Uptown Theatre

sguttag on February 23, 2007 at 6:10 pm

As to the Uptown pay…I want to say it was $12/hour with something like a 35-cents/hour pension contribution…yes yes…with a 40-hour week, 52-week/year a full-time Uptown worker had about $728.00 put into a pension fund…why I haven’t retired from the working world is beyond me with all THAT money.

When I left in 2005, I want to say the pay went up to maybe as much as $13/hour but it might well have been $12.00 Yes it is more than the typical mall-operator might get but is not a living wage in the Metro DC area. I did it for enjoyment…when it stopped being enjoyable (and the time was interferring on my regular job as well has home life), I moved on.

As to qualified projectionists…it really isn’t a union/non-union thing…many a union projectionist worked non-union for a period. However it is true that if you throw out the best of the union and non-union, throw out the worst of the union and non-union and look at the crux in the middle, you will more than likely get a better projectionist from the union pool unless the chain operating the non-union side actually train their projectionists, keep high standards and compensate their employees fairly. But heck, following those rules, unions wouldn’t be needed. Sadly most business deserve unions so an employee IS treated fairly.

The real problem is how the Uptown is being run…that is it is not being run like a showplace. The changes Loews made and AMC has continued were about downgrading the quality. The VP of operations for Loews on their last contract negotiations (just before the AMC take over) stated that they “were willing to loose shows and damage prints” they didn’t care about that. What the “union is selling is quality assurance” and Loews was “not interested in that.”

That is certainly a business' choice, it is their business. Customers may not choose to patronize such a business and employees, such as myself, may not choose to work under such circumstances…as was the case. They didn’t get rid of me, I was the senior operator and I worked on Saturdays. Saturdays were a day they were willing to pay for quality assurance. But to work in a theatre that mutiliates the film 4 out of every 7 days is like only changing one quart of oil in your car at a time…it is still filthy damaging old oil…the 1 new quart did not make it clean! Also, the platter, which was a beat up piece of junk was installed, not to improve presentation but to degrade presentation…you need to keep a sharp eye on the focus on the Uptown’s screen…a platter will just let the lens heat up and drift. However, it was just not enjoyable. I had other obligations so I made way for someone that may want to work under these conditions.

I do think that the union would have better served its members and community by making the patrons aware of this errosion of quality presentations (not just at the Uptown). I know a group of us from the Uptown tried to rally the Cleavland Park community, which did take the time to talk with us. Sadly, it takes like what the Senator in Baltimore just went through to shock people into understanding that something that IS important to them is being taken away. The downgrading in quality of movie theatres is not something that has just happened…it is an errosion process that has left the exhibitors in a position of not feeling like there is any money in the showing of the movie itself. They have gradually negotiated all of their boxoffice away (or damn near) and thus the ticket money is less important than the concession and advertising revenue.

However, you, the movie goer, came there to see the MOVIE and have the experience in a theatre. The exhibitor giving you that experience has no interest (since there is no profit in it) in providing you a good movie going experience so they will do the very least to actually show the movie since if they didn’t show the movie, you wouldn’t come to see their ads and buy their concessions. Believe me, if they could do away with the whole theatre building and just have the concession stand with ad revenue, they would do it in a heartbeat.

In today’s business world, the bean counters look at the spread sheets. If you spend money on the projection booth (anywhere, equipment or payroll), you can see that expense on the spread sheet. Nowhere can you see the return on that investment on a spread sheet. If you pay real close attention over time you might be able to pick out a trend on money in the booth turing into increased sales though improved attendance (comparatively with other venues running identical features with identical demigraphics). However, if you cut the payroll in the booth (or anywhere) you get an immediate boost to your bottom line.

If you do the same thing with say the concession stand employees, it is quite different. They study and study what the per-capita should be, what the yield should be and if you add people to the payroll at what point do you just end up spending money or if you take away from the stand at what point do you loose sales due to long lines….etc.

But good presenations? Where do you enter that onto a spreadsheet? It has to have what I call Marquee value. If you can boast something on the Marquee or in advertisement that somehow makes you seem superior to other theatres…they can track that on a spreadsheet…did the theatres runing the movie in 3-D do more business than those that ran it in 2-D and such. For awhile, Dolby Stereo, Digital sound…etc had Marquee value…now they are expected…so much so that some theatre STILL use mono sound systems since how do you know what they have when you are sold a ticket?

The Uptown is an oddity that the bean counters can’t figure out anymore than the record companies could figure out the Beatles. Why do people go to the Uptown over a closer theatre? Is it the Balcony?. The big screen?, The deeply curved screen?, the location?, the sound?, the presentation? the experience? How can you predict it? If you opened a chain of Uptowns with big curved screens and balconies would they all do well? The chains want a formula to follow. They are not good a original thinking. That is why when one goes bankrupt…just about all of them do…they follow the same game plan right over the cliff.

Check it out now…DCinema…this is the latest scam….

A DCinema system costs roughly 4-5 times as much as a film system and has less than 1/10th the useful life. Why on Earth would a smart business man invest in that technology at this point (as an exhibitor)? The solution? Get somebody else to pay for it. Of the projectors going in for ordinary theatres, almost none were paid for by the theatre!

I have witnessed first hand how fast this stuff goes obsolete…the 1.3K projectors that Jodar liked in an earlier post are now not supported by Hollywood. Anyone that spent over $125K on them just as little as 3-years ago not have nothing more than a limited use A/V projector. SOMEBODY had to pay for that. So now we have 2K projectors, certainly a notable improvement but they didn’t make the 1.3K projectors worse…instead of moving the 1.3K projectors down to the smaller screens or sub-run houses…etc, Hollywood just threw a switch…no more 1.3K.

So 2K was pumping along now with MPEG technology and everyone is noting how much better it is than that old 1.3K technology. But wait, JPEG2000 hits DCinema…and now some studios will no longer release in MPEG format so you old (less than 1-year old in some cases) that only supported MPEG are rendered worthless (and these items are 10 of thousands of dollars). Some manufacturers upgraded their products other charged for it and others have you buy new again. Where is all this money coming from to blow on DCinema technology that is only in Betawear, at best?

I bring this up because of a comment about how AMC put back their old obsolete equipment when they had a current state-of-the-art DCinema projector (which they didn’t own) installed for a premier.

The problem with the comment was that 2K DCinema technology is really only about as good as 35mm’s worst format, 1.85:1 FLAT. It has far less resolution for Scope (DCinema actually uses fewer pixels for Scope than for FLAT while film uses substantially more film for Scope than flat such that on balance Film has more information per inch for Scope presentations than for Flat presentations).

The Uptown’s projectors (yes they still have two of them) are Century Ceneramas. They are 35/70mm machines. They are capable of out performing the best of DCinema (and can deliver twice the resolution of the 2K projector that was used for the premier) with their worst format (35mm) and can stomp all over the best DCinema if 70mm is shown.

Yet the movie going public is being offered this state-of-the-art technology as BETTER! Talk about misleading the public. Then again, with the way exhibitors present film, I guess there is truth in that…a 2K DCinema projector (running JPEG2000 now) will deliver an unscratched film with even the worst of “operators” running it…which is to say nobody is running it.

If you see a Dcinema picture that looks better than a 35mm picture, you got ripped off. The hard numbers say the 35mm film should win. The realities are that theatres get prints that are made mostly for their speed, not quality (they often now skip a step printing stage since contact printing is faster) which adds to the image movement and takes away from clarity. They show the film on machines now built for low cost and they don’t want to pay anyone to show the film because there is no perceived business reason to have a high quality presentation.

Without a doubt, the absolute best main stream cinema image format is 70mm. It isn’t even debatable…the numbers show it (resolution, color…etc). Hollywood should be shooting on 65mm almost exclusively for their big budget features and show place theatres like the Uptown should be showing 70mm exclusively. It is THAT much better than 35mm or DCinema. 70mm, even after 50-years remains the true State-Of-The-Art. That is the target that DCinema should be shooting for and that is what should be attained before the industry converts to DCinema. I’m not against DCinema. It is just silly from a financial standpoint at this stage and it is not there technologically either. It can be quite good but it isn’t 70mm and it isn’t quite 35mm either. I think when DCinema gets up to 70mm’s quality it will be truely a terrific medium deserving of replacing film in Showplaces.

So what endangers theatres like the Uptown (and really the whole theatre industry in general)? It is the lack of quality and attention to detail. I’m amazed by the talents of those that make movies and how they look with an EK print only, during the release, be subjected to a crap showing of a high-speed duped print, in dirty theatre running ads just like you were watching TV back at home…if DCinema gets forced onto the public and exhibitors at this stage…you really will be watching a movie on a TV that doesn’t even pause (when you want it to) to go to the rest room. Once upon a time movies had Intermissions.

If you really want to save places like the Uptown, you have to let the business know that IT matters. That is, they have to be able to see that how they operate the theatre WILL affect how many people will walk through the door (any of their doors, not just the Uptown, because the other theatres really are not being operated any better…you will only get theatre-by-theatre bright spots due to individuals). You really need to demand quality. In 2007, you SHOULD be demanding 70mm presentations…that is the best and the Uptown looks FANTASTIC with them. Movies that are presented in 70mm at the Uptown really ARE more enjoyable than most any other theatre. Exhibtors and Hollywood need to see on their spreadsheets that quality in the movie going experience affects how many people go into the theatre (profit and potential profit)

And to bring it full circle…so long as film remains the movie medium at the Uptown, it really HAS to be run by qualified projectionists that will handle it properly without damaging it regardless of the length of run. And finally, loose the stupid platter, it has NO purpose in the Uptown other than to give the patron a lesser show. It has ruined (directly and indirectly) enough shows already.

Okay…wordy enough? ;)

Steve

dave-bronx™ on January 9, 2007 at 11:24 am

I’m not putting it all on the union – It began as cost-containment on the part of the owners, which today has now developed into outright greed. And today the overall quality of the union projectionist has improved since the old ones have finally retired or passed away and the reduction in the number of jobs has caused a lot of the bad apples (and some of the good ones) to move on to something else. But it happened too late – like closing the barn door after the horse ran away. Had the union transformed itself 10-15 years earlier when theatre-people were still running things I don’t think they would have been quite so gung-ho to make severe reductions. Keep in mind that today there are no theatre-people running the circuits anymore – they’ve all been pushed aside and money-men are running the show, and this is what we get – the Wal*Mart-ing of the theatre business.

Michael Furlinger on January 9, 2007 at 6:53 am

rCDTJ MY NUMBERS ARE STRAIGHT THESE ARE ny city or li numbers not bumfuck ark…..

dave-bronx™ on January 8, 2007 at 11:47 pm

RCDTJ,
I am old-school, having worked in the theatres since the 60s – I’d always had a union man in the booth and if it was up to me there would still be a union man in the booth. I don’t want to do their job, and I don’t want to be bothered teaching people how to run those machines. I agree that the owners were looking to cut costs. My issue is that the union made it easy for the owners to decide that they no longer need a union man. The union didn’t make themselves indispensable. By not forcing the elderly ones, who were clearly in decline, to retire; by continuing to send guys around who have been kicked out of every theatre in town; by not insisting that these guys get themselves together or get out for the good of the membership. Years ago they used to stash these guys away in the porn houses, where the audience was doing everything in the world except watching the movie, so it didn’t matter, but those places were no longer available when they switched to VHS. When we had a crazy man in the booth we would call up to request someone else we were told there was nobody else available, or his seniority gives him the choice, or some other excuse, they were basically saying F.U. to the theatre. The owners probably figured why pay $25./hr for a lousy presentation when they can get the same presentation from the manager or usher for a lot less and maybe train them to do it better. I’ve worked in other cities with other locals where the membership consisted, in large part, of professionals, who put up an excellent presentation, knew how to handle the film and maintain the equipment, and we seldom had to worry about the booth operations. In New York, however, it was always a crap-shoot.

To your other point, you are absolutely correct about the greed of most companies today, which is driving all this. But when UA started all this manager/operator stuff in the Long Island theatres in the mid-90s the greed was not so blatant. When the circuits went bankrupt and then the bean-counters took over is when it really started getting cut-throat.

Michael Furlinger on January 8, 2007 at 7:10 pm

DAVE-BRONK YOU HAVE IT ON THE MONEY!

rcdt55b on January 8, 2007 at 6:56 pm

I am very surprised with the numbers you came up with considering you were a DM. The regular theaters pay nowhere near that amount. Specialty screening rooms like Sony, Universal,etc.. can get that high, but well worth it considering you probably will be running video, film, picture and track, etc…. and where is this overtime? I’ve been in the city for 15 years and never once got OT before or after midnight. 25% matching retirement???????? are you crazy. The city is 19% pension and medical combined. You go add that up and see what it comes out to for a pension. As for the medical, it covers me only. Most of the full time workers I know in other fields have a much better pension and better health coverage which a lot of times includes their whole family. Tell me where the greed is there. Now we move onto holiday double time. It’s time and a half for holidays and that doesnt include all holidays. Most people I know get at least that in their profession. I would love to hear the “and on and on stuff”.
Dave,
your comments can be applied to almost any profession. You have dumb schmucks everywhere. If every manager had a shit list, they should have requested someone else. They dont have to accept just whoever is sent. I’m sure there are wacky stories about people in other professions also. Like I said, it happens everywhere, not just unions. These jobs were never phased out because of unqualified operators. They were taken away because theater owners could save money with unqualified people running the booths. That is the only reason. Why do you think that in NYC they have union guys in on thursdays through sundays? Because they dont want anything going wrong with making up prints on thursdays. They also make most of their money on the weekends. If the union guys are so bad, why not have their “film threaders” do it? Look at the uptown now. Are you going to blame the union because of how fucked up the place is getting? And why do the few “high profile houses” use union operators? Because they know what the fuck theyre doing!!

You look at any industry today. What are they doing? Cutting back. Why? To save money. Are they making any improvments for the customers in any way? No. They dont give a shit about their customers. They want to make as much money as they can. With the theaters, they know enough people dont complain about problems with the shows. When they complain, they give a free pass. Now they come back again and buy more candy and popcorn. So don’t tell me about union greed. Take a look at how the theater chains are fucking everybody going to the movies….

Michael Furlinger on January 7, 2007 at 10:33 pm

In NY $25 -40 HOUR WITH OT BEFORE AND AFTER MIDNIGHT ..25%MATCHING RETIERMENT ……HEALTH INS …HOLIDAY DOUBLE TIME…..AND ON AND ON

JohnMessick on January 7, 2007 at 7:14 pm

Ok, now I am curious. What did or does a union projectionist make an hour? And what responibilities does the job entail?

Michael Furlinger on January 7, 2007 at 2:58 pm

That may be very true but union greed put theater chains in this position as well if not more the mom and pop theaters!

Michael Furlinger on January 7, 2007 at 12:06 pm

If this theater was a union theater it would be closed!

Michael Furlinger on January 7, 2007 at 11:23 am

UNIONS ARE THE REASON MANY OF THESE SMALLER THEATERS ARE GONE!

rcdt55b on January 7, 2007 at 11:04 am

Any skill can be passed to anyone. The difference is in the training. Not only do you need to be properly trained how to handle film, you need to know how to work the equipment. It’s not a simple job even with a platter and automation. Union training is very thourough. The people running these machines now were taught how to thread the projector and hit the start button and pray that nothing goes wrong. In the meantime, they are scratching print, they dont set maskings properly, they dont focus, they dont check sound levels and worst of all they dont handle film properly. So yes, it can be passed down to someone if they have the proper training. The problem is, you have stupid morons like JHOFFA that dont care about the bad presentations and continue to spend their money without complaining.

bufffilmbuff on January 7, 2007 at 8:03 am

Any more word about if and when AMC is going to close the Uptown? I saw DREAMGIRLS last weekend there myself and noticed the scratched print…. something that wouldn’t have happened with a real projectionist and would have never been tolerated in the past. It is a great and rare venue, it is too bad the people who own it do not appreciate it.