This is topic Haunted or Hoax? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Chris Byrne (Member # 1563) on 02-04-2003, 09:19 PM:
 
Surely some of you Techers have a haunted auditorium. They say there is a ghost in cinema 4 here in Townsville?

I don't know about that, however my wife and mother were watching 'Her Majesty Mrs Brown' two or so years ago and were the only two in the cinema. Without saying a word to each other during the movie they both noticed a man sitting directly in front of them (3 rows in front and a couple of rows to the side.)

When the house lights come up to preset on credits he was not there. They both turned to each other and went silent. Even popcorn was on the seat. I shit you not!
 

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Posted by Barry Martin (Member # 1376) on 02-04-2003, 09:31 PM:
 
Interesting, I have one story to share. I was closing one night and the last projector to shut down was (of course) in the most distant, dark, and quiet end of the booth. I walked over to the projector to shut it down and looked at a window in a door in front of me, noticing for the first time since starting projection that the lights were off in the stairwell on the other side. When I got closer (still walking to the projector) I thought I saw something "looming" over me in my reflection in the window and quickly turned around, to find nothing of course. A little freaked out, but just convinced it was my imagination in a very dark, quiet place I went on shutting down and started to walk back towards the main booth hall. All of a sudden I heard this huge crash that could only have been film cans being tossed at the floor. I paused, more freaked out now than ever, and decided it was more than time to just go home. The next morning the film cans in that end of the booth were all in order, and nothing was broken so it remained a mystery. Needless to say, I always got the hee-bee-gee-bees in that area of the booth from then on.
 

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 02-04-2003, 11:53 PM:
 
We seem to have something going on. We have a changing room for employees just below the booth. On several occasions poeple coming up to change clothes after the concession closes have come to the booth to inquire who the older tall older gentleman in the front of the balcony is. The story is that he is Robert Coulter the brother of one of the men who had the theatre built. He was manager from 1928 until 1971 when he retired and passed away shortly after. The seat he is seen in is the one he always used when he watched a movie. None of those seeing him had knowledge of the story. Frequently while standing at the port waiting to make a changeover a fleeting figure will be seen reflected in the port glass. Strange but true. I have been told by a customer who studies the occult that theatres are one of the places most often reported as haunted.
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-05-2003, 02:01 AM:
 
It's because cinema people can't get it out of their blood. Once we die we must continue to have something to do with the cinema. I know I plan on haunting many a theater with bad presentations.
 

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Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 02-05-2003, 02:43 AM:
 
I'm one of those 'lucky' people that has a heightened sensitivity to the supernatural, or paranormal energies if you will.

When I first started at my current theatre, I noticed that the far end of the booth (nearest to machine #10) had a very creepy feel to it. I also noticed that the hallway below that end of the booth had a very weird feel to it, but a lot less creepy. Some of the kids I have worked with have seen odd things going on with the lighting in that part of the hallway.

I have actually seen two different entities in the booth, and gotten a fairly clear look at them, or as clear as they would let themselves be seen.
One appeared to be a young man, wearing a white shirt & blue jeans, he doesn't bother me, and I don't think he hangs out in the booth all the time, he's just curious. Many times I've caught him watching me thread projectors 7, 8, & 9.
The other one is creepy. It's a tall, thin figure, all in black. He likes to mess with the booth equipment. We have had some truly unusual issues with the machines at the end of the booth that he haunts.
Finally, one day I decided that I'd had enough of the creepy one's mischief, and bitched him out.
Yeah, sure, that may sound crazy, and had someone entered the booth in the middle of my doing that, they probably would have thought that I had honestly gone nuts. But you know what? It worked. No more trouble from the figure in black.
 

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Posted by Jon Bartow (Member # 241) on 02-05-2003, 09:09 AM:
 
Gracia,
Do you remember that mall in it's original state? (indoor hallways, a bunch of stores) Now the building is more than 60% empty because they turned it into a strip mall. The empty, warehouse-like rooms out back (over 200,000 square feet!) have been hiding places for the scum of the area for years. I personally know of half a dozen ways to get in the back without a key or tripping an alarm. (don't worry, you can't get into the theater without a key or a very BIG sledge hammer). The cops have made the back parking area a part of their regular rounds for years. Did they ever make the old theater back there into a bar? They were supposed to a couple of years ago.
Anyway, it wouldn't supprise me to hear that several (or many) murders had occured in that old mall.
Jonathan
 

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Posted by Bernard Tonks (Member # 809) on 02-05-2003, 09:45 AM:
 
I like this old one posted by Joe Schmidt:

‘Here it comes folks….The A2 and the Porno House’

First, it is necessary to create a little atmosphere so you can visualize what the place was like. All of us here know what an Altec A2 system is, and I think most of us know what a porno house is. For those who might not be sure, I’ll just say that if the Priest in Cinema Paradiso had seen any of the award-winning cinematic masterpieces shown here, he would have dropped his bell and passed out dead on the floor. Toto’s mother would have hauled him home and locked him in the basement, grounded for the next 75 years. If any here are still not sure, I suggest to PM Mark Gulbrandsen who should be able to elucidate.

The house itself is best described as an old downtown vaudeville house built during the 1920’s. It had a HUGE stage, with a grid 75’ high. Far up at the top of the balcony was a crackerbox projection booth built in the nitrate film era. The projection angle was a steep 45 degrees and the screen had to be tilted back slightly to minimize keystoning as is often the case in such situations.

Getting up to the booth was a long hike usually requiring two rest stops along the way. It was a good idea to carry extra oxygen, as you would be wheezing in a manner similar to the Coyote after an encounter with the Road Runner. Most of the seats in the balcony had not been sat in for decades and thus had a heavy coating of black dust, except for a few in the front row of the balcony, which could be used by special privileged guests occasionally. These were kept covered by some large sheets to keep off the dust. A few seats near the booth door also were kept up in good condition. This was the nicest part of the theatre, very clean and carpeted, with an immaculate rest room and a refrigerator.

Downstairs, there was no carpeting. The seats were all set in cement, and there was a large drain down in front. The octogenarian janitor’s cleaning technique was to wash the place down with a hose under the seats and then collect all the “stuff” from around the drain and place it in garbage cans.
Backstage was a dark, gloomy and dismal place, illuminated only by a 10-watt bulb in a rickety brass gooseneck fixture above the ancient light board, an affair with many resistance rheostats, switches and fuses. This light board was so old it dated back before Edison had invented electricity. Several signs were posted: HANDS OFF! DANGER!!!! DO NOT TOUCH! KEEP AWAY!! The stage lighting was just footlights and those old-fashioned square flood things hanging from long pipes suspended from the grid far above. The screen frame was suspended by steel cables and counterweighted, so in theory it could be flown if necessary. Behind the screen, on a platform with wheels, was the A2 speaker. If one peered up into the dismal black gloom, many old ropes with frayed ends could be seen hanging. The stage was reputed to be haunted, even since the time a janitor had hanged himself from one of the many ropes wafting down from the grid and conveniently available. The concession lady had walked back to the stage to start the antediluvian air-conditioning system, and carrying her flashlight, to help light the way... and there was the old janitor, hanging from the rope, swinging baaaaaaack and forth, baaaaaaaack and forth, like a pendulum. Terrified, she ran screaming out to the lobby, the police were called. The body had to be cut down and the first show was late in getting started that day. Ever since then, the elderly box-office lady and the elderly concession lady were very nervous about the stage, and hated to have to go back and start the air-conditioning system, which was almost an adventure in itself. Neither of them ever went back there alone again, but always together, if they went at all. As much as possible they wanted the projectionist to go back there and start it.

Pushing the buttons brought forth the most incredible screeching and shuddering of ancient gasping machinery being brought to life that anyone could conceive of. Imagine the howls of agony by a very old elephant that has just been bitten by an octopus and you might get the general idea. I’ve always regretted not stopping by there sometime with my Walkman Pro and a microphone to make a tape, this would have been a sound effect to end them all. Very few people knew of the secret switch on the light board that could turn on a few of the stage lights without having sparks fall down out of them. The entire stage was covered with the Dust Of Centuries save for a pathway that had been worn into the dust along the trek to the theatre’s climate-control machine room. About all the stage was used for was storage, there were crates scattered about with mysterious things in them, some resembling coffins, and there was a legend that one of the crates contained a mummy, but no one knew for sure, and no one wanted to investigate. As everyone here on film-tech knows, “Never Disturb A Sleeping Mummy In A Haunted Stage!”
The Altec A2 was driven by a Century Deluxe sound system, the top of the line tube system made for them by Altec. Installed about 1952. There were two power amps with 807 tubes which could be run separately or switched in together for more power. Combined with the A2, this system could deliver stupendous sound from a film with a good sound recording, but all there was in porno films was mostly moaning and groaning. Occasionally there might be a bit of good music in a porno film, but not often. We did have an excellent record player with a Shure cartridge for intermission music and the only time the poor speaker got to show its stuff was with a good record playing. It had deep and powerful bass response and the whole place would jump.

But all the rest of the time... just gasping, moaning and groaning. What a terrible waste, I always thought. Years passed, and 1977 rolled around with Star Wars and the first installations of Dolby Stereo for other films. We needed speakers for other houses, and I had the thought that the A2 could be cannibalized, broken down into chunks, carried off and used to much better advantage elsewhere. “You Can’t Do That!” people said. “What are we going to use for sound in the Big House?” I proposed, “If I can come up with a suitable substitute, and if nobody can tell the difference, can we make the swap, which will save a lot of money too?” The big boss said OK. So I trotted over to the electronic supply place and bought a 12” utility speaker and one of those wall baffles with a slanted front to mount it in, just to make things look good, although actually I didn’t think the baffle was necessary. With some help, rolled the A2 back from the screen on its platform, slid over a couple of crates, brought a rickety stool over from the light board, put it on top of the crates and set the 12” speaker on top. This stool was so old it probably would have collapsed had anyone tried to sit on it, but it was perfect to hold the speaker. I disconnected the line from the A2 and hooked it up. The quality of the moaning and groaning was undiminished and crystal clear. None of the clientele attending the performances ever seemed to notice any difference, and no one complained. Of course a central component of my speaker theory was the people didn’t come to listen to the sound anyway, but for something else. So everybody won. And the A2 went happily on to better things.

Fin
 

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Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-05-2003, 10:29 AM:
 
Gracia would have fun in one of my former workplaces, which is situated behind a church, on the site of its former graveyard. The site was a newspaper printing works for 150 years before the cinema opened, so I presume it was deconsecrated and the remains removed back in the nineteenth century.

Never saw anything spooky, though I did once have 3 polyester platter wraps on the anniversary of Dick Turpin's [a notorious criminal who was eventually captured in York] execution.
 

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Posted by William Phillips (Member # 1162) on 02-05-2003, 02:30 PM:
 
The theatre I work in used to be the towns old slaughter house. It can be creepy on your own here.
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-05-2003, 03:15 PM:
 

quote:

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The theatre I work in used to be the towns old slaughter house. It can be creepy on your own here.

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Does the "smell" ever leave an old slaughter house? I have the "pleasure" of driving past a rendering plant (or "animal by-products recycling plant") on the way home from work. Close your windows in the summer.
 

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Posted by William Phillips (Member # 1162) on 02-05-2003, 04:02 PM:
 
The smell apparently took a few years to go, but now its ok.
The projection room has large windows due to it also being a sound and lighting box. So if you are alone at night and all the lights off in the hall it can be a bit spooky, espically as you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the windows( or is it someone else).
 

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Posted by Dave Hall (Member # 1589) on 02-05-2003, 04:37 PM:
 
yeh, we have a ghost who lives in screen 5, known as Norm. All of our ushers refuse (I kid you not) to go clean screen 5 alone.

Many times while rehearsing prints late at night we have seen him walking up the aisle stairs in the screen. Sounds weird but often at least 2 people in the screen will notice at exactly the same time.

As for weird happennings inside the booth, 2 of 3 prints we had of LOTR TT wrapped themselves around the underarms of the platter whilst the last reel was plating on. 2 different operators, 2 different platters! Norm got the blame for that one too.
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-05-2003, 05:07 PM:
 
I worked three theatres that where haunted two by former
projectionists.
The old Warner Theatre (Hollywood Pacific) in Hollywood is haunted by Sam Warner. He died back in 1927 the night before
"The Jazz Singer" opened in New York. When I worked the house
strange things would happen. I talked to long time employees
that said the same things like lights and doors. But it was
a Great house to work. The next house is the Vogue Theatre in
Hollywood. It is haunted by 4 spirits. The theatre dates back
to the early 30's. Before the theatre was built a school was
located on the site. A fire killed two kids. Then a long time
projectionist, who had been working that theatre for 40 years.
His name was Fritz, I ran into Fritz during a film festival in
2000. I was working the AFI Film Fest at the Vogue. So one
night before a 7:30 show, I went half way down stairs to see
if we were going to hold the show. No way came up or went down stairs. The booth was never locked, we never used the lock during
the fest. I'm about 15 feet away from the booth door. So I go
back to open the door. It's locked , one is around but me.
I can see the deadbolt is in use. So I go to the second door.
It is locked also. That door was about 25 feet away from the
other door. So I go back to the main booth door. It's still
locked, I start going back downstairs. Then I went back to the
booth door. Now it's unlocked , so I go inside to see if
anything happened inside. Later I found out alittle more about Fritz. The other person at the Vogue was a employee who
worked over at the Chinese Theatre. He hung himself back stage,
a few years earlier. The other theatre was the old GCC Sherman
Oaks 3-5 Theatre. (that unit was replaced after the Northridge
earthquake) That theatre was haunted by George a projectionist
that got murder by his roommate. That booth always ran different
after George died. It had a strange feeling in and around the booth. The funny thing about this was. The GCC Sherman Oaks theatre was two units (Twin & a Triplex). George always worked the twin, never the tri-plex theatre.
I never worked the the Tower Theatre located in downtown
Los Angeles. But one day the projectionist that was working died
during his shift. The local had to send a relief operator to
work the booth. The story has it the projectionist that died
was sitting in the big easy chair in the booth. So when the
other one got to the theatre, he found that they had placed a
sheet over the other operator.
 

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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 02-05-2003, 06:41 PM:
 
I heard this quote in one of the best Spanish films we ran last year, El Espinazo Del Diablo, The Devil's Backbone.

"What is a ghost?
A tradgedy condemned to repeat itself time and again?

A moment of pain perhaps.

Something dead which still seems to be alive.

An emotion suspended in time;

Like a blurred Photograph;

Like an insect trapped in Amber.

A ghost, Thats what I am."

That film still gives me the chills

Josh
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-05-2003, 07:38 PM:
 
Bill Gabel wrote:

quote:

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The old Warner Theatre (Hollywood Pacific) in Hollywood is haunted by Sam Warner. He died back in 1927 the night before
"The Jazz Singer" opened in New York. When I worked the house
strange things would happen. I talked to long time employees
that said the same things like lights and doors. But it was
a Great house to work.

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quote:

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"What is a ghost?
A tradgedy condemned to repeat itself time and again?

A moment of pain perhaps.

Something dead which still seems to be alive.

An emotion suspended in time;

Like a blurred Photograph;

Like an insect trapped in Amber.

A ghost, Thats what I am."

That film still gives me the chills

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...and I'm gonna haunt Josh's booth, since I helped him build the damned thing.

No need to worry, Josh. I will be a friendly ghost.
 

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Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 02-06-2003, 03:06 AM:
 
Jon - oh yeah, I do remember wha the mall used to look like! When I was just a wee lass, I went shopping with my grandmother just about every Saturday, and our shopping almost always seemed to bring us to the malls of that city (& it's neighbor). They eventually did put a club / bar type of place out back. On top of that, a restaurant / bar opened right next to the theater. You can always here the bass booming from next door on Karaoke night, nights with DJ's, nights with bands, and even just the jukebox, all throughout the lobby, in the restrooms, and the office! What can be even worse than that it that they have a banquet room out back... When that gets rented out, we tend to have to go over there and insist on them turning the sound down, as that room is much closer to the auditoriums (especially 7-10), and their music is so loud that it interferes with our presentation!
But, yeah, we see the five-oh drive through the lot, often.

Leo - I find it fascinating to visit places where interesting energies are at work. Generally though, I find graveyards to be rather peaceful. I live relatively close to Fort Williams, which certainly has some places with intense energies at work. I'm also not too far from Ferry Beach, which has some beautifully peaceful energy going on. I get the impression that the cause for that is the convent that overlooks the beach! hehe ...and a few of my friends & myself have been there for Sabbats, doing Pagan things!

Michael - I know that I was acting boldly in confronting the black ghost, and I'm not very worried. I've done a protective ritual involving salt around every entrance to the booth. And salt is one of the best things to ground negative spiritual energy. I've also considered doing something with frankincense.
I've had several different experience with ghosts, and from them I've learned is that they tend not to try to rattle you if you show them that you are quite unafraid of them and their presence.
My parents' house is haunted, primarily by my grandfather. I've felt another spirit in the house, that I think is more connected to the land, as it feels much older than the house, but I can't place who they might have been. And of the different appartments I've lived in, two did not feel haunted in any way; one didn't exactly feel haunted, but I had some weird experiences there; then the two places I've lived in Portland (including my current residence) are certainly haunted.

Whenever I go to the basement to do my laundry, I cheerfully announce it as I'm walking down the stairs with my laundry basket. I feel as though there are two or three spirits in this building, and none of them seem spiteful or menacing, they're just hanging around.
 

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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 02-06-2003, 07:22 AM:
 
"...and I'm gonna haunt Josh's booth, since I helped him build the damned thing."

Great, thats just what I need.

Shame on all you guys, I had a bad dream laast night!

Josh
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-06-2003, 10:45 AM:
 
What do you mean, you dreamt of Paul
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-06-2003, 10:45 AM:
 
John

But Sam is still running the show.

 

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-06-2003, 01:15 PM:
 
Michael, he probably dreamed of seeing his Brenkert threading itself...and hearing the door on one of his Peerless's opening and closing by itself...

Now, that would scare the hell out of me, too.

But that would be cool after I got used to it...

That would definately be a "fully automated" booth
 

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Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 02-06-2003, 01:25 PM:
 
Bill Gabel wrote:

quote:

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But Sam is still running the show (Digital Cinema at the ETC).

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Now, THAT's really scary!
 

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Posted by Josh Jones (Member # 447) on 02-07-2003, 12:44 AM:
 
Actually, I had a dream about our theater being haunted, But I went to work tonight, was alone for a period, and nothing happened.

Screwy, aint he?

Josh
 

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Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 02-07-2003, 01:27 AM:
 
Josh, guess which picture of yours popped up when I tuned in? It was the picture of you standing alongside your Peerless....

In this edit, I thought I would say that I know your theatre is not haunted. It gave me no indications it was during the times I was in there.

Now, when you walk into a big old barn about the size of the Fargo and it seems like you walked into a spider web or had an erie feeling like I did in the old UA Theatre in Oakland, Ca, the Lido Theatre in Mount Vernon, and the El Cine Mexacano Theatre in Burlington, you'll know....and you will be right. It is probably haunted.

Then, it's time you hold onto your butt and hope company arrives very soon.

If you want to really get some chills running up your spine about haunted ships, remember the story I told you about the USS Oriskany (CVA-34) when the F-8 plowed into the fantail? Then, make a search on the USS Forrestal CVA-59) when she had her big fire. I have heard reports the USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) was haunted, but I have not experienced anything abnormal when I sailed with her in 1964.

[ 02-07-2003, 04:32 AM: Message edited by: Paul G. Thompson ]
 

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Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 02-07-2003, 04:15 AM:
 
I've pretty much had three kinda-eerie experiences. In Seattle at the Harvard Exit Theatre (built at the turn of the century as the Women's Century Club) which is on some historic register of haunted places. The hallway leading to the manager's office also had doors leading to various rooms. What was weird is that when leaving at the end of the night, walking down the hall there were times it felt like walking through 'sheets' of cold air. Even now the hair on the back of my neck is on end and chills are going down my back.

My first haunted theatre experience is the Rose Theatre in Port Townsend, built in 1907. The janitor and I would sometimes smell cigar smoke in the middle left side of the theatre - again it was like walking through a 'sheet' of the scent and only in the middle of the night.

Lastly, the creepiest theatre I've ever worked is the NuWilshire in Santa Monica. Sadly, years ago a manager was shot to death there. That, added to the stories the recent projectionist told of hearing children laughing in what is one of the creepiest hallways upstairs at three in the morning (causing him to 'drop everything and get the hell out of there') just makes it so creepy. Late at night, closing up or even arriving in the morning, it just feels like your definately not alone. I made it a point to talk to the ghosts - sometimes trying the trick of telling them they're dead - just to make me feel better. I never liked being there alone at night. Funny, though, most people are really freaked out by the backstage area but of all the places in the theatre to be alone, I'd rather be back there.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 02-07-2003, 07:26 AM:
 
The Williamsburg Theatre (pics in the gallery; now called the Kimball Theatre) definitely had a ghost. He would do things like open and close doors, unscrew lightbulbs at random (I spent quite a bit of time climbing ladders to change bulbs, only to find them unscrewed, but otherwise working), and casting weird shadows on the walls. Nothing scary or bad ever happened, though. I'm not ordinarily a believer in "paranormal" events, but I can't think of a better explanation for some of the weird things that happened there when I was alone in the theatre late at night.

There's a book called "Ghosts of Williamsburg" or something like that that tells the story: apparently, the site where the theatre now exists was once occupied by a family's house during the Civil War. There were two brothers in the family, one of which went to fight for the North and the other of which went to fight for the South. One of them died in the war and supposedly is the ghost who returns to the site of the house to look for his brother.

Quirky stuff like this is one of the reasons why I enjoy working at older theatres. I've never heard of a ghost haunting a 30-screen gigaplex.
 

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Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 02-07-2003, 12:55 PM:
 
Mathew wrote

quote:

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Sadly, years ago a manager was shot to death there.

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It was during a robbery and a cashier was killed also. That was
when the theatre was operated by Mann Theatres in the 80's.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 02-07-2003, 04:21 PM:
 
Three of the theaters I used to service were reported to be haunted. Two of them by ex-managers who died in the theaters.

One manager had a stroke in his office, late one night.
The assistant manager, whose name was Andy, came in to open up one day. He walked into the office and the GM was sitting at his desk, repeating, "Andy!... Andy!... Andy!... Andy!...", over and over again.
The E.M.T. who came to the theater said that the poor guy had a stroke and when he felt that he was "going under", so to speak, he called out for the first person he could think of. The speech centers of his brain must have got stuck in an endless loop of some sort when the rest of him went brain dead. The guy must have been sitting there all night, stuck in an endless loop!

Needless to say, Andy, the assistant was so rattled that he couldn't come to work for about a week!

The second manager to die got caught up in some kind of domestic quarrel with some neighborhood kids. I was told that a couple-three guys met him at the back door of the theater late one night, beat the tar out of him, stuffed him into the trunk of his own car, drove it out into the woods and left him for dead. Of course, he DID die.

Both of these theaters are reported to be haunted... projectors misbehaving in strange ways, etc. I have had several calls for repairs for unexplained reasons. None of which proved to be true when I got there. I would be called to these theaters for having a "projector down" but when I would get there, nothing would be wrong. At first I blamed it on incompetent operators. It wasn't until I was told about the "hauntings" that I imagined the ghosts of the managers were the cause.

I was told about the hauntings by an impartial third party.

Frankly, I don't believe in ghosts... not to say that I don't believe there COULD be ghosts. I've never seen anything that I couldn't explain in another way.

However... IF there ARE such things as ghosts, I would have to say I have actually seen them in a third theater in Matthews, NC. .....

I was working late in this theater... approx. 4 or 5 in the morning.
The night cleaners were done with their work and had gone home. I know this because the building has two alarm zones. The upstairs zone covers the manager's office and the projection booth. The downstairs zone covers the lobby/concession area, the hallways to the theaters and the building perimeter doors. There are no detectors inside the auditoriums themselves but in order to get into a theater you would have to go through the lobby or open a perimeter door, which IS alarmed.

I had just finished making major repairs to a projector. The projector was down for two days because I had to replace the sound drum and its bearings. It took a day for me to get to the location and diagnose the problem and another day to overnight the parts.

When I finished the work, I started the projector to test it. I threaded up the print that was on the platter and ran it. (If a projector can last a two hour movie with no problems, no doubt it was running well enough to be released for service again.) I went off down the booth hall to attend to a "personal matter". (The booth had its own rest room.)

As I walked away from the projector, I looked over my shoulder to see THREE PEOPLE walk down the aisle of the theater and sit in the front row of seats!
At first, I thought the night cleaners were coming in to see the movie but when I looked at the alarm control panel, the downstairs zone was ARMED! There was NO FUCKING WAY people could be in that theater! I ran back to the port window to see who the hell was there but they saw me and darted back up the aisle and (appearently) out into the lobby before I could see who they were. Again! They COULDN'T have penetrated the lobby without setting off the motion detectors!

I bolted down the stairs, barely having enough time to disarm the system before intercepting the people who SHOULD have been in the lobby. I'm a big guy but I can move fast when I need to! I KNOW it only took 10 seconds for me to get down there! Even IF somebody could have sneaked past the alarm system there was NO WAY they could have escaped the building without me catching them!

There was NOBODY there! Nobody in the theater! Nobody in the hallway!
I spent the next 1/2 hour searching the building but EVERYTHING was locked up the way it should be. Including the restrooms and janitors closets. Nobody!

I went back upstairs and rearmed the system in hopes of catching whomever it was... in case they hid somewhere I didn't look. Nobody set off the alarm.

When the GM came in later that morning I told him that the projector was all fixed. He was happy with that. When I told him that I saw people in the theater where there should have been nobody, he didn't seem upset. He just gave me that look of "Yeah, so what?" and kept right on doing his morning paperwork. He never said, "Oh? You must have met our ghosts." He just had the most "matter-of-fact" look about him.

I never spoke another word to him about it. So... If there IS such a thing as ghosts, I saw them that day!
 

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Posted by Chris Byrne (Member # 1563) on 02-09-2003, 04:46 AM:
 
Randy,

They are some freaky tales. I think if the GM was repeating my name, I would have never came back for fear of reprisal.

The night after I made the post, I stayed back to finish off some work before going on annual leave. I had about 15 minutes left, when out of nowhere the rack exhaust started making a ghastly whirring sound and sent a chill straight through me. Needless to say I cut for it right then and come back in the morning.

I would never doubt a ghost story, however I believe that when tired you are more open to apparitions or spirits. Maybe it's a hallucination or maybe it's opening yourself up to the other side.

I was about 15 minutes
 

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 02-09-2003, 10:10 AM:
 

quote:

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the rack exhaust started making a ghastly whirring sound

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quote: Gary Crawford

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Blessed Be to those who think that way.

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Blessed be to you also. But we won't get into that here...

Anyway, I don't personally believe a person has to die in a particular spot for them to hang around there. I've just noticed a lot of people saying that the spot is/or is rumored to be haunted because someone died there in the past... If I hang around anywhere its going to be at the Gloucester Cinema (my baby) and I can almost garuntee that I'm not going to die there... Just my 2 cents.
 

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Posted by James Pope (Member # 1189) on 05-16-2004, 12:00 AM:
 
The Ritz in west valley was said to have had a construction worker die while building it. The old GM told a bunch of employees that one night. Needless to say we exploited it we told a employee (very gelable) that we saw something in #4. and every time we would see him in there cleaning we would click the cp500 over to SR flip the lights on and off very fast and advance the motor (because it was already threaded up the leader tape would make a hell of a noise) he would come flying out of the theatre as fast as a lord of the rings nerd on a bathroom break. he REFUSED to clean that theatre by himself. we would send somebody in with them and have a reason for them to come out early then the games began. pretty messed up but funny as hell we kept that up till, well they were still doing it when I quit. as for actual ghosts I never seen one or anything like it.
 

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Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 05-16-2004, 11:10 AM:
 
Some people say the camera captures your soul when it takes your picture. What about taking that a step further, and saying that a projector RELEASES that soul?

I've worked at a theater with a haunted auditorium before. It was always cold in there no matter what, even in the dead heat of summer with the air off. Every time we would play a children's movie in there, it would brainwrap. Even if everything was fine, and you JUST walked away from the platter. Bam. Only kids movies, too.

Sometimes we'd play a flat movie, and the masking would be correct, then about halfway through when I was checking auditoriums, the masking would be open to scope.

But the real kicker was this: This was the auditorium where we stored our christmas decorations in, behind the screen. We were in there cleaning one day in the Spring and heard "DECK The halls with boughs of holly!" singing from the back of the screen. Me and the girl I was cleaning with FREAKED! We calmed down when we remembered that the theater put out this annoying singing lamp post every year, which had a sensor on it so it would know to start singing when someone walked by.

Being the brave hero that I am, I went behind the screen to shut it off. All the while wodnering what caused it to come on, and why it wasn't going off all the time before. I found the thing and it was still singing. I flipped the switch to OFF. Still singing. I get pissed off and pop open the battery compartment to find... NO BATTERIES!! The thing stops singing, with its jolly face staring right at me! I THREW that shit back behind the screen and ran. The poor girl was all, "What?? WHAT??" and I just kept repeating, "JUST GO! JUST GO!"

Scary as hell!

The story is they found an old man, probably in his late 70s or 80s, dead in his seat after the movie was finished. The ushers thought he was sitting to watch the credits, but after they were done he was still there. A careful nudge revealed the awful truth. This happened several years before I started there. Even the tech was aware of the "ghost" because of all the strange, random problems that crept up (like the random masking change) in that auditorium.

=TMP=
 

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Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 05-17-2004, 09:11 PM:
 
Regal Peoples Plaza 17 has at least one ghost in number 10 (the second or third largest house, I believe the only one in DE with SDDS-8). Whenever they play any sort of supernatural thriller in that house projection and automation problems abound (except Harry potter, the ghost(s) seemed to like that one) They must have hated "The Others", every five minutes the lights would come on and the masking would open to scope, then the image would momentarily vanish from the screen (while the soundtrack continued, but switched from DTS to SR) then a minute or two later, everything would appear to return to normal but only for about five minutes. Similar problems on "Signs" although not quite as much.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Fuentes (Member # 2135) on 05-17-2004, 10:29 PM:
 
Cant wait to see what kind of problems yall are going to have with Exorcist: The Beginning..
 

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Posted by Chris Medley (Member # 2145) on 05-18-2004, 12:13 PM:
 
I think that every Cinemark theater ever built has had someone die during construction...we had a guy that accidently tipped over one of those moving genie lifts and fell during construction
 

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Posted by Gracia L. Babbidge (Member # 582) on 05-22-2004, 01:12 AM:
 
Dark elves seem to love projection booths.
They do exude a peculiarly creepy kind of energy, although they themselves are rarely malevolent.
They just like to hang out in places with lots of dark corners that rarely (if ever) see the light of the sun.

Since I'm living at my parents' house again, and dating someone even more sensitive to astral energies & entities that I am, the mystery of the 'other' spirit haunting the house & yard has been solved!

In the backyard, there is an older well - the kind with a cement cap about three feet in diameter. The cap is rather dilapidated, has a gaping hole on one side, and slanting downwards away from this hole. The ground all behind, spreading left & right is quite swampy, with the well rather overgrown.

One weekend night Kevin (my boyfriend) & I were downstairs, playing video games, and I noticed that he kept looking towards the northmost corner of the basement - the spooky spot. Then he asked if I'd heard my little sister. With the game paused, I listened intently, but heard none of the usual fuss my little sister makes if she's startled out of her slumber. Not long after he made another query about her freaking out upstairs, again, I hadn't heard it. I asked him what he'd heard, his response was that he'd heard a blood-curdling scream.

That Monday, while driving back to my home from a 'Gothic / Industrial Night' (aka "Spooky Night") at a club in Portland, Kevin & I got to discussing the weird energy that entered the basement from time to time, along with the noises that he'd heard. Ever since moving into the house my freshman year in high school, when my friends would visit, they would often be spooked by that corner of the basement - some even had trouble sleeping soundly in my room (which was then in that half of the basement).
Kevin commented that he thought maybe something was distrubed by the digging being done for a swimming pool in the yard, which I dismissed, as a pool had been on that spot before, for many years, and not too far under the soil there was a large ledge. He asked about the possibility of any caves in the yard - I told him that there were none. Then I remembered the well, so I mentioned it. He asked me to describe it. After I did he said "You probably have a banshee in that well."
When we got back to the house, I started to walk across the yard to indicate roughly where in the backyard that well is located. The well is significantly downhill from where I was standing, Kevin didn't walk close enough to be able to see the well before he started to back up saying "I don't need to see the well... It's floating up over it."
At the time, I felt as though something from that direction was glaring at me, although I couldn't see it, I didn't doubt that he did. That night all entrances to the basement from outside got warded to prevent negative spirits from entering (and my cat followed us around, helping & checking that we didn't miss anything).
Right before the next new moon - on a dark moon night - a banishing was performed by Kevin & myself on the well. By the time of the next full moon, all ookiness in the backyard was gone, and no more creepy corner of the basement.
There's even a really happy spirit hanging out in the backyard now.

Think I sound nuts? That's ok. Not everyone could stand at a rewind bench with a spooky spirit pacing a (4ft radius) half circle out behind them for a solid half hour, and instead of being scared -less, tell the spirit to buzz off because the intended scare tactic had failed miserably.
 

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Posted by John Hegel (Member # 628) on 05-22-2004, 02:43 AM:
 
The Mills Theater is Lake Mills Iowa was haunted. My office was in the old crying room. One night after close I was doing the weekly books and listening to MP3's through the sound system/booth monitor that ran the crying room speaker.

After I was done with the books I was taking the office garbage out to the dumpster through the auditorium. When I was about half-way to the stage the song ended and the next on the playlist didn't start; so I was thinking... great the computer locked up and I didn't save, I wish that was the case.

When I went back to the crying room the playlist was still going, but the 4 breakers to the auditorium amps were off. That bothered me since I was the only person locked in the building.

The next problem we had was when I friend went into the lobby to grab a play bill for the upcoming weeks, but was startled by the foyer, lobby, and auditorium lights "flickering/flashing" as she put it.
Since I or no one else was in the theater at the time she called me on my cell phone and explained the situation, so I asked her to go in the office and kill the leads to the auditorium (3 poll knife switch), which we normally killed at night anyway. The problem with that idea is the knife switch was off.

So when I got there an hour or so later I check the ups software on the computers, and none of them have any errors to report, so that was weird.

The last night the theater was open I was taking the trash out again and this time when I was about the reach the exit I heard the loud thud of the boiler room door slamming closed. I didn't go in the basement to check it out, but it was odd since the door has a weight and pulley system that kept it closed.
 

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Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 05-22-2004, 09:01 AM:
 
Good story Gracia.
 

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Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 05-22-2004, 10:45 AM:
 
I have three venues where I work. The largest is an 800 seat concert hall. The oldest is a small, 200 seat "Black Box" theater in the basement of the school's library. The third is a new 250 seat recital hall in the newest building on campus.

All three stages have solid state dimming systems. (Strand CD-80 rack systems.) There is a quirk in the way these systems work. If the control console is turned off while the dimmer rack is still powered up, spurious signals can find their way down the control lines and cause "ghosting" of the lights. (Yes I know. It has to do with ground/shield issues in the wiring but there is little I can do about it at this point.) My solution is to leave the console(s) on at all times or else shut the entire system down from the service disconnect. However, there is the occasional person who will shut the console down and walk away.

It's a really rare occurrence but when the lights "ghost" it's pretty spooky if you don't know what's happening. The stage lights will flicker randomly. Some will come on full blast. Some will flash on and off. Others will come on to about 50% and stay there. It really seems like the stage is possesed!

If I'm there with somebody when the lights start flashing they will usually get pretty creeped out. I'll just look at them and say, "Oh, it's just a ghost in the system." At this point they are usually heading for the exit!

There are no real ghosts in any of my venues but there are a few good ghost stories floating around here. There's one good one about a nun who committed suicide. It's fun to fuck with peoples' minds.

The truth about ghosts, whether there really IS such a thing or not, is that they have no power over you unless YOU let them!
 

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Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 05-22-2004, 04:10 PM:
 

quote:

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It's fun to fuck with peoples' minds.

The truth about ghosts, whether there really IS such a thing or not, is that they have no power over you unless YOU let them!

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AMEN to that!

I've worked in venues with the same kind of "ghosting" problems with the lighting system, and it freaked me out until i figured out what it was. Of course, once when I was doing lighting for a show at a real old theater at a school, this place had a nice sound system, and a good selection of lighting. Once I overheard the director saying that he was going to stay late to look over the set one night, I was also planning to go over the lighting and the script that night. So about 11pm, I'm in the lighting booth with the console and the director's on the stage thinking he's the only person in the building. As soon as I realized this, that's where the fun started. I shut off the reading lamp in the booth so he wouldn't detect my presence, then while he was on the stage, I flickered the stage lights to get his attention, when he seemed freaked out enough, that's when I shut off the houselights, and the work lights making it completely dark in the auditorium, that's when I turned on the fog machines. He kept lighting his cigarette lighter so I knew where he was the whole time, then I flickered a blue down light that cast an eerie glow in the fog. He started running around looking for an exit, so I hit one of the exits with the followspot and watched him run like hell. The next day, he didn't want to go anywhere near the stage. I asked him what was wrong and he said that some weird stuff happened last night. That's when I told him the story of Lewie (making it up as I went along and trying hard not to laugh), the lighting director in the late 70's, he was being stressed too much by the director, and hung himself from the lighting grid. Many claim to see his blue ghost haunting the stage area directly over where he hung himself. Oddly enough, the director put a lot less pressure on me throughout the rest of the production. Later that week I was telling a bunch of other people on the crew what I did to the director that night, within a day of telling them, there was a noose hanging above the downlight i used as a ghost, and a director who wouldn't go any closer to the stage than the middle row of seating.
 

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Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 05-22-2004, 04:16 PM:
 
That what????
 

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Posted by Rob Butler (Member # 2274) on 05-24-2004, 06:57 PM:
 
Huh???
 

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Posted by Rachel Gilardi (Member # 1016) on 05-24-2004, 09:17 PM:
 
Did you add more because it was cut off at the word "that" when I was reading it the other day?
 

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Posted by Nicole Halper (Member # 2299) on 05-24-2004, 11:02 PM:
 
Ok- so we have the ghost that generally haunts the north side of our theatre- but here's a story from yesterday on the floor.

So I'm in concession, and we have those TVs that play trailers on a low volume. All of the sudden there is a loud noise- which turns out to be the speakers, with a whole lot of feedback. A couple managers go over to the control for the volume to check it out. Mind you this is locked up. It turns out that the volume somehow got turned to the max- yet no one was near it. A bit odd I would say.
And then there was that strange light last week:
So I came downstairs, and there was a weird glare on one of the doors to a theatre. So I'm trying to figure it out. I pick up this broom- and try to block out the light. It looked like it was coming from the mylar. Apparently it wasn't because the broom wouldn't block any of it. A number of ushers were walking by- and I asked them what they thought. One said that maybe it was from the restroom sign- but no luck there either. By now there are about six of us looking at it - when all of the sudden it vanishes. Honestly nothing moved anywhere around us! Rather odd- I must say!
 

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Posted by John Hegel (Member # 628) on 05-25-2004, 04:53 AM:
 
I have seen modern lighting systems with DMX controllers do weird things before, but the Mills had no such system. The houselights controls were 8 wall switches that ran different colored bulbs.
 

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Posted by Peter Hall (Member # 695) on 05-25-2004, 10:25 AM:
 
The Astor in Auckland New Zealand was romoured to be haunted.

One night I arrived to find the manageress in her car outside the theatre, refusing to go inside. It turned out she had opened up the cinema, and for some reason unlocked the doors to the stalls to "check" them ??. (We seldom used the stalls except for late shows - the place seated 1300). She saw an old man, walking around the stage area and across the front stalls area. Then he literally walked into a wall and disappeared.

I took the manager in, walked through the stalls and semi convinced her that there was nobody there. We proceeded to screen our Mad Max trilogy to 150 of Auckland's finest and went home, but the thoughts of what the manager had seen and the terrified look on her face stuck in my mind.

In the Astor, very occasionally you'd be looking out for a cue dot you'd think you'd see someone in the reflection of the port glass behind you. You'd turn around, miss the cue and nobody would be there. Ho hum, too many late nights we thought.

Still it was a fantastic place to work - in summer you'd open all the booth windows and a rich glow from the cinema neons would fill the booth. Hand winch top masking, Westrex sound, Ernemann 10s with carbons....
 

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