Unfortunately this post is going to be a bit negative. Let me preface my remarks by saying that my experience tonight is in direct contrast to the very positive experience I had at the same drive-in on the other screen the week before.

Tonight I took my wife and little one out to see "Lilo and Stitch' at the newly opened Dandenong Lunar Drive-in. Upon entering the drive-in I noticed that screen 2 had been put up and that the movie was just starting on that screen.

Anyway after parking the car and switching on the radio I noticed two things. First there was little or no left channel coming from my speakers. I moved my dial to other stations and they seemed to work fine with both channels coming through ok. It was only the drive-in FM signal that didn't work properly. One could hear a faint signal on the left channel but it was impossible to get it to work properly. The right channel was ok.

The other thing was some very loud bursts of static. I mean loud like a burst of lightning nearby or a gramaphone record hitting a scratch in an LP record. As the weather was a bit inclement I thought at first it was some lightning nearby but the scratches kept coming at regular intervals of about 4 seconds. They continued right throughout the film.

After about 20 minutes of this I went over to the projection room, knocked on the door and chatted with the projectionist. I explained that the fm signal had loud scratches running regularly through the film about every 4 or 5 seconds. The projectionist apologised and said that this was the second day that they had used the second screen and that the fault had been identified yesterday and they had had the technician in but he hadn't as yet been able to fix the problem. He pointed to the large reel and mentioned something about it scratching everytime the reel went around. I thanked him and went back to my car to watch the rest of the film.

Now, don't get me wrong. I realise the things can and do go wrong with projection equipment and sometimes one has to make the best of things, but this situation is a little different. For patrons who came yesterday the situation was unfortunate but excusable.

However, it was known yesterday or at the latest today before the film started, that there was a problem with the projection sound. Yet the drive-in still opened the second screen and still took admissions from patrons who were expecting proper presentation of the film.

That to me is just wrong or to put it another way Film Not Done Right. The drive-in should never have taken admissions knowing that the enjoyment of the film by its patrons would be compromised by large bursts of static constantly throughout the screening. It is not just a question of bad business practice, although that is true in this case. Plenty of unhappy patrons will have gone home and they will through word of mouth now say lots of bad things about their bad experience.

No, the bottom line is that those patrons in paying their admission put their faith in those in charge of the drive-in theatre that they would do their utmost to ensure that the presentation would be of a good standard. Further those in charge of a drive-in or cinema hold a fundamental position of trust and to allow a poor quality presentation of this kind is to betray that trust not just in terms of the parents who paid for the admission but also for the kids who were expecting to see an enjoyable family movie properly presented.

To repeat the oft used words of a well known, bearded former current affairs and radio host here in Australia

'Shame, Shame, Shame'.

I'm sure that these teething problems will get ironed out and that the venue will go on to become a valuable community asset but it does raise serious questions about what is proper and ethical business practice.

Would you, in a similar situation, open your drive-in or cinema knowing that technical faults would seriously mar the presentation?
What do you think?

cheers Peter

It however happens all the time that operators allow bad presentations and just give lame excuses as to why. It makes you never want to return. It costs money down the road, and drives patrons to DVD and away from cinema.

It is bad for the industry as a whole. There should be enforceable standards, but alas, there are not.

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I think that most people understand that equipment is never 100% reliable and will accept minor technical glitches _if_ they are notified about the problem in advance of making their ticket purchase and also permitted to leave and receive a full refund within the first 20-30 minutes or so if they find the problem to be distracting. I'm not advocating poor presentation quality here; rather, I'm just attempting to offer a realistic way to deal with occasional equipment issues.

The important point here is that it is unfair to knowingly sell tickets to a technically flawed show without informing the customers of the potential problems and giving them an option to get a refund.

Instead the customers just go elsewhere and the theater dies, all the while management can't figure out why.

I agree with Scott; put a sign up. Usually very few people leave.

And I really agree with Brad; It's true that it's not possible to put an exact dollar value on customer satafaction, but because accountants *can't* put a figure, they incorrectly think it has *no* value.

It strikes me that Village and Dromana do care a lot about the presentation of their films.

I'm surprised that John Pytlak hasn't chimed in on this subject as I know he is a strong advocate on good presentation. I wonder what his position on the subject is?

Also John, I don't think they ran out of money as they have only just put up the screens and spent a lot on other areas of the drive-in. The projector repairs would be small change IMHO. Further it appeared to me that the drive-in was getting good patronage so presumably the $$$ should be flowing in.

I agree with your approach too John. Drive-in customers generally have a lot of goodwill towards the drive-in (because they have so many happy experiences there) and being honest about the problem goes a long way towards keeping that goodwill. Most people would have stayed for the presentation. In fact on the particular night that I was there there was an very occasional lightning flash and it rained a bit so I think that people would be prepared to put up with a problem provided the drive-in management is honest and up front about it.

By the way accountants (I am one) can and do account for customer satisfaction. It's called goodwill and is an intangible aset of the business that increases the value of the business. It is however, difficult to measure.

One small point Brad. I didn't complain in the sense of getting negative about the problem. I just politely knocked on the door and let the projectionist know there was a problem. As I said earlier one must be reasonable and expect that technical hitches will occur from time to time but knowing there is a technical hitch but still screening the movie is another matter entirely.

Leaving aside the ethical question for a second, and focussing purely on technical matters, what is likely to cause a large burst of static/scratch every 4 or 5 seconds and possible loss of one channel? Are these problems easily fixed on 35mm projectors?

Personally though, if I was running a commercial drive-in I wouldn't ever feel comfortable about running a session during which there were technical faults that would seriously mar the performance. That isn't the way the film was meant to be shown and to show it in a flawed way does a disservice to the hard work put in by the people who made it. It's a bit like theatres that cut the edges off cinemascope films because their screen isn't wide enough. It sells the film short. Literally.

cheers Peter

If you read this Brad, what happened to my new photo?

I think you may have misunderstood the situation. The Dandenong Drive-in is newly opened and for the first week they only had one screen up. My first visit to the theatre the week before was on screen 1 and one could not have asked for a better presentation. Nice bright picture, friendly service, good sound etc etc

However on my second visit the second screen had been finished and the drive-in was now operating as a twin (it will eventually expand to 4 screens). Stuart Little 2 was still showing on screen 1 and now that screen 2 was up they were using it to show Lilo and Stitch.

The fact that only one channel was being used didn't bother me all that much. Provided the visual side of things is ok, mono sound is not that great a problem. What was annoying however was having a loud scratch override the soundtrack every 4 or 5 seconds. I'm not talking about a minor scratch here - I'm talking about a noise that is louder than the soundtrack. What would have been the point of going to the management? They clearly already knew there was a problem but they still chose to screen the movie with faulty equipment.

So strictly speaking I was not talking about an overflow situation but as you raised the subject I will mention that the drive-in is divided down the middle by a high wire fence which is used for Sunday Markets. 1/3 of the area available for cars can fit in screen 1 and 2/3 can fit in screen 2. Curiously on my second visit the screen 1 car area was full and cars were having to park in the screen 2 area to watch screen 1.

Here is an aerial shot of the drive-in to give you an idea (borrowed from Buddy's site). I have put black lines where the screens have been added. Screen 1 is in the bottom right hand corner and screen 2 in the top left hand corner. The black square is the new projection box and the orange line is the wire fence used for the sunday markets. Just below the projection box is the snack bar. As you can see there is not a lot of room between the snack bar and screen 1 or in the screen 1 area. This means that if there is an overflow in screen 1 they have to park behind the wire in the screen 2 area.

That snack bar is sure in an awkward position.

cheers Peter

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Barry Floyd
Floyd Entertainment Group
Lebanon, Tennessee

The principal subject of this thread is the issue of whether you knowingly, recklessly, carelessly or otherwise, screen a film using faulty equipment without telling your patrons. That issue is applicable whether you screen films outdoors, in a hardtop or in a swimming pool.

Perhaps I should have titled it as follows

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS [Warning this posting may contain mention of drive-in theatres. Please do not read if you are offended by mention of these establishments]

but that would have made the title too long.

I'm sorry that my mention of drive-in theatres offended you.

What clearly happened is that Manny had to click on this thread to find out what it is (because of the teaser title) and skimmed it over. Perhaps Manny isn't interested in drive-ins. Big deal, so what? Are you personally interested in some of the "tech talk" found on the Film Handler's Forum? I'll bet you skip most of it because it isn't of interest to you, yet having it there doesn't offend you, does it? Clearly the use of a teaser subject header was responsible for Manny's skimming over the real question at hand and him thinking this was a topic specifically about drive-ins.

Manny, in case the "thread closed" icon perks your interest into reading the last post of this thread to "find out what happened", yes you did miss the whole point of this discussion, which I'm betting would be of interest to you.

I hope everyone can remember this is yet another reason to refrain from using teaser subjects. Teaser headers are nothing more than sleazy advertising campaigns, trying to get the interest of people to click on the link. They are annoying to those trying to surf the forums and especially aggravating to those on dial-up internet connections. They also waste bandwidth for no good reason.

And with that I am going to lock this thread due to the teaser title (something I should have done as soon as it was posted). Peter, feel free to start a new topic under an appropriately named subject title such as "professional ethics" and then reference this thread so everyone can refer to it to catch-up where this discussion left off four posts earlier.