Inside a Megaplex

[DaveEllis]

The entrance, when you first walk in



My certificate




Indian movies, denote the burlap thing they come in.



More indian movies, 23 prints in total



Cans of the current normal movies we have. Denote the sturdy metal cans



More cans/box mixes




Parts/various amc film stock



Parts and a board, and you can see the hotsauce bin



A wall with all the trailers



View down the entire wing, projectors 1-6. Those long wood boxes are spare screens.



Projectors 7-13

I'm planning on getting more/better pictures, tonight went to hell at some parts so.

[RingOfScale]

wow, thats pretty awsome to see the inner workings. So the trailors are actually seperate bits of film you have to run through ? I just assuming you wuold put in one big thing and let it run ... in fact, I didnt even know anyone was sitting there doing this stuff manually ... i assumed it was all computer run by now ...

Is it anywhere close to becoming 100 percent computer/machine run ?

[Halliday]

Neat to see the back room. I once went on a NBC building tour in NYC. I saw a robot arm that would scan a room, pull off a tape and put it into the VCR. Kind of funnyto think of tv shows as just tapes being played off some central VCR. Your backroom shots remind me of that, the mundan-ness of "Hollywood."

[DaveEllis]

wow, thats pretty awsome to see the inner workings. So the trailors are actually seperate bits of film you have to run through ? I just assuming you wuold put in one big thing and let it run ... in fact, I didnt even know anyone was sitting there doing this stuff manually ... i assumed it was all computer run by now ...

Is it anywhere close to becoming 100 percent computer/machine run ?

Well it is all one bit pretty much. I'll try and put it in order of how it goes (From the inside, outwards)

Leader Tape, this is what you thread at first through the projector, then you have the AMC Stuff (Exit Doors, then Coming Soon) then all the trailers, and finally the movie itself. It is all one big thing, we just get FedEx deliveries from companies with trailers, then those trailers go to a movie.

Alot of the stuff is automated, the computer knows when the projector is supposed to start and run till, and when the digital slides are supposed to begin. It also knows the lens types and automatically dims the lights, etc.

For digital movies, the movie is pretty much just downloaded then played through a big slide projector, digital is a tad less quality than normal film. Theatres just advertise digital because its a new age word that people like to hear.

And I enjoy the mundaneness Hall, its much better than working downstairs with all the people.

[Hexis]

Some digital projectors may have less quality than film, but not all. I know Runco was showing off some DCP series projectors that had better resolution, color space, and contrast than film. That was a few years ago at CEDIA. Digital also has the advantage of not getting scratched/marred as it's used. As long as the optics are clean the presentation should be the same now or in years down the road.

[nt2004]

Whoa I live in chicago and work at an AMC too. Where do you work exactly?

[DaveEllis]

Whoa I live in chicago and work at an AMC too. Where do you work exactly?

Do you work at cantera?

[nt2004]

yeah cantera 30 in warrenville, what about you?

[DaveEllis]

One of your OC's Liz, she has nice big jugs.



You also have one of our managers Sheila, I'm a lead at South Barrington.

[nt2004]

One of your OC's Liz, she has nice big jugs.



You also have one of our managers Sheila, I'm a lead at South Barrington.

haha yeah, liz trained me. You're lucky, you get to work booth