(Mis)Adventures in Projectioneering: Why You Never, EVER, Want to Drop a Print

 Greetings, blogorium readers. Cap'n Howdy is finally back to a semi-regular updating schedule after a long three week run of moving and flying halfway across the country for a wedding. If you were wondering, I did get to watch a few movies during that hectic sabbatical, as well as the period in which I didn't have TV or internet, and I'll catch you up on those soon.

 Until we get to that, the other time not consumed in airports or moving dusty boxes involved being at work, and luckily for you I just happen to have a new adventure in projectioneering. It's not one I'd ever wish on any of you (if you are also a projectionist), but let's look at it as a valuable lesson in why you should be very careful when moving a print.

 As I've mentioned before, the theatre I work in uses older projectors and is in almost no way digital. Accordingly, we play 35mm prints of films, which need to be loaded onto platters. They arrive in reels, so when we get the boxes, we "build" the print to a platter and then "break down" said print to return to the manufacturer.

 If we're lucky, the print stays on the platter attached to the screen we build it to (for example, Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master has been in the same auditorium for the last month or so), but more often than not, we need to move the print. This means physically lifting the film (which is wrapped around a core) and carrying it to the screen it needs to be playing in.

 To do this, you need two to three clamps to ensure that the film stays in place and doesn't collapse onto the ground, appropriately termed "dropping a print." You NEVER want to drop a print, especially one that's still playing, because it means cancelling the showings for the rest of the day while you attempt to undo the calamity you brought upon the audience and your coworkers.

 So on Friday night, while attempting to move a print off of the platter to make room for the movie I'd just finished building that took its place, one of the clamps came loose and... blammo. The print fell sideways, unspooling, and generally looking like a disaster on the floor. In my shame, I didn't take a picture of what it looked like, but the short version was that it looked unfixable.

 Now, not to excuse what I did, but it is worth pointing out that the print in question (I'm not going to say what it was but I can assure you that you've never heard of it) was one designated to be "broken down" on Saturday, so the calamitous nature of my screw up was somewhat muted. I told management, they responded as reasonably as they could (I mean, you should NEVER drop a print, no matter what), and then it sat on the floor for two days.

 Allow me to clarify: we had several things that really needed to be done immediately and because only two or three senior projectionists know how to fix a dropped print, it wasn't the highest priority, but when I came in on Sunday and saw three projectionists were working (one in the booth and two downstairs) - one of whom knew how to fix it as he was our manager - we decided to spend a healthy portion of the afternoon preparing the dropped print to be "broken down."

 From this point on, I do have pictures, because I really wanted you to understand how much of a mess I made and why it took three projectionists working together for two hours to fix it:

 So that's one part of the mess. After we'd separated the print into "mostly intact" portions (one is visible in the upper right hand corner) and separated them with a splicer, we were left with the middle, which was a jumbled knot of no-goodness that needed to be fed to the make up / break down tray by hand. But before we could do that, we needed to untangle the pile to prevent bigger knots from forming, thereby breaking everything we'd been working to fix.

 Don't let the cheery demeanor fool you - he's just happy because he hasn't started untangling the mess yet. Also notice the splicer on the floor (we had to make four cuts in the film to allow us room to untangle the knots) and that the film is running from projector 3 to projector 1, where the break down tray is.

 Yeah, that should give you some idea of how much of a giant cluster of film he had to untangle. It took two of us about an hour while the third projectionist (in the distance) began rewinding the "intact" parts back to their cannisters.

 
 Knots! No more knots!!!! The RAGE!!!!! And it's all my fault. Sorry guys.

  

Here we are, being shamed by a projectionist who came in for a later shift downstairs, who has the good sense not to drop a print. Or he may have just been upstairs to check the projectionist log, but clearly there's some contempt for my chicanery.

 The good news is that with some elbow grease, a painful attention to detail, and being very, VERY patient in pulling on thread of film slowly until there were no more kinks, we managed to fix my mess and break down the print. I hope that our efforts give you some idea of how terribly important it is to be careful when moving a print, even one going away, because it takes considerable time as long to fix it as it does to take an extra ten seconds to make sure the clamp is actually secure. You NEVER want to drop a print, and now I know why firsthand.

 Post-script: The following day we learned that we might have to rebuild it because people were calling to find out if it was still showing. 

 No, really.

Cap'n Howdy Presents: (New) Adventures in Projectioneering!

 Well, I wasn't expecting this. It's been twelve years since the Cap'n worked for or in a movie theatre, and that was one of those "chain" types (it still exists which is why you might have noticed the fact I no longer identify it by name) and I thought that I'd probably never find myself in a projection booth again. Not because I didn't enjoy it, but because it tends to be the kind of job high school students get over the summer or stick around through the fall and move up from concessions to usher to projectionist. I know this is the case because it's what I did.

 The Cap'n is no spring chicken, so it seemed like if I'd been away for so long and that the younger generation was no doubt better equipped to handled these new fangled "digital" projectors we hear about. Speaking of which, true story: when I went to see The Dark Knight Rises a few weeks ago, before the IMAX showing, I saw it at a large (but different) "chain" multiplex and when the movie ended I could see the Windows toolbar at the bottom of the screen. As in, no film whatsoever, we were watching a projection of somebody's digital copy of The Dark Knight Rises. I'm not making justifications for people who pirate movies, but it's an uphill battle convincing them that you're in for a better experience watching a theatre's projected computer screen for $15.

 Anyway, so with digital projectors being in vogue and projectionists not really in demand (you can program those things and they run themselves, reducing the person in the booth to a minimum-wage IT employee), it hadn't crossed my mind in some time I'd ever be working in a theatre again. But then I got word from a friend whose husband worked for a local theatre that they needed a projectionist and all I needed to do was drop by. And all of a sudden, with limited funds, a very part time job, and lots of spare time I could be using to make money (sorry readers, but this here Blogorium is a labor of love, not a lucrative cash cow for the Cap'n), I decided why not go check it out.

 Now this particular theatre was enticing because I've been going there since I was a kid. It's been here since before the Cap'n lived in this state, and while it's changed hands a few times over the years, it turns out one thing hasn't changed at all: the projection booth.

 I expected to be rusty at threading a projector (and I was) but I had no idea I'd be working with machines as old as I was, kept in working order by a dedicated team making the best of what they had even when parts were in short supply. And by that I mean "we don't make that kind of part anymore" short supply. It's impressive to see projectors that I saw movies on as a kid still playing films today, including The Dark Knight Rises. 35mm film is still where it's at, as far as this Luddite is concerned.

 The other thing I'd forgotten was how much fun it is to physically thread the film through the machine - yes, it can be maddening when you have four movies starting within five minutes of each other (still better than eight to sixteen), but there's something about being in the background, watching the audiences sit down to watch a movie, and getting everything ready. Because much of the equipment isn't automated, I also get to do little tricks like lower the lights on cue, adjust the sound between trailers and the film, and sometimes physically lift the shutter covering the lens.

 It's the kind of thing you forget that you enjoy doing, a job that's entirely behind the scenes but results in people being able to escape somewhere else for a few hours. Being a projectionist is a unique sort of job in that you are responsible for the experiences of anywhere from two to two hundred people, but only you know what that responsibility means. I'm not diminishing the front of house folks (who are all very nice and laid back people - the atmosphere of the theatre is very laid back with no uniforms or restrictions on facial hair, etc.). Believe me, they get the complaints if I do my job badly, but don't think I don't know if I goofed up. Chances are I'm trying to fix it, and every time a piece of film is a little too loose or rides to the side of a roller, I am hoping that doesn't sully your moviegoing experience. People don't go out to see movies that much any more, so it is incumbent on me to make it worth your while.

 Do I make too much out of this? Maybe. I mean, it's not like I'm making much more than what I did twelve years ago. But I enjoy doing it, and I'd forgotten how much I could enjoy doing it, even as a second part time job. If I ever get a call back from full time work, or if the Blogorium magically turned into a hit or something tomorrow, I still think I'd hang on to this gig for as long as it lasts. If nothing else, the stories will be good, and I have a few already.