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Topic: how do you run those platter things anyway?!?

Stephen Winner
Film Handler

Posts: 57
From: Richmond,VA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-07-1999 10:20 PM

I have read many of the posts by the many projectionists' running platters. Being only 25 years old, and working at a single screen for a few years, I don't have much overall experience with diferrent equipment. Platters are the standard nowadays, but I have never touched one, or even seen one in person. Being an "old school" projectionist, I've been perfectly fine with reels, but doing changeovers is not where the industry's at right now. So how do you work one of those things anyway! (by the way, what's a "brain wrap")

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 11-07-1999 11:07 PM

Working a platter system requires that you be well-versed in magic. Otherwise they simply do not work.

Just kidding of course

Actually, it is really easy to operate and is much kinder to the film vs running it reel to reel. Basically it pays out from the center of the big roll o' film, goes through some rollers, through the projector, and takes up on a different deck of the platter system. No need to rewind ever.

You should go to the main page of this site http://www.film-tech.com
and from there click on Picture Warehouse (Send Your Pics!!) and from there click on just about any link to see pictures of a platter system. Platters also allow the film to be interlocked across several different auditorums with only one copy of the film. Seeing this in action is usually enough to scare the pants off of a reel to reel jockey!

A brain wrap is what happens when the AMC guy misthreads the platter. The brain is the centerpiece device responsible for the film feeding out. When the film wraps around this device, the projector at the AMC Googleplex simply cannot pull any more film, and the film starts to get damaged. Not fun. This can also happen if there is something on the film that makes it stick to itself, or if the tail is taped to itself at the end of the print.

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Michael Cunningham
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 186
From: Anchorage, AK
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 11-07-1999 11:14 PM

There's really nothing to running a platter. Basically, it runs itself! It works like this: all of the reels have their countdown haed and tail peices removed and are spliced together from the last actual frame of one reel to the first actual frame of the next reel. All of the reels are then wound onto a metal ring in the center of a large disc. This ring is collapsable and so can be removed and placed on another platter on the same tree (there are usually three platters in a stack). The film is then fed through a "centerfeed" which consists of a movable arm and a few rollers. Imagine a long extension cord wound up on the floor. If you pull the cord out from the center, it will begin to twist. To unwind the twists you would have to rotate the entire coil of cord. The platter accomplishes this in the following way: as the film begins to twist and wrap tightly around the centerfeed (or "brain") the arm moves and sends a signal to the platter's motor which causes the entire disc to spin. The film travels out of the center of the coil, across a series of rollers to the projector, across another set of rollers back to the metal ring on another platter which wraps the film back into a coil! A brain wrap occurs when the platter loses power or some such and the payout platter stops spinning. Remeber the extension cord? Eventually the film winds so tight that the projector can no longer pull film or the film will break. Hope this helps!!

Mike

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-1999 03:37 AM

Stephen, where do you live? Perhaps one of the guys here will give you a personal tour of a platter booth!

And Joe is right, there's nothing like interlocking to see a reel to reel jockey's jaw hit the floor! I've done as many as 15 screens with one print before. It's a sight! (and it also took about 2000 feet of leader!)

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Scott Ribbens
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 118
From: Los Angeles
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 11-08-1999 09:05 AM

Well Brad, you got me beat on that one, the most I think I did was 5 or 6 screens at one time for paying audiances. But I did do a two screen interlock that required a little more than 500 feet of leader.

------------------

Scott

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-1999 12:40 PM

This one wasn't for a paying audience, but was done just before the grand opening at Cinemark Hollywood U.S.A. in Garland, TX to prove the point that it could be done, without fault.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-08-1999 05:17 PM

Ok...Mr. Changeover here!

I take exception to the comment regarding that platters are somehow easier on film than reels are! I have never worn out a print running them on reels (in excess of 500 runs). Reels can be set up to handle film as well (and in my opinion better than platters) without putting any twists in the film path.

And to Brad...

My jaw has never dropped when seeing platterheads interlock...more like my hand slapping my forehead at the silliness of it all....2 or more times as many people going by the concession stand in the same amount of time as a normal intermission....Us reel-to-reel guys much prefer to bicycle the print over multiple screens (or even locations if you are really daring, try that with a platter). It is nifty to have a print start the next show before it ends the previous.

Steve

"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-1999 05:30 PM

Twist, twist, twist. Is that all you ever complain about??? (Just kidding, for everyone else, Steve and I had a long chat the other night debating film transports.)

I turn to the film man himself...Mr. John Pytlak to settle this for us!

John, on current Kodak film stocks, does "twisting" the film cause damage in any way, provided the tension isn't ludicrously high? (Not asking you to step in between a hard core platter guy and a hard core reel to reel guy, just the official Kodak answer to the twisting dispute.)

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 11-08-1999 06:10 PM

Twist, twist, twist. Is that all you ever complain about??? (Just
kidding, for everyone else, Steve and I had a long chat the other night
debating film transports.)
I turn to the film man himself...Mr. John Pytlak to settle this for us!

The result is called edgewave (not trying to impersonate Mr. Pytlak or anything) but have seen it get progressive with a film's run on either poorly aligned reels or platters in general.

Steve

(PS does Kodak run their films on platters for their evaluations?)

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 11-08-1999 07:28 PM

Oh c'mon guys! Why not have the best of both worlds? Have two projectors set up with their own platter and 2 copies of the film, and just changeover between them randomly!

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Stephen Winner
Film Handler

Posts: 57
From: Richmond,VA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-08-1999 10:25 PM

I live in Richmond, VA. Check out the Byrd Theater pic's I put up when I started working here...pretty antique stuff! We have a 20 screen Regal on the Northside that was just recently built. A new 14 screen theater is going up next door to my full-time employer's computer shop. I'm gonna be right there when it comes time to hook up the new projectors. I'm unsure of what chain it's under. I imagine any of these houses are interlocking (but they always seem to have film handling problems when I'm there!) I've just never walked up to the booth there yet!

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George Roher
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: Washington DC
Registered: Jul 99

posted 11-09-1999 12:15 AM

I seem to remember hearing about a Regal theatre in Richmond that illegally fired it's Union operators about a year ago. I believe I.A.T.S.E.'s nation wide boycott of Regal is still in effect. I imagine that theatre would have film handling problems. You could visit that booth, though, just to learn exactly how NOT to run platters

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George Roher
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: Washington DC
Registered: Jul 99

posted 11-09-1999 01:39 AM

I was a platterhead before I learned how to run changeovers, and I must say I was a little intimidated by interlocking when I first had to do it. But it can be fun watching a spider web of film flying all over the booth.

I'd like to see some fellow platterheads try to hit the change-over in the middle of the pod race in Phantom Menace, while the subwoofers are shaking the booth and you're overwhelmed by a huge curved screen that nearly takes up your entire field of vision. I'm sure Steve Guttag remembers that c/o fondly. It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating at once. It made you feel like you were part of the show, not just running it. I've never had more fun in a booth and I didn't want to go home at the end of the night. But don't worry, I still think Phantom Menace is an awful movie.

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 11-09-1999 01:58 AM

Yes, I clearly remembered that changeover! Not a single frame missing during the reel change...cause it was spliced on a platter! (haha, I couldn't resist)

Personally, I always liked that changeover because it was on an extremely bright scene and showed off how flawless the change went...no dirt or anything (with FilmGuard of course).

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-09-1999 06:45 PM

That changeover is yet another in the long list of parallels between the SW pod race scene and the chariot race scene in "Ben Hur." There was a changeover in the middle of that race, too.

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