That was Close...

I was working as projectionist tonight. The movie playing was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which is a long, intense thriller. The movie was in the credits and only one guy was left in the theatre watching the credits. Suddenly the power went out for no apparent reason. Initially he gave me a bit of a dirty look thinking I had turned the film off on him but the entire building was dark. I was so glad the power didn't go off even 5 minutes earlier, imagine sitting there for 2 1/2 hours and suddenly the screen goes blank right at the climax of the film?! The power was only off for a few minutes so I could have finished showing the film but sometimes it's off for hours.

It was kind of odd, the power usually only goes off during thunderstorms and it wasn't even raining.

It reminded me of a time that did suck. I was working at the Galleria Cineplex back in 1998 for a matinee of Saving Private Ryan. That movie is almost 3 hours long. It was about 10 minutes from the end and suddenly the bulb went dark, so the screen went dark, but the sound would have continued. The manager wanted me to change the bulb but it's dangerous to change a bulb when it's hot so I said I had to wait 20 minutes. The people got passes or whatever but I wasn't able to finish running the show for them because it would have screwed up later showings. When I started running the film through I noticed it had gone dark right when a major character was having his big death scene. Ouch.

A Projectionist's Nightmare.

I got this picture off a projectionist's forum. This isn't at Western Film, it's a print of Angels and Demons somewhere in Australia. That's the film all over the floor, where it's not supposed to be.

The piece of equipment in the middle is called a platter. It consists of three revolving discs about 4 ft wide. On the bottom one you'll see a film as it's supposed to look, nicely wound in a big spool with the beginning of the film in the center and the end on the outside.

When a film plays off a platter it pays out from the center, goes over some rollers, through the projector and back onto one of the other discs. It wraps around a ring placed in the center and ends up looking the same as it started, just on a different disc.

What happened here is somehow the film was not going back onto the platter but was just spilling onto the floor. There's several things that can cause this, mostly projectionist error but sometimes it can be a equipment problem. Even something like a momentary power drop out can cause this. That's why you'll always see the projectionist at Western Film go into the booth after the power blinks, even if the film seems to be running normally.

The scary thing is the average film is 12,000 ft long, that's a lot of film to try to wrap back up manually.

Freaky Film / why one used to need a licence to be a projectionist.

I posted about one of these videos way back when I started this blog but I think I can load it up here now. The other one I found on youtube.

Film used to be nitrate based which was highly flammable. It's now basically plastic based so melts but doesn't burn.

The film was so highly flammable it took special training to deal with it. It was a bad combination, highly flammable film and light so bright it would burn right through the film if it stopped moving.

Anyone who's seen Cinema Paradiso will have an idea what I'm talking about.

Nitrate film is also a reason that if you read through the history of movie theatres you'll notice how many of them burned down.

How Stuff Works: movie projection

I found this interesting page on a website called howstuffworks.com. It gives a pretty good explanation of how movie projectors work for those who are interested.

I should get my projectionists to read it. It's best to know how everything works in order to troubleshoot. I think I have trained them well but every so often there's a 'shouldn't you know that' moment.

I'm not looking forward to projecting Grindhouse.

The title of the movie Grindhouse refers to old theatres that used to run exploitation movies all day long (grinding). The prints of these films tended to be really damaged due to being played on poor equipment by bad projectionists. The end result was badly scratched prints with a lot of splices and missing frames. The bad projectionists resulted in things like missing switch overs, playing the reels out of order or film jams. A film jam is visible to the audience by the film burning through. As soon as the film stops moving the light burns right through it. (See Image)

Have you ever noticed new films represent old films by simulated scratches?

As is apparent from the trailer and what I've read in various articles the directors of Grindhouse have had a field day making Grindhouse representative of what the audience would see in one of these theatres by artificially adding damage. I even read it's going to be missing reels.

The first time Western Film plays a film, usually Friday night the projectionist either watches it or keeps an eye on it while doing other things. He/She is watching for any mistakes we may have made in putting the film together or problems with the film as it came in.

So the first time through whomever is watching it will have to figure out whether any of the 'damage' is real. For example if the film goes out of frame we'll have to figure out whether we put it together wrong or they did it intentionally and will fix itself.

I can't decide if I should watch it or get one of my projectionists to do it. I would be better at deciding what is real and what is faked but after years or working as a projectionist I tend to almost instinctively react to problems. I think I'd be completely stressed out the entire film.

If you haven't seen it yet watch the trailer below and you'll see some of the 'damage' just in the first few seconds.

BTW There's also some simulated damage in Fight Club.