Thursday 15 September 2011

You Met Me at A Very Strange Time in My Life.

Hello Blog,

I've mentioned that I work in a cinema as a projectionist, and I want to talk a little about that. There's only so much I can say in this age where your boss can catch you calling him a penis online, so I'll try and keep it neutral.

The first question I usually get asked is “So do you just sit around watching films all day?”
The answer, obviously, is “Of course I fucking don't, who would pay someone for that?”
Usually I just say yes to avoid the conversation.

The truth is that I do occasionally get to watch a movie at work, under the pretext of checking it for faults. This is less necessary with digital than it was with 35mm film, but there could be corruption or various other types of faults with a digital copy.
Rarely, however, do I have time, will or a free projector to preview films.
There is a perception that because a lot of what I used to do with film is now automated, I am apparently free to have every monkey job that the corporate department can dream up shat onto my lap. (Keep it neutral, keep it neutral.)
A good 70% of movies that come through our cinema are awful anyway. It makes sense really, we are a business and romantic comedies, unchallenging horror movies that go “boo!” every 20 minutes and CGI cartoons with talking animals are our bread and butter. That doesn't mean I don't inwardly weep when we pass over a Studio Ghibli movie or some quirky Norwegian horror flick for some flaccid effort with Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher.

All this means that I probably don't see any more movies at the cinema than anyone else. I suppose I could come in early or stay late to do them, but I spend enough time in that gloomy room with my only my girls (the projectors) for company.

The second question, almost without fail, is “Have you ever spliced a frame of porn into a children's movie?”
The correct answer is “Woo! Fight Club joke! You never hear those as a projectionist! I want to hit you as hard as I can.”

Seriously though, where would I even get frames of 35mm porn? If I actually did manage to find some on obsolete-format-smuthut.com, I would almost certainly get caught, sued, arrested, then worshipped on 4chan. Nobody wants to be worshipped on 4chan. Still, I do have the relevant skills and equipment and I'm sure it would elicit at least one giggle. Or a lul, if you prefer.

By the way, if the preceding URL works, don't click it.

NR

2 comments:

  1. I don't think the parenthesized "(Keep it neutral, keep it neutral.)" done that way as a separate sentence is correct, but I'm not too sure what is in that case.

    FWIW obsolete-format-smuthut.com does not exist, which I feel is a shame.

    I wonder if splicing frames of children's cartoons into porn would give people a feeling of discomfort as they watched it, but not be sure why. I suspect I'm not the first one to have had that thought.

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  2. Yeah, I couldn't remember which way it's supposed to go, and Laura insisted it's that way. I'm prepared to bow to her wisdom, as in most things.

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