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Author Topic: Worst booth disaster? Rich Granata Film Handler Posts: 61 From: Bethlehem PA USA Registered: Mar 2004 posted 05-07-2004 09:42 AM                     The first night that I transfered to my current building was the night of LOTR: The Return of the King. I go upstairs to check out the operation and 2 managers were standing around the projector fixing a brain wrap. Edit: The auditorium was sold out, seats about 230. refunds and passes The film was too long and the tail wasn't secured. It fell and caught hold of something and it wrapped. Since then, we clip all the tails to the platter with "clips" made from cut trailer cores. AW3R  |  IP: Logged Richard Greco Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1180 From: Plant City, FL Registered: Nov 2003 posted 05-07-2004 10:33 AM                     I just need to tell my horror story with LoTR on Xmas eve. I started the show at 4pm and everything was normal until after I started a 6:45 show of another film. I went downstairs to check on a few theatres that were letting out soon and I get 3 people come out of LoTR saying that it's burning. I run upstairs and what to my eyes should see. The print (reels 7-10) completely thrown on the floor. No brainwrap or tailwrap. It was wrapped around the motor, and flew under the platter. It was a truly shocking sight. I finally got through the tangled mess, cut the burnt parts out and made only 2 splices to get the rest on the take-up platter. Total time, 1hr 15 mins. My boss walked up and her first words were, "Holy " I just left it on the floor as I wrapped it up on the platter since it threw anyway. I just wanted to share my Christmas Horror Story.  |  IP: Logged Edward Jurich Master Film Handler Posts: 305 From: Las Vegas USA Registered: Jul 2003 posted 05-07-2004 08:30 PM                     5th week of showing Passion, Saturday at noon, Wanted to move print from middle platter to top platter to test replacement motor control board. Put locking bands on print after (brain fart here) removing center ring. Started sliding print off platter, realized error as film started pouring over platter edge but too late to stop. Entire print now a pile of film on floor. Next show at 4PM. Sat and looked things over, noticed that reels 1 and two were still intact and I could see the splice joining 2 to 3. I cut at the splice and put reels 1 and 2 on top platter. With reels 1 and 2 off I was now able to get the rest of the feature flat although a mess. Wrestled the rest of the print onto the bottom platter. Got it flat but even a bigger mess now. I transfered reels 1 and 2 to the center platter for a nice even wind. Then used the make-up table control to slowly control film transfer for the rest of the film from the bottom platter. Didn't loose a frame, no scratches or dirt. Was back together by 3pm. I think what saved this bad moment was after the film piled onto the floor I just looked at it for a minute and told myself "don't panic".  |  IP: Logged Chris Rhode Film Handler Posts: 39 From: Tampa, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 05-10-2004 05:41 PM                     One of the classics that I have comes from when I was working at an AMC theater in my area. I had a guy I was working with one day on the opposite side of the theater (our theater was split into 2 sides.) I was walking over to the other side when I saw my manager who was standing by the door run in. I walked over there to find that one of our 5k lamps in our 2nd largest house had blown! I asked him what happened and he told me that he was walking by the projector when he heard this loud bang come from the projector. He actually said "I almost shit my pants." I laughed when he said that but I was amazed when I saw the damage that was done. The reflector was totally gone, quartz everywhere, and the anode and cathode had a greenish haze to it. Needless to say that after that day, I had even more respect for Xenon lamps. On a side note, that was the same theater in which the only saftey equipment we had were just a face shield. When I moved to my current theater that I work at now and saw that we have gloves, mask, and vest I thought to myself... "damn, i'm sure glad one of those didn't bust while I was handling it!!!" That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-10-2004 06:10 PM                    LOTR: ROTK. Opening weekend. One print. Two houses. Managers who don't know how to sync, sent the projectionist (who barely knew how to sync) home after the show started. Three miles of fuji film stock w/no Film Guard in this case = major static problem. Around reel 6, the film jammed into the brain, and that was that. Show stopped... show cancelled. Five hundred and fifty VERY angry customers flocked to the lobby to argue with the one manager and minimal staff that was left at the end of the night. The police were called out to control the angry mob. Well over 650 passes were handed out, and we made the front page of the paper the next day. Top that.  |  IP: Logged Chris Rhode Film Handler Posts: 39 From: Tampa, FL, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 05-10-2004 06:25 PM                     Mark: I think that has to be the worst disaster I've heard of!!! Quite funny also (to think that managers are the retarded!!!)  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 05-10-2004 07:04 PM                     Top that??? Easy. Independence Day midnight screenings the day before it's release. Projectionist was sent home once the last round was on screen. Interlocking was happening. Floor manager was powering down booth and hit breakers in the wrong sub panel 20 minutes before the movie was over. Shut down one of the machines in a sold out 750 seater and a 300 seater interlock. Only 2 employees left in the building, plus security guard. Apparently people got hurt as the patrons became violent. There's plenty more like that. It's amazing how cheap some people can be when it comes to proper staffing.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-10-2004 08:15 PM                    Well, yeah ok, but did you make the front page of the paper the next day?  |  IP: Logged David Kilderry Master Film Handler Posts: 355 From: Melbourne Australia Registered: Sep 1999 posted 05-10-2004 09:28 PM                        On my night off from the Hoyts Maribyrnong Twin drive-in in Melbourne back in the mid 1980's, I thought I'd go in and catch the show. The first hour was uneventful, but the theatre ran on 6,000 ft spools. The change-over happened and the picture was fine, except the sound disappeared. Through every speaker in the drive-in you could hear the sound of the projector, and voices! "What have you done Ray?" "Stuffed if I know Tom" "There is no @#$% sound" Well I was killing myself laughing and was probably the only person in the half full drive-in that knew what had happened. On the same control box for the sound change-over was a button for the mic, that sat in a cradle just above. They had hit the "mic" button instead of the "film sound" button. The converstation continued until the projectionist and assistant realised what they had done. I always wondered what happened on my nights off! David  |  IP: Logged Angel Hultzsch Film Handler Posts: 16 From: Caracas, Miranda, Venezuela Registered: Nov 2001 posted 05-12-2004 06:21 PM                    this is the story when one projectionist was alone in seven projectors, but no normal boots, each one boot have only two projectors and other with just one and the boots are far away when the show starts in the seven screen everything seems fine, the projectionist is walking... no...RUNNING between boots when the show is over in some screen, but in the screen one when he going to see how is... all the movie was in the floor , the platter fail.. the fm-35 fail...more than 5000 feet of the movie "Monster" was in the floor and seems like the Everest this is the worst disaster what happen here. Bye [ 05-15-2004, 08:49 AM: Message edited by: Angel Hultzsch ]  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-13-2004 01:57 AM                        Another 'live mike' incident happened at a launch event being staged at a central London cinema I worked at; this was for the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Lumières' first film show in London. The speeches and stuff took place in the bar after the screening, so we hired in a portable PA for the purpose. It was supplied by a a/v company we didn't like dealing with very much (so much of their equipment turned up faulty), but had to, because it was run by the manager's son. Anyhow, we set up the mike, amp rack and speakers and tried testing it. Bugger all happened. So we went through the usual routine of checking connections, settings, fuses and the like, all to no avail. We just couldn't find out why the damn thing wouldn't work. By this time the guests were coming in and taking their seats, whereupon my boss started to lose his rag. 'F---ing pile of mickey mouse Japanese chickens--t equipment!' he muttered into the mike, believing it to be still dead. The swearing increased in proportion to his frustration, and included imitating a Japanese accent. A few minutes later I noticed that 100 or so guests - who we later discovered included a cultural affairs rep from the Japanese embassy - were sitting there in total silence gazing at my boss ranting away into this microphone. It had gone live (the culprit was later traced to a bad solder join in one of the XLR plugs) shortly after he'd began his 'performance'. I hadn't noticed, as I was behind the speakers. Our poor manager nearly had a heart attack when he found out...  |  IP: Logged Anslem Rayburn Master Film Handler Posts: 476 From: Yuma, AZ, USA Registered: May 2002 posted 05-16-2004 04:15 AM                     December 19, 2003. Friday, mid afternoon. 2 screens of LOTR:ROTK (~480 patrons). Medium business on remaining 6 screens. Power goes out. Our power company has no idea why or when it will be back on. Refunds or passes for everyone. The power company finally gets power back on over an hour later. Claims migratory birds landed on power lines causing them to break. December 20, 2003. Saturday, mid afternoon. 2 screens of LOTR:ROTK (~480 patrons). Medium business on remaining 6 screens. Power goes out. The power company has no idea why or when it will be back on. Refunds for everyone. Noone wanted passes this time as 70% of our guests were people coming back to watch the films they tried to watch yesterday! The power company finally gets power back on over an hour later. Claims migratory birds landed on power lines causing them to break. December 22, 2003. Monday, late afternoon. 2 screens of LOTR:ROTK (only about 300 patrons this time). Slow business on remaining 6 screens. Power goes out. Our power company has no idea why or when it will be back on. Refunds for everyone. About 50% of the people were trying to watch the film they came to see on Sunday, and a good 20% of them were also with us on Friday. They only takes about 45 minutes to get the power back on this time (at least they're getting faster!). Apparently our little town has become quite the popular place for what I am assuming must be the Andean Condor (the largest flying land bird in the world), as migratory birds are to blame again. The power company is so full of you can smell it when you talk to them over the phone. It was a very trying time to work at our theater. The power company would accept no responsibility for the outages, claiming it was an act of God. A lot of customers were very understanding, but a lot of them also wanted to know why we turned the power off! They apparently think that we enjoy having hundreds of angry customers, giving them their money back, losing thousands of dollars in sales, and harming our reputation as a good place to watch a movie.  |  IP: Logged Tom Petrov Five Guys Lover Posts: 1121 From: El Paso, TX Registered: Jan 2003 posted 05-20-2004 12:00 AM                    The worst disaster at my theater was by this complete idiot who spliced the second half of "Something's Gotta Give" with the first half of "can't remember the title" and vice versa on a opening night with "Somethings gotta give" being sold out. The manager freak (ended up getting fired) while the moron who screwed up said "shit happens" and he still works in the booth today. The second worst disaster was when I was working at the drive in a few years ago and the manager worked that night and he was doing changover with no automation of failsafes and he played at least one and half reels right through the projector with no take up of outgoing film. The film was at least knee deep in height all around the projector when he returned and then he did the things to fix everything.  |  IP: Logged Chris Medley Expert Film Handler Posts: 180 From: McKinney, TX, USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 05-20-2004 02:43 AM                        Anselm, I can relate...or theater is next to a substationa and I guess that just makes lighting love to strike b/c everytime a half way bad strom comes through our power goes out...the last time it went out we had about 500 people in the building and we managed to get everyone calm then out walks this guy into the almost dark hall(the emergency lights worked...but they are just that.."emergency lights" so it was dim) and asks another manager when the movie is going to start again...long story short it took a little too much explaining to make him understand that we have no control over the weather and it was not some practical joke. But I have heard some really funny things from well meaning managers...we had one manager that was famous for saying well meaning stuff that just sounded classic...after the power came back on one time the projectionist went back upstairs and then over the radio this manager says "Now soandso...make sure to start those porjectors one at a time." We knew that he only meant that we needed to be careful and not cause a surge, but at the time we couldn't stop laughing.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 05-20-2004 12:13 PM                        Electrical problems? How bout this. In a small town in Texas, we were sneaking FIST FULL OF DOLLARS to 800 Aggies -- a full house -- when lightening struck a street pole power transformer outside the theatre. Instead of the theatre going completely dark, it killed only one side of the transformer so the other side kept functioning. We were still getting 120v, but not the 240v that we needed to run the heavy stuff. Lots of the 120v things went out, like the concessions lights and the exit lights, but other things on the other side of the 120v mains stayed on, like the sound rack. In the booth I did loose worklights, but the projector kept running.....sort of. For the people in the theatre, not much was apparent, EXCEPT....as the projector motor lost half power, it kept running, but it began to loose speed. The arc went dim, but it didn't go out. So on the screen, the horses were galloping slower and slower as the motor slowed till finally they are going in slow motion and the sound was was also slowing down. Quite an experience for a kid projectionist. But that, as they say, was an act-of-god. Here's another disaster that was man-made, and humungously embarrassing: I was running MY FAIR LADY. It's something like 10 or 12 reels; I was enjoying it, everything smooth as silk. Because it was so long, I had to get house reels that were in the box labled "only in an emergency" ..i.e., they were a little bent. During one show, one of those marginal house reels jammed in the take-up magazine and film began spilling all over the place. Not a major disaster....I was able to fix the problem, get the reel to start turning again and wind the spilled film from the floor back onto the reel, all while the projector was running. Problem was, this happened BEFORE I had a chance to thread up the other projector with the next reel. And because this was a musical, the reels tended to be shorter than usual. So by the time I got to threading the next machine, time was a-pressing. I grabbed the next reel, R8, and ran over, grabbed the finished reel from the take-up magazine (R7) and instead of putting it back in its slot in the film cabinet, I just pulled it off and put it down next to the machine and threaded up R8, made my change-over in time and all was well with the world. "That's it? Where's the disaster?" you ask. Just wait. Now we go round to the next show, two & a half hours later and the near-miss all but a faded memory. I am making perfect change-overs all day, but then, I make one between reel 6 and 7, (I think) and I see on the screen, one moment Elisa is at the ball and [CHANGE-OVER], Elisa is now back home, standing at the fireplace, crying. But she's not supposed to be crying, thinks I, in a panic. OK, I messed up the reels; big deal you say. Suck it up and fix it. Oh...but easier said than done, my friends. I think, I need to thread up the right reel as fast as I can....embarrassing, yes, but I can do it in a snap. So I go looking for R7 as obviously I had threaded R8 instead. I go over to the film cabinet and low and behold, the R7 slot was empty. The R8 slot had Reel 9 in it; the R9 slot had Reel 10. I opened every slot....NO R7!! It was nowhere to be found. It was like I was living one of my booth nightmares....we've all had them. Well, imagine the panic when you can't find one of the reels. The panic set in fast now and it was not helped by the boss calling on the intercom, "Hey Yankee (my nickname was Frankie the Yankee), is there a problem?" Yes, yes there was. "What's going on....can you fix it? We have nearly a full house." I am thinking, Well, yah, I can FIX it, as soon as I can find the effin reel! In this particular booth, there was a trough about a foot wide by about a foot and a half deep right at the front wall of the booth that ran the entire width of the booth. It was used as a kind of convenient wire conduit to pass cables between the machines and the racks. In my rush to thread up that machine at the previous take-up reel jam, I took R7 off the take-up and inadvertently placed it right next to the machine, in the trough, rendering it practically invisible. So here I am, in total panic, opening every reel slot and checking the reel numbers over and over thinking I have lost my mind....they were right about weed, damn it! I've LOST A REEL OF FILM in a booth no bigger than my bedroom!! To make matters worse, people start clapping and the panic increases until it literally shuts down the brain, making it very, very difficult for a person to reason. Instead, the brain does what it's been genetically programmed into its billions of cells over eons; every cell snapping into flight mode, commanding you to RUN, run for your life....not really conducive to helping you find a reel of film that you've stuck in a conduit trough. I finally did locate R7, stuck there in the trough, but only after about 10 minutes, which, of course, in a situation like that seems like an eternity. Luckily my boss was fond of me; I was the youngest projectionist he had ever hired, and after all, only a week or two prior to this was the hair-"razing" incident, so he was still feeling sorry for me about that and didn't make much of a deal about the extra "intermission" in MY FAIR LADY. I mean, how can you fault a Brooklynite in College Station Texas who gives up half his head of hair to the projector and still keeps the show on the screen?  |  IP: Logged

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