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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Electronic Device Policy
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Robert Harrison
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 239
From: Harwood Heights, Illinois, USA
Registered: Jun 2005
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posted 05-25-2014 02:51 PM
In one their early seasons, "SCTV" had a bit where some guy in a theater was talking and an usher came up to him and shot him. A title appeared on screen WELCOME TO THE CLINT EASTWOOD CINEMA. Obviously, this was way back in the "Dirty Harry" series days and before cell phones, but gee, don't you just wish...?
Through the miracle of DCP-O-Matic, I made a still image which reads...
AND NOW ITS TIME FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE LOOKING AT THAT LITTLE SCREEN YOU ARE HOLDING IN YOUR HANDS TO PUT IT AWAY AND LOOK AT THIS SCREEN FOR AWHILE.
After several months, I noticed that since there was no sound during this clip, that most of the jugheads who were looking at their device didn't look up to see the message, so recently I put some sound effects on the clip to hopefully get their attention; it consists of phone sounds and a voice at the close which says THE NUMBER YOU HAVE REACHED HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED.
What I would REALLY like to do is make a special video of people sitting in a church, all of them looking at their devices. The following song would play on the soundtrack, to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers:"
O, O, HOLY SACRED CELL PHONE NEVER SHUT THEE OFF MUST STARE AT THY SCREEN EACH MINUTE OF THE DAY I WOULD SURELY DIE IF I PUT MY CELL PHONE AWAY
And then have a narrator say something like:
"If you must worship your phone, please do so elsewhere. The other folks here today would like to watch the movie you supposedly came to see without distractions. Also, shut up!"
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Frank Angel
Film God
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/248b.jpg)
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 06-05-2014 08:54 AM
OK, it's time to stop dickin around with trying to figure out ways to modify social behavior that is clearly moving in the totally opposite direction. The populous has become compulsively addicted to this social media thing regardless of how annoying it is to others or even if it puts them at fatal risk and causes thousands of car accidents every year. A majority seem to have taken this activity to be included as one of their inalienable rights and inseparable from the pursuit of happiness, able to do it anytime, anywhere they want regardless of consequences from simple inconsideration to severe personal and public safety. Trying to tell them they can't do it in the naive hopes that they might comply is futile.
It's time to attack this scourge on a much more productive front. Get the damn FCC to issue a variance so theatres and restaurants and cars that are in motion can use signal jammers within the confines of these defined, designated spaces, like I understand it done all the time in Europe with the blessing of the ERO. Either that or we just start including Faraday cages in all new cinema builds. I for one would LOVE to watch them frantically pushing buttons to no avail and then see their heads explode.
Seems that the FCC should be seriously aware of the need for allowing local jamming rather than resisting it as it has so far so as to protect the communication conglomerates who fight it because it might cause them to loose a few dollars as their subscribers can't use up minutes when they are watching a movie.
Then all those hundreds of thousands of signs exhibition puts up at every screen admonishing patrons to turn off cell phones -- would now say:
Sorry, (OK, drop the 'sorry') There is NO cell phone service within this theatre; if your need to use your device is that urgent, pick your fat texting ass up and walk to the lobby. If you are in what may be a life-and-death critical situation, for example, a lawyer awaiting a jury verdict in a mass murder case or a doctor with a sick patient depending on being in constant contact with the hospital, then perhaps you shouldn't be here watching a movie in the first place.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
![](http://www.film-tech.com/ubbmembers/1681.jpg)
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 06-05-2014 09:28 AM
Instead of installing all kinds of technology to combat technology, and expecting the FCC to care, it seems to me that the more beneficial way to address the problem is what has been discussed many times:
Monitor the theater for cell phone use and all other kinds of distracting behavior and clamp down on it quickly, consistently, and courteously. It may take some time, but people will get the hint, and even the people that are caught will see the logic and probably not hold it against you.
The added bonus to this approach is that not only are you curbing cell phone use, but you're taking care of those without enough manners to realize that putting their feet up on the seats is wrong (and other disrupting behaviors), and you can also detect issues with the presentation instead of depending on your customers to tell you about them.
By doing all this, you're showing your paying customers that you are paying attention and want to deliver the best possible experience in exchange for their admission dollars.
Seems like a win all-around to me.
All that said, a finely-focused EMP blaster installed in each auditorium does appeal to the engineer in me!
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