As an aside, I was so happy when I learned the “insider knowledge” about reel change marks in the movie. I started seeing them even on TV showings. And I could tell when the projectionist was slow, and noticed that there was always extra film after the marks of nothing happening, just in case.
Now that’s all gone! 
No waste of time–perhaps you missed the point of what I did: I could leave the building at 12AM with machines all threaded for the morning guy.
If I just turned off the bulb and left it running, it wouldn’t end until 12:30, so I couldn’t leave early.
Not sure what “cut and drop” is, but we did what I described just above your post: shut it off, unthread, pull the inch or so of already-shown film off of the center ring, coiled it up a bit, and plopped it back into the center of the original platter. It never fit neatly, but was good enough for the task.
It’s doing this but by cutting the film and then re-splicing it so you’re only touching the frames around the splice instead of getting fingerprints everywhere trying to re-roll the 25 feet of film between the two platters back onto the ring.
At least digital solved the problem of bad sync, where the frame is split on screen. I had that happen, and the debate is, do you suffer, but follow along and hope it gets better, or do you take the time to go out, find someone, and get them to fix it, and risk missing something important?
And I was going to theaters that would dim their bulbs during shows. “Why is it so dark there?” (In space, no one can see your screen.) I complained, wasting my time and theirs, because yes, they did not remain in business long.
eta: individual reel showings. I went to a college-showing of Robocop, and when they got to the part where Emil falls into the toxic waste and gets splattered by the truck, the projectionist rewound just that part and we all got to see it again. Everyone cheered.
I remember being a kid and sometimes the screen would get blurry and everyone would yell “focus” to get the projectionist to fix it.
In the multireel days you’d see a quick spot show up in the upper right corner which was the cue for a reel switch coming soon.
At least in my booth (and most) that would go unheard. The windows were soundproof, both to keep the clatter of the projector from invading the theater, and to keep the projectionist sane without having to hear the babble of 8 different films.
I could open the window, and often did so to check real sound level.
Out of frame? That’s an unpardonable sin! Go straight to the nearest usher and tell them.
It would often happen not because of laziness at startup (projectionists line up the frame before starting), but because someone made a bad splice in the heat of the moment.
Standard 35mm film is “4-perf” meaning four perforations per frame, so that means that when you splice a broken film, if you aren’t careful, you can splice it with a short frame. Then the film will get a third of the way through, hit your bad splice, and go out of frame. That’s no good.
This was in the 70s before multiplexes were common. When it happened the focus would quickly get fixed. Was the film getting completely blurred out even a thing in your days?
Not really. The Century projectors we used were tanks, and once focus was set, as long as you didn’t bump the focus knob, it was good for weeks at a time, though we would dial it in at startup just in case.
The one time I had a problem was when the knurled grub screw that held the Cinemascope lens in the turret was slightly loose, so with each showing as the turret rotated the lens in place the lens would work itself slightly further out of its holder. That got to the point where we hit the end of travel of the focus knob, then we had to dig in and figure out what was happening.
Reminds me: I was a someone’s house circa 1982 for a showing of their own 16mm print of 2001. Without an anamorphic lens! That was…interesting. Not good, but ..interesting. I would have left, but it was only the second time I’d seen the film (and the first time in color)
Yes. The one projection room I visited had both platters on a truck, one above the other. It was a 25 theater complex, H shaped with the lobby and snack bar in the cross bar and theaters in both legs. The H was duplicated upstairs and the whole was carpeted so pushing the trucks about wouldn’t rumble. There were several work stations where an incoming film would be spliced together and then broken apart when it was time to leave.
There were still two projectors per theater in case of breakdown. At least some of the adjacent theaters had a system of rollers overhead so the film could be carried to the other theater if they wanted to interlock – show the film in more theaters than they had prints. IIRC everything was automated so the start time could be set. The house lights dimmed and show started by itself.
I’m sure the industry has changed, but this was around 1986 or 1987.
I know things have changed, which is why I wondered about current practice.