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Topic: It makes me feel like Hank Hill

Dave Williams
Wet nipple scene

Posts: 1836
From: Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 03-04-2000 09:57 PM

We got our copy of Any Given Sunday on thursday but due to scheduling conflicts I was unable to assemble it until friday morning. And then due to policemen conflicts (pulled over for NO reason as always, must be the car), I did not get in until one hour before show time. Ok so I have built 3 hour movies in less time, not a problem right? I put on the commercials (doh!) and opened the cans. And in the immortal words of Hank Hill, "Ooooh My Goddd!"

All three cans were exactly the same way. The jackass projectionist that had it last did the following:

1. Did not attach the Heads OR Tails to ANY of the reels,

and

2. Shoved the heads and tails into the cans in a nicely smunched pile of film.

I had to undo knot after knot of film to organize the heads and tails and tape them to the wall so I could find out what was what. Half of the reels were tails out, and of course none in the correct order.

However I completely amazed myself. In one hour I managed to assemble commercials, suffer seven simultanious coranaries and strokes combined, rewound five reels and put that damn thing together, REPAIRED the middle platter on that speco so it would stop brain wrapping, and started the film ON TIME.

I still want to find out who did that to me because he or she owes me a beer!

------------------
"If it's not worth doing, I have allready been there and done it"

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Tom Ferreira
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 203
From: Conway, NH, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-04-2000 11:08 PM

Better than feeling like Dale Gribble(or Homer Simpson. Doh!)
There are many times when I wish I had access to the history of print numbers so that I could make a phone call to stupid people. A few weeks ago, I received a used print of Snow Falling On Cedars. The previous buffoon had placed little round stickers on the film, about ten frames from the identification frame with the reel number on them. Why the hell would you do this? There was a splice, so it was a platter buildup. Did I want this crap going through my projector and showing on the screen as a black blotch? No. Did the stickers peel off? No. Did the film now have ELEVEN identification frames? Unfortunately, yes.
Some people need a good slapping.

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Chris Wootten
Film Handler

Posts: 50
From: Moonlit Cinema, RAAF Tindal, N.T. Australia
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 03-05-2000 04:40 AM

I can really understand where u are coming from. Had a similar thing happen to me when I was training a new handler. I was telling him the horror stories about how you might find prints when they arrive for you to screen.........we opened the cans and low and behold........a messthat took us two hours to sortout. I would have loved to know who hadthe print prior to us. Notified the Film company but got no staisfactory answer back tho............sign of the times ???? Keep smiling.......Chris

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Chris Erwin
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 195
From: Olive Hill,KY
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 03-05-2000 09:41 AM

We've talked about the horror stories before,and I think it boils down to NO RESPECT for the next person and NO PRIDE in their work. We play mostly 2nd run at my theater so I am totally at the mercy of other people. I can tell the film-tech people from the screw-it-and-can-it bunch.

--Chris

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-06-2000 01:09 PM

I HATE getting films from idiots like that. I have, on occasion, called up people who have had the film before me. In my experience most people who F*** up film are clueless. They just don't have any idea that what they do has any effect on the people who get the film after them. I talked some pretty stupid people... Some of them at commercial theatres, too!

I think all of the film that gets sent back from both of my theatres leaves in pretty darned good condition. Everything's FG-ed and except for the occasional malfunction, we've not had any damaged film in months.

If anybody has any comments, suggestions or just plain complaints about the films they receive from us, LET ME KNOW! If it's from Mercyhurst (Swank or New Yorker Films, mostly) I'll make sure it gets fixed. If it's from the googolplex (TT-17) I'll pass it along to the "breaker-downer-in-question" and tell them to clean up their act.

When I build up films I write "FilmGuard <date>-www.Film-Tech.com" on all the labels.

PS: It seems as if we've been getting better quality film lately. (At Cinemark) Is it possible that theaters get "repuations" as to the way they treat film? I'd say there's a little bit of that going on. Since we've cleaned things up, Technicolor gives us a LOT less static about replacement reels and stuff.

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Jason Burroughs
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 654
From: Allen, TX
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-06-2000 03:02 PM

Randy, back in the days when Technicolor did not rule the world, yes, theatres would have reputations for either destroying prints or treating them well, and prints were distributed accordingly. The ones known for destroying prints were almost always sent already used prints. One example that comes to mind is the now closed AMC Prestonwood 5, this theatre was notorius for destroying its prints. I attended a few thurs night screenings there and observed heavy scrathes and dirt on the print, upon talking to the projectionist out of curiousity why they would accept a used print in such poor condition, he proudly stated that is was a new print!

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 03-07-2000 06:04 PM

Speaking of print handling and Quality...

Just got through screening End of the Affair.
Except for:
1) All the cues were left on.
2) The tape wasn't peeled off.
3) The heads were spliced on one-sided (good) but the tails weren't even spliced (just lapped)
It was a good print. I hit it with the ol' FilmGuard and it looks brand new! If you get print #767 you'll get a good one! (Assuming it doesn't get re-labaled in the warehouse.)
I'll make sure this one gets "extra-special" care on the B.D.

BTW: Why would somebody put the yellow bar on the zebra tape right on the opt. sndtrk.? I don't mean the dotted line... I don't mean partially... I mean right smack-dab down the middle of the sndtrk.! Maybe they were running in SR-D/SDDS and didn't care about the optical?

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