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Posted: |
Apr 15, 2019 - 2:10 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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Yesterday’s big screening of Ben-Hur per other current thread started off rather inauspiciously. There was no audio accompanying TCM host Ben Mankiewicz’s introduction. After the customary 20-30 seconds wait to see who would scream first some guy below beat me to the punch. Didn’t work. Next, not even my 4-finger Sensurround whistle mattered, ol’ Ben kept lip synching to nada. Finally the screen went blank. Rewind-Play-Ah that’s better. And how! was it better with the volume turned up and the Overture blasting away. Rozsa and Howard L in cinematic glory. I was really into it when 1/3-1/2 way through the...sound...went...out.
Uh oh, is it going to be one of those afternoons? Minutes went by. Nada. House lights remained down. Young usherette or whatever enters approaching stage right. She’s reporting to whomever on some device. Lady in the audience hollers, “There was sound but no picture!” Guy seconds later hollers, “It’s the OVERTURE there’s not supposed to be any picture!”
You realize this is absolute cannon fodder for somebody like me, a transplant from the NY-NJ Metropolitan area with natural hidden wiseguy talents. So to quell those instincts I turn to the lady next to me who’s there with her teenage daughters and explained, “This is the OVERTURE. You will not see that displayed on the screen like on TCM because in the Roadshow days it was just music, like when the orchestra plays the overture on the Broadway stage before the curtain rises. I think the guy’s right, they’re spooked because of the sound issue with Ben’s intro.”
More minutes go by. It's still dark. Mysterious usherette continues invisible conversation. Finally, the dreaded announcement from what appears to be the manager who just stepped in:
“Folks, we apparently were given a corrupted hard drive. We’re sorry, please exit the theatre and we will issue refunds in the lobby.”
Ugh. Nobody is leaving, absorbed in the unfolded disaster. Well I’m not waiting so I march down there and end up 2nd in line. “We drove an hour for this!” exclaims one lady to her husband. Little old lady in front of me, while the manager who is clearly flustered and having trouble with the first refund, strikes up conversation and I go through the lecture that I don’t think they realize there is nothing wrong with the screen, that’s why they call it an OVERTURE even if you don’t see OVERTURE.
It was said friendly and loudly enough for manager to hear even if he gave no response but no matter, I’m next and ready to engage powers of persuasion. Couple more minutes, still having trouble with first refund, when youngish ticket taker and usherette burst in and announce, “Folks, if you would please head back into the theatre there is nothing wrong. We just found out the screen is blank for the first minutes of music and then the movie starts.”
It’s good if this were to happen that it happened in the laid back Tampa Bay area where it’s just plain too hot to argue and give ‘em the I-told-you-sos and besides that when we all got back to our seats the usherette came in with free passes as a token gesture for all the weirdness this day.
What was listed as 3 hrs 40 min became 4 hrs 40 min. For nothing!!
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Jeepers.
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I do not have good luck with these one-off screenings like this. I've had similar problems, no sound and they can't figure it out and cancel the show. Or it's a "live" show and it's five past and the screen is still dark. Often after they figure out the sound, it's either at an ear bleeding level or nearly inaudible, and I have to complain a second time.
It seems these theaters are so automated that when something goes wrong, it is difficult for them to figure out.
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Posted: |
Apr 16, 2019 - 1:32 PM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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Hey cinemel, scoot on over to the BH thread and cut and paste, edit, add to, revise or whatever your day's viewing.
The screen legend advising of "a six-minute musical overture" was a smart move.
Yeah that sure would have come in handy at my theatre. It's only a 5-10 min. trip for me so it was easier to be patient vs. the stoning that would have gone on up north.
At my cinema a few years ago, the same thing happened. We had an important showing for a film festival, music but no picture. The managers in the screen starting panicking, and had to have an overture explained to them by the chief projectionist.
It really is a different world all right. But I wasn't buying the "corrupted hard drive" from the getgo. You can get used to the digitalization of everything, that's progress and all, but my patience ends with not knowing the shot even if it's from a bygone era. And to think I could have been the day's "chief projectionist" and set 'em all straight! 
--Sheesh, "bygone era." You now how painful it is to say that?
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Posted: |
Apr 19, 2019 - 12:47 PM
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By: |
Bob DiMucci
(Member)
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Did they have an actual intermission during this showing of BEN-HUR? A few years ago, when I went to a Fathom Events showing of OKLAHOMA!, when the Intermission card came up, they blew right through it and proceeded directly into Act 2. (Hell, the last time I saw HELLO, DOLLY! at the American Film Institute, they did the same thing.)
On another point, everyone should know at this stage in the multiplex game that if something goes wrong in the projection booth, you can yell yourself hoarse in the theater, but nothing is going to happen. There is no one in that booth. Someone has to physically get up, leave the theater, and find a ticket taker or concession worker with a walkie-talkie who can get the on-duty manager. That is usually the only person who can get the problem resolved. Because no one seems to know this, I'm usually the person that has to get up and go out.
I believe that the reason for those skipped intermissions is that--wait for it--there is no one in that projection booth to stop the film. The first two times I saw HELLO, DOLLY! at the AFI--on 70mm film--the intermission was honored, since someone had to be in that booth with the film. That third time at the AFI, the film was shown in 4K projection. Once the film was started, no one remained in that booth, and no one remembered to return for the intermission.
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