Unspooled: Behind the Scenes

It is Oscar season, and I figure it is a good time to tell you about my experience working in the film industry. Yes, when I was a much younger man I dabbled in the cinema. More specifically, when I was in college, I worked at a movie theater – and that is as close as I’ll ever come.

To understand the point of the story, I need to spend a moment explaining what goes on behind the scenes in a movie theater, and how movie projectors worked in the olden days before digital. I’ll try to keep it brief.

Movies that are on celluloid used to come to the theater in a box of reels.

Each one of those reels lasted about 20 minutes, so a full movie would require around 5 reels of film. As the end of the reel approached, a small dot would flash in the corner of the movie to let the projectionist know to cue up the next reel. You’ve probably seen them.

There was a much better system when I was running the projectors back in the 1980’s. When the reels would arrive, you would take each one of them and transfer it to a “platter” that looked like this:

Then, you would start with the trailers and commercials, then splice the end of reel #1 to the beginning of reel #2 and so on, until the entire movie was loaded on a platter. This process was called “building up” the print. Now you could show the entire movie without touching anything, and without interruption.

The film would feed from the inside of the platter, through the projector, and back to an empty platter, via a series of pulleys. This system did away with the need to rewind, as you could just start it over again from the center of the take-up reel.

Too much information? Sorry. To the story..

My title at the theater was Assistant Manager, which meant that I did everything from payroll to tearing tickets to running the projectors. During this period of time, I subsisted on popcorn, nachos and soda.

One evening, I was standing in the back of one of the theaters, watching a new  movie, when suddenly the sound garbled, the screen went white, and then went black. The house light came up automatically, as I slipped out of the theater.

I took the stairs three at a time and entered the projection room. Three projectors were running smoothly, but the fourth had stopped. And it was a disaster.

Somehow the take-up reel had stopped doing its job while the projector kept churning away, eventually causing the film to break. The result? A two-foot high pile of unspooled film covered the floor, with a broken end hiding somewhere within the pile.

I didn’t know what to do. Realistically, the best thing I could do would be to cancel the screening, and offer refunds to the crowd, or ask them if they would rather wait 15-30 minutes while I put things back together.

I did neither. Instead, I decided to try and fix it. I began searching for the two loose ends in the celluloid. Got ’em. Then I got the splicer gadget and a piece of splicing tape, cut off the damaged ends, lined up the frames and taped them back together. (Not considering at that time that the film might have become twisted.)

I then fed the film back into the project where it had broken off, and then did something either very stupid, or very courageous. I turned the projector back on. The screen had been dark for maybe 5 minutes. I was thrilled.

I figured that as long as I could spin the film back onto the platter at a faster rate than the film was coming out of the projector, I would eventually catch up, and the people watching the movie would be none the wiser. Sounds simple enough, right?

It was brutal. The film coming off the floor would bend and twist and require some gentle guiding to get it back across the pulley and onto the platter, meanwhile, the projector kept churning out more. I kept spinning the platter by hand until, I re-spooled the original mess, and started into the new mess.

As I got closer and closer to completing the task, I realized that the film had become twisted a few times, and I could not finish reloading it without stopping the projector.

So I did. The projector ground to a halt, the house lights came up, and I heard the sound of people booing. Lovely.

As quickly as humanly possible, I cut the film, untwisted it, and sliced it back together. I spun the rest of the loose film onto the platter, checked to make sure everything was correct, and turned the projector back on. Time? Less than 2 minutes.

It was miraculous. There was absolutely no way imaginable that I should have been able to do what I did. It was quasi-super hero kinda stuff. Not only had I rescued the movie for all the people in the theater, I had rescued tons of money for the theater owners. I was proud of myself.

I glanced out the projectionist window to make everything looked good. As the house light went down, I saw two young men turn around and look at me…

…and flipped me the bird.

What? They were mad at me? After what I had just pulled off?

After the movie was over, I stood back as they exited the theater. One older man purposely walked over towards me and said, “Thanks for the intermission. Both of them,” and then went on his way.

Here I thought I should be nominated for an Oscar for Best Performance by a Projectionist. Instead of being the hero, I was the villain.

I thought to myself, these people have absolutely no idea what I just went through or how difficult it was for me, or even how amazing it was that I was able to do what I did.

The point of that long story was this: How often in life do I do that same thing to other people? How often am I oblivious to the personal victories that people around me are winning? How often are my judgmental reactions based on limited information (ignorance)?

An example from my family is found in the life of my older brother, Dave. Dave had some serious physical and mental challenges in his life, and the reality of what we should expect from him was not high. Somehow, with effort, determination, and a ferocious mother, he managed to graduate from High School. But he didn’t stop there: He served a mission to California.

Now I am sure that some of his companions struggled with him, and I am sure that some of them wished he was not even in the mission field, but I can’t help but believe that if those frustrated companions had even an inkling of what it took for Dave to get into mission field, they would be immediately humbled, and respectful.

We really don’t know what challenges each other faces. Even within the Church, where we “bear one another’s burdens,” we rarely know all the details and struggles that each of us endure.

• Some people battling depression achieve daily miracles just by getting out of bed in the morning.

• Some deeply emotionally scarred people work miracles simply by entering into relationships with other people.

• Some people with health issues achieve weekly miracles just by walking into the Church each Sunday.

• Some people who are weak in the faith perform miracles by striving to move forward in the Gospel.

Don’t even get me started about those who are valiantly battling addictions every day of their lives.

I guess the point is this: We don’t ever really know what is going on in that projection booth, or in the lives of others.

Now, this is not meant to be yet another “Don’t be Mr. McJudgy-pants,” because it’s not. It doesn’t have full application to slackers. Some people love “Don’t Judge” posts, because they feel it gives them an excuse for selective effort. An eternal truth is that half-hearted effort will be met with half-hearted mercy.

Case in point: Had I not done everything I possibly could to get that movie going, I would have understood, if not deserved, the snark and the insulting gestures, and probably deserved to lose my job. Understood.

If we offer to the Lord anything less than what He asks of us, we will deserve less that everything He offers us. What does He demand?

“Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that yeserve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day.” (D&C 4:2)

What is the operative word in that verse? “ALL.”  All your heart. All your might. All your mind. All your strength.

And what does He offer in return? That we might stand blameless before Him.

So please don’t misconstrue this plea to be careful in our judgment as some sort of blanket absolution for mediocrity. While we need to show grace when assessing others, we need to be focused on giving our all to find that grace for ourselves.

As we are sitting in Church today, we should look around ourselves. Who do we see? Do we really know them? Do we really know what they are struggling with in their hearts, and lives?

If the answer is no, perhaps we need to be quicker to love, and slower to judge.

 

 

 

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