Odd Jobs: Keeping movie on track is Groundhog Day experience for projectionist

I’ve daydreamed at times about how cool it would be having a different job, one that paid you to sample chocolate or watch movies. Having the opportunity to work at Ragtag Cinemacafé, Columbia’s community art house, was a daydream come true.

Robin, a bartender, opens the door. Uprise Bakery is the parent company of the downtown café, which serves snacks, soups, sandwiches, wine and beer. Employees receive half price on café items, free movies, and discounts at Uprise Bakery. Sarah Bantz, Ragtag’s hip and easygoing manager gives me the tour.

She’s preparing for the first show. In the time she’s worked for Ragtag, this is her first experience running the projector. She lays out the manual, trying to figure out why there is sound but no picture. I should mention I’m a bit of a technophobe. I’ll be working the projector later with Jon Westhoff. I thought I’d be flipping a switch, watching a movie, and rewinding. As always, things are more complicated.

Sarah instructs me on selling tickets. Regular tickets are $6. Prime-time tickets are $7. Regular’s Club members pay $4. Pre-paid punch passes let a patron view 10 shows for $50. I think I’ve got it. The policy for the first show, however, is to use a sliding scale, allowing tickets to be bought at the price the purchaser can afford. I record ticket sales, erase, make another guess, erase, and ask for the breakdown again.

Ragtag, at 23 N. Tenth Street, employs three projectionists, four bartenders, one graphic designer, one booker, and one manager. On average the employees make between $8 and $10 per hour. Bartenders make less but get tips.

When Jon arrives, our first order of business is to build Little Miss Sunshine for the 1:30 p.m.show. Normally, the Ragtag has four shows on a Saturday, but today it has six. We have to work fast. No pressure.

Most movies arrive on five or six individual reels. There are two basic types of projectors — reel-to-reel and the platter system. Each reel comes with a header and tail section of film attached, which allows it to be loaded simultaneously onto a platter system with no interruption. At Ragtag the projector is reel-to-reel, so each header except the first must be removed. Each section is spliced together, preserving one tail for the end. Jon shows me how to set and tape the sections using the splicer, adding previews as we go. Because Ragtag has only one projector, the reels are switched during an intermission.

At showtime, I scurry down the ladder from the projection booth and run to the lobby to tear tickets. Jon continues to load and splice. We finish while the first half of the movie is running.
Twice for each show the film is threaded through a series of gears on either side of a picture head and a sound head. Each requires just the right amount of tension. After watching Jon several times, he thinks I’m ready to give it a try. He checks my work — not bad.

I cut the lights, turn on the projector, open the shutter and start the sound. I can do this I think. Next time I’ll do it solo.

Jon is in really good shape. Naturally, I chalk this up to him being young and healthy. Trying to lift the 30-pound reel over my head and load it onto a pencil-thin spoke in dim light, I realize it’s due partly to his job. I attempt to load the reel six times before I succeed. My biceps ache and my deltoids quiver.

After intermission I again grunt, groan and sweat aiming for the spoke. Loaded, I thread the machine and start the movie. As the movie plays the bottom reel spews film all over the floor. Jon stops the film. The audience, sitting in the dark, waits. Minutes feel like hours. He unwinds the bottom reel, corrects my mistake and quickly restarts the film. I grimace.

Jon, a five-year veteran, reassures me that when he started he messed up, too. “The thing to do is not panic, just fix it really fast,” he says.

We cut more tickets, and help John G., the night shift bartender. At day’s end, we call the sales into a tracking company. When the last patron leaves we rewind the movie for the next viewing, shut down the projector, stock the front, clean the bathroom and change the marquee. It’s half past midnight. If pitching the day as a movie, it would be Groundhog Day meets Little Miss Sunshine. I’ve seen the same four or five sections of the movie over and over again, without seeing the whole show.

There goes the daydream. I’m looking forward to paying my $6, sitting in the dark and watching the movie in its entirety like everyone else.