Seems one of our operators claims that he was standing near the projector looking out the port and hear a loud "pop-pop", then discovered that the film "had jumped off the first two dancer rollers on the platter." "It just jumped off?" I said. "That's not possible" Now I have been around this business a long time, and I have never, ever, heard of anything like this happening, unless of course, someone walks between the projector and the capture roller and trips over the film. Naturally, neither operator on duty is admitting to that happening.

I am at a loss to understand how a new print, on its second show, could just come off the dancer on the third reel. This Strong DMC35-3 has performed flawlessly for nearly two and a half years ( as have all our other DMC35's) Even our older Strong microswitch platters that don't have the guide rollers have never had this happen, unless again, somebody tripped over the film.

Am I missing something here??? Is there something I don't know about? Am I losing it in my old age? Or do you folks think my original suspisions are correct?

I checked out the print on Friday, and there is no damage to the print, thankfully. I am, however, extremely upset about having a show go off screen, no matter how short the duration. A head is about to roll on this one.

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John, if your platters are on the operator side of the projector, then assuming the film came off of the first two rollers on the takeup chain of the platter, then someone definitely did walk into the film, whether they are admitting it or realizing that they did or not. The only possibility would be if the elevator is not moving smoothly up and down. If there is a drag at some point in the elevator's travel, then it is technically possible the elevator briefly got "stuck", but Strong's rollers have nice large flanges, so even that I'm not buying.

By the way, can someone please explain to me why Strong puts keeper rollers on every roller except that one in the takeup elevator???

In the booth(s) that I ran, we had a rule:

If you goof and admit it, the worst that will happen to you is getting scolded, "That was a stupid-ass thing to do..." Even if it was a total F*** up.
Obviously, malicious behavior or horse play is excluded but people who behave like that wouldn't be allowed to work the booth in the first place.
If you goof but try to lie about it or cover it upand get caught you are in trouble TWICE! Once for F***ing up and once for lying about it.

At least the guy wrote an incident report about it.
If it was me in the situation I'd take the guy aside and restate the policy then ask, point-blank, "Are you SURE there was no chance that you goofed?" If your guy comes clean that would be the end of it. If the guy swears that it wasn't his fault, I'd ask him (her?) if he had any idea how it happend, investigate to the best of my ability and if I couldn't find a good reason I'd leave well enough alone. However, if the same (or similar) incident happened to the same guy I'd take him out and give him a serious talking to. I'd make sure to restate the policy again and make it crystal clear. If "accidents" kept happening to the same person, the company's disciplinary policy would be put into effect. (Warning... Write-up... Suspension... Dismissal... or whatever.)

In other words, give the person every chance in the world to make good but make it clear that nothing less than ones best work is expected. Personal style of management should also be accounted for. For instance, the first incident where you took the guy aside might be considered the first warning. I, myself, tend to be quite lenient. (Some say lenient to a fault.)

Did the problem cause the film to shut down?
Does examination of the print indicate any problems with the film itself? Cinch marks or scratches? Was the machine stopped and re-threaded properly? Was it threaded properly to begin with?
Was the audience inconvenienced?
Did the management give passes to the audience? Did the audience complain to management about the incident before the operator took action?
Was the print damaged?
Will there be obvious evidence to subsequent audiences that this print was misused? Are the sprocket holes elongated for the first three reels? (Indicating that the reduced number of pulleys in the takeup tensioning area were active from the beginning) The last sprocket in the sound head should have been imitating a buzz saw if this were the case. This sounds like it could have been a misthread of the platter and upon noticing it the operator made corrections.

It has been my observation that all booth problems are caused by a nasty minded ghost!
NOT ME!!!!

KEN