It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here, and while there are quite a few things I want to touch upon, this one article just caught my attention and hit a nerve…

Technically two articles. The original being someone on Hollywood Elsewhere who had posted a portion of a Stanley Kubrick interview from 1987 in which he voices his concern for the quality of projection in the nation’s theatres. Kubrick mentions a special report put together by none other than George Lucas’ Lucasfilms, the Theatre Alignment Program, which found that projection systems and the film reels themselves were poorly maintained. The thoughts from that article were added onto by Alex Billington over at First Showing.

Which is really no surprise. We’ve all seen it at one time or another: little hairs waving at you from the edge of the screen, what sounds like an old Dodge pickup driving over gravel coming over the speakers at the very beginning of the movie, shmutz all over the screen randomly appearing, etc. And this is all because theatres have to pay teenagers minimum wage to do the job of what should be someone with at least some training in film editing.

Being a former film school student, I’m aware of the steps necessary in properly handling film, as well as the need for clean white gloves, the proper wiping material, and clean instruments, such as film splicers. I’ve actually had the chance to see a few different projectionists do their job and was downright distraught at the complete lack of care: never wiping the film nor the splicer, even handling the film with their bare hands after having just downed their free soda and popcorn. That’s what you’re seeing up on the screen, folks, soda and popcorn and Raisinets residue.

But again, it’s because theatres have to look at the bottom line. Most people don’t realize that the reason why it costs $3.50 for a small popcorn is because the theatres aren’t really making that much from the movies themselves. Theatres take in only like 30-40% of the movie’s gross ticket sales. Let me break it down to you like a fraction, as Bernie Mac says. If a movie makes $30 million, that means the theatres are only actually keeping, at best, $12 million. Divide that by the number of theatres showing the movie, let’s say 3,000, and each movie theatre gets… you may want to sit down for this… $4,000.

Four-fucking-thousand dollars for showing a blockbuster movie that made $30,000,000 nationwide in 3 days. $4,000 for a movie that made the studio $18,000,000. Now, $4,000 sounds good for a 3-day job, and times however many movies the theatre shows, that’s mega-buckos. But you’re forgetting operation costs. Theatres spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars per day in electricity and whatnot, and tens of thousands just for renting the building.

If the theatres made enough money, I’m sure they would hire a qualified, knowledgeable projectionist.

See, I agree with Kubrick and Lucas in that the quality of the projection is terrible and needs to improve. And I’m sure this is yet another reason why the movie watching experience has moved from the palace-like theatres of yore to your couch and HDTV. And I’m not writing this as a counter to the arguments made by Hollywood Elsewhere and First Showing, I agree and sympathize. This is meant more as a reminder for everyone, the next time you get mad at that zit-ridden teenager for selling you a $12 ticket and a small soda for $4, or you see shmutz garbling up the movie, that he’s just the poor guy making $7 an hour who doesn’t really care. It’s the studios (who also don’t care) making the movies you should be mad at.

For another reason to hate the studios, check out this other post I wrote.

Posted on December 15th, 2007 by Enrique
Filed under: Opinion