The art of film projection (or why you should keep the booth floor clean)

Greg Carttar posted on Facebook about the projection techs at the Telluride Film Festival, and this story came to mind.. I figured I should actually archive it somewhere, so here it is..

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Ah yes, the art of film projection (or why you should keep the booth floor clean..)

About 10 years ago, I finally got the opportunity to run 35mm.. I had some quick training sessions (show me the principles of operation, and your favorite tricks, and let me figure out the rest..).

My first event was a screening/brief lecture with a foreign director.. A student group, with the usual lack of organization characteristic of groups that rarely host events.. I arrive early, and wait.. and wait..

They finally arrive, 20-30 min prior to screening, and hand me a couple of cardboard boxes containing the film.. It's the directors cut, and it's tails out, on hubs.. oh joy, I get to deal with split reels on my first screening..

Those of you who have worked with reel-to-reel tape decks may be familiar with the 10.5" reels with metal flanges that screw on to a plastic hub. You could buy bulk tape either with or without the flanges. If you bought tape without the flanges, what you received was a "pancake" of recording tape, wound tightly (but not too tight) on the hub. You would either add flanges, or mount the tape on the deck with only a backing plate. You didn't want to make any fast or sudden movements, because if you bounced a loop off the hub, you would quickly end up with a tangled mess.. This generally worked well on the supply side, and you would use a proper reel on the take-up side.

Split reels for film are similar.. You have a pair of flanges that slide together through the center of the hub, to give the film lateral support as it feeds in and out of the projector head. The problem with split reels is their thickness.. They are slightly thicker than a regular reel, and depending on the length of the spindle, it can be difficult or impossible to lock them in place. I'm sure that the folks who regularly run split reels have some tricks up their sleeves for dealing with this, but I didn't, so I had to keep a close eye on them, at the same time that I was trying to get the next reel prepped..

One of the big problems, on top of the lack of prep time, was the fact that I didn't have an infinite supply of empty reels.. Normally you have enough so that you can have a reel mounted on each projector, plus one in rewind, and a couple of spares for shorts/trailers, etc.

We had a couple of spares, but not enough for an entire film, so as I prepped, I spooled onto our reels, but take-up was going to have to be split reels, so it could go straight into the box, so the director could leave immediately to catch his flight.. (Oh, did I forget to mention that little tidbit?)

When you prep a film, you are looking for several things.. one is cue marks, which alert the operator of a changeover. You want to make sure they are there, in the correct places, and that there are not additional spurious cue marks to throw you off.

Another is leader, on both ends, of adequate length. Ideally leader should be opaque black, so if you are slightly late on a changeover, you really want to go to black, instead of white, and you really want to know if anything other than black is a possibility. You want to know if the lead-in countdown is accurate, so that you can compensate if need be.

The changeover timing has two cue marks, indicating motor start, and shutter cut. The lead-in is timed so that when the projector motor is started, there is a direct correlation between the spacing between timing marks on reel A, and the amount of leader on reel B, such that the images and soundtrack on both reels are in sync when the shutter cut occurs. Since the sound leads the image, the lead-in is the critical end.

You want to make sure that the film is oriented correctly on the reel.. It's not fun having the sound head trying to read the pictures, and the audience trying to watch the soundtrack.. or the image being upside down..

I think this film had a bit of everything.. short leaders, clear leaders, twisted film, etc.. all of which I needed to know about and fix or work around before the film went through the gate.

Anyway, I've got the film running, most reels are prepped, and we're about halfway through the second or third reel, when the outside flange of the split reel decides that it wants to sneak off to the pub for a pint, and departs the projector.. This leads to the film deciding to follow, and loops of film start dumping on the floor..

When this happens, you have a couple of choices.. one is to stop the film, and try to ignore the angry audience and irate client. another is to ignore the problem, but that leads to a really big mess as the film gets twisted into a big wad, and drawn into the take-up reel, which leads back to the first choice..

The option that works the best is to pull the take-up reel out of the projector, and just let the film pile up on the floor until the end of the reel.

Yes, It's a mess, but if you caught it quickly, the film should not be too badly twisted, and you can stretch it out, and loop it around something to feed towards the splicing bench, where you can wind it up by hand..

That's why you want to keep the booth floor clean..

That was the only reel that gave me real trouble, and by the time the film ended, I had hand spooled the offending reel back onto it's hub, and packed it away.. The director was none the wiser..

Windows printer sharing - why can't it act rationally

We have a small network at the WBO office.. 7 XP boxes, a 2003 SBS server, and several laptops that float in and out.

We also have 8 printers of various types (b&w laser printer/scanner/fax/copier, color laser printer, 2 b&w laser printers, color inkjet, ticket printer, and a couple of label printers). Three of the printers are networked, the rest are shared from various workstations.

The JetDirect card in the second b&w laser died recently, which should be no big deal, since it also attached to the XP box next to it (Rome). It was configured on the server, and shared from the server (Hades). I figured that I would just share it from Rome without listing it in the directory, and change the configuration on Hades to point to the new location. That way, it shows up from the server, and I don't have to change anything on the XP boxes that are currently pointing at it. Quick and easy, right?

Nope.

First the server doesn't want to let me use the new port, so I delete the printer, and start over.. All looks good, But.. When I go to add the printer on one of the XP boxes (Paris), I can't see the printer being connected to the server. Instead, it shows up as being connected to Rome, which is exactly what I DON'T want to happen.

The printer is shared from Rome, but not listed in the directory. The printer entry on Hades points at Rome, is shared, and is listed in the directory. It should show up in the directory as being shared from Hades, Right?

Nope. It shows up as being shared from Rome.

So much for centralized printer sharing.. This also means that I need to go touch the printer entries on all of the XP boxes, which is what I was trying to avoid.

I envision a FreeBSD or Linux box in the future, both as a server for backups, and for printers. I know that I can do this with CUPS.

Powerpoint - Oh how we despise you.

PowerPoint - Those of you that have engaged in battle with this pile of steaming canine excrement know what I am talking about. Those of you that haven't, obviously haven't used PP.

Why can't M$ give people configurable fade times for transitions in/out of black.. Slow/Medium/Fast
doesn't cut it.. Slow is too fast and jerky.. We want times in seconds..

Not to mention the atrocious user interface that is PP2008.. Puke.. Vomit..

The unfortunate part is that OpenOffice isn't any better when it comes to timing choices..

Carmen

West Bay Opera is currently doing Carmen. This makes my 4th production of Carmen with WBO since 1984.
Nothing special to report, it's pretty much a routine production, just with a lot of kids running around.

Why does Windows suck so badly?

Last night we went to move the Isadora control PC from the design desk in the house to it's new location for the run. This involved moving the PC, 4 flatpanel monitors, and 3 cat5 VGA extenders, and associated cabling, and adding a 4th cat5 VGA extender, and a PS/2 keyboard/mouse extender to remote the control monitor/keyboard/mouse to the lighting booth.

Up until now the control monitor was connected via DVI, and although we have a DVI extender, I was unable to get it to work, so we moved to plan B, which is a VGA extender.

The configuration is 4 VGA extenders connected to 4 outputs from the PC, with 3 local monitors (for the 3 projectors) connected to the loop outputs of the extenders. The 4th monitor is the control screen, and is located in the lighting booth. There is currently no local monitor for the control screen.

The control monitor was screen1 (1680x1050), and the three projectors were screens 2, 3, and 4 (800x600).

When I switched screen1 from DVI to VGA, the video output for screens 1 and 2 switched ports. If I started with a DVI monitor plugged in, it would always come up as screen1, but the moment I unplugged it, the desktop would move to screen2.

If I started with a local monitor plugged into the loop output of the screen1 VGA extender, the screen resolution would claim to be 1680x1050, but both the local monitor, and the remote monitor upstairs would be in pan-scan mode. The same thing occurred if there was no local monitor connected. I ended up starting the PC with the extender disconnected, and the local monitor plugged directly into the card, and after the PC was up, replugging the screen1 extender to the card, and plugging the monitor back to it's correct output (loop output from extender for screen2).

I hate chasing after monitors. I want them to stay where I set them. I want to be able to assign any output to any screen. In X11 under Unix/Linux this is not a problem, It's just a configuration file, but Microsoft seems to have this attitude of "We know what you need, better than you do, so you will do as we decide, and you don't get any input into the matter."

Did I mention that I hate Windows?

Dutchman

It was Monday, the 19th of May, 2008. I was working the day watch out of Lucie Stern Theatre, working on Project Dutchman. My partner is Chris Tani, My name is Bob.

West Bay Opera is doing a production of Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman).

West Bay last performed this opera in 1988. I am the only longterm member of the technical staff who was around for that production. Our stage manager (Linda Apperson), and one of our crew members (John Amos) were also around for the 1988 production, but I am the only one who has been around for every production since 1984.

West Bay is the second oldest opera company in California, currently in our 52nd season, and I have been with the company for about 26 years. I am the Master Electrician, and have been in this position since 1984.

This opera has a bit of everything. A turntable, an elevator, scenic projection,,
wind, and musicians scattered into 3 locations in the theatre. There is also a ghost chorus singing from the lobby.

The orchestra pit at this theatre is small, as is the theatre (425 seats), so we place the brass section in the basement, and the percussion section in the scenery storage area behind the stage, and pipe them back into the theatre via microphones and speakers.

I'm not involved in the sound department, except as a consultant.

We are using 3 video projectors, with one projecting on a downstage scrim, and two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. two projecting onto the upstage cyclorama. All three projectors are controlled from a single PC running a program called Isodora which allows us to manipulate digital video. The cueing is controlled from the lighting console using DMX512 and a box called a Keystroke, which outputs a key (or key sequence) when a DMX value is received.

We had to pull two of the houselights in order to rig a pipe over the house to mount the projector for the downstage scrim.