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Author
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Topic: Ghetto Projection Techniques
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Matt Kibel
Film Handler
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Posts: 0
From: Tempe, AZ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 01-21-2001 10:50 AM
I'm new to the group, and I must admitt, I'm a little intimidated by all the techno terms you guys use. You see, I work for an old run down discount theater. Most, if not all of our equipment comes from really old theaters that have shut down recently and had to sell all their equipment when they went under. Anywho. I thought you guys might get a kick out of our discount projection techniques. My personnel favorite was in the tips section where you guys talked about how to move a movie longer then 3 hours. That cracked me up. Clamping it down? My theater doesn't even have a decent working splicers, so theres no way we would have clamps. So how do we move the big movies? The ghetto way of course. Once the movie has been built up, the projectionist spits on the last few frames of the movie and presses it onto the rest of the reel. The spit acts as a weak glue and holds the end in place. Then we gently slide the movie off the plater, and hold it vertical. Holding it straight up and down prevents it from shifting and coming apart. We then move/drag it to where it's going to be playing at that set. Utuilizing an overhand, underhand method we are able to lend a little support to the film and pick it up and hold it at a horizontal angle. Then in one quick motion, we heave it up and land it on a platter!!!!! Let me tell you, it's a major pain on the ass, and it's not to great for the back either ;-).Does anyone else have any fun ghetto projection stories?
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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!
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Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 01-21-2001 11:20 AM
How many prints have you dropped, or have had come apart in your hands?!?!?For chrissake, get CLAMPS, or at least, since you are supposedly 'on a tight budget', find one of the large 'pizza scoop' type print moving devices, those are usually a throwaway item from many platter houses that closed and didn't have clamps... or just break the thing to 6000' reels and remake it at the new location! Not to offend,(and there are some here that will have a MUCH harsher opinion on this subject than I...) but its theatres like yours that give a bad rep to 35mm film as a presentation medium. Learn what you can here, and begin to apply the lessons to your film handling practices and you and your customers will see the difference!! I too had worked in a theatre that used some of the most unimagineable equipment and techniques just to keep a show on screen, and it didn't take long before I had enough of it and got things changed (If I get in the mood to post the story (it will be pretty long) I will do so.) Aaron
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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 01-21-2001 12:35 PM
Hey! Just because your theatre is run down and your equipment is old and dust, do NOT, by ANY means think it is bad!Some of that old stuff is 10 times better than the new stuff. IF it is properly taken care of a 50 year old projector can last ANOTHER 50 years without missing a beat! Just stick it out and do what you think is right. Don't sell yourself short by cutting corners where you don't have to. Some day, if you play your cards right, you might have the chance to graduate to a "new" booth. When you do you'll just take one look and say to yourself, "Ha! This is a piece of cake, compared to my LAST booth!" Basically, you'll be better off for the experience!
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Scott Norwood
Film God
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Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-21-2001 03:03 PM
Matt--I hope you're taking the film up onto a cookie sheet and lifting the whole thing (cookie sheet and all) when doing this. If you're just lifting the film itself without _any_ support besides the center ring, I'd be amazed if this method worked more often than it didn't. Using masking tape to attach the tail to itself would probably improve your chances of success as well. Even if you don't have film clamps, you can probably rig up something similarly functional for maybe $10-20 with stuff from your local hardware store. As for the splicer--if you have more than one of the same type, you can probably mix and match parts as needed to get one good splicer out of two or more bad ones.
I agree with everything else that's been said in this thread--just because your equipment is "old" doesn't mean that you have to compromise your presentation quality. Sure, there's nothing much you can do about crappy lenses or too-small lamphouses, but you can still ensure that every show is as good as it possibly can be given the equipment that you have.
I'm really glad that my first theatre job was in a place that was kind of run-down with respect to booth equipment. It was really educational, actually, and I learned quite a bit by disassembling stuff and doing similar things that wouldn't have been necessary if the equipment were brand-new or recently rebuilt. It was nice, also, because there was no need to feel badly about messing with stuff like soundhead alignment, since it was so bad anyway that it couldn't possibly have been made much worse by random tinkering.
Being resourceful is _fun_ at times. You need to make good friends with the smartest employees at your local hardware store so that they won't look at you funny every time you show up with an odd-size screw or something and ask them if they have any more that are just like it. Old theatres are nice because they often have lots of weird, old, cool-looking junk in the attic and basement which is totally useless but which might have trade value for something that you do need. Before the Film-Tech site existed, I traded a bunch of xeroxes of old manuals for stuff we actually did need. Another guy found a box of RCA 6L6 tubes in the attic which we traded for new surround drivers (to replace the Radio Shack junk that someone had put it years before).
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Paul G. Thompson
The Weenie Man
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Posts: 4718
From: Mount Vernon WA USA
Registered: Nov 2000
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posted 01-21-2001 03:15 PM
I ran "Rocky" in an outdoor once, and the last two minutes of the last reel had no sprocket perfs, and we could not get a replacement reel. I had to make my sprocket perfs. After many rolls of scotch tape, I ran it through the projector to punch my own sprocket holes into the scotch tape. It worked. For one week, we had to run it like that, but it took two people to get it through. One hand was riding the frame knob, and three hands to keep the pad rollers from flying open. But we made it, and kept it on the screen. Hats off to the old Super Simplex. Another tactic we had to use on the old Weber Synchro-Film sound head. The lower take-up belt broke, and fouled the gears, and promptly stripped one out. No gears were available. So, I made my own gear with a hack saw and a file. We ran that for two years. It worked great, also.
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Scott D. Neff
Theatre Dork
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Posts: 919
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 01-21-2001 04:02 PM
Eh -- sometimes ya gotta do what you gotta do. I know when I worked for the run-down discount theatre we had done some pretty weird things to keep the movies on screen.The owner was so cheap that for about a week we had PAID an employee to spin a feed-out platter instead of having PAID to get a new motor or switch or whatever the problem was. Quite often too we would have ONE working payout platter on 3 of our 5 Super Platters so we would have to scoop the movies back to the original platter just to play it. Not complicating things more by the fact that our FIVE screen had FOURTEEN movies. So sometimes CLAMPING was the last thing we were concerned with. I quite often moved movies with ONE clamp by myself. I dunno - it's easy to lose sight of good and safe projection techniques when you're saying prayers every day before work that you can just make it through a night without having a problem that can't be jury-rigged. I can make platters spin, I can keep stripped slit-lense adjustors NOT vibrate out of focus (THANK YOU masking tape), but I can't keep a 25 year old rectifier or a beat up KINTEK amp from blowing out. I did however do my best to keep things as close to standard as possible. There are MANY little things you can do to encourage a more detail oriented projection staff. MAKE ALL THE LITTLE THINGS YOU CAN, CLEAN and WORKING. Okay -- done ranting.
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John Walsh
Film God
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Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 01-21-2001 04:34 PM
Jerry is right about those Potts platters; they wind really tight. At one place I worked at with them, we would routinely move prints without a "doughnut."And, a Potts take-up ring does not lock (or spring) into position, like a Xetron or Christie. Yet, the film stayed together. Of course, I was still pretty careful when moving prints. No need tempting fate..... A guy there could not wait to get out on break-down night. So he would break the splice on a running projector at the last reel, and (while the film was going on the floor) put the film end into a take-up reel on the projector. Then, he would break-down the reels on the platter in time to just drop the last reel (on the projector) in the can. (Potts platters and make-up tables will spin so fast, you'd think they might take-off.)
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Matt Kibel
Film Handler
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Posts: 0
From: Tempe, AZ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 01-21-2001 06:55 PM
Ok, I think I gave you guys the wrong impression about how things work at my theater. Is our equipment old and often malfuntioning? Yes, but I've learned to be a better projectionist cause of it. Just like someone that has a car that breaks down a lot, learns to be a good mechanic. Moving the movies the vertical way was rather difficult in the beginning, but after a few times I got extremelly good at it and haven't had any accidents in the last 6 months, not to shabby considering I've only been working there for 7 months. Just think back to when you guys first started working on films, I'm willing to bet it was rather difficult and confusing at first. But after several showings, it became second nature. Same for me and the other projectionist at my theater. Believe it or not, I'm actually able to thread a movie one handed with my eyes closed (I tried it once when i had some free time). Something else I've forgotten to mention is that I'm really limited on what I'm allowed to do with the machines. Our GM really frowns upon projectionist doing anything besides showing the movies. Because of some accidents that occured prior to my employment only our GM and our theaters handy man are allowed to do anything mechanical with the machines. That goes for replacing screws, lightbulbs, yada yada yada. One last thing I feel I neglected to mention in my last post. When I said I work for a discount theater, I mean we show discounted movies. We runs movies that are 5 or 6 months old. Once a movie gets out of the big chains like AMC or Harkins, it's passed down to us. That actually makes a pretty big difference. We often get movies that are terrible shape. We just got "The Contender" and when building it up we discovered that AMC had still left their Policy teaser on it, you know...that freaky little guy made out of film conducting the stars..... Point being that we do the best with what we have. We may not have the best showings in the world, but for $1.75, we have some of the best discount showings in Arizona and have one several awards for it. Sometimes you just have to work with what you've got, and if your really good, you do better then that.
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John Pytlak
Film God
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Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-22-2001 06:49 AM
Matt: As others have noted, many times we are asked to "make do" with less than ideal equipment. IMHO, the skill and dedication of the projectionist are more important than having the latest and greatest equipment. I would much rather have a film shown with a forty-year old Bausch and Lomb lens in perfect focus, than be at a new theatre where the focus of a state-of-the-art Isco or Schnieder lens was never checked, and the port glass was filthy. Develop your skills so you always "Do Film Right" in taking good care of the print, and showing it properly.
------------------ John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging Eastman Kodak Company Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419 Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243 E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
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Paul Cunningham
Expert Film Handler
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Posts: 146
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted 01-22-2001 04:56 PM
In a cupboard at my work is a reel about 500 ft long of part of a film, it consists of film edge, perfs, soundtrack and about 1/10 of the image area and was caused by a tear in the film which just kept going while the film was running.To keep the show on the road for about 2 weeks the projectionist ran just the soundtrack and recorded it onto a cassette tape, then ran the print even though it had perfs only on one side. At approximately the right time he would switch to non sync, press play on the cassette, and hold a piece of cardboard in front of the lens to mask the image area that was missing. That is the most dodgy thing I have ever heard but since then our cinema has gone digital, full automation and is pretty much state of the art and still with the same owners. It just goes to show. Paul
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