So let me give you the brief scoop on what has recently happened. This super tech decided for whatever reason to try and scare the pants off of one regional person by taking a lighter and burning a piece of film that he had submerged in a bowl of FilmGuard. Needless to say his idea worked. The regional person panicked and has banned the use of the product, now only allowing "safe" items in the booth.

Funny the description of "safe" here. Just what IS safe in this person's eyes? Apparently only items that will not burn if direct flame is put to it. I guess that means that the bricks and foundation of the building are safe since damn near everything else will burn when directly ignited. This video will hopefully wake a few people up from their fairyland comas.

We have received numerous emails from projectionists and booth managers at these theaters and the rumors are getting more and more bloated by the day. These projectionists have been using the product for some time now and all have been very pleased with it's results, but are no longer allowed to use it because of these made-up rumors. Three of these theaters (that I know of) have already performed their own tests and proven what we are about to show you below. They also found out that a LOT of chemicals in the building (used in the booth as well as outside of the booth) actually ARE insanely flammable, though I did not get a list.

In celebration of this tech's super genius, we now present a short video of Joe playing pyromaniac with a few commonly found booth items. By no means is this video attempting to emulate a laboratory testing environment, but we feel it more than demonstrates the point. Yes there are some video edits used to compress time because we are not professional smokers and we purchased poor quality lighters that Joe had a hard time getting to light, but the final results in the video were not altered. As is clearly stated in the video PLEASE FEEL FREE to perform these exact same demonstrations in the parking lot of your own theater if you have any doubt whatsoever. Again, the examples contained in the video were not faked nor staged in any way, just edited to compress time on the download.

The reason this video is being placed here on the forum instead of the traditional "videos" page is to elicit comments from the members. Out of respect for this theater circuit, I am not going to disclose their name. However I will gladly tell you that this tech who hates the Film-Tech website, the quality of presentation we stand for and everyone associated with it initials are J.D.R. That theater chain certainly is lucky to have such an outstanding example of showmanship on their team.

Please download and view this video BEFORE you read further in this thread. There are 3 download options to best suit your internet connection's speed and your computer.
Click here to go to the download page.

I believe I know the tech in question and he had a bug up his ass about FilmGuard two years ago when I worked for that company. The claim was that he didn't know what was in FilmGuard. Like he knew what was in Xekote.

We stopped where we did because igniting items like WD-40, projector oil, static guard and so forth was getting a bit overly flammable for the simple point that was being made in the video.

GTS is a very diverse company and the theatre supply end of things is but a small part of us. At present we have begun to move into a brand new building and we are expanding all divisions of our company to suit its growth. Just being able to do this shows that we keep our customers on board. We sell on the average several cases of Film-Guard in a year, most to theatres and some to home film collectors, who obviously don't think there is a hazard to have it in their homes. We love the product and many of our customers swear by it. I'd gladly back up the product any day, any place, any time, and will continue to sell it as long as you manufacture it. There is no safety concern of any type as far as my experience with the product goes.
Another thing I'd like to state is that any supply dealer posting here that does not offer Film-Guard to their customers obviously does not care about presentation quality either and should be rounded up and run out of buisness!
Mark @ GTS
www.getgts.com
mark@getgts.com

Not so much as a counter to your statement, but perhaps as a reason why such a plan can work and be unique, I remind you of the business realities of such things as the "we demand" note about the Austin Powers advertising. These "business people" supposedly wanting to continue a long term relationship with exhibitors sent a threatening letter out of the blue to customers, with no attached explanation or, from what I read here, even a "please" or "thank-you." Such attitudes permiate the business world. In my experience, the larger the business, the more rigid the thinking, and the greater the chance of questionable or even unreasonable demands, of employees, suppliers, and customers.

In theatre circuits, sometimes one individual will institute a strict policy within a district or area and it will get institutionalized and expanded without proper review or even a reality check. I remember one chain that had a policy of ushers having to puncture every drink cup picked up in the auditoriums, supposedly to prevent recycling of the cups. Never mind that in such scams the ushers are almost always already involved, never mind the problems with coke still in the cups dripping onto floors and into leaky cheap garbage bags, never mind the time wasted or coke-sprayed uniforms, this was a written-in-stone policy because nobody had the balls to risk their job by standing up and saying in a loud, clear voice "This is stupid!"

The average middle management leader won't often dare to admit a wrong decision, and speaking pragmatically, pissing off a tech who must be depended upon, without damned good cause, might not seem to be a good decision, even if the alternative was dirty prints. In such a case, a public demonstration can be useful as damage control. The issue isn't so much the already lost business as it is the rumor and potential for greater loss. Unrelated example of public demonstration damage control: Requiring FAA personnel to fly in planes soon after a recent plane safety scare made many people feel more comfortable about flying.

Like the tech mentioned, I am one who likes to know what is in the chemical mixtures I use, and I can understand the POV of a tech that has had past reservations about something new that could have been a snake-oil. However, since Brad does have an MSDS on the product, any health concerns can be checked out. Experience from users is public knowledge even to the point of Brad allowing dissatisfied customers to post their problems here and then personally responding. Perhaps if that tech would be willing to post his concerns here publicly, he would been taken more seriously.

Making the exact formulation of film-guard public would only encourage rip-offs and inferior copies, plus reduce funding for this repository of manuals, knowledge, and water-cooler talk. BTW, I'm very curious why someone would have some sort of grudge against this site.

I have always bent over backwards to do a "make good" anytime a customer is not happy. Two years ago when we first started selling media one of the rollers was cutting short rolls. My solution was to replace those rolls directly to the theaters that were involved 150% and I had them keep the "short" rolls to use on smaller prints. In some instances theaters bought as much as 10 boxes of media, so in return they ended up with 15 boxes of media, plus 10 boxes of "short" media that could be used on small movies. I did this with a number of theaters until I could get those defective cases out of circulation. Just this year I had an equipment sale freight miscalculation and I feel I more than made up for it by eating the excess freight costs and in addition to make sure there wasn't any hard feelings I sent the theater a case of FilmGuard and a case of media. Believe me, if this was as simple as "doing whatever it took to make the customer happy", I would have done it a long time ago. I am not aware of anyone who has ever walked away from a transaction with me that felt cheated or ripped off and I want to keep it that way. Unfortunately, this is not an option due to the person involved.

The video was not my first option. And yes I do like this chain as a whole, which is why I intentionally did not mention their name out of respect, not legal fear. However, when this idiot's rumors start to leak out of that theater circuit and into others, something must be done and since most people who are "presentation quality conscious" hang out here, this was the quickest way to demonstrate the reality of why that rumor is simply not true. Say Mark, did ya know that using an R2 puts cancerous agents into the air? Oh no! Better not allow Mark to EQ an auditorium with his R2! See how stupid it is?

If J.D.R. wants to post here, he is welcome just like anyone else who wishes to register. Also, no company buys direct, all go through CPI just like everyone else, although if the order is big enough we will make special pricing.

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Johnson Paste Wax is used by a lot of pinball machine collectors to wax playfields on their games. A fellow pinhead kept insisting that Johnson Paste Wax contains no petroleum distillates, so I performed this test. All I had to do was drop in a lighted match. Nothing was used to prime it -- the can had nothing but wax in it. Legend has it the pic was sent to the chemists at SC Johnson Co., who reportedly had this to say: "Oh, my. Heh heh."

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- dave
Stay away from the meadow...

You must have Quicktime to view this. You can get it for free at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ . If you already have Quicktime you might want to upgrade to version 5. It sounds like you were trying to play it in Windows Media Player.