We run Christie P35GPS Heads. I was checking out the problem and could see that something was blocking the light. I checked the douser to see if it dropped, but it was fine. So I stopped the film and opened up the back and saw that the shutter belt was broken because the shutter spun freely. The managers had to give about 50 passes out and we luckily had one last belt in the spare parts.

So we fixed it and timed it and ran the next showing of Pitch Black in the house next door while we checked it. The Beach wasn't selling well so we dropped it down to the third tier and let it sit.

So I went about tearing down "Talented Mr. Ripley" and I got a call again that the same thing happened to Pitch Black in that theater! So I went and checked on it and SURE ENOUGH the Damn Shutter Timing Belt broke on that one too! Both of them shredded.

The wierd part is that we were joking after the first one broke and the booth manager said I hope it doesn't happen again because we are out of belts. I said it probably will happen again todaywith our luck. Next time I will keep my mouth shut. Same movie, same place in the film, and same belt!

So we had to get another belt from our Valley View theater about twenty minutes away, which by the way is running a digicrap projector in one house. So to make a long story short we fixed it and saved the day.
The best part is I learned something new about projectors which I have never got to do before and I was really pumped. I love it! My girlfriend thinks I'm a freak because I get so excited about projection. I always tell her "That it justs gets in your blood".

So we talked the booth manager into getting some new belts so we could change them since the booth just reached a year old. Christie says to change them after a year and they weren't joking.

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Anyhow, after all the trailers and around 10 minutes into the movie (just after the landing), the film abruptly stops and the lights came up to half, and the slide show started again. All at once. Fairly full house. About 10 or 15 minutes later, a hapless employee wandered in and someone yelled to him "what's going on". He mumbled something about starting it over again.

He wasn't kidding. 5 or 10 minutes later, they started all over again, including ALL the trailers and the sound logo. And I watched intensely at the point where the movie stopped. Nothing to indicate any sort of break. This has NEVER happened to me, at least outside my home

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But, I tend to think like an old-timer, and I want all steel gears..

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You must have at least 5 spare shutter belts for every Christie projector you have

BTW, I have noticed that some projectors run louder than others. I tried changing out belts to see if it was the age that was causing the loudness, but it still stays loud. It's not annoying to anyone but me, but I HEAR ALL... Any suggestions?

David, the problem you probably saw is that the operator did not use gloves when building up the print. Therefore the oils from the operator's hands got transfered to the film which in turn attracted the dirt at each showing. That is a problem I have been fight at the theatre I just took over in Maryland. My operators and managers do not know their A$$ from a hole in the ground when running the booth. It's a shame...

Kodak's new Vision Color Print film has a conductive backing layer to minimize attraction of dust and dirt to the film by static electricity. It eliminates those annoying static shocks during rewinding too.

I find the cause of the "2 minute warnings" on platters is generally due to a projector not being clean. Ever notice how the last reel change looks infinitely worse than the first reel change with respect to dirt buildup? The reason for this is as the print sheds during operation, the gate gets more and more dirty. As the splice is passed through the gate, it stirs up all of the dirt and it is then loose, to adhere itself to the film. This can last for a minute or so. The reason the tails of the reels get dirty right before a reel change is because that first revolution of film on an incoming reel winds itself against the last revolution of film on the previous reel, thus transferring the dirt. On the next show, that new round of film lays up against the next layer and so on and so on and so on. So the dirt ends up going in both directions, although typically worse at the head than tail.

This can be cured 100% with FilmGuard, but most people here already know that. The trick is to STOP THE SHEDDING and keep the projectors CLEAN. FilmGuard handles that all on it's own. In fact, there are a lot of theaters who don't even own a media cleaner and are simply wiping the top edge of the print with FilmGuard as it lays on the platter, running the next show taking up "upside down" from their normal procedure and then wiping the other side. This kills most of the static and most of the shedding right there. Many multiplexes simply do not have the time to clean out the projector head between every show, and some makes and models of projectors cause more shedding than others. But that bottom line remains, if the projector is clean and the print does not shed, that "2 minute warning" is a thing of the past.

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