Projectionists Meeting @ 2006-10-16 18:00:00
Present: Ian, James M, Andrew, Greg, Amanda, Matt, Tim, Tom, Nick, Maria, Aiden, Martin.
Rotas; The rotas are now covered until next week. Names were taken for those interested in Projecting Indiana Jones.
Training: There was some feedback on the training in pairs. The earlier pair – Ed and Tom seemed to work well together, but with Jeffrey and Will, they ended up splitting out. Nick will train Liz and Vicky on Wednesday as a pair, and we can decide what to do then. Tom is the only projectionist around to train next weekend, if we contact more trainees.
Proj standards: Projection standards at the start of this term have been poor. While we cannot help some of the technical problems, smaller presentation related problems are a result of poor ‘best practise’. There was some discussion on how to resolve this. One of the suggestions was a checklist on the wall to ensure projectionists check and double check. It was agreed that it is important for a projectionist to spend most of the show by the projector and watching the film (vs being at the other end of the proj box). If this means ads/trailer changes will need doing after the film, this is still better than having poor presentation because the projectionist is not watching the film.
We agreed the following is best practise:
Remain by the projectors for AT LEAST five minutes after a changeover, to ensure racking and focus etc.
Lacing should be triple checked completely from top to bottom before change over.
(Greg has since directed me to a wiki being currently developed by the IT team: http://wiki.filmsoc.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/ImprovingPresentation - please feel free to add to this page anything you think is suitable)
One of the most important things about this is that trainees need to be taught this best practise and have it emphasised to them. Aiden said that although it was implied, it was never clearly stated. This means that the amount of time trainees spend away from the projectors during shows should be minimised – ie, we must not pull them away to look at other things. This may cause problems in terms of teaching sound path, power etc, but this can be done in the additional training sessions.
It was then discussed how we would evaluate shows. Rachel suggested that we use FoH staff to evaluate performance, but many felt that they wouldn’t be able to articulate what was wrong, if there was anything, and so their input would be damaging. It was agreed that (since there often is) when a projectionists is watching the show, they should pay particular attention to presentation.
Group feedback: After much discussion, including suggestions of everyone emailing a show report to chiefproj, or bringing the making up book to meetings, it was decided that we should invite all projectionists who projected in the previous week to give a brief report, outlining any problems and how they were dealt with. This will also give us time to discuss different ways of solving different problems. Ian asked whether this would also happen when trainees were present, and it was decided that they should be, as they will need to get used to the process, and also our aim is not to be critical, but constructive.
Rachel then asked if there was anything to be fed back to the executive:
It was requested that meetings be announced separately from other membership emails, with as much complete information as possible – time, date, place and agenda. It was also requested that as well as being sent membership emails, they are sent to the email listings (Proj, DM, etc) as some people do not receive membership emails.
Ian then commented that projectionists were no longer able to see the contact details page. It was agreed that it was necessary for projectionists to have access to the contact details of at least the Trainee Projectionists and the DM’s. Rachel, Martin and James are to look into this.