Talent MIA (at the bar)

[Ryan Gallagher]

I'm sure this has happened to a few others, but was a first for me in my tenure.

Had an onstage artist Q&A scheduled for after the film. They were here to do the intro, dipped out (as is common), for the film. Credits began to role, not back to the building yet. Credits ended, no sign of them yet. Their agent was called by our PM. We pretty quickly realized things were going sideways and threw on some house music. About 5 min into waiting we still didn't have status update, so punted and the PM used a mic to call a 15 min intermission before the QA.

They arrived about 10 min into that intermission finally.

Thankfully it was the type of show where most people were here BECAUSE of the Q&A talent, so very few people actually left. A more mundane Q&A booking would have had the person returning to an empty theatre.

Was just amusing. All that effort setting stage funiture during crawl to get right into it wasted. ;-)

[Frank Cox]

A year so so ago I had a movie here where the maker-of-the-movie called me after I booked it into my schedule and asked if it would be ok for him to come here for the first showing and do a q&a. "It'll be fun. I love to do this stuff."

Sure, I said. Come ahead. I can get a decent audience to come and listen to this guy if they know he's coming. I talked to the chap at the high school who does drama and art and whatnot and said, "I've got this guy coming so you might want to round up the drama kids for that night so they can learn something." Put it on my website. Etc.

Then one day prior to the "big day" I get an email.

"Changed my mind, not coming."

Annoyed is a mild description of my reaction. After all I didn't ask him to come here, he just popped up and volunteered.

If he asks again, my answer isn't going to be yes.

[Carsten Kurz]

.

They arrived about 10 min into that intermission finally.

Not meaning to excuse them, but, were they given the time when the movie was ending or when they should show up?

One would think that they know their own movies runtime and know to turn up early rather than late, but...

I usually tell them the time when the credits roll (and set a timer on my smartphone as well).

[Ryan Gallagher]

Not meaning to excuse them, but, were they given the time when the movie was ending or when they should show up?

One would think that they know their own movies runtime and know to turn up early rather than late, but...

I usually tell them the time when the credits roll (and set a timer on my smartphone as well).

Considering it is a booked tour type thing you’d think that was known. Being relegated to the booth I can’t vouch for what was transmitted or not as they left the building. I am a bit removed from that process, my folks knew the runtime and the crawl time.

[Mike Blakesley]

This thread reminds me of when we've done shows for either indie movie producers or non-movie entities. For indie producers, I always tell them: I either need your movie on DCP, **or** I need your movie a few days ahead of time on a blu-ray so I can convert it myself. I also tell them I need at least one one-sheet. Without fail they stop responding to emails or phone calls, and show up at 5:30 on the day of their presentation with a DVD, and of course we never get a one-sheet.

When we've had live performances (which is very rare, but it happens) I tell them with my voice AND via e-mail, "This is a movie theater. That means we have no backstage area and we have no lighting of any kind in the stage area, because it's not really a stage, and we also don't have a PA system. You need to provide lights and PA or your show will not go on."

Without fail the performer shows up going "where's the dressing room?" and having no clue about the need for lights and sound. Luckily I have a couple of good connections in the area that can usually hook us up with what we need, but I sure wish these people would pay attention. We had one comedian who arrived and said no problem, he'd just do the show without lights and PA. I should have let him do it just to teach him a lesson, but we found backup equipment at the high school drama department.

[Martin McCaffery]

Yeah, that's why we finally had lawyers create a contract for us when we lease the building.
For Indies and non-movie entities, I tell them we will not book a date until the film is locked. Been burned enough times by them not realizing how long it takes to edit and fix a film. I blame digital. Everyone should be forced to edit on film;>

[Leo Enticknap]

As coincidence would have it, I got an opportunity to post my favorite "talent MIA at the bar" story on another thread recently. The detail of his performance in the Q & A afterwards was just a tiny fraction of the fun that was had by all. His description of the Egyptians using language that Alf Garnett would have considered unacceptably racist was another memorable moment. Once he realized that the theater full of teenage schoolkids (who had entered the theater resentfully, believing that they were in for a boring black-and-white movie followed by an equally boring lecture) were hanging on his every word, the inhibitions slipped away even further. By the end of it, the teachers with them looked like they had PTSD even more seriously than a WWII veteran who had experienced the worst of it.

[Jim Cassedy]

All that effort setting stage furniture during crawl to get right into it wasted. ;-)

Sometimes I think you and I live in semi-parallel universes. I've had requests
for four chairs on stage for a Q&A, and then the participants stood on stage,
next to the 4 chairs, for the whole Q&A session.
At big festivals and even sometimes at my own venue, we have a professional
"talent wrangler" at some events. Last week, we had a moderately well known
director and several other people in for a Q&A screening. That night I had to
rely on some of the theater staff to act as 'stage managers' to get the three
director's chairs and microphones in place a the proper time. At the start,
I gave a clear and accurate time cues for when they would need to be in the
auditorium to do their chair-and-microphone handling duties. As the credits
rolled, I gave several more calls on the radio- with no response, except for a
quick "OK".
Well, you guessed it- - the credits ended, lights went up and the Q&A background
graphic went on screen with my 'stage manager' nowhere in sight. I couldn't
help, since I was trapped in the booth quite a distance from the stage. The
director and the other Q&A participants spotted the chairs down in front of
the stage, and I heard one of them (on an open microphone) mumble something
like "I guess we're going to have to do this ourselves", and then they proceeded
to bring the 4 chairs up on stage and spent almost the next minute or so with
their backsides to the audience as they mucked around trying to figure out how
to unfold each chair and put the cloth backrests on. (and this confirmed my long
standing suspicion that a director has no friggin' idea how a director's chair works)
After the show, I found the director and crew in the lobby and profusely apologized
for the stage furniture faux-pas. I had worked with the publicist before and he told
me not to worry much about it and that he knew that it probably wasn't my fault.
I later found my MIA 'helper" who explained they had been sidetracked into another
task by one of the assistant managers. But apparently they didn't even bother to
mention that they were supposed to be helping me in the auditorium, or I know the
manager would have let them go. I still don't know why all my radio calls were
ignored. I know my radio was working, because I could hear my transmissions
on another open radio on the other side of the booth. Oh well. Next time I'll make
sure our guest directors know how to set up a chair and turn on a microphone.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I’ll take my universe over yours Jim. At least when we have planned QA’s or guest intros they bring in the full IA house positions, one per department. I’m not alone to wrangle help, and we have coms in addition to radio. Hell they don’t even use the cinema system for the mic/PA. Out of my hands. One of the perks of being a mostly live mixed use venue it seems.

[Leo Enticknap]

Superintending talent on stage can range from memorable in very good ways to memorable in very bad. The effect in both directions can be, shall we say, amplified, when booze gets involved. The two positively remarkable Q & As that stick in my mind were

- Donald Woods, who appeared after a screening of Cry Freedom at the theater I was working at in 2001. The head of programming was sick, so I was told to take him to dinner and schedule another projectionist to run the show. I was somewhat nervous, because I had to break it to him that the 35mm print we were promised got lost at Perivale (any projectionist who worked in Britain in the 35mm days will hear that name with dread - it is a suburb of West London where the distribution depot for most of the prints that circulated in the country was located, and where many frequently disappeared), and we had to play a pink, scratched, and horrible 16mm 'scope abomination. He was extremely gracious about it, and when I told him that the show had sold out, he seemed genuinely surprised that there was still that much interest in the events of the movie. I was very shocked to see his obituary only 2-3 months later. He must have been terminally ill when I met him, but showed absolutely no sign of it.

- Gena Rowlands, at the Egyptian, in 2015 or '16. She had a query about the print of Opening Night that I played (a scene she was expecting to see wasn't there), and was taken to the booth by a manager to ask me about it. Again, very warm and gracious as I explained that if it had been cut, it must have been in post rather than missing from the actual print, which was in as new condition apart from the heads and tails cut (carefullly) with ID frames.

The negatively remarkable ones were:

- Kristina Söderbaum, who basically spent half an hour opining what shame it was that Hitler lost the war. That really went down well with the almost entirely British audience!

An actor, still alive and who shall remain nameless, responding to a question about a very well known director, also alive and also nameless, for the following obvious reason. The question asked was why this director was able to obtain such strong performances from child actors. "Because he screws them senseless, probably," was the response. He then refused to take the hint as the moderator tried to steer him away from elaborating on his accusation that the director was an infamous pedo, and that this was an open secret in the biz. Almost as soon as the show was over, a manager appeared in the booth and relieved me of the tape (an actual, 1/4 inch reel-to-reel tape in those days!) of the Q&A that would otherwise have gone into the organization's archives. I wouldn't be surprised if she took it straight to the nearest woodchipper.

[Ryan Gallagher]

My most memorable of late had be when most of the band members for the local legends "The Butthole Surfers" got on stage after their festival documentary screening. That band was known for having the rowdiest stage shows in their hey day, I even saw one or two as a high school kid, and the old timers they are now are still living up to that reputation. One of them passed out in the front rows before we even got to the Q&A. Once they were all on stage it was pretty much the insanity you would expect. But the kind their fans were definitely there for. The doc was quite good too.