What ever happened to manners?!

[Kim Brody]

Okay okay it may just be me being in a foul mood lately but it seems that people are getting more inconsiderate of others or just forgetting about simple manners!
So I work in a cinema which can be quite chill but sometimes things can go wrong.

So today one movie starts at 10:00 and the other at 10:10. The 10:00 session started on time which was great. I was focussing on putting up new movie posters and planning my day, which wasn't a great idea because I didn't notice that the 10:10 movie didn't start! I only noticed because I took a glance at the monitor and it said next to the movie 'scheduler disabled' ....This means the projector was waiting for someone to start the movie manually! It's 10:15 now!

I sigh and call the projectionist who can remotely access the computer from the main cinema a few minutes away from here. He shows me how to start the movie up again on time. Enter: SC. Yes, yes there is an SC in this story and she decided to stand staring at me while I was obviously starting the movie up! So everything was all well and good, I had skipped a few ads and trailers and the movie was back on its regular route. I got off the phone and this is when SC decided to speak.
SC: So did you just fix the movie?! It hasn't started yet!
Me: Yes, all is well now and some ads are skipped. It should be on time
SC: OKAY!! *storms off*
My god! What ever happened to please and thank you?! I swear sometimes people my age (20) are more polite than the people I serve!
I went up to cinema 2 to check that all was well and over heard someone say 'well how stupid! The movie started late!'
Oh my goodness all they missed are the ads!!! People always complain about them anyway! How pathetic does your life have to be if you are upset that you missed 5 minutes of ads!? Ahh I shall never understand the mind of some people. Unfortunately, where I work I have to serve a large amount of snobby people. People that don't even acknowledge you when you try to serve them. People that hand you money turn their back to you to continue the conversation with their friend then glare at you when you hand back change and snatch the ticket out of your hand! Alright, I need a holiday.....

[EvilEmpryss]

Noooo! I go to the movies early so I can see the ads and previews! I want my money back!!!

Oh, wait, I wasn't there. Never mind.

I have no idea what actually goes on in the projection booth anymore, but with all the digital this and remote that it sounds highly technical. The rude twit was lucky her movie started at all.

[MoonCat]

Yeesh, all I care about is that the movie itself starts and doesn't run upside down or something (don't laugh, a local cinema once had the ads coming up with the top half of the picture on the bottom of the screen, and the bottom half on the top...)

I couldn't care less about the ads, which are usually annoying as hell, and the previews are waaaay too loud for me.

[wolfie]

don't laugh, a local cinema once had the ads coming up with the top half of the picture on the bottom of the screen, and the bottom half on the top...

My guess is that the cinema in question was still using real film projectors (as opposed to digital). That sounds like the film transport getting out-of-sync with the shutter, so that the film was halfway between frames when the shutter opened. There's a control on the projector to adjust the sync, analogous to the tracking control on a VCR. Remember those? Now get off my lawn you young whippersnappers.

[TopEndDave]

A friend and I have arrived at the cinema about 5 minutes late for a movie. I was trying to rush but the counter staff told me not to worry as it hadn't started. My thought was that the ads and previews were still running. As we left one of them told me "I will just ring projectionist to get him to start the movie." We walked into a total empty theater waved to the projectionist and watched the movie

I also have a story from the days of film in 1981. One of the workers at the place I was doing work experience also worked some nights at the drive-in. It was the projectionists last night at the drive in and he didn't care about the job anymore. So he just grabbed the first reel of film he saw without checking the order. The film was shown out of order I think that it was reel #2, reel #1 and then reel #3. There were not many demands for money back but quite a few people were complaining that the movie was hard to follow.

[Ironclad Alibi]

My guess is that the cinema in question was still using real film projectors (as opposed to digital). That sounds like the film transport getting out-of-sync with the shutter, so that the film was halfway between frames when the shutter opened. There's a control on the projector to adjust the sync, analogous to the tracking control on a VCR. Remember those? Now get off my lawn you young whippersnappers.

And long before the advent of VCRs there were the horizontal hold and vertical hold controls on TV sets. Now who's the young whippersnapper?

[AccountingDrone]

Yeesh, all I care about is that the movie itself starts and doesn't run upside down or something (don't laugh, a local cinema once had the ads coming up with the top half of the picture on the bottom of the screen, and the bottom half on the top...)

I couldn't care less about the ads, which are usually annoying as hell, and the previews are waaaay too loud for me.

Back in 1976 I went on an organized tour of France with my Mom [she was on the school board and got suckered in to be a chaperone, and decided since I had vacation and a passport to drag me along. As if I hadn't just come back from 2 years at a boarding school over there] It was a 'free afternoon' and 2 of the other schools along on the ride with us and my mom decide we all really need to see The Silver Streak. So off we went, the guy and 4 of the kids from some school in Parsippany [I seem to vaguely remember] and the 2 nuns and 6 of their girls, Mom, the other 5 kids in our group and I.

The theater goes dark, and a film starts. It oddly doesn't look anything like Silver Streak - no Gene Wilder ... but there are 2 naked women doing *stuff* ... Yup, they accidentally showed a bunch of 14-16 year old American school kids on tour the first reel of something called Bilitis Sings ... at least until one of the nuns gets up and heads back to the projection room.

I really don't feel as if I was mentally damaged by some moderate lesbian porn ... just amused at the reaction by the nuns as if we had been dropped into Sturgis' most hard core bar during bike week or something.

[Sapphire Silk]

Noooo! I go to the movies early so I can see the ads and previews! I want my money back!!!

Oh, wait, I wasn't there. Never mind.

I have no idea what actually goes on in the projection booth anymore, but with all the digital this and remote that it sounds highly technical. The rude twit was lucky her movie started at all.

I can pass on the ads.

Previews are as much fun as the movie itself.

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Yeesh, all I care about is that the movie itself starts and doesn't run upside down or something (don't laugh, a local cinema once had the ads coming up with the top half of the picture on the bottom of the screen, and the bottom half on the top...)

Yep, back in the days of film. Either the alignment on the aperture was off(in a film projector the film can be slid up and down in front of the bulb opening so that the frame can be aligned with the screen) or they cut a partial frame when splicing in the ads and trailers. For each frame of film there are 4 perforations, if you cut a frame at 1/4, 2/4, or 3/4 the picture is going to jump and have to be re aligned.

I spent a couple years running a projection booth, was a fun job, if low paying. Pretty much doesn't exist as a job nowadays, lol. Been digitalized out of the mainstream.

[evilhomer]

I've got a few posts to make about these people that can't be bothered with manners. It's just like their lives are so miserable and pathetic that they just want to pass on their misery.

While I'm certianly not the happiest person on the planet, I do make a conscious effort to be polite to cashiers or anyone who is serving me. I find it (nicely) amusing when manners and politeness snap them out of their coma that was induced by the seemingly endless line of assholes that preceded me.

[wolfie]

I spent a couple years running a projection booth, was a fun job, if low paying.

In some areas, projectionists were extremely well paid compared to other jobs of similar skill level. It was the result of laws passed before technology changed - in those jurisdictions, there were stringent apprenticeship requirements mandated by the fire department, reducing the supply of projectionists. Why would the fire department be concerned? Simple - in the early days of the movies, the only light source bright enough for a projector was a carbon arc, and the film stock was made from cellulose nitrate. The fire department wanted to be sure anyone working with (for all intents and purposes) smokeless gunpowder in close proximity to an ignition source was well trained.

Years passed, nitrate stock was replaced by "safety film" (cellulose acetate), arc lamps were replaced by quartz-halogen bulbs, but the laws were still on the books.

[SilverOrb]

Personally, I like the ads, and I also like to see what movies are coming up.
I might ask a polite question if the movie is running late... But I sure as hell wouldn't complain about the lack of commercials or be rude to the nice theater peoples.
Jackasses.

[emax4]

The theater goes dark, and a film starts. It oddly doesn't look anything like Silver Streak - no Gene Wilder ... but there are 2 naked women doing *stuff* ... Yup, they accidentally showed a bunch of 14-16 year old American school kids on tour the first reel of something called Bilitis Sings ... at least until one of the nuns gets up and heads back to the projection room.

Man, Silver Streak.. that takes me back. At that time, with the wrong movie, it should have been named "Silver Bullet" I'm not talking about Coors either, haha. I can imagine some of hte kids going, "Whoa!" and others going, "ewww"... Then there's some kid thinking, "I love going to the movies!!"

[XCashier]

I've got a few posts to make about these people that can't be bothered with manners.

Oh, I know. We've all got such stories, and far too many of them. Yet if we fail to say "thank you", we'll never hear the end of it.

While I'm certianly not the happiest person on the planet, I do make a conscious effort to be polite to cashiers or anyone who is serving me. I find it (nicely) amusing when manners and politeness snap them out of their coma that was induced by the seemingly endless line of assholes that preceded me.

Same here. Manners don't cost a cent, and they may make someone else's day a little more bearable. Besides, my mom raised me to have good manners; pity most SCs aren't that way.

[AccountingDrone]

Man, Silver Streak.. that takes me back. At that time, with the wrong movie, it should have been named "Silver Bullet" I'm not talking about Coors either, haha. I can imagine some of the kids going, "Whoa!" and others going, "ewww"... Then there's some kid thinking, "I love going to the movies!!"

Us teens were more amused that harmed by seeing it, the nuns were the ones mainly cheesed off at the skin flick, my mom was more amused than offended to be honest. The real funny was when they got to the alka seltzer commercial, it was the only thing in the movie not dubbed into French, and all of us laughed at the incongruity of the whole plop plop fizz fizz