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I applaud United Artists Theaters - their no pager policy. (1 Viewer)

Ted Lee

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hi all -
not sure if this is occuring elsewhere, but when i went to go see 'signs', right before the trailers started, an employee made an announcement.
essentially he stated that pagers and phones are not to be used in the theater. employees will come in and do spot-checks. whoever is caught will be asked to leave and their money refunded!
half the people in the theater applauded when he was done. i gave a very enthusiastic applaud myself. i almost gave him a standing ovation.
right on United Artists...it's the first step. i'll now give them preference when possible.
:emoji_thumbsup:
 

Vlad D

Screenwriter
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Oct 24, 2001
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Vladimir Derenoncourt
That is a great policy. I wish every theater chain adopts it. First thing I do when I sit down to watch a movie is to turn my phone off.
:emoji_thumbsup:
 

Jesse Skeen

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Apr 24, 1999
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Too bad their Market Square theatre only employs people who know absolutely NOTHING about what they're doing. I've NEVER seen a perfect presentation there. I even wrote to their corporate office complaining about the consistently bad presentation and one occasion where the bright janitor's lights were turned on during the end credits so they could start cleaning up! They sent me 4 passes, and the last time I went to see "Minority Report" the sound system was set to mono, so I went into "Men in Black" instead where the house lights stayed up a bit into the first few minutes of the movie then were manually turned down, then the janitor lights were AGAIN turned on during the end credits! I have 2 passes left and I'm not looking forward to using them- I'm thinking of just sending them back!
BTW I was the Booth Manager at the Regal Natomas 16 last year- I left because they wanted the masking on the common-width screens to move up for the advertising slides, essentially making the screen shrink for the feature presentation. I fixed a lot of things that were wrong with that theatre, I wonder if it's managed to fall apart again by now.
 

Michael Taylor

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Jan 9, 2000
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92
First thing I do when I sit down to watch a movie is to turn my phone off.
Just a question: Why don't you just leave it in the car? I mean, since you have the presence of mind to turn it off, I assume that you are also not going to call anyone on it either. Maybe you are worried that it may be stolen if you left it in your car? In that case, I can certainly see why you would keep it with you.
 

Vlad D

Screenwriter
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Oct 24, 2001
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Vladimir Derenoncourt
Why don't you just leave it in the car?
Usually when my wife and I go to the movies, we get there way early, buy our tickets, walk around, grab a bite, etc... So I like to have my phone with me just in case. And not wanting to walk back to the car before the movie to drop off my phone, keep it. But when I sit down for the movie I turn it off.
 

Ross Waite

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Dec 13, 1998
Messages
76
Just a note...

Some of us have medical pagers and are required to wear them even when we are "off duty". I simply "set phaser to stun" (silent page, or vibrate) when I am in a sound-sensitive environment.

I would be very unhappy if I were asked to leave because I was wearing a required (and silenced) pager.

That said, I certainly understand the policy.

-Ross
 

Dana Fillhart

Supporting Actor
Joined
Feb 8, 1999
Messages
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I just wish the theaters would coat/affix the interior with frequency-dampening material that just blocks out the signals. Technically that's NOT jamming -- just as you don't have a right to expect an underground system to accept signals, you should also expect the possibility that certain buildings just are designed to be non-conducive to cellular frequencies. To those that are on-call 24/7, you would know in advance because your signal would just drop out as if you were going into a tunnel, and you would adjust your lifestyle accordingly.

Gets around the existing jam-via-electronics illegalities.
 

Artur Meinild

Screenwriter
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Aug 10, 2000
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Danish cinemas have begun to run anti-mobile-phone info-mercials before movies. They start out as only a soundtrack coming from one of the side-surround speakers, and it's of course a mobile phone ringing! Then a person answers the phone, and starts some kind of really goofy conversation (regarding Brad Pitt's nice ass, or a new kitchen sink from the DIY store). Then suddenly a message appears on the screen: Turn OFF the cell phone during the presentation!
I tell you, everybody is fooled the first time they experience this, some people are always yelling at the speakers to turn the damned thing off, believing it's a real person answering their phone. Very effective! :)
 

Jason Seaver

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The funny thing I've noticed lately is that the various spots all seem to threaten physical violence against cell-phone use - GCC's booted the animated phone from a a large height, the "dolls" one electrocutes a cell-phone user, Loews's says "turn of your cell phones... or I'll slap you around". My favorite is still Loews' last one - "we will stop the movie. That is when chocolate covered raisins will be handed out" with a cute graphic of people scoring points for nailing cell users.
 

Mike Broadman

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I had a similar speech at a theater recently, but I don't remember which, so it may be other companies doing it also.
 

Robert Floto

Supporting Actor
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Jul 27, 1999
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I haven't heard any speeches about pagers and cellphones yet, but I do know of a couple of theatres that have made announcements that lazer-pointers will be confiscated...

I thought that was pretty cool. I actually threatened someone once who had one in a theatre auditorium...
 

Ted Lee

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May 8, 2001
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i don't have any problem at all with someone having their pager/cell phone in the auditorium. just set the freakin' thing to vibrate!

although i really really really like the idea of blocking signals into the theater, i don't think it'll work in the real-world. my ex and i used to carry the phone in because of the babysitter. obviously we would want to know if there was an emergency.

the obvious and rational thing to do when the phone goes off (in vibrate mode of course) is to excuse yourself, go outside and take the call.

anyway, i certainly hope more theaters start adopting this approach. if nothing else, it'll let fans like us know that they care.
 

clemente

Agent
Joined
Apr 3, 1999
Messages
35
I also like those PSA's that tell people not to drink and drive. But some idiot always does it....and in this case, some idiot always does it too. Commendable move, but I see it having little effect.
 

Chris Dugger

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jun 5, 1998
Messages
665
Please... Someone explain to me.....

People take pagers and cell phones in to theatres with NO respect for the others watching.....

What did moviegoers do BEFORE these inventions became commonplace???? Baby-sitters couldn't call... Doctors couldn't be paged.... People couldn't just gab on the phone for gab sake. Communication was cut off.

The world continued to turn.....

As an Operations Director for a theatre chain, this is the largest complaint we get... and it is getting worst. It's just PLAIN disrespect for the others in the theatre with you. PERIOD. Believe it or not, one of the main contributing factors to this behavior is the Home Theatre environment where everything is acceptable from phone calls to talking to putting your feet up on the coffee table.

Moviegoers are having to pay the price for those who feel that they MUST have communication with the outside world at all times.

We as an industry have looked into blocking calls inside our auditoriums.... This would solve the issue stat. Is the issue any different if you were in an area that you could not get calls???? Just because you're in a movie theatre shouldn't guarantee that your phone will receive a call, right?

The USA laws prohibit us from using jammers though. In fact, we as a country are the ONLY ones in the world that prohibit this.

Theatres in other countries have placed so called "jammers" in auditoriums.... and the complaint level has dropped 100%. In fact, when theatre owners were asked if they had received complaints from patrons not being ABLE to use a cell phone in a theatre, they responded that they have received zero complaints.

So, as you can see this approach has been a big plus for theatre goers outside the USA.

So... where do we go from here?????

Because this issue of "NO RESPECT" for those of us that have paid for a service but can't get it due to abuse of cell phone usage.... Laws are being worked on....

Currently in NEW YORK, lawmakers are looking into making it punishable via a fine for those cell phone users in public assembly areas such as theatres, concert halls, playhouses, churches, etc.

Seems a tad over the top, doesn't it? Because we as a people can't show proper respect for others, laws must be put into place.

Leave it to the public to abuse their freedom and infringe upon the rights of others, just to talk on the phone!

Dugger
 

Jeff Kleist

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Dec 4, 1999
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I just wish the theaters would coat/affix the interior with frequency-dampening material that just blocks out the signals. Technically that's NOT jamming -- just as you don't have a right to expect an underground system to accept signals
They can't do that. There are doctors, emergency workers and other people that are on call 24/7. However, all of those emergency pagers have a vibrate feature and if something beeps someone should expect to be ejected
 

Patrick Sun

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Jun 30, 1999
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If you are on 24 hour call, you simply need to make adjustments to the activities you can and can't do while on call. And one of them, IMHO, being turning off the ringers for any incoming pages/calls while in a theater (but you might as well just not attend a movie if you really need to be in touch 24 hours while on call). It's simple courtesy that many people do not extend to others because they don't think enough of the impact of interrupting the enjoyment of others inside a theater by cell phone rings or pager beep tones.

I think if someone were to pour a big fountain drink over the head of the person each time that person selfishly/inadvertenly keeps their cell phone ringer on and answers the damn call inside the theater while the film is playing, that cell phone owner would get the idea of what their inconsideration is doing to the rest of the theater patrons with their lack of cell phone etiquette.
 

Seth Paxton

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Nov 5, 1998
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Well, unfortunately I would say that the "on call" people are the ones who should be getting screwed by these abusers, not the rest of us.
The technology has given "on call" people the chance to do what they couldn't before, and that is go to movies (along with a lot of other places that pagers let you go). But we now see that the public cannot handle this tech responsibly, so I think the tech has to be "taken away", ie blocked.
I sympathize with responsible "on call" people. It's just a case of some bad apples ruining it for them. I don't think we should let these people hide behind the "on call" people though, so I say take it all away. It's the only solution that will truly work.
Then people on call can bitch about the abusers who ruined a little perk that had come with pager technology...being able to go to the movies while on call.
But we can't treat going to the movies while on call as a priviledge. That's why being on call is normally considered a downside to a job, because it does cause inconvenience. I'm all for any methods that make it less so, but not at the expense of everyone else. Again, I know those people use vibrate, but it should be the abusers ruining it for them (rather than ruining it for us).
 

Jeff Kleist

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Dec 4, 1999
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well, that's why I'm saying that if it beeps they should still be ejected, because they do have a vibrate function. However blocking the signals is not a good idea
 

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