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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: alt.stupid.projectionists.rant
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Colin Wiseley
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 123
From: Blacksburg, VA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 01-25-2000 08:51 PM
RANT WARNINGBeing in a particularly bad mood tonight I've decided to vent my frustrations here rather then take them out on my cat when I get home. My gripe is with everyone's favorite - the stupid projectionist. After threading the film for the first show tonight, I did all of my pre-show checks and found nothing was wrong. 1/2 an hour later I came back up to booth to start the show. I hit the start button, the projector starts, the lights come down, the sound comes on, but the lamp stays dark. I quickly stopped the projector and checked all of the breakers, fuses, indicator lights and could find nothing wrong. I tried to manually start the lamp, no luck. Being completely stumped I called the projectionist who worked earlier in the day so see if he had any problems. Upon asking him that question I receive the reply, "Oh yeah, I was showing someone the inside of the lamp house and I stripped out the screw for the safety switch. I fixed it with some duct tape." I immediately hung up on him, opened the lamp house and found that the duct tape had peeled off, releasing the switch. I quickly replaced the stripped srew, closed up the lamp house, and started the show. I can't believe that someone would be so lazy as to not spend the time to fix the screw and instead would decide to use duct tape. It took me 20 minutes to diagnose and fix something that only should have taken 2-3 minutes to fix initially. That kind of thing just pis-es me off. Thank for letting me get this off my shoulders, I feel much better now.
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Ian Price
Phenomenal Film Handler
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Posts: 1714
From: Denver, CO
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-25-2000 09:13 PM
My Rant!I trained a projectionist that used to project here at the theatre. I am trying to take my first day off in a month. I was in the lobby talking to a customer when they said the film was melting. I ran upstairs to find a huge tail wrap in #2 and the projectionist nowhere to be found. I lost half the credits for Angela’s Ashes. I guess we will be buying a new reel of film. We are now adopting Joe's Film-Wrap system so this never happens again. We will be using an old piece of trailer to make a loop around the film so that the tail never falls off the platter. I can't work 24/7, damn it!
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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene
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Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-25-2000 09:52 PM
Ok I feel the need to join the rant.One of my FORMER projectionist did the following stupid things. We have SPECO platters. She did not push the GREEN button to make it GO (I tried this training technique since she could not figure out what payout meant, other than credit card bills). Of course there was the brain wrap. Instead of calling me to let me know what happened, and then subsequently my coming in to fix it, she decided to invent a new way to fix it. She began to unwrap a two inch brain wrap. Now first let me tell you that although we do not have the film cleaners yet, we do use Film-Guard (best stuff on earth) on the sides of our prints to eliminate static. And those of us who use it know just how slick the print can get. Well she got this print turning pretty fast when the whole thing did a backslide right off the platter and right over the center. INSPECTOR GADGET WAS EVERYWHERE. Once again instead of calling me she tried to reel it up to the takeup platter. HELLO, we all know what happens next. The film is twisting all to hell. SO she decides to start cutting and splicing the film back together. So there was a splice every 20 feet or so. She actually got it put back together, and thanks to my modifying the splicer (thanks to this forum), the splices never showed up on screen or interupted the sound. However listening to it in the booth was a pain in the ass. Little did she know how easy it is to fix a brain wrap. Problem is I have had only one in my lifetime as I keep my platters in tip top condition and I NEVER MISS A BEAT. So it is a little hard to train how to fix one (you think it should be easy to figure out). I let technicolor know about the problem but they haven't billed us for it yet. Don't know if they will, I sure hope not, that film just sucked. ------------------ "If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
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Randy Stankey
Film God
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Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-26-2000 10:40 PM
There was this one guy who insisted on doing things his own way...1) Even though we enacted a "uniformity in threading" policy he threaded his own way. I could tell when he worked because there was this strange twist in the film. Many times he was spoken to about this. One time I had to fix one of his brainwraps and it took me an extra 10 minutes to fix it because of that stupid twist. 2) He insisted on threading up movies two minutes before they started. He had this habit of doing "fly-starts". (Thread up, motor the leader through the projector them press the start button when the black mylar came through. Well, that's not SO bad... He always left the motor switch on! When the film tailed out, the motor would still be running. One time he even lit the lamp manually and left the lamp switch on too! Luckily somebody smelled something and we found it just in timeto prevent the shutter from frying. I bet about half of our proj. have blisters in the shutters becasue of him! You know, it's hard to differentiate between liking a person and liking the way a person does his job sometimes. People like him push me to the limit. All I can say is that there are a lot less problems since he quit!
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Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene
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Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-29-2000 09:44 PM
Absolutely thank god for beer.Did you know that Benjamin Franklin was heard to say during one of the constitional sessions "Gentlemen, I for one know there is a god, because we have beer." But off the beer subject, we have ZERO automation. The equipment is what was installed 19 years ago and I have no intention of changing that. I come from a background in live theater and I personally feel that the more we automate things the more opportunity we give owners to start ELIMINATING technical staff. Oh what a loss it would be to NOT have a breathing person with a heart behind that projector. If everything goes as planned we will begin live comedy shows in one of my auditoriums and will begin to teach both movie and live theater technical aspects, mainly to high school and college interns. Someone has to take this kids under thier wings and show them that the art of movie and theater just should not be compressed into the cheapest easiest way possible. In fact the show is always better with as many hearts behind it as thier are in front of it. Yes I know that many love their automation, but how much will you love it when everyone goes DLP and no one needs us anymore? Fight the future and please oh please someone blow up the DLP factory. ------------------ "If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"
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