A Few Simple Moviegoing Tips
I worked in movie theatres for years. Not as long as Dan has, but it was my college job and I managed several theatres in San Francisco. It was the dying last days of single-screen theatres in the City, and they were each treasures: the Egyptian-styled Alexandria 3, The Réne Lalíque-inspired Metro, the postwar Moderne Coronet, the stack of phone booths that was the Galaxy 4. All closed. Oddly, the first theatre I ever managed was the Vogue, a tiny 220-seater in Pacific Heights originally built in 1919, and it’s still open.
Through that experience, and keeping up the moviegoing habit ever since, I have accumulated a few nuggets of wisdom to impart.
1. There is a prime window as to when to arrive at the theatre of your choice, and it doesn’t really matter if you’re seeing a blockbuster or a quiet midweek indie screening: thirty minutes early. If it’s a busy night, that’ll give you just enough time to pick up tickets and find one of the last decent seats in the house. If you purchase tickets online, you can shave it down to twenty minutes.
2. Where is the best seat in the house? This is where it helps you to have a blogger who used to work at Dolby Labs. If you don’t factor in convenience (being on an aisle or just behind the crosswalk aisle) The best seat is where the audio system was tuned. Dolby Digital and THX cinemas are aligned by a technician who places a microphone in one certain spot in the theatre. The techie then runs test tones and audio sweeps through the sound system and sets equal audio pressure and equalization for all speakers. The “sweet spot” is a point at the center of the auditorium which subtends a 45-degree angle to each side of the screen in it’s widest setting. If you fold a piece of paper diagonally you can hold it up your eye and find the right place.
3. If there is a technical problem during your screening– like the film breaking, jumping out of frame or focus or losing digital audio (the sound goes all flat and muffled) don’t just sit there an yell “FOCUS!” or “FIX IT!” Very few cinemas have manned projection booths– It’s all automated. You’ll be yelling at nobody and you’ll embarrass your date. Get up and find a theatre employee in the lobby.
(Sometimes this does not work as well as it sounds. When I first saw The Matrix the film broke during the trailers. it caused the houselights to come half-way up. People in the packed house started chatting amongst themselves. after five minutes or so I noticed nobody was getting up, so I had to do it. The lobby was empty. I tried to explain to a candy-slinger what the problem was and she had a rather hard time understanding me. “The movie is over?” “No, the film is broken. Get someone to fix it!” “What’s the problem again?”)
4. If the film experience wasn’t acceptable, don’t hesitate to complain. Don’t be a dick about it or anything: If you tell the Assistant Manager about the yakking patrons or ground hum in the audio in a pleasant, informative tone you’ll probably get some free passes out of the deal. Don’t forget: Cinema employees, particularly Assistant Managers, are bigger film geeks than you are and they really care about this stuff.
5. About those yakking or cellphone addicted fellow moviegoers: size up your targets carefully. Some teenagers can be yelled at directly: Others may have objections to your objections and may express them in unwelcome ways. I’ve seen it: it’s ugly. Get the ushers involved: they love putting flashlight in the eyes of bad patrons and have the testosterone to back it up. A good way to get people to stop text-messaging (which is quiet but puts off a lot of distracting light) is, as indirectly as possible, intone “Put the toy away!” That tends to hit kids where they live.
I’ll bet Dan can think up a few more tips.
–Skot C.
August 18th, 2007 at 1:09 am
This is a great post! I recently wrote a similar one and I will include this in a follow up post to my previous one! You are dead on with your list here.
August 18th, 2007 at 2:21 am
“I bet Dan can think up a few more tips…” comment bait, eh?
Sneaking food in: just be discrete. Tuck it into your pocket or purse and be prepared to throw it out if you get called on it. Understand that the subset of employees who care if you’ve got baggie full of popcorn is limited to the manager who gets commission on concession sales, and the few employees who are trying to kiss up to him.
Never be afraid to ask for your ticket money back. Like the short cappucino at Starbucks, refunds just because you don’t like the show is an unadvertised but available feature.
If you are complaining about the sound or projection, your best bet is the tallest employee. Often these people are promoted faster, because society just naturally gives taller people more authority. If that doesn’t work, try the most attractive employee. If there’s only one employee in the lobby, it usually means the attractive or tall employees are having sex in the stockroom.
I’ve said this before but if a movie is released in January or early May or September, the chances of it being something you will like are way, way low. These months are low-attendance months, because people have other stuff to do. The studio has already released the big guns (or in May’s case, is saving them up) so caveat emptor. Maybe you should consider renting something instead.
August 18th, 2007 at 7:26 am
“‘I bet Dan can think up a few more tips…’ comment bait, eh?” –Not at all. Well maybe. My primary motivation was to bow to your deeper and more recent theatre management experiences. remember, Larry Levin chucked me out of the Alex in 1992. Much has changed.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:47 am
I second Dan’s comment about discretely sneaking food in, and I would add that it’s never a bad idea to grease the doorman’s palm. A couple of bucks will help the employee look the other way. Hell, $20 and they’ll probably have a pizza delivered to your seat. Just don’t put down the employees or be condescending… that always backfires.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:34 am
In my career I have refused a $50 gratuity from people who were trying to get into a show that had already started. To this day, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:04 am
Whoa. A bunch of gay guys once offered me $200 for a special private midnight screening of PARIS IS BURNING when I managing the Metro. I gladly agreed and even patiently waited in the lobby ’til it was over.
Speaking of the Metro, I observed a maddening inverse proportional formula about bringing outside food into the theatre. The Metro was in one of the richest nabes in SF, and when people were stopped in their attempt to sneak in pizza and Chinese they would stand and argue about it forever, as if they had the right to do whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. Well-off patrons would rather verbally harass the $225/week manager than make with the dough and not miss the trailers. Actively soliciting bribes only made them more righteous.
At the Alexandria 3, in the crummiest part of the Richmond district, people would bring in bags of food, slip me a fiver and go on their way unmolested.
August 25th, 2007 at 10:03 am
[...] In todays show: The Emmy people struggle to determine how many producers are really producers… Reality show gets reality check… and in this week’s commentary; Skot tells you how to watch a movie. All this and America relives its awkward teen years, today on Box Office Weekly. [...]