This is topic Waters impressed with film in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 06-08-2002, 09:00 PM:
The Seattle International Film Festival had their director's tribute Friday night and their guest was John Waters.
I was hired to run about 10 clips from his films, then Waters appeared on stage for almost two hours.
He apparently was in the balcony of the theatre next to the booth while the clips were on and commented to festival personell he was surprised we were running those scenes on FILM! He said he expected they would install some type of video projection and run them off tape or DVD. He was very impressed as some of the clips selected only ran two minutes and was very impressed with the projectionists and the entire presentation.
As for his movies.........uh! You'll never guess what the last clip was? Boy, what a cute dog!
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 06-08-2002, 09:28 PM:
Congrats Peter. Praise from a knowledgeable filmmaker like John Waters is high praise indeed. 
Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 06-08-2002, 11:09 PM:
I have always loved Waters' films but even to this day the "dog" scene still really grosses me out. YUK! I mean WTF was he thinkin'?
>>> Phil
Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 06-09-2002, 04:26 AM:
Thanks David:
I ran one of these directors tributes for Robert Wise some time ago and he came into the booth after some 22 clips to thanks us for "doing it right" after some non-union guys screwed it up in LA, I think. It's really neat to have a big name director take the time to thank us at SIFF. We bust our butts to do it right and the "thank you" really makes us feel good, especially from a director like Robert Wise or John Waters. For some reason or other they always seem to know we are union boys and strive to do it right.
Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-09-2002, 07:19 PM:
How do you show clips for a program like this? Does the studio make up a clip reel from old prints (or reprint the appropriate sections from the negs)? Do you get complete prints and the cue the reels beforehand to the right scene? Do you (ugh) cut up existing prints yourself and put them back together later?I've often wondered how this sort of thing is usually done for awards ceremonies, lectures, etc....
Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-09-2002, 08:15 PM:
Non-union guys can do a great job as well! Not all of them, granted, but just because someone is union does not mean that they are automatically a better projectionist. I've seen many a union guy thread a projector from top to bottom, getting leader all over the floor. Completely unprofessional.Regardless, that's really cool what you posted above. I'm glad that some directors enjoy film and actually mention that they do. Of course thanking the projectionist is AWESOME. Reminds people that we exist.
Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 06-10-2002, 01:22 PM:
Something's just not right about seeing Robert Wise and John Waters mentioned in the same sentence! I read his comment about the restored "Pink Flamingos", he said "it didn't deserve to look this good."
Posted by Joe Beres (Member # 678) on 06-10-2002, 02:23 PM:
Scott, I recently ran s ahow similar to Peter's. In our case the clips are interspersed with conversation between a filmmaker and a critic. It's a format similar to Inside thew Actor's Srudio or Charlie Rose. When we have these events we run a retrospective of the filmmaker's career and have all of the complete prints in house. The critic provided me with a cue sheet of sorts with a descriptioon of the clip, its running time, and the time at which the clip starts, based off of the timecode from a video copy. Then I have to find the clips on the reel, cue them up, and run them when the critic asks during the show. I didn't cut a single frame of film. I marked the beginning and end with a pice of artist's tape on the edge of the film, making sure it did not interfere with the perfs. After the first piece of tape went through the gate, I cut into the clip. Before the second piece went into the gate, I cut out. It worked even better than I expected. When it was done, I removed all of the tape, and made sure the film was free of residue.
Posted by Peter Kerchinsky (Member # 1098) on 06-10-2002, 03:20 PM:
Scott:
We do it almost exactly like mentioned earlier. They give us the entire print and a "script" based on what they saw on video. We search out the clips based on how many minutes they track into the film. I use a non-goo type tape and mark the start and the same for the end along with the out-cue. We do not cut the prints because in most cases these are either collector's prints or prints owned by the director. Of course many of the clips are in the middle of the reels so it takes two of us to load and unload the film. Two of the prints we showed "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble" were brand new so I suspect they might have been Waters own.
They could not locate a print of Pecker for some reason. It's not that old so go fiqure.
I want to believe that these directors pat us on the back since we are union because they know we are becoming few and far between and obviously they work with IATSE making their films.
Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 06-11-2002, 03:41 AM:
I went to one of these events a few years ago, I can't remember now who the speaker was. Many clips were being shown, from films of vastly differing ages, some on 35mm, some on 70, nearly all had different sound systems, and aspect ratios, and one, which was only a minute or two long, had a changeover in the middle of it, so both machines had to be prepared in the few minutes after the previous clip. There was a slight delay of a minute or so, while this one was set up, the speaker explained the reason for this delay, but everything went fine, all images were in focus, and correctly framed when they came on the screen.At the end of the evening the speaker thanked the two projectionists involved.