Oh, Washington City Paper is now on-line, so... From April 2, 2004 edition:
Pure Projection
By Robert Lalasz
When Rob Baxter went to the Uptown Theatre last month, he thought it would be just another night at the movies. But what he found out should make every Washington filmgoer jump out of her stadium seat in outrage.
On March 8, the Austin, Texas–based lighting designer and production electrician had just finished some work for the New York City Ballet at the Kennedy Center. Baxter wanted to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but when he got to the theater, an ambulance was taking away projectionist Andy McCormack, who said he’d been overcome with toxic fumes, possibly from spilled cleaning solvent.
Firemen briefly held up the screening to investigate the smell, and after Baxter came back a half-hour later, the film still wasn’t running. So the former movie-house manager ran upstairs and found an Uptown custodian finally starting up the first reel—without any sound. Baxter put things right and then settled down to watch what he calls “a pristine print” of Return, which had already been playing at the theater for three months.
“It was obvious that these guys were using their cotton gloves,” he says of McCormack and the other two Uptown projectionists, José Gonzalez and Steve Guttag. “I had no idea that I was walking into such a fantastic movie space. I’ve been in the Steven Ross Theater at the Warner Bros. Studio in L.A., and the Uptown was nicer.”
Not news to most area film lovers, who know what a treasure the deco-era movie palace is. But listen to what Baxter found out from an Uptown manager: Loews Cineplex Entertainment, which operates the theater, wants to replace the Uptown’s two ’60s-vintage vertical-reel projectors with a modern, horizontal-format platter system. That would also mean cutting the hours of the theater’s professional projectionists, who belong to Local 224 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and leaving the house managers to run the new equipment—most likely by just hitting Start.
In other words, one of the best places to watch a movie on the East Coast might soon become a lot more like Regal Ballston Common 12. On the Uptown’s 32-by-70-foot screen, we’re talking hairs the size of anacondas when someone forgets to clean the film gate. Dancing green scratch lines that run across the frame for 45 minutes. Ruined prints and canceled shows when the plattered film runs off its numerous rollers and pulleys while the manager is downstairs filling out time sheets or cleaning up a Coke spill.
“I don’t like platters,” says David Hoag, a projectionist at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, which still uses a vertical change-over system like the Uptown’s. “All that film is out in the air—it gets easily scratched, picks up dirt, and it’s easily degraded. When we showed A Hard Day’s Night, it had just come from a platter, and it had all these sideways scratches.”
Loews Vice President for Operations Paul Wehrle admits that the chain is “looking to upgrade” the Uptown’s projection equipment. But he denies that the change is imminent, and he scoffs at worries that a platter would ruin the Uptown experience. In fact, he suggests, it’ll enhance it.
“There’s less of a chance of something going wrong,” he says, adding that the Uptown’s current system leads to interruptions and color shifts. “[The platter is] just the contemporary way of exhibiting films.”
And you’re welcome to it, says Gonzalez, who makes $12 an hour. “The image you will see on the screen, the sound quality you’ll hear, the professional presentation, lack of interruptions...will not be the same—not by any means,” he argues. The 15-year union veteran says he’ll quit when a platter is installed and managers are projecting.
Wehrle counters that Loews has “no intention of having nontrained people running that booth.” But according to Keith Madden, president of Local 224, Loews and other exhibition chains habitually reclassify ushers as supervisors so they can operate projectors without running afoul of labor laws.
“It’s a craft. It’s not rocket science, but you’re better off knowing what you’re doing,” says Madden. “Hollywood pays tens of millions to produce and distribute these films, and the whole business comes down to having the projectionist have the last cut.”
Wehrle hesitates for several seconds when asked if the Uptown’s union projectionists are on their way out. “I’m going to use dedicated projectionists to the extent we feel is necessary,” he finally says. “These guys are trying to make it into an exhibition issue, when what it really is for them is a jobs issue.”
