Reader Brenden went to see the new Indiana Jones movie last night, and spent the last 10 minutes of the movie watching it with no audio. Rather than stopping the movie and handing out free passes, the theater just let it play with no sound, then refused to rewind it.
Brenden writes:
I went to see Indian Jones at the Showcase Cinemas in Woburn MA. I won’t comment on the movie, for those who haven’t seen it, but 10 minutes from the end, at the big climax the sound goes out. Totally. The movie is still playing, but now in silent mode. The house lights flicker for a second, then stay off. After a moment of audience murmurs someone comes in the back of the theater and announces “We just lost power for a minute. (there had been a storm going on), we’re going to re-wind it to the point the sound shut off”. That seemed to work for everyone, so we quieted down.
A minute later we started to realize they weren’t shutting off the movie, they just let it play. The longer this went on the more people were talking. They let it play right to the credits, when someone finally got up and asked again. Then they told us they wouldn’t be rewinding it. Luckily there was another theater that started a half hour after our show, so most of us went there, and afterwards lined up at the customer service counter and got a free ticket.. but still.. Come on!
Well, that’s just not how you handle that at all. Boo.
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How should they have handled it? They gave away free tickets AND you still got to see the end of the movie. I’m really not sure what more they could have done, as I’m not that knowledgeable on movie projectors. Perhaps it’s not as easy as pressing “rewind”.
I had this happen when I watched Superbad. It was near the end when the film got burned.
The theatre handled it much differently though. We all got free tickets to come see it the next day as well as a free ticket for any movie in the future.
Some places just don’t know how to handle screw ups…
I used to worked for a movie theater and honestly, there is no way they could really rewind that film. I also worked as a guest services attendent too, and the best thing the theater could really do is give out passes to the guest who were in that affected theater. =
actually…you can’t rewind films.
Theaters put movies on HUGE 6 ft diameter platters that never needs to rewind. If you want to see a movie, you need to watch it from the start again after the movie has fully completed. It’s impractical to show you the half hour you missed since a typical movie film reel can weigh nearly 150 lbs and it is sitting on one gigantic loop with a take up reel. It’s not like a movie project you are used to.
Couple guesses:
1. They probably needed to stick to the timing to allow for cleaning and the next showing.
2. You still got free tix, which for the theatre represents quite an outlay (opportunity cost vs. paid tix).
Showcase in Woburn is pretty rundown. They slapped a new lobby on it, but other theatres in the area are much better.
Having been a projectionist for a movie theatre before you cannot “rewind” movie. The film sits on 3 big platters and travels from one to the other while going through the projector. It doesn’t even have the capability to go in reverse. Usually if something like what the poster describes happens you have to just take the free ticket and move on.
@ironchef: Is it the same way with the “digital projectors” that are being put into use now?
i remember seeing star wars episode 1 the day it came out and the audio died during the pod racing scene. Nerds were threating to set the place on fire. Mangement came out and they turned off the movie to rewind the movie (ie, take it off the projector reel, start over, and fast forward to where it was. They also offered to give us free tickets to another show. No big deal and we clapped after the manager said his shtick.
Another time watching the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie a guy had a seizure and my friends who were nurses had to help him stop from choking to death on his own vomit. Needless to say, they rewound the movie (but no free tix since they didn’t make the guy go into seizure…it was during a talking and boring scene too…)
Films are never rewound manually, btw.
This happened during the Matrix: Reloaded, for a good 5 minutes. I didn’t receive any sort of compensation.
Saw one film where it melted during the credits – was one of those movies where they show bloopers at the end, so everyone initially thought it was intentional. Oops.
In another movie, the film melted right during the climactic showdown between the Rogue Cop ™ and the Uncatchable Bad Guy ™. Went dark for 5 minutes and then they spliced it back and resumed.
Last one was about an hour in The Presitge. The film melted and…that was it. The manager came out and said that was the only print they had and there was nothing they could do. Got a free pass to see another movie at some later date (and since we were on vacation, that did nothing for us).
Same thing happened to me with House of Flying Daggers at the (brand new, at the time) theatre at Jordan Creek Mall, West Des Moines, IA.
Their “policy” is to never rewind a movie, and it was fixed after about 10-15 minutes. I demanded a pass so I could come back another time, and they really dragged their heels about it and asked me accusingly, “Are you still going to watch the movie?” Uh, no, I’m coming back when I can actually see both the video and sound.
What a buzz-kill!
chances are they had to fast forward to the new takeup reel, instead of rewinding.
Wait, so they saw the movie twice, and got a free pass… “BUT STILL!”
We went to a movie a few months back, the sound was screwed up from the start. It was one of those new digital projectors which the staff didn’t know how to work or fix. They came in, told us they would give us a free pass to go to the same movie another time, an extra pass to see another, and told us that we could wander to any theater that had a movie starting soon and see it.
I was quite satisfied and got a 3 for 1!
I am under the impression that lots of theaters will run multiple screens from one real. There are guides that take it from the earlier showing into the next theater to show it 20 – 30 minutes later.
stopping and rewinding your’s might have stopped it for audience where you went.
It seems there was enough room next door, the manager should have just sent you there and offered compensation, rather than promising something he couldn’t deliver.
It sounds like a typical PHB, where the manager doesn’t understand the operation well enough to do it correctly.
@blackmage439: Missing 5 minutes of that movie is compensation enough.
@joemono: Yeah that was kind of my thought. What is there to complain about?
Not sure why there’s a complaint here. I’ve had similar experiences, when I saw The Simpsons Movie there was an awfully loud buzz for about 10 minutes in the beginning (we could still hear dialogue but it was very annoying) and everyone received a free pass on the way out.
Years earlier during Man on the Moon the projecter tried to eat the film with about 30 minutes to go, so they offered all of us free passes and we got to go watch the last hour of the film in another theater (yeah we watched a large portion twice, but I didn’t want to come back just for the end).
I think the theater handled the situation very well. If he was watching Indy 4 on film it’s not as simple as “rewinding it” like a tape, it’s a pain in the ass and time consuming to get film back to a specific point in a projector. If it was DLP, I’m not sure the process of rewinding that but I imagine it’s easy.
@67alecto:
I have seen films melt in discount theaters and drive ins (there is one in a rural area about 100 miles out of town, no I was already there, I didn’t go that far just for a movie), but never a major 1st run theater (I only go to newer ones, the prices are the same the experience is better).
If the Projector stops for any reason, the film will melt from the heat of the light bulb. Fortunately for the theaters a splice will not be too noticeable, typically only loosing 1-2 seconds (could suck for some dialog though).
Heh, something like this happened when I saw the third Lord of the Rings movie. The last 30 minutes of the film the sound was just off of the video by like a minute. Several people complained but no one got anything. Though it could have been worse. My friends at another theater said theirs melted at about the same point our sound went wonky, but they got free tickets.
Like ironchef said, the reels these movies are on are HUGE and the film winds its way around a huge track in the projection room so its not a trivial task to rewind a movie and they won’t risk damaging the film since that’s their biggest expense. The theater I worked for actually lost money on the movies, all their positive income came from concessions.
In my opinion, you would have been better off without the audio. The script and acting was better off not being heard.
The biggest problem I had with a movie theatre was My family went to see a movie, I can’t remember which one, but it had Tim Allen in it. We went into the cinema and sat down, the movie started. It had Tim Allen in it, so we watched for about 15 minutes. That is when we realized that the plot was nothing like the commercials we saw.
So we went out and saw that right next to it was the cinema that was supposed to be playing the movie that we watched 15 minutes of. So we went into it and the movie we wanted to watch was playing in there. My dad went to complain and the manager said they would take care of it.
We went into the cinema that was playing the movie we wanted to watch and finished the movie.
When it was over the management just had the employees switch the signs. That was it. Not refund, no free tickets. Nothing. Just a sign change.
Also I’d like to add that the blurb for this story on the main page is incredibly misleading. Saying that “they let it play without sound and refused to rewind it”, while accurate, leaves out the very important and story-changing bits involving finishing the movie in another theater and getting a free pass. Slow day?
Ok here is the deal with “Rewinding” It cannot be done. I worked for Showcase Cinemas in the same region as Woburn, MA about 7 years ago. The proper thing the GM or House manager on staff should have done was give out freebie prestige tickets and call it a day. Since the theater uses film on a platter to platter system you cannot just rewind it. It is not like they are using DVD or tape here people. Now I do disagree with the theater not giving out the free passes for the mishap, but come on people you can’t actually expect them to be able to “rewind” film for Gods sake!
@ironchef:
I thought that the new standard for modern movie houses was more like a DAT than film.
I am a film maker. Granted not on the level of Lucas or even Ed Wood for that matter but my point is that as such I spend a lot of time energy and money to make the best story I can and I want as many people as possible to see what I have made. I would say get ahold of Lucas and Speilberg themselves and bitch about the poor presentation of their work.
Several years ago I was cajolled into making a tribute to our parish priest who was going to be celebrating 50th anniversary of his entry into the priesthood. They were to show it at a presentation at the Vatican while the choir and a large group were visiting there. The yahoos could not get the audio to work but ran the film anyway. Though not present when I heard about the problem and solution, I just about blew a gasket
@ironchef:
They aren’t one 6 foot reel, movies are delivered in segments of 20 minutes or so, and the reels are switched between two projectors. The projectionist uses the ‘cigarette burn’ cue to make the switch.
There is also a special machine to rewind the reels.
This is also explained in Fight Club.
OMG Shia’s adorable!
@blackmage439:
Man they did you a favour!
@ironchef: It’s been a while since I ran a projector, but I’m sure I remember rewinding a couple movies by a few minutes by hand. It’s a pain in the ass, but what did I care?
@Coco Schwab: What you describe is rarely done anymore, except in older theaters.
This is explained in the director’s commentary in Fight Club.
I worked as a projectionist for 3 years, the “rewinding” of a film can be done, but as KyleOrtoon says, it’s a huge pain in the ass. It would take roughly 10 minuest to “rewind” 2 to 3 minutes of the film…There’s not much more that the Theater could have done and it’s nice that you lot were able to watch the end of the film and not have to sit through the whole thing again with your free tickets.
@AustinTXProgrammer: You’re right, often when a theater has showings that close together they’ll thread one movie so it goes into another theater. I don’t think it happens unless you’re dealing with a movie like this one, where there are tons of showings back to back.
A movie CAN be “rewound” but it takes a ton of effort, as everyone’s already says. The time it would take to do it plus the time you’d lose watching the last 10 minutes would put everything behind, and that can have massive fallout. I had to start a movie 5 minutes late once and, since it was the first showing, it screwed up the entire day because with a big movie you’re required to have X number of showings so they really pack it in there. You might have only 5 minutes of downtime after the credits finish rolling from the prior showing, and in that time you have to get the theater cleaned, get everyone seated, etc…
It sucks when the movie doesn’t go right but if you get a pass, it’s not the end of the world. Mistakes happen.
@joemono: Agreed. Maybe he was holding out for free concessions for life or something like that?
WE have this small historical theater in my neighborhood that still sell popcorn for a buck and shows first run films. I went to see the Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds when it was playing. In the scene where they are in the basement of the kid’s parent’s house and the jet crashes, right when all the shaking and noise takes place, we get the dreaded lamp burn. I actually thought it was an effect until I saw sprocket holes.
The stopped the film, respliced the print appologised profusely and gave us all free passes to the theater. It took 20 minutes but they made it right by the audiance. And regardless of the technical difficulties at the theater in question, they should have done the same.
Just my opinion
Indiana Jones was not realeased in Digital anyways so like others have said it would be a major PITA to “rewind”
I was like 20 minutes into Million Dollar Baby and the whole thing shut down. The basically said, “Sorry, you’re shit outta luck.” I got a refund, but dang… tease a Brotha with 20 minutes… that’s cruel.
The movie theater experience these days, even at “premium” cinemas, is pretty poor. Most chains have automated the projection process to the point where there’s no full-time projectionist. Often when I’ve reported problems (focus, audio, etc), the managers say there’s nobody available to fix them. Their only option is to give you a free pass or, if you really push, a refund.
The only decent film viewing experiences left are indie theaters (Landmark and the locals) and your living room. The staff is more knowledgeable and the punk kids usually stay away.
@Coco Schwab: Wow, that kind of projection went out in the 70′s. No one but college movie theaters and low rent mom and pop theaters projects from individual reels with “changeovers” between projectors using cue marks anymore. It’s too labor intensive nowadays especially in multiplexes.
The only reason the film is broken down into smaller reels nowadays is because a two hour movie in one reel would be too large and too heavy to ship all over the place. Showcase takes those reels of film and splices them together onto one large horizontal “platter”. Because it’s pulled off the center of the spool, it’s impossible to run the film backwards and put it back in. Think “eight track tape cartridge”, but with movie film.
The film from the center of the feeding platter goes through the projector and is wound back onto an empty platter in the same fashion so that at the end of the film, there is zero time needed to rewind any film. That takeup platter simply becomes the feed platter for the next show. Lather rinse repeat. All in the name of reducing labor costs. Sometimes the same print of the film travels across the projection booth and is used for another next-door theater for multiple showings before hitting the takeup platter.
Wikipedia has an excellent explantion of how it works, look under “single reel system” on this page:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Now if the Woburn Showcase happened to be showing the print digitally, that should have been a no brainer to back the movie up. BTW, the primary reason for going digital, from the film company’s standpoint? Saving money on the shipping of all those film cans. It actually has very little to do with wanting to improve image quality or reliability. That’s why digital projection hasn’t caught on everywhere. The film companies benefit from not having to pay for all this shipping, but the theater companies are resisting having to absorb the cost for installing the new equipment, without receiving any help from the film companies to do it. But that’s another topic.
I love movies, but every time I see one in theaters, I get a new reason to never see a movie in the theater again.
I watched the entirety of Iron Man the other day out of focus. Maybe I should have told them, but I only saw one employee in the entire theater, and he was running the concession stand.
Thanks to Ironchef for the clip. I worked in a theater for years and no one understands that “rewinding” a film is not possible. You would have to rebuild the film and fast forward by bypassing the projector onto a platter running at build speed and then try to hook it all back up.
The process would go like this: you would have to take everything apart by cutting the film, putting it back together (which it usually doesn’t fit back into the center of the platter (see film) since the film is compressed by the platter winding it tight) and then you would have to manually fast forward to the point where the sound was lost by bypassing the projector.
Not only would that fast forwarding potentially destroy the film (since it wouldn’t even be running through the projector at that point) but it would take about 1/4 the time that was shown just to catch up. So if you are two hours into a movie you are looking at 10 minutes to take it apart/resplice and then 30 minutes to fast forward. At that point “hopefully” you can get it all back through the projector again without damaging anything.
So, damage to the film would happen, the audience would have to wait a LONG time for it to be set up, and the next showing, and every showing after that, would be pushed back.
It sucks when it happens but there is nothing the theater can do about it other than hand out passes. Unfortunately, some people that work at theaters that are not working in the booth don’t know how the projectors work so they make promises of rewinding before they understand that it is not possible/practical.
I understand the frustration as I have been in theaters with issues before. Power outages that cause 30-90 seconds of film to wind down before resuming, fire alarms, problems with the digital track cutting out on the print, and just bad building (picture a movie being flipped upside down and backwards half way through, not a good night to be “previewing” a new print).
Now, as Shaftoe posts, a “break” is easy to fix. You will miss maybe 30 seconds. A good projectionist can take the damaged film apart, resplice, and get it running in no time.
Balisong is right, it is rare to find a theater that has equipment so old you need to manually switch the reels. They are built onto one large uninterrupted reel.
Like many commenters have said, there’s no rewinding a film. I used to work for a theatre back in college. We had a touchy projector platter that would speed up too much from time to time. I was keeping an eye on it, but unfortunately not close enough. Someone came out of the theatre saying the film had stopped. I run upstairs to find a 4 foot high pile of tangled film on the floor. The platter had spun too fast and threw a good 1 & 1/2 hours worth of film onto the floor. Had to call in a projectionist and cancel the rest of the showings. That guy was still there splicing and spooling when I left at 1 am.
I used to deliver film reels to theaters for a small independent movie distribution company, and to echo the multiple comments here, you can’t rewind film. Films usually come in 2-6 “cans” that have to be spliced together onto the large 6 foot platters in the projection room. The film is taken up from the center of the reel, wound through the projector and taken up on the spool on the opposite side of the room. When the next showing happens, the projectionist takes the film from the center of the reel and repeats the process. Because of the process it is impossible to rewind the film, and even fast forwarding isn’t even that fast. Additionally, resetting the film could push back other viewings causing a theater to lose more money on missed showings. IMHO, the best you can hope for is a free pass, which you got.
By the way, I think it’s more annoying when the theater incorrectly splices the film and you get big segments out of order.
And on a third note, I loved delivering our “used” reels to the storage warehouse where the old prints go to be transferred to other theaters. Once the manager let me wander around the room (which was probably as bis as your average grocery store) and peek at the “graveyard” where they stored films that were incomplete or damaged. You wouldn’t believe how many copies of LOTR were there.
He’s so so lucky, if he had heard the ending, his mind would’ve erupted in a cacophony of “WTF this is so lame”s and would’ve been seriously annoyed about wasting 2 hours watching a movie so far and away from the originals that it might as well be a spin-off film by another director.
You got a free pass to compensate you for the ticket price. What more do you want? fair’s fair. Bad consumer.
Ugh. This happened to me and my friends on the premier night of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies (don’t recall which one). The movie started playing with no sound, and we all thought that the silence was actually part of the movie until people started talking and we didn’t hear what they were saying.
It went on for about 15 minutes before the sound was fixed. And they didn’t rewind it or give us free passes, btw.
A friend of mine had this happen 20 minutes from the end of Titanic, and the film melted, too. They couldn’t fix it, so he had to see the last 20 minutes another night.
This is why I try to go to digital screens only. No melting, no scratches, no buzz, and they can rewind.