Paul's Last Day at the Neptune

Paul was the projectionist a few weeks into the run of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on a Saturday night. For some reason the RHPS was left on 5 twenty minute rolls, requiring frequent changeovers and introducing sequence errors as a possibility.

Paul and a couple of friends headed up to the booth, and after a couple of minute Paul came back down and got 3 beers. I went out and started selling the house out and as the first reel started up Paul nipped back down stairs and grabbed another 3 beers, heading back up to the projectionist booth up the ramps and through the dark balcony.

As I came and finished counting up, maybe 20 minutes into the film, I heard the crowd going wild. The wrong scene had started: Paul put on reel 3, not reel 2, and instead of the opening notes of the time warp as Brad and Janet kick the tires and head over to the castle (castle?) we had Frank staring into the camera in full bustier mode, "what may be the rain..."

Paul later told me he couldn't figure out the ruckus for a moment - focus was tight, frame was good, sound is OK - then Rosie came running in and said "you put on the wrong reel, you skipped the time warp!"

Oops. Rule number 1: take care of yourself. Paul turned off the motor on the projector that had the wrong reel and headed over to lock the door so that the freaks didn't break in. As luck would have it, the reel was on the projector that didn't have a working fire shutter. As the motor slowed down and Paul forgot to switch away from the projector the frame rate dropped then stopped as the sound did a similar "so I'lllll brrrbrbrbrbrb" and there's Frank, in hus bustier, motionless, and the sound stops except that it doesn't, the crowd takes over, screaming and yelling. That's not nearly enough - see that haze forming?

Now Frank's chest is turning dark and the smoke is flowing down - that's how you know it's really happening to the film since it's upside down and backwards, then it actually catches fire a little, with flickers and ash and the frame breaks, leaving a little star shaped flaw right in the middle of the frame, in the middle of Frank. It keeps getting louder, past reasonable levels and into the walls shaking and things falling off of tables mode.


Paul finally notices, or maybe he just gets lucky when he realizes he needs to take the film off the projector and put the correct reel on. He switches it off and after another 5 minutes or so gets the film going again.

I also found out later that the couple up in the booth with Paul weren't drinking. Ah, that explained some of the difficulties. When the show was finally over and the crowd had mostly trickled out Paul came down, not just unapologetic but actively hostile, upset and yelling at the manager before he could even open his mouth. I'm pretty sure it effectively counted as his resignation.

I couldn't help noticing that 1 frame flaw each and every time I saw Frank's big pay-off - working as a projectionist trains you to see 1/24 second frames. I'd try to point it out to everyone, it and the story behind it were a wonderful bit of Neptune color.

We eventually got a new print after 3+ years, which was pretty cool, but losing the perforated frame was kind of sad, like losing track of an old friend.