking.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-06-2001, 08:57 PM:

And, it would certainly put the Kabosh on running flat .446 previews in the scope format..

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-07-2001, 07:44 AM:

Standard SMPTE 195 specifies the projectable image area for 1.85:1 "flat" as 0.825 x 0.446 inches.

Standard SMPTE 59 specifies three different 35mm Camera Aperture Image areas:

Style A 0.864 x 0.63 inches ("Academy")
Style B 0.864 x 0.738 inches (Scope)
Style C 0.981 x 0.735 inches (full frame)

Most "flat" productions shoot with the full frame aperture, to reduce the risk of "hairs in the gate", while composing for the 1.85:1 projectable image area. So if contact printing is used for all printing stages, the image height is 0.735 inches, even though only 0.446 inches is intended to be projected on the screen. "Hard Mattes" are rarely used in the camera, to give later flexibility when the images are transferred to video. Good practice "protects" the top and bottom of the image, so that mike booms or other production hardware doesn't show up on the screen, even if the projector is poorly framed.

A "hard matte" can be introduced during optical printing, either to force correct framing, or as a consequence of some scenes having optical or digital effects. Digital effects often are output with a matted frameline, since it would cost extra to "render" image area that is not intended to be projected. So that is why you sometimes see prints having a variety of frameline thicknesses, and need to frame carefully to avoid showing the framelines in some scenes.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-07-2001, 08:40 AM:

I tend to be against hard-matting a print to anything wider than 1.66. It's important to allow for a margin of error, particularly since every hard-matted print that I've seen has been slightly different, with the matte sometimes changing within a scene (for example, something that might have been shot with both an "A" and "B" camera simultaneously, with slightly different gate dimensions in each camera) or reel (presumably due to bi-directional printing).

The concept of matting to 1.85 is nice, but there's too much variation in practice. If the labs can't even follow the SMPTE standards for head and tail leaders and cue marks, why should we expect the optical houses or camera rental facilities to follow the standards for aperture dimensions?

Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 02-07-2001, 11:36 AM:

The 1971 film "The Projectionist" has a film break depicted on screen which makes the actor projectionist Chuck McCann jump to his machine as it does every projectionist who ever showed the film.

"Mimic" is a very dark picture, so dark that it's about the same dark as the cues are. If you're doing reel to reel changeovers, you'd better know the image you're looking for since the cues are almost invisible. Then there are two reels of frantic action, in the almost dark, where you're distracted by both the action and the dark. I was almost ready to auto this print so I wouldn't have to pay any more attention to non-plot issues and not FU the changeovers.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 02-08-2001, 10:30 PM:

"Holy Grail" got me, the first time I showed it. There was also a scene in one of the "Airport" movies, where they were watching a movie and it broke. That got me too.

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Better Projection Pays!

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 02-10-2001, 07:25 AM:

If the cues are too dark too see reliably, why not just get out the cue cutter. With a extremely light touch very faint green circles can be made and they won't be too bad in a dark scene, and a lot better than missing one. I have occasionally filled in gross white cues with a fine tipped felt tip marker.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-10-2001, 11:01 AM:

OOH! I just remembered one:

Deconstucting Harry

There's a scene where Julia-Louise Dreyfus (sp?) is getting out of a cab and there's this funky series of back-and-forth jump cuts It happens a couple-three times in the movie. It drove me nuts!

(Okay, more like a short putt... )

Posted by Rachel Carter (Member # 693) on 02-10-2001, 12:58 PM:

Ok, we just started running State and Main, the beginning credits looked like a head or tail going thru the projector....I didn't exactly run upstairs when I saw it but it did confuse me for a second before I saw words on the screen. Then I just started laughing...

------------------
"Blood is thicker then blondes" - From the movie, Save the last Dance.

FUNNY!!!!!

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-20-2001, 08:47 PM:

Here I go with yet another anime example. This one is "Kochira Kameari Kouen Mae Hasshutsujo--The Movie" (lit. This is the Police Box in Front of Kameari Park). The film is a whacked slap-stick cop comedy set in present-day Tokyo. It has a false ending complete with the beginning of a credit roll--it then cuts back into the action for about another twenty minutes! I've only seen it on video so I don't know exactly where the last reel change is, but wouldn't it be Make Up Hell if that false credit roll was at the break?!?

Posted by Joseph Pandolfi (Member # 223) on 02-21-2001, 03:57 PM:

Yes, Rachel I did a double take when seen the squiggly line through the center of the screen. If it wasn't for the credits in between all the leader going through, it would sure be something wrong and the calls from downstairs would be coming in. By the way in the fake film melt department, any one see "The Shadow of the Vampire" 5 mins. before the end. There was one, but it was contrasted too bright, it would not send you jumping from your seat and running upstairs. Another projector slowdown and stop and restart happened twice during "Elmo in Grouchland".

Posted by Robert Golding (Member # 746) on 02-22-2001, 01:18 AM:

I ran a movie back in the 70's when we used carbon arc's along with 2000 ft reels. I don't recall the name of it but for 7 days straigh this movie got me out of my chair every showing. At the end of the movie, just before the credits came on, a 1955 chevy would come to a stop and the film would start to melt. Of course I would go running for the projector and about half way there I would realise that the sound was fine and it had gotten me again. I'll never forget that and I'm very glad they haven't made anymore movies that way.

Posted by Michael Brown (Member # 890) on 06-01-2002, 02:35 PM:

There is a scene in "Slackers" that has vertical green scratches.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-01-2002, 02:47 PM:

On the "Fight Club" DVD director's commentary track David Fincher talks about how they unintentionally panicked a good number of projectionists with their "cigarette burns" display of changeover cues.

I saw a 70mm Dolby SR print of "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" and thought the film melting gag was kind of funny, although very disorienting at first. The gremlins were cackling behind the audience in the surround channel when they were doing their little hand shadow stunts. I was more annoyed by Hulk Hogan jumping in to break it up.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 06-01-2002, 03:41 PM:

We just had a copy of Dog Town & Z Boys at Mountainfilm in Telluride. This film is full of bad projection things like leaders going off screen, scratches, and focus problems. They use all these devices to signal scene changes.

All venues in Telluride are run reel to reel. So we hear that at the first venue it played, the projectionist missed every changeover. So we snickered and figured we could do better. We checked in the print. We noted that there were factory cue marks on every reel. The films is hard-masked 1.85:1 and Pillerboxed so the image is 1.33:1 like the 8mm, video and 16mm it was filmed with. The cue marks are all in the black of the Pillerboxed area. Also someone had done grease pencil cues inside the image area. So I give it to my veteran projectionist with 16 years of experience. She inspects the film and off we go. I'm not paying attention anymore as it is midnight and I have been at work since 8:00 AM. But I am watching the film from the floor.

So right after reel 2 in to reel 3 she blows the changeover. I run upstairs and see what's up. Well, reel 2 was so short that she was still threading up reel 3 when the cues went through. She never even saw them. She didn't miss another changeover though.

So watch out for Dog Town & Z Boys but if you are running it platterd you will probably not notice anything.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-01-2002, 03:52 PM:

Ian -- which print of Dogtown did you get? I'd be interested to know if it was the one that I ran....

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 06-01-2002, 04:02 PM:

Things that piss off projectionists? How about when the movies come pre-scratched even when they're brand new, like Sum of All Fears!?

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 06-01-2002, 09:08 PM:

I have the same problem. I even got angry at the girl who built up the movie (since it is the only way a new print could be scratched before it's first run) until it was realised that the film was printed that way. They look more like black lines than scratches upon close inspection.

Posted by David Favel (Member # 1125) on 06-02-2002, 03:36 AM:

Must admit that Galaxy Quest had me checking what was wrong with my equipment

Posted by Heyward Garner (Member # 722) on 06-02-2002, 03:45 AM:

Yep, yep...
My print of Sum of All Fears was pretty crappy, too... =(

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 06-02-2002, 05:04 PM:

I wonder if the studios are having the labs pre-scratching the films in an effort to sell us on DLP?

Posted by Neil Hunter (Member # 1005) on 06-02-2002, 08:49 PM:

I sense a conspiricy theory coming.

Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 06-03-2002, 05:54 AM:

Yep, Gremlins 2 got me by surprise.
I was running a trade screening about 10 in the morning after leaving a previous booth shift job well after midnight and was kind of sleepy. When the flm burned on the screen in the print I almost fell out of my chair to dash for the projector, Boy was I pissed. One of the bookers in attendance was about halfway through the booth door to complain when we both realized it was in the film.
Also I got a real kick out of a previous thread where a "non experienced" projectionist tried to correct the black and white opening and closing segments of WIZARD OF OZ.
Oh boy!

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-04-2002, 09:15 AM:

It may be that "Sum of All Fears" required subtantial re-editing after the original negative had been cut. Recutting a negative usually involves taking apart and remaking cement splices, which adds considerably to the handling and risk of handling damage.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-04-2002, 11:13 AM:

The print of Sum of All Fears that I saw didn't have noticable scratches or other problems, so it seems unlikely to be re-editting of negatives as a cause. I do know there were a lot of preview screenings, both a few months ago as well as in late May, so perhaps it's just a case of prints being scratched at preview screenings.

--jhawk

p.s. The theatre where I watched it did have a really annoying combination of excess jump or weave coupled with heavy keystoning and a slight focus misadjustement such that the bottom of the screen, where the subtitles were, looked really bad, and the subtitles seemed to jump/weave a lot. (The middle of the screen was in focus...)

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 06-04-2002, 11:27 AM:

Scratches or cinch marks on a negative element will appear white in the final print. Scratches or cinch marks on a positive element (e.g., the master positive) will normally appear black. A deep emulsion scratch will remove image dye, and have coloration.

Reports in this thread say the scratches were quite localized, leading to the hypothesis that they may have been due to excessive handling, such as recutting a negative. Base scratches and superficial scratches to the emulsion can usually be alleviated by wet printing, where a solvent having the same refractive index as the film optically "fills in" the scratches:
http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/support/h1/printingP.shtml#wetgate

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 06-04-2002, 11:29 AM:

John P.: Point. I suppose I didn't pay close enough attention to the comments, especially those in FHMR.

On the other hand, it was on 3000 screens, so perhaps there were multiple dupe-negs.

--jhawk

Posted by Joseph D. Olson (Member # 1340) on 07-02-2002, 06:48 AM:

Moving back to the subject of false alarms like "Gremlins 2", I'm wondering if anybody running Fight Club on a Reel-to-reel ever accidentally changed over during the scene in which a phony changeover cue was shown?

Everytime I see something like that in a movie, I get scared for the unexperienced folks like myself and praise the booth gods that I wasn't working.

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So if old projectionists don't die, what happens when new projectionists get old?

Posted by Joseph D. Olson (Member # 1340) on 07-02-2002, 06:51 AM:

Oops. SOmebody already mentioned that.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-02-2002, 02:17 PM:

This is very minor, but at the opening of "The Divine Yahoo Sisters" it gives you the black and white Warner Bros logo, but after that you get the "Gaylord Films" logo. Big deal, eh? Well the film is in scope and right beneath the text "Gaylord Films" is a line which looks like a frameline. When I first saw it I thought it was out of frame. I didn't adjust it, but I was fooled for a nanosecond.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-02-2002, 02:47 PM:

The first day I ever ran 35mm, the first thing to hit the screen was the trailer for something called "Shooting Fish." This begins with the MPAA ratings band and then immediately shows a split-screen thing. To anyone not familiar with the trailer, it appears to be two perfs out of frame. That was, um, interesting.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-02-2002, 03:28 PM:

Scott-- YES!! I know exactly what you're talking about. Not counting the policy trailers we trained with, the first "real" trailer I ran was "Shooting Fish". If I remember correctly, it ended with the song, "Do you know the way to San Jose..."

Not a good trailer to run as a first-timer. I was grabbing for the framing knob in a split second! Those were the days...

=TMP=

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-02-2002, 04:28 PM:

Yes, that's the one! (I don't have a print...if anyone does, I'd kind of like to have one...) I never actually saw "Shooting Fish"...

What's more annoying is that, due to lack of training, I wasn't aware of the need to advance the intermittent before threading, so of course the ratings band came up out of frame. I quickly fixed that, only to see that damn split-screen effect.

Posted by Ken Lackner (Member # 1002) on 07-02-2002, 08:15 PM:

I know it was a cartoon, but The Emperor's New Groove pissed me off. There was a scene where the "film" comes to a screetching halt and the llama starts talking about what had just happend. (I think he may have even come across the screen and started pointing to things, but I can't remember.) As soon as the "film" started to "stop," I jumped out of my seat and started to run down the stairs faster than you could imagine! It even got me the *second* time I saw the movie! Man, did I feel dumb.

At least I wasn't alone: The manager I was watching it with had the exact same reaction.

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 07-02-2002, 08:58 PM:

I should have saved that trailer. Thought nothing of it at the time...

In regards to the Emperor's New Groove doing the film-stopping trick, this also happened in "Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland" whenever it got too "scary" and Bert & Ernie would come on the screen and explain what's going on, and it would start again. It didn't get me so much as the customers coming out to tell us the movie stopped.

Oh, and Ken:

quote:
As soon as the "film" started to "stop," I jumped out of my seat and started to run down the stairs faster than you could imagine!

So wait, your booth is located below the auditorium? j/k

=TMP=

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 07-02-2002, 11:04 PM:

In "O" the attached trailer had a bad lab splice because the trailer was changed from an earlier one when the print was scheduled for release a few months earlier. My boss, a technician and myself were all unable to find the splice (which was made in total darkness) and as a result, we had to cut the trailer at the Lion's Gate logo.

On the topic of fight club, there's the scene of when Tyler is splicing single frames of porno into the cartoon and the sound is directly in sync with the frame, instead of one second behind like it would be.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 07-03-2002, 09:59 AM:

Steve Scott said: "...and the sound is directly in sync with the frame, instead of one second behind like it would be."

Or to be precise, 21 frames behind. (Standard SMPTE 40)

Posted by Jan Hackett (Member # 1231) on 07-03-2002, 11:08 AM:

Pulp Fiction as mentioned earlier. I built it up and did not have time to screen it before our big Friday night opening.....I was in a panic thinking I put the film together wrong..... It was a heart stopper............

------------------
Jan Hackett
Theater Operations Manager
Extreme Screen Dynatheater
NM Museum of Natural History Foundation

Posted by Geof Abruzzi (Member # 1312) on 07-03-2002, 03:17 PM:

I've never run it, but Ingmar Bergman's "Persona" has the film shredding in the gate. Not knowing it was there should make any projectionists heart skip.

Less dramatic and more recent: "Y tu mama tambien" There is an unnamed voiceover narrator. Usually with voiceovers, all other sound does a slow fade to make room for the narrator. "Y tu mama" does an almost instant cutoff, and the first time it happens, the narrator doesn't come in for at least 6-8 seconds. I thought our sound had cut out, and I was halfway to the booth before the narrator started talking.

Geof

Posted by Steve Scott (Member # 630) on 07-03-2002, 04:39 PM:

I can't get anything past you John,

Thank you for striking down misinformation

Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 07-09-2002, 02:32 AM:

At SIFF a few years ago I ran a film that started with a 5 minute climactic rescue from a burning building followed by a COMPLETE CREDITS SEQUENCE!!! And since it had no distributer, there were no logos at the start. It turns out it was a movie being watched by the actors in the movie....still I was panicked as hell - running to the cans checking the numbers on all the other reels, making sure reference frames all matched - I was so close to stopping the show, just glad I went with it...

Oh and changeovers should be outlawed during scenes in discos - lights flashing, things moving everywhere, yeesh.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-09-2002, 02:43 AM:

Ever run "From Dusk Till Dawn" on changeovers? The cues on the end of reel 3 will get ya! There is a bunch of fighting and lights flashing and cameras spinning around and quick camera cutting. Even staring at the upper right corner in the last 30 seconds of the reel, you REALLY have to be watching to see that first cue! I'll bet most people running that changeover started the incoming projector's motor on the 2nd cue.

Posted by Daryl C. W. O'Shea (Member # 1303) on 07-09-2002, 03:49 AM:

I had a nice black screen for a couple seconds on the first showing of "From Dusk Till Dawn". By the second show I clear spliced over the first cue so that I heard it click when it went through the gate. Nobody missed it after that.

Either way, if you 'miss it right' it won't be TOO apparent if you hit the changeover button and move the sound lever half-way when you see that screen go black for too long. Just have to remember to switch the sound the rest of the way over when you open the douser.

I got a lot of practise at that on a 2:1 scope screen that sometimes didn't show the cue-marks. Boy do I hate 2:1 screens.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 07-09-2002, 10:21 AM:

In VANILLA SKY, there's a scene where Tom Cruise says that he'd really like everybody to shut up. And then they do, and it's completely silent for a few seconds. That freaked me out.

Posted by Mike Schindler (Member # 1309) on 07-09-2002, 04:55 PM:

I just thought of another one. That damn HP commercial that's out right now. I've got that thing on 7 prints, and everytime one of them starts, I flinch because the first 2 shots look out of frame. I guess the director was going for some sort of wacky compositional thing, but it doesn't quite work.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 07-10-2002, 01:39 PM:

I watched Vanilla Sky at home on DVD and that part scared me too, I thought my amp had died!

Posted by John Daily (Member # 1362) on 07-16-2002, 10:05 AM:

The Disney logo at the beginning of Lilo & Stitch does a slight side-to-side shake before being sucked up in a tractor beam and pulled up off the screen. The shake makes my stomach flip every time.