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Topic: Pet Peeves

John Walsh
Film God

Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 12-11-1999 11:39 PM

OK, we've done 'first film you ran,' and 'first film you destroyed,' how about booth "Pet Peeves?" One of my big ones (which someone did on Friday, again) was make up a 20th Century Fox print, and cut off the first "da-dum-da" of the fanfare. They do that because there's no frame lines (it's all dark) and they can't see where seperate the attached trailer to insert a THX snipe. Really punches my button.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-11-1999 11:55 PM

My biggest pet peeve is finding shoe polish on the print.

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Scott Ribbens
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 118
From: Los Angeles
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 12-11-1999 11:57 PM

Yeah, That one is on my all time top list. It goes right along with the sound track/DTS code run into the attached trailer tail. Me thinks the other studios would take a lesson from Warner Bros., and put 10 feet or so of black between the attached trailer and the head of the movie!

By the way, I once had a pet named "Peeve".

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Scott

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George Roher
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: Washington DC
Registered: Jul 99

posted 12-12-1999 12:01 AM

My number one pet peeve is managers interfering in the booth.

Another pet peeve: I can't stand seeing operators thread by tossing the entire leader on the floor, and lacing the platter after the projector.

I can't think of any more right now.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-12-1999 12:09 AM

Another good one is people setting their cup of pop on either the platter deck or on top of the lamphouse/console. Don't they think it won't spill?

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Erika Hellgren
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 168
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-12-1999 12:34 AM

I have a lot of pet peeves. Every one that was mentioned so far, for example

I also really hate it when I'm training some hot shot in the booth who thinks he knows everything.

Oo! I also hate it when digital sound cuts out. Really makes me cringe.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-12-1999 12:39 AM

I hate it when no one checks the oil level in the projector and it's real low or bone dry.

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Tyler Skinner
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 115
From: Pa
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-12-1999 01:57 AM

I hate it when someone cleans out the projector at the end of the night but leaves the brains filthy as hell.

I hate when splices over an existing broken splice without peeling the tape off.

I hate when they splice with shitty yellow marking tape and cover up the entire soundtrack with the colored part or even worse, right across the middle of the picture.

I hate colored splicing tape.

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Robert Saba
Film Handler

Posts: 7
From: Mesquite, TX, USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 12-12-1999 02:08 AM

I'm gonna expand on George Roher's pet peeve -- managers interfering. I once had a manager who came in and sprayed alcohol all over the print to kill static. Nevertheless, it double fed more times that day than it should in a year. Also, Erika brings up a good point about hotshots who think they know everything. What makes it worse is about 3-4 weeks in their training, when thet get fast at threading (and that's all they know how to do), and you catch them bragging to ushers about how "easy" the job is.

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Jim Ziegler
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 753
From: West Hollywood, CA
Registered: Jul 99

posted 12-12-1999 06:06 AM

My biggest pet peeve is people who think my booth is a store room...

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Jon Miller
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 973
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-12-1999 05:24 PM

Besides opaque yellow splicing tape, which should be made illegal :-),...

my pet peeve is finding conga lines of splices near the heads and tails of an umpteenth-run print, just because few platter jockeys (not Film-Tech-ers, of course!) were trained to separate the head/tail splices made after a print was first ran. This includes the aforementioned splices-upon-splices. Duh!

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Rob Brooks
Film Handler

Posts: 57
From: NY, U.S.A.
Registered: Oct 1999

posted 12-12-1999 07:46 PM

1) Leaders and Tails attached with masking tape. You find them all over the place in the cans.
2) Exchange reels falling apart while winding.
3) Supply orders taking for ever or getting lost.
4) Getting a call from ushers that something is wrong like focus and 80% of the time nothing at all being wrong.
5) Being asked I guess you get to see a lot of movies? (not at my busy mega-plex)
6) Being told your job is easy you just thread up and do nothing for 2 hours.
7) Getting a new print an hour or so before show time.
8) A booth with garbage on the floor and no one else could care less.
9) Operators who don't want to learn maintance, or bring tools. Then call me during an emergency like a drive belt change asking me not only what to do but if I know where any tools in the booth might be.
10) Calling up for food and it's delivered a hour or more later (or not at all) and it's time to thread just about everything again.
11) Mice + roaches (yes you guessed it I work in NYC). Once the projector shorted out and the problem was a fried mouse.
12) Going to a new theater and the manager treating you suspiciouly that you don't know anything.
13) Oil or grease (century for the grease) on the belts.
14) OK here's a oldie but goodie from 25 years ago. Carbons separating or the wind blowing in thru the exhaust system knocking the lamp out.
15) The manager catching you sleeping. Just kidding! Maybe.

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Rob

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

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

posted 12-12-1999 08:46 PM

Rob, you must learn to nap very discretely when you are doing nothing for two hours if you don't want the managers to catch you. Try sleeping inside of a sound rack or somewhere else where nobody looks.

I have a lot of pet peeves, many have alreay been mentioned. But here are a few more:

1) Lab splices
2) Prints that were printed too fast by the lab, resulting in an unsteady picture.
3) Pennywise Peripherals (the company)
4) The LED/Photocell assembly going bad in the Christie platter (happens a lot)
5) The overall annoyingness of anybody who calls "Hey boooooooth" over the walkie.
6) Idiot managers (not all of them are idiots, but there are a few who have enough idiocy for everyone)
7) Dirty auditoriums or lobbies.
8) When the janitors don't put the curtains back when they prop them up to blow all of the trash under the screen.
9) Trash under the screen
10) Training anybody. I hate it. I work best alone anyway.
11) Threading, as it sometimes gets in the way of what I really want to do, which is sit on my lazy ass!

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Stephen Winner
Film Handler

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

posted 12-12-1999 10:21 PM

My pet peeves are:

-Getting S--Ty shipping reels in (we sometimes run off of these!)
-Dirty, scratchy prints (and when viewers complain that we messed them up?!?!?!"why'd you get all that dirt on the film?")
-not putting the booth away for the night: leaving film on take-up, carbon stubbies in the lamphouse, wrong lens for the next day's film,etc.
-having to run drunk bums out of the theater at night who fall asleep during the show, and cleaning up all the popcorn they spilled
-patrons always complaining about the climate control systems either being too hot, or too cold

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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!

Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-13-1999 12:09 AM

hmm.... let's see.... Some of mine are:

1. Technicolor Entertainment Service ANYTHING <aggh>

2. Staff that forgets your existance when they make a food run...

3. People that use the booth for a break room and leave all their food trash and other stuff ALL OVER the place..

4. The *idiots* in Hollywood that think that trailers are *SUPPOSED* to be earsplittingly loud and features that you have to crank it up to 10 to be able to hear any dialogue (usually in the same program)...

5. Staff that puts any old sound format sign up on the mylar boxes above the auditorium doors ( I gave up on constantly correcting them ad infinitum)...

6. Patrons that think THEY know more about running a multiplex booth than you and get real attitudes about it...

7. Asshole Patrons (usually kids, but you'd be suprised how many ADULTS I have caught doing this) sticking their popcorn greasy hands against those port glasses that are within reach and smearing the grease all over them...

8. Piss-Poor theatre design with auditoria stacked above other auditoria with the resulting 'Sensurround' effects when a digital feature is playing in one of the lower houses... and having to deal with VERY upset upper-auditorium patrons afterwards

9. Operators that don't bother to run a film in the best possible format be it digital or analog... Many a DTS film I have seen running and the discs are sitting in the cans... of course i *immediately* correct this problem...

10. Polyestar film stock. Although Film-Guard promises to end the maladies presented by this new stock, the problem will still persist in many a theatre...

Aaron

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