8mm Forum: Star Wars - Projector Breaks Down

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Topic: Star Wars - Projector Breaks Down

Jerome Sutter
Film Handler

Posts: 92
From: Bellwood, IL USA
Registered: Dec 2010

posted December 19, 2015 09:31 AM

An interesting article when showing the new "Star Wars" movie. The projector actually breaks down causing complete chaos! This wouldn't have happen if it where film.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/12/18/projector-breaks-during-late-night-showing-of-star-wars-crowd-goes-crazy/

Only one time did it happen to me when "Titanic" was shown and about 90% of the film was shown when the film broke. [Mad]

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Maurice Leakey
Film God

Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007

posted December 19, 2015 10:34 AM

I was running (single handed) a 5-screen multiplex in its early days of opening and one of the screens was showing "Pulp Fiction." The film was 154 minutes long plus ads and trailers and came nearly to the edge of a Christie platter.

A few minutes from the end of the film the projection shut down and the warning buzzer made me run to the Cinemeccanica Victoria 5 (the projection room was 120ft long) to discover that an overhead fan had blown off the whole of the remaining film onto the floor.

Having four other screens to keep going the next showing of the film was cancelled. Fortunately a male member of front-of-house staff was sent up to assist me. We slowly unravelled the mess on the floor and carefully laid it along the length of the box. It probably took at least an hour before we got the film ready to run again.

Obviously the ventilation system was designed without any thought of what was going to be installed under the grille.

To those who have never seen platters in action I should say that it is obviously not possible to fix the end of the film in any way as it all eventually passes to the take-up platter. The only securing device were plastic "sucker" pins placed at intervals on the platter surface around the last turn of the film.

Thereafter, the fan was disconnected!

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Maurice

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Jean-Marc Toussaint
Film God

Posts: 2392
From: France
Registered: Oct 2004

posted December 19, 2015 10:47 AM

I had several unfortunate experiences like Maurice. I remember a platter failure for Captain America. It stopped for a short period of time, then started again very quickly and ejected the print (I was threading a show in a different booth then). We were halfway through the film. It was a mess.
Not mentioning the few times I had to turn the pay-off platter manually...
So, all sorts of things can go wrong with film as well.

--------------------
The Grindcave Cinema Website

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Pasquale DAlessio
Film God

Posts: 3523
From: Bristol,RI, USA
Registered: May 2010

posted December 19, 2015 12:09 PM

Jerome

Thanks for the post. I'm glad I wasn't there. i will wait a week or so to see it. But , I agree with the girl that said it's not the same as the first night.

PatD

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William Olson
Master Film Handler

Posts: 287
From: Poughkeepsie, NY USA
Registered: Jun 2010

posted December 19, 2015 12:29 PM

It seems to me that actual film running alternately on 2 pre-platter projectors is still the best way.

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Paul Suchy
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 199
From: Westchester, IL, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted December 19, 2015 01:41 PM

Those platter systems were like a giant 8track tape; they could run well most of the time, but when something went wrong it could take forever to clean up. Anyone familiar with the term "brain wrap"? The film would end up in a huge cluster and it resembled a giant brain.

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Paul Suchy

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Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted December 19, 2015 01:45 PM

Sounds like some members of the audience got a bit carried away [Roll Eyes]

...these things happen.

I once worked it out, that of the 24.960 sessions of 35mm film over the 12 years that I screened myself, I never once lost a session. There was the odd problem "quick fix" with a short delay but very seldom. Providing you maintain the equipment 35mm can go on forever.

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Brian Fretwell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1785
From: London, UK
Registered: Jun 2014

posted December 19, 2015 04:42 PM

And this is the real fate of King Kong

The last reel was shown at Blackpool and this is what happened to the final few minutes.

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Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted December 19, 2015 04:50 PM

What happened to the take up?

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Maurice Leakey
Film God

Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007

posted December 20, 2015 04:10 AM

Here is a pic of a Christie cake stand. The film is feeding from the middle platter through the projector to the take-up on the top platter.
The film has almost finished and you can clearly see that if it was a long film how close the end of the film would come to the edge of the platter.
As I said above, this is how the end of "Pulp Fiction" got blown off and onto the floor.
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/pics/cfcs/cfcs20.jpg

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Maurice

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Brian Fretwell
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1785
From: London, UK
Registered: Jun 2014

posted December 20, 2015 04:42 AM

I think the take up spool was rubbing on the casing (possible a bit bent out of true) and at the end of the film it just stopped turning. They had a rewinder there and soon got it back on OK.

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Ken Finch
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 543
From: Herne Bay, Kent. U.K.
Registered: Oct 2011

posted December 23, 2015 02:13 PM

Perhaps they should have stuck with "change overs" with larger spools!!! Ken Finch [Wink]

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Mathew James
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 740
From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2014

posted December 24, 2015 09:22 PM

Just saw this tonight with my family in IMAX 3D. It was GREAT!!!
I highly recommend the 3D version if you can where you live. I thought the glasses and look might bug me, it had been awhile since i saw anything in 3D, but it was amazing and I wouldn't want to see it any other way to be honest...They have certainly come along way with 3D...Thankfully no projector glitches-pweeew...
Cheers,
Matt

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--
Cheers,
Matt 📽

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Lee Mannering
Film God

Posts: 3216
From: The Projection Box
Registered: Nov 2006

posted December 27, 2015 06:52 AM

Looking at the GBN picture fetched back a few memories of mine, happy days. 20 odd years ago got to thread up a 70mm print of Batman when filming at a cinema for another epic, thankfully the film didn't wind up on the deck. [Cool]

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