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Author Topic: Embarrasssing Mistakes on Movie Time Recordings Tony L. Hernandez Expert Film Handler Posts: 158 From: Windsor, CO, USA Registered: Dec 2005 posted 11-26-2008 03:51 AM                     What are the most embarrassing mistakes you have made on your theater's movie time recording? Here are mine: I was doing my recording one night and announced (verbatum) "On May 30th, we will be having Sex and The City, please call back later for times"...please note that at this single screen theater, I list all information including ticket pricing, location, web address, and a brief discription of the film. I try to squeeze this all in the 90 seconds the recorder allows me so by the time I got to the coming attraction, I was talking rather fast to squeeze it all in. The end result sounded like "On May 30th, we will be having Sex In The City, please call back for times". This theater is located in a small town so I had several residents calling me on my cell phone laughing and explaining how it sounded. One year I also decided to leave on the recording feature times for May 32nd. My father who called to see what I had playing up there called me the next day to ask how I was managing to run a film on May 32nd. So what's you worst (and/or) funniest screw up?  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 11-26-2008 04:47 AM                        I have this bad habit of trying over and over until I get it right. There have been Thursday nights where I've spent close to an hour trying to get it right. I'll think I have it and then play it back and realize I've made a mistake. It sounds like I'm being careful and all, but there comes a point where I would be better of just correcting myself on the tape rather than doing it over. The worst mistakes I haven't caught were listing the wrong time or saying a different rating. Seems like I once listed a G or PG film as being rated R. What I do now is record the whole thing on the computer in pieces and then put them together. This makes it so I only have to change a few things every week rather than changing the whole thing.  |  IP: Logged Dennis Benjamin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1445 From: Denton, MD Registered: Feb 2002 posted 11-26-2008 08:57 AM                        I have a friend of mine that runs a small theatre up in Michigan. She has one of the old message machines. I called the recording once to get the main number for the theatre (I had mis-placed it) - so I had to listen to the entire recording. Well, turns out that as time goes on, if your message is shorter than the previous week's, whatever was at the end of last week's recording stays on. I stayed listening to try to get the office line and proceeded to hear some of the funniest stuff ever on a theatre recording. Apparently, whenever she messed up the recording she liked to cuss and throw things around. Well, since these tirads were at the end of previous week's recordings, they were all there in their glory. I listened to them several times and then called the main number to let her know they were on there. Quite a chuckle. [ 11-26-2008, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Dennis Benjamin ]  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-26-2008 09:40 AM                        quote: Justin Hamaker I have this bad habit of trying over and over until I get it right. Same here. As I'm recording, if I make a mistake or get interrupted, I tend to yell "Crap!" or "Sheeeiiiit!" before starting over. Well once I got an actual phone call right in the middle of doing the recording, and afterward forgot I hadn't finished the recording, so somebody called me the next day and told me our recording said "Thank you for calling the Roxy Theatre movie line....now showing...CRAP!"  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 11-26-2008 11:13 AM                     One would think that you could just record the message digially on say the computer...edit it (to the point that only changes need to done from the previous week...not the whole shebang again) and then barf it out to the phone system. Steve  |  IP: Logged Scott D. Neff Theatre Dork Posts: 919 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Oct 1999 posted 11-26-2008 02:34 PM                        I used to do the recording for 9 theatres every Thursday night. When I turned 21 and started having friends over on Thursdays it got to be a challenge doing them DRUNK. I had to do them over and over sometimes, so irritating. Anyway, the drunken recordings led to a funny recording for our discount theatre. I started in with the usual stuff, name, location, prices etc. but then pretty much went on to say "Yeah, I know you don't really wanna see a movie at our theatre but you didn't know that last week was the last week at Pacific (the other theatre). So now you have to come here and complain about how our theatres aren't as big as Pacific's. Yeah, we get it." and then went on to list the movies. Whenever we had an employee who was overly interested in a movie I'd say "Yeah, our assistant manager loves this movie, won't shut up about it so when you're done come to the snack bar and I'm sure he'll talk nonstop about it. But seriously, it is actually a good movie, so come see it for crying out loud!" Doing the prices was fun too... "It's ALWAYS $3.00. It doesn't matter if it's Day or Night, if you're a senior or a mental patient, whether it's a holiday or a full moon if you want to see a movie it's $3.00!" It got to be where the employees of that theatre HATED me because people would keep asking them who the guy was that did the recording or who loved such and such movie so much. Our home office was behind their snack bar and when I saw it happen during the day I'd just chuckle.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 11-26-2008 07:40 PM                       You should hear some of the production tapes at broadcast stations I've worked! If that stuff ever got out on the air! A girl at one of these stations liked to go around and put "blue" reels together, using goofs from everyone's work tapes. Great fun at parties! FWIW, I often did 40-50 takes of commercials before I was satisfied. Which wasn't unusual, as many of my spots were multi-voicers, with me doing all of the voices - so the timing had to be right as well as the delivery. Ironically, though, some of the best stuff I ever did were one-take spots. Back in my radio days, when my voice was trained, I did a lot of movie phone recordings for friends. I must've been on five different theatres there for a while.  |  IP: Logged

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