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Author Topic: Getting to know employees in large theatres... Ian Agar Film Handler Posts: 2 From: California Registered: Apr 2008 posted 04-15-2008 05:54 PM                    Hello, I work in a two-screen theatre that specializes in playing indie and foreign films, although we occasionally get main stream films (Little Miss Sunshine for example). I love this place, and would not go to any other theatre to work unless there was some extraordinary benefit. Although we play odd films, we are open 365 days a year and play shows from noon till the mid evening. However, we are VERY quiet most of the time, and have a handful of employees. This mix means we are all very close to each other, even though many of us have never met prior to employment here. It is natural: working here requires socializing, or else you'd quickly stand out like a sore thumb. I do not know any other way (nor do I want to, it makes going in to work a pleasure), so I was wondering if at the big theatres (the main stream ones with many screens and shows seemingly ALWAYS starting or ending), do the employees get to know each other well? Or is it less centralized and even months after an employee starts they may not know everybody's name? What is it like, in general, in terms of getting to know everybody socially? A while back I read the online profile of an employee at a local MANN theatre, with 6 screens and main stream movies, and they were commenting to another employee that they "had a great time working with [the other employee] last shift." Considering the size of the theatre, and how employees are spread out all over, I cannot understand how such socialization exists. Therefore, I am here to ask what it's like. Thanks, -Ian  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-15-2008 06:39 PM                        6 screens is pretty small and allows much socialization. That's how it was at my first theater, which is the world famous amazing Mann Kipling Place 6 Theaters, the most luxurious powerful spectacular theater ever squeezed out of God's vagina. Everyone knew everyone else all the way up to the end. When the theater was purchased and turned into a dollar theater, everyone else left and I was traded to United Artists Greenwood Plaza 12 which was far less impressive and had 12 screens. Even though I only did projection at this new theater, I still ended up knowing about half the staff fairly well, maybe even more. It was this way the entire time I worked there. Later in a bold move, I was traded back to Mann Theaters (they had to give UA 6 employees to get me) to work as projectionist at The Mann Chinese 16 at Arapahoe Crossings. At this 16-screen theater, I barely knew anyone. I didn't care about anyone downstairs and rarely came out of the booth. Due to a dispute over performance-enhancing drugs, my career at Mann ended there and I signed a two year deal with the fabulous Madstone Tamarac Square 6 Theaters which had so much grandeur, spectacularity, amazingness, awesomeness, power and class that it required it's own zip code which was similar to the one that defines the finest part of Hollywood itself. This was only a 6 screen theater, but I knew most people while working here. So it is definitely pretty easy to get to know people in a 6 screen theater.  |  IP: Logged Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 04-15-2008 07:03 PM                        quote: Joe Redifer with the fabulous Madstone Tamarac Square 6 Theaters Ummm, I don't know weather to think a booth with a bathroom is a good idea or not. But funny, none the less!  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 04-15-2008 07:11 PM                     At one time booths had to have bathrooms. Joe, the Mann's Kipling Place 6 auditoriums looks like GCC style and that CINEMA sign too. I never knew that Mann had places like that in the chain. I had the arm pits of the chain Mann's Hastings Ranch 3 (Pasadena, CA) and Mann's Huntington Oaks 6 (Monrovia, CA). I got to know the girl Asst. Manager well.  |  IP: Logged Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 04-15-2008 08:02 PM                        quote: Bill Gabel At one time booths had to have bathrooms Was that because of a Union rule?  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-15-2008 08:11 PM                        Who the hell would want to leave the booth just to unload 12-15 pounds of steaming poo from their ass? Not I. Public restrooms are lame.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-15-2008 08:24 PM                        In Mass., each booth is required to have its own bathroom, according to public safety codes. About half that I have seen actually meet this part of the code. Some claim to get around this by having a bathroom on the same level as the booth, but I've never understood how this would meet code (the wording is rather clear that the bathroom must be _in_ the booth).  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 04-15-2008 08:33 PM                     quote: Allison Parsons Was that because of a Union rule? Yes, a long time ago. Now it depends on city rules for the building. When they remodeled the old Paramount Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. into the El Capitan Theatre and placed the booth on the main floor all it was equipped with was a sink. But there is a regular handicapped restroom nearby.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 04-15-2008 08:34 PM                     quote: Allison Parsons Was that because of a Union rule? It's because the workers were usually required to stay in the booth throughout the run of a show, especially with changeover houses. I didn't know about this when an old tech had a few people meet for a short training session at the, now closed, Southcenter Mall single screen in south Seattle. It felt odd seeing a toilet sitting at the end of the room not enclosed or anything. And back on topic: I knew most of the staff quite well when I worked at an 8-plex. Plus it was different that with that location they expected us to do regular shifts as well as booth. At the 30-plex I'm at now, they needed someone who knew booth more than someone who knew downstairs stuff so I've only had booth shifts; in fact, I don't have a log in for the concessions anyway. There are PLENTY of people there that I have no clue what their name is or what they do outside of work (granted, I'm bad with names). But I know booth people decently.  |  IP: Logged Allison Parsons Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 630 From: East Peoria, IL Registered: Oct 2004 posted 04-15-2008 09:21 PM                        quote: Joe Redifer Who the hell would want to leave the booth just to unload 12-15 pounds of steaming poo from their ass? ...probably the poor soul who had to work with you up there...?  |  IP: Logged Bill Enos Film God Posts: 2081 From: Richmond, Virginia, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 04-15-2008 09:30 PM                     In the early days with nitrate film and 10 minute reels a trip downstairs to the john was out of the question, there just wasn't time. In this city nitrate film was not allowed to be rewound or stored in the same room with the projectors. There was a fire door between the rewind room/storage room and the booth. The only nitrate film to be in the booth was the reel that was running and the reel on the next projector awaiting changeover.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 04-15-2008 10:15 PM                        quote: Allison Parsons ...probably the poor soul who had to work with you up there...? I can handle an entire booth myself.  |  IP: Logged Robert LaValley Expert Film Handler Posts: 104 From: Tampa, FL Registered: May 2007 posted 04-16-2008 12:27 AM                     I haven't worked in a booth where there wasnt a bathroom! Heck even a single screen I worked at you had to go through the mens bathroom upstairs just to get to the fire door that was the entrance to the booth. For me I've worked everything from a single to 18 screens with IMAX's hanging off of them and each location provided a different tone for how much of the staff I got to know and how much of the staff got to know eachother. Some of the bigger chains though with their fraternization policies and some phycotic GM's made it tough for anyone to really be anything but co-working people. I also found sometimes you run into a Management click and a Staff Click and neither like eachother and I've also had the pleasure of the polar opposite. So really its tought to say its easier or harder to get to know people in the big theatres. I think it really depends on the GM and the assistants and the tone the set for the place. If people feel like they gotta walk on egg shells all the time I dont see it being an environment anyone is going to shoot the sh*t in.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 04-16-2008 12:40 AM                     What the hell does "shooting the shit" mean?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-16-2008 12:46 AM                        quote: Joe Redifer Public restrooms are lame. Especially the men's room at that Mann's Chinese you worked at. When I was there, the room had been totally wrecked by vandals. (It was after you had departed, so possibly the damage was done by patrons who were disgruntled at not seeing Redifer-style projection of their movies.)  |  IP: Logged

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