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Author Topic: Worst Booth you worked at! Rob Brooks Film Handler Posts: 57 From: NY, U.S.A. Registered: Oct 1999 posted 01-09-2000 09:06 PM                     What's the worst booth or as we used to say "Dump" you've worked at? I once had a Manager that used to argue with me that I didn't need heat in the booth because the lamphouses kept the booth warm. Well one cold wintery day I came in and the gears on the projector not only froze, but actually had iscles on them. It took the service guy 5 hrs. to chissel the ices of the gears. Well lo and behold the next day I had warm heat in the booth. ------------------ Rob  |  IP: Logged Andrew D'Vrey Film Handler Posts: 92 From: St. Paul, MN USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-10-2000 12:53 AM                     The worst booth is a brand new booth (year old or newer) that is already dirty as hell with brand new projectors falling to pieces...there are two theaters near my home like that. A Regal and a Carmike. The Regal still has buckets of drywall and ceiling tile laying around full of cement dust that hasn't been cleaned up. I feel there's little hope for the dust and dirt that has accumulated after the place was built. ------------------ "And the monkey flips the switch." - Major Don West, "Lost In Space" Andrew D'Vrey IATSE Local 219  |  IP: Logged Ian Price Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1714 From: Denver, CO Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2000 01:06 AM                     The worst booth I have ever worked at is the one I am working in now. Hopefully that will change because I own it. So it is up to me to make it something I can be proud of.  |  IP: Logged Jason Burroughs Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 654 From: Allen, TX Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-10-2000 12:07 PM                     Worst booth I've worked at? hands down the AMC Prestonwood 5 (pics are in the warehouse) The equimpment was VERY poorly maintained. The Simplex projectors seemed to leak oil faster than they could keep it in, so they were pretty much just left dry. And as we all know, no oil in projector = bad, bad things. At one point they had some old ORC platters that would devolop random shorts in them, often resulting a shock to the operator, one projectionist was knocked unconcious by this. The old CP-50s hadn't been touched since they were originally installed. Once they installed SDDS in this theatre the sound improved somewhat. they had to install new stage speakers, replacing the existing Radio Shack (no joke) speakers they had behind the screen. This theatre was recognized by many people as the worst theatre in town. Probably one reason its now closed.  |  IP: Logged John Walsh Film God Posts: 2490 From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way Registered: Oct 1999 posted 01-10-2000 12:47 PM                     Worst place I worked at was a UA 5-plex (now closed.) All of the equipment was peiced together. There was a Century head with a Simplex soundhead, a Simplex head with an RCA sound head, Two ORC lamps and 3 Christies lamps, etc, etc. The only thing that was the same at all screens were Potts 5-tier platters, but those were peiced together, also (old motors, new motors; new decks, bent, 'wavey' decks; bright orange paint, dirty scratched paint, etc, etc.) One 5-tier was only being used for one screen, so two decks worth of payout heads, decks, and motors were gone.  |  IP: Logged Ari Nordström Master Film Handler Posts: 283 From: Göteborg, Sweden Registered: Jan 2000 posted 01-10-2000 04:10 PM                     Worst booth? Without a doubt a 3-plex called Göta in Göteborg, that now exists only in the nightmares of its former projectionists. There was oil everywhere except in the projectors, spiderwebs covered the back side of one lamphouse, one projector had an eight-degree port list, the CP50 had a faulty Cat 148 that produced hisses and clicks in the surround speakers... The list went on, and this was just the purely technical side of it. You should have met the ushers. Oh yes, and there was a table lamp we always called "the electric boogie lamp". Can anyone of you guess why?  |  IP: Logged Joshua Waaland Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 800 From: Cleveland, Ohio Registered: Dec 1999 posted 01-10-2000 05:45 PM                     Cinema World (now Carmike Cinemas), Plaza 8 in Sandusky, Ohio hands down. They threw it together because they heard that Cinemark was coming to town and they closed their two screen and opened this one. They build a brand new building and then they put the biggest pieces of junk in the booth. I wouldn't have gave this stuff away. 8 projectors with 4 different brands. Simplexes, Century's, Cinemacannicas, and more Century's. We couldn't even get manuals for them. Of course this was before Film-Tech.com. I learned the art of Jerry-rigging real quick. No offense if your name is Jerry. Once I even wrote out a request for parts, addressed it, stamped it and set it on the managers desk and it sat there for a month! I'm sure you can probably all relate. Then when they would break guess who got a call on their day off. Yep! They have since installed a few dts systems, but they still have to buy stock in gear oil. Joshua  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 01-11-2000 06:05 PM                       Village 8, Louisville. Only because it had been neglected for so long, and one of the two operators per shift had been eliminated. Chewing gum was holding things together! 4 different booths, 2 of which were across the lobby from one another. I worked a vacation for someone there for 2 weeks, and had to decline any subsequent offers to fill-in there.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 01-12-2000 02:06 AM                        I worked at a theatre where the owner paid me in cash (paper bills and coins) in an envelope, to the penny. He would dock my pay if I didn't use carbons to less than a 1-inch stub using carbon savers (Peerless Magnarc). He cashed in the copper drippings himself, rather than give them to the Will Rogers recycling collection. Spare parts? --- forget it and make do!  |  IP: Logged

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