Chapter 2:
Setting up the Candy Bar.
When I first started out in cinema, I was working between projection and floor. Floor are the people who clean the cinemas’ between sessions. The more I worked, I started to also do box office and candy bar shifts. These shifts were the shifts that I dreaded. I’m not the biggest people-person; and as such, that is why I never took a job in a retail position. But it could have been mush worse I guess. Anyway, this was back in the days when I was working out at my country cinema. As I said last chapter, a lot of the time there would be issues that would stop the films from playing. And of course, when you’re a projectionist you’re in the bio and you don’t have to deal with pissed off customers. But as floor/candy bar/box office staff you have to. And trust me there were some characters in these instances…
One time I remember very well; was when a projector decided to wrap really badly and eat up a large section of the film. (This by the way was when I was working in Sydney, just to clarify.) We had to cancel the session and me, as I was the floor staff member; had to announce to the patrons in the session that we were cancelling the film due to a “technical malfunction”. 99% of the patrons had no problems with this. The film hadn’t actually started yet and we comped all the patrons and offered for them to watch another film if they wished to. But there was this one patron who just couldn’t leave ‘well enough’ alone. He arced up at me. It started out okay. They were calm, but unhappy: “I have travelled from Parramatta to see this movie (My thoughts are in brackets, my speech is in single quotation marks.) (There’s a cinema in Parramatta, why not go there?) And I think that you should be compensating me for my travel expenses” ‘I’m very sorry sir, but we can’t compensate you for your travel. You can go and watch another film if you wish’ “I don’t want to watch another film, I want to watch this one” (well you can’t) ‘I’m very sorry sir but we have had an issue without the projector and the film cannot be run at all’ “I don’t care. I want to see the damn movie!” (Fu*k off wanker) ‘I’m sorry sir but here are some comps. You are welcome to watch any other session if you wish?’ “Screw that. I’m going to go to the paper, 60 minutes…” I can’t quite remember what was said after that, but that was the general gist of the argument.
But back at the country, most people had no issue with the cancellation of a session. I did get yelled at a few times, one guy even threatened to sue me, but most of the time it was okay. The Film Society in my town were the worst. They would come in, thinking they owned the place, and carry on like absolute morons. They would set up their stupid little tressel tables and demand anything and everything. One day we started the film 1 minute late and we got screamed at by the idiot organiser.
But my favourite occurrence with the Film Society was this. The trailers in the film they were watching were a tad bit out of focus. I was doing projection that day, but I had been asked to cover the Candy Bar whilst the manager was helping an elderly person on the wheelchair lift. The organiser (we shall call him Richard) came down and complained – his face like a tomato with a vein pumping in his neck – about the focus issue. So I went up to the bio to fix it. And Richard the word that rhymes with click followed me up the stairs; into the bio and over to the projector and watched over my shoulder as I adjusted the focus. I turned around and there he was. He scared the sh*t out of me and I was in such shock that I just couldn’t say anything. When I told the manager, my god, the sh*t hit the fan let me tell you! Let’s just say he never did that again.
But it wasn’t always the customers that caused drama for general cinema workers. The managers could be the worst (and still can). The majority of people who are floor/candy bar/box office staff are school kids who are just wanting a job and choose a cinema because it’s cool. Not to say this is a bad thing, but it’s just the way it is. Not everyone who works at a cinema is as film obsessed as myself and Dave.
But this is also where the problem lies. They really don’t seem to care. Some of them even seem to think that it is the hardest job they will ever have to do. Why? Is it because cleaning a popper and mopping the floor is as hard as laying concrete? I’ve done both and I can tell you that laying concrete is a hell of a lot harder. Anyway, they tend not to care too much and as such they don’t do to much work. Then management take this as their given right to treat the staff like pieces of sh*t. They make them do some really dumb stuff.
One example is from when I first moved to Sydney and was working at my first corporate cinema. I took some floor shifts to make some extra cash when I was in a bit of a sticky spot. The majority of staff at this cinema were backpackers and travellers – they were cheap and would do pretty much anything. One manager asked of the floor staff to clean the managers office…Not vacuum the floor, but tidy the whole office and wipe the benches and everything. Now you may not think it is that bad to ask them to do that, but it’s what the manager did during this time that makes it so bad. The manager in question sat at his computer and watched YouTube, and when the poor kid got within two meters of him, he would bark at the floor kid and tell them to stay away whilst he “worked”. Anyway, I was finishing my shift so I walked into the office and saw this happening. Suffice to say I wasn’t happy, I spoke to some people and this manager didn’t work there for much longer.
But I guess that’s just how it is in those positions: You are the grunts; the faces of the cinema. Patrons look at you as God (and Satan) of the cinema. You are turned to for any and every issue and treated as such depending on the situation. As such, I like projection. I am up in my little box, I am away from the snarling snouts of unhappy customers, and best of all; I control their moods whilst they are there. But don’t worry, I only piss off the people I don’t like, so watch out!
Next week we will dive into the dark side of cinema and take a look at some of the worst case scenarios of being a projectionist. Until then, keep looking through the widescreen.
- Sean
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