ChiefsPlanet - Movies and TV The Avengers Panel - Comic Con 2010

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Originally Posted by Deberg_1990 (Post 8596292)

Uh Oh .....I hope this wasnt your theater JD?

Nope, that's some crap-ass theater up in Boston right near the famous Boston Common.

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I agree though....projection at alot of theaters has gone downhill. I know ive went to get a manager a few times over the years and pointed it out. Tickets are too expensive these days to be a sheep and do nothing.

It's true that projection has gone downhill, and you can thank a.) multiplexes and b.) modern society's crappy business model and economy. In the old days, you had one giant theater, and one projectionist who remained in the booth. Then in the 70s and 80s multiplexes came along, and you had one projectionist covering a half-dozen booths. Then they started cutting back on the specialists and having managers do it. Then they started expanding theaters to the point that now some have 20+ screens. Then they started combining duties so that the people overseeing the projection booths had other stuff to do. Long gone are the days where someone is hired specifically to watch the machines, especially now that they're digital; nowadays, you're lucky if the person watching the machines is even slightly trained--and, even if they are, they have so many other things to do that they can't pay attention.

So, your assertion about "sheep" and the price of tickets has little to do with it. It's not like theater owners and operators, and moviemakers, purposefully think, "Eh, **** 'em, they'll pay whatever we ask and we can give shitty service." No one wants angry customers, trust me; there's nothing managers like less than dealing with complaints from the public. Back to the issue, though.... For example, I have 16 screens plus an Imax. We have six different projection "booths" on two floors down long hallways, plus the Imax is across the hall and is a 2 minute walk. There's just no way I could be everywhere at once, even if that was all I had to do... which it isn't, because I have to wear a suit and tie and deal with cashiers and concessionists and ushers and customers and office work and money handling and a laundry-list of other things.

Here's an example from yesterday. A customer came up to me in the afternoon, complaining that the lights in one of the "Avengers" theaters came up 20 minutes before the end of the film. I said, "That's weird, and shouldn't happen." He expressed displeasure. I said I'd look into it. He wanted a freebie. I said, "Well, you're telling me there *supposedly* was a lighting problem, but the film's been over for 10 minutes. If I'd known ASAP I could've checked into it and maybe addressed it. And how do I know you're not full of shit?" (I said it nicer than that, though, LOL.) I asked if he wanted to talk to the theater manager, he said sure. Then I said, "Okay, but before I do, tell you what; I'll go look at the machine and see if I can figure something out." Turns out it was one of the standalone machines that isn't networked, meaning that all programming must be done at the machine. And, sure, enough, poking around, I saw that someone had set the "lights up credit cue" not at the prescribed time distance from the beginning of the film (as they're supposed to) but from the beginning of the whole movie package (i.e. from the first trailer)... meaning that the lights came up 14 minutes early because of all the trailers. A simple mouse-click fix, which I did, and told the guy, and thanked him for letting me know... as the film had been running that way for a day and a half and no one else bothered to complain or tell us. And then I gave him and his family their money back. Now, the area where the mistake was made was three layers of screen menus in, and is a button that never gets clicked on except by accident, and this is the first time I've seen that happen in three months I've been doing it, and, yeah, if the projectionists had time to go through every little thing, maybe we'd catch it. But you have no idea the amount of shit that can go wrong, even in a digital theater. One of the half-dozen lighting elements can go wrong. The sound can muddle on the switchover. The preshow screws up, and/or doesn't cue the projector to start (another problem I had last night... one of the "Avengers" ran 13 minutes late because it didn't start the machine). Basically, sadly, I have to rely on the customer to let me know if something's amiss... and most either a.) aren't smart enough to notice, or b.) don't tell anyone, or c.) do tell someone but it's long after the fact and we can't do anything about it. Take the asshole in that article: instead of griping about it in the press, if he'd gotten off his ass and immediately said to someone, "Hey, something's wrong with the format, can you fix it?", it probably would've been addressed and fixed before the trailers were over. Yes, theaters try to send their ushers around to check picture quality; but you're talking about minimum-wage teens paid to sweep up popcorn and mop up barf. Most of the time, we're lucky if they even show up for work, let alone do what they're told. It's incredibly hard to get them to do what we need... and, even with them, they're overworked and understaffed as well.

On to the article.

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The venue was the Common's faux IMAX screen (or as my friend Brett calls it, "Lie-MAX"), for which customers pay an extra $6 per ticket.

Right off the bat, you can see this guy has an agenda. He doesn't like the Digital IMAX, and he doesn't like the extra fee. And, granted, in both cases, he's correct; Digital IMAX sucks (everywhere but my theater, actually), and $6 is too much to charge. Do you know what we charge additionally for the IMAX? Sometimes, it's a whopping 50 cents. (Which IMO is too far in the other direction, but at least it ain't six bucks.)

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Did anyone notice that the projection framing was so off-kilter that all the actors' heads were cut off just above the eyebrows in every shot? Did anyone care that they were seeing only about 70 percent of the movie they'd been awaiting for years?

Again, did anyone get off their ass and go mention it to someone?

As for what happened, I'm not sure. There's really no way to do that AFAIK (get the heads cut off). Digital projectors are fairly idiot-proof, and IMAX Digitals more so; I can't even control the IMAX Digital's position on screen, really. There's no more "framing knob" (which, in 35mm, literally allowed you to just move the gate and raise/lower the image on screen. There's no way to accidentally put the wrong lens in place (Scope vs. Flat), and even that doesn't result in chopped heads, it makes the picture look squished from side-to-side. How the heads were getting cut off, I don't know, unless that theater was literally built improperly... which makes little sense.

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Nah. No one noticed. And that's why AMC, Regal, and the other chains will keep charging you exorbitant fees for movies that are under-projected, mis-framed and otherwise presented so poorly their makers would weep if they knew. Why should the theaters bother to do it right? They know audiences don't care, that they're too mesmerized by the 3D digital bread and circuses on the screen to understand that they're being ripped off.

Yes, you tool. Theater chains assume the customers are too dumb to notice anything wrong, so we don't care. What an asshat. If we find problems, we fix them.

As for his last sentence, you can tell he also has an issue and an agenda with 3D films and pricing. Which, again, may or may not be justified, but really doesn't have an argument here. It's like saying, "I paid to go to a Chief game, and Matt Cassel threw an interception, so I think the beer prices are ridiculous and, you know, while we're at it, the parking lot attendants are mean!" :shrug:

How to fix this? Easy. Put dedicated projectionists back watching the projectors. Pay them more. But neither of those things will happen. How many of you, in your jobs, are finding yourselves doing more work for less money with less help? How many work in a job where you had 8 coworkers doing your job with you but now you have 4? It's the way America is now, which sucks. It's a microcosm of the bigger picture, sadly.

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Originally Posted by JD10367 (Post 8597159)

Nope, that's some crap-ass theater up in Boston right near the famous Boston Common.

It's true that projection has gone downhill, and you can thank a.) multiplexes and b.) modern society's crappy business model and economy. In the old days, you had one giant theater, and one projectionist who remained in the booth. Then in the 70s and 80s multiplexes came along, and you had one projectionist covering a half-dozen booths. Then they started cutting back on the specialists and having managers do it. Then they started expanding theaters to the point that now some have 20+ screens. Then they started combining duties so that the people overseeing the projection booths had other stuff to do. Long gone are the days where someone is hired specifically to watch the machines, especially now that they're digital; nowadays, you're lucky if the person watching the machines is even slightly trained--and, even if they are, they have so many other things to do that they can't pay attention.

So, your assertion about "sheep" and the price of tickets has little to do with it. It's not like theater owners and operators, and moviemakers, purposefully think, "Eh, **** 'em, they'll pay whatever we ask and we can give shitty service." No one wants angry customers, trust me; there's nothing managers like less than dealing with complaints from the public. Back to the issue, though.... For example, I have 16 screens plus an Imax. We have six different projection "booths" on two floors down long hallways, plus the Imax is across the hall and is a 2 minute walk. There's just no way I could be everywhere at once, even if that was all I had to do... which it isn't, because I have to wear a suit and tie and deal with cashiers and concessionists and ushers and customers and office work and money handling and a laundry-list of other things.

Here's an example from yesterday. A customer came up to me in the afternoon, complaining that the lights in one of the "Avengers" theaters came up 20 minutes before the end of the film. I said, "That's weird, and shouldn't happen." He expressed displeasure. I said I'd look into it. He wanted a freebie. I said, "Well, you're telling me there *supposedly* was a lighting problem, but the film's been over for 10 minutes. If I'd known ASAP I could've checked into it and maybe addressed it. And how do I know you're not full of shit?" (I said it nicer than that, though, LOL.) I asked if he wanted to talk to the theater manager, he said sure. Then I said, "Okay, but before I do, tell you what; I'll go look at the machine and see if I can figure something out." Turns out it was one of the standalone machines that isn't networked, meaning that all programming must be done at the machine. And, sure, enough, poking around, I saw that someone had set the "lights up credit cue" not at the prescribed time distance from the beginning of the film (as they're supposed to) but from the beginning of the whole movie package (i.e. from the first trailer)... meaning that the lights came up 14 minutes early because of all the trailers. A simple mouse-click fix, which I did, and told the guy, and thanked him for letting me know... as the film had been running that way for a day and a half and no one else bothered to complain or tell us. And then I gave him and his family their money back. Now, the area where the mistake was made was three layers of screen menus in, and is a button that never gets clicked on except by accident, and this is the first time I've seen that happen in three months I've been doing it, and, yeah, if the projectionists had time to go through every little thing, maybe we'd catch it. But you have no idea the amount of shit that can go wrong, even in a digital theater. One of the half-dozen lighting elements can go wrong. The sound can muddle on the switchover. The preshow screws up, and/or doesn't cue the projector to start (another problem I had last night... one of the "Avengers" ran 13 minutes late because it didn't start the machine). Basically, sadly, I have to rely on the customer to let me know if something's amiss... and most either a.) aren't smart enough to notice, or b.) don't tell anyone, or c.) do tell someone but it's long after the fact and we can't do anything about it. Take the asshole in that article: instead of griping about it in the press, if he'd gotten off his ass and immediately said to someone, "Hey, something's wrong with the format, can you fix it?", it probably would've been addressed and fixed before the trailers were over. Yes, theaters try to send their ushers around to check picture quality; but you're talking about minimum-wage teens paid to sweep up popcorn and mop up barf. Most of the time, we're lucky if they even show up for work, let alone do what they're told. It's incredibly hard to get them to do what we need... and, even with them, they're overworked and understaffed as well.

On to the article.

Right off the bat, you can see this guy has an agenda. He doesn't like the Digital IMAX, and he doesn't like the extra fee. And, granted, in both cases, he's correct; Digital IMAX sucks (everywhere but my theater, actually), and $6 is too much to charge. Do you know what we charge additionally for the IMAX? Sometimes, it's a whopping 50 cents. (Which IMO is too far in the other direction, but at least it ain't six bucks.)

Again, did anyone get off their ass and go mention it to someone?

As for what happened, I'm not sure. There's really no way to do that AFAIK (get the heads cut off). Digital projectors are fairly idiot-proof, and IMAX Digitals more so; I can't even control the IMAX Digital's position on screen, really. There's no more "framing knob" (which, in 35mm, literally allowed you to just move the gate and raise/lower the image on screen. There's no way to accidentally put the wrong lens in place (Scope vs. Flat), and even that doesn't result in chopped heads, it makes the picture look squished from side-to-side. How the heads were getting cut off, I don't know, unless that theater was literally built improperly... which makes little sense.

Yes, you tool. Theater chains assume the customers are too dumb to notice anything wrong, so we don't care. What an asshat. If we find problems, we fix them.

As for his last sentence, you can tell he also has an issue and an agenda with 3D films and pricing. Which, again, may or may not be justified, but really doesn't have an argument here. It's like saying, "I paid to go to a Chief game, and Matt Cassel threw an interception, so I think the beer prices are ridiculous and, you know, while we're at it, the parking lot attendants are mean!" :shrug:

How to fix this? Easy. Put dedicated projectionists back watching the projectors. Pay them more. But neither of those things will happen. How many of you, in your jobs, are finding yourselves doing more work for less money with less help? How many work in a job where you had 8 coworkers doing your job with you but now you have 4? It's the way America is now, which sucks. It's a microcosm of the bigger picture, sadly.

Great post JD. You should cut and paste this and email the author of that column.