Here is a new weekly blog for www.damngoodcup.com, a look into the life of a sydney projectionist.
Written by Sean Lander:
A Frame-by-Frame Look at the Life of a Cinema Projectionist
Chapter 1:
The Widescreen
Its now coming up on five years since i started working as a projectionist. Its funny to think in that short amount of time how jaded you can become towards working at a cinema, and don’t get me wrong I love film and everything about it, i want to make films, and I want them to make it to the theater, but five years ago I looked at things completely differently.
I thought that working in a cinema would really assist and drive me to make films, but – not that it’s turned me off making them – its just made me not want to be anywhere near a cinema. I still love the cinema. I’ve had many, many great times there and many cherished memories but it has also made me quite cynical towards the place.
I come from the country. Out there i worked as a projectionist in a small independent cinema, but when I moved to Sydney, and took a position at a big corporate place my views began to change quickly. At first I was really excited but as all things evil tend to do, they quickly ripped that excitement out from under me.
So I went back to a small independent Sydney cinema, but somehow bullsh*t politics still applied there. So I figured if I can’t escape it, I might as well face it head on, and I went to the other big corporate cinema in Sydney.
Now, before we go to far I’m not going to name names in this article. I’m not here to slag the places I worked at, but rather just to share some of my experiences and stories I have of these mystical places.
Going back to my roots in the country, we were a small five screen cinema. There’s no such thing as a “complex” out there. It’s just the “picture theatre” as the locals call it. And being a small independent cinema, we didn’t have the budgets like they do down here. So we had to make do with old, han-me-down equipment. This wasn’t a bad thing, it just meant that we tended to have problems more than most city cinemas do.
This would cause all kinds of entertainment. Most days a film would either not have sound or picture on screen and in a lot of cases just not run at all (please note that occasionally this just came down to us just being lazy). And then there were the cases where the projectors would get hungry and decide to eat a film print.
I feel like I should explain something right about now. 99% of Australian cinemas run 35mm film. This film is made up as a complete print and runs from a platter system, through a series of pulleys and over to the projector, where the film passes through the projector “head” and a very, very powerful light puts the image on the screen. For those of you playing at home, film runs at 24 frames per second. 90 feet of film passes through the projector per minute and most films average a length of around 10,000-12,000 feet (between 1 hour 50 minutes and 2 hours 10 minutes).
So, now that the boring exposition is out of the way, on with the stories.
I never really had anything good (or that I should publicly speak about) from back home. Where the story gets interesting is from when I came to the big smoke.
Here is the most disastrous story of what happened to me personally. It was July 2008. The Dark Knight was two weeks from release and at my cinema we had a massive early screening of the film for critics and celebrities and the like to watch and get the word out there.
I was working that night, and the cinema I was at was performing a massive digital cinema trial (for those playing at home, digital cinema, or D-Cinema is what will replace 35mm film one day (soon). It basically means that a large digital projector is set up, and a digital server plays the films. The films come in on a Hard Disk Drive and these are “ingested” into the server. The films, rather than being a film print, are all binary, 1’s and 0’s.)
I happened to be walking past the cinema that held the majority of people (822 of them) when the projector shat itself. It decided that it would just stop playing the film, put the lights up and shut off the sound. I reacted the way I had been taught. I immediately put the lights back down, hit play on the server and set the sound back to the correct setting.
What followed is where the story gains motion.
Because this was The Dark Fu*king Knight, and all the big names in town from both TV and Film, critics and even the head of the company I worked for were in the cinema, I had the finger pointed at me. A massive inquest was launched into and I thought I was done for. All I had done was happened to be walking past the projector when it died. So I had stopped it on purpose? Well this was the general consensus anyway.
I had to have meetings and talks and interviews, you name it i copped it. Until I thought about it. I looked back at all the issues we had had with these type of projectors and discovered a trend. It wasn’t my fault at all. It was a bug in the servers which caused a fire trip and shut it down. Lucky me, I was saved by a fu*k up on the manufacturers behalf. But this is what I mean by bullsh*t politics. It seemed to go like this from here on.
Not a week would go by whilst I was working there where something would happen and someone would be blamed. It was never a machines fault but always a person. Yet as soon as someone with half a brain (ie projectionists) would look into it suddenly there was a bug.
I think that these companies just have a perverse fixation with blaming people. Maybe it’s little man syndrome or something but we always copped the blame. That’s why I left that place.
So I went to another independent cinema and I thought that this would change. Nope. Same sh*t, different people. So I gave up on that and as I said earlier, thought I would just face it head on. So I took a job at a cinema just around the corner from me and quickly wriggled my way to a high position. 2IC projectionist. Not something you would brag about at a reunion but enough to have some say around the place, which sure as sh*t helped.
In began introducing things I had learned from being at independent cinemas. Such as treating staff like your mates not as grunts and other little things which assisted in day-to-day operations.
But this still didn’t stop the scrutiny on me, and my staff. Projectionist get treated the worst of the lot. It’s kind of funny considering that a cinema can now run completely functionally without candy bar, box office and floor staff. Hell, it’s can run without managers if you train the projectionists in the ways of management. But you can’t, I repeat. You CAN NOT run a cinema without projectionists.
There was a day when the projectionist was treated like royalty. It was an art form to be a projy. To lace the films perfectly and give flawless presentation. But now we are the cinemas plumber, electrician, carpenter, cleaner, gaffer tapeist and any other stupid handyman job that is required. I seem to spend less time in the projection room than I do in there.
But now, we aren’t royalty. We aren’t even projectionists really. We’re just the guys who you call when you have a problem with the popcorn popper. And it’s really sad. But that’s the way these corporate places work.
I remember, even a couple of years ago, when I could say I was a projectionist and people would say “wow, that’s so cool.” But now I say it and all people have to say is “do you get to watch all the movies for free?” I don’t feel like I did about it four years ago. I don’t feel like it’s a special job. It’s still a trade. A skill that not everyone can master. I have trained numerous people who have failed miserably at the art. But people don’t see it as anything special. And that makes me so sad.
I do love the fact that I get to be around films all the time, but it doesn’t hold the same perks as what it used to, and that’s what causes the cynicism towards cinema for me. I know that I will continue doing the job for now. Because I’d rather be a projectionist than work in a bar or a cafe or god forbid a clothing shop. Not to say those things are bad but I’m not suited for those things.
I love the cinema. I love the feel and the atmosphere of the auditorium. When the lights go down and the big screen comes to life, that’s called the magic of the movies. But I don’t feel that in the cinemas I work at. If you want to experience a cinema experience, go to a small theatre. With a small number of seats and people who smile at you when you come in. A place where people have all gone there for the same reason, because they love the cinema experience.
As for me being jaded, there will be more to come in following articles. But to go with what i’ve said above, it’s not what I thought it would be. It’s not how it seems on the outside. So beware. I’ve seen all the levels and types of cinemas in Australia and I can say that it is different once you’re in the belly of the beast. But don’t stop going to the cinema, please. It is a wonderful place, but it’s not the same place it was when I first went there.
Next week, keep an eye out. I will go into what it is like to be a lower class member of the cinema society. Many more stories to come. Keep looking through the widescreen.
- Sean
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