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I've just suffered another frustration from ETS. Typically I confirm my print delivery with ETS' home office early in the week (Tuesday or Wednesday). I then have to reconfirm with the local Des Moines depot to see if the sucker actually left and is on its way. After these two stages we are generally 80% of the way home. On occasion (there have been four times so far in the year and a half I've been open) I will make both of the calls above and still I receive no print on Thursday. My frantic calls are met with something like, "I didn't get to it" or "the local carrier didn't come". Thus, I've wasted my Thursday morning waiting for a print to come that is still sitting in the depot. Now, I understand that mistakes happen and sometimes crazy stuff is going to happen, but this is ridiculous. If the local depot is too busy to get to my print, I'd be mad but what REALLY gets to me is that I could have been notified long before and gone to get the stupid print! I never get phone calls from them regardless of the circumstances.

Now, the orange case guys are a different story altogether. When I confirm with Technicolor there is a staff of people to call who ALL know what I need to know. They call ME when there is a problem and in plenty of time to do something about it. Mistakes happen there too but the lines of communication are always open with them.

Any suggestions on this predicament? I cringe when I have to call ETS and it is solid professionalism when I call Technicolor. Is this how YOU see things? Does anybody have the number of a bigwig at ETS that I can call and complain to?

Thanks much for any help you have.

Lee

It's funny that our experiences are just the opposite. I couldn't be happier with ETS and my driver versus the Technicolor messes I have encountered. I will say that Technicolor has improved over the last two years but I'm still glad they've lost several studios to ETS in that time period. But both of our troubles will disappear when we go digital don't you know.

What few problems we've had with ETS got fixed by making a couple of calls to the studios involved. ETS is really their problem, and they got things back on track pretty quickly.

I really didn't care much for Technicolor during the first few years. Over the past two years though, the service has really been pretty good.

I've had good and bad with both. What I like about ETS is I have gotten to know the guys there and they generally go outta there way to help me if there is a problem. TES has come a long way, baby. They used to be the reason I was thinking of heading to the roof with a high powered weapon and picking off all things orange. Recently, we got a print of ME AND YOU AND EVERYBODY WE KNOW that had a bad optical sound track (pulled off the last reel and ran it in another aud just to make sure). TES grilled my manager pretty well about whether it was our equipment or not ("Don't you have a DTS room you can move it to?"), but ended up sending the replacement print. Problem solved. The worse thing about TEC for me is you have to watch the billing. They have double charged me and charged me for deliveries of movies I'd never play ("I'm an art house. I don't play that crap!"). It gets a little old doing their bookkeeping for them, but they've come a long way from consistantly delivering two cans of reels one, two, and three.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, helvetica">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Avalon:
I've had good and bad with both. What I like about ETS is I have gotten to know the guys there and they generally go outta their way to help me if there is a problem. TES has come a long way, baby. They used to be the reason I was thinking of heading to the roof with a high powered weapon and picking off all things orange. Recently, we got a print of ME AND YOU AND EVERYBODY WE KNOW that had a bad optical sound track (pulled off the last reel and ran it in another aud just to make sure). TES grilled my manager pretty well about whether it was our equipment or not ("Don't you have a DTS room you can move it to?"), but ended up sending the replacement print. Problem solved. The worse thing about TEC for me is you have to watch the billing. They have double charged me and charged me for deliveries of movies I'd never play ("I'm an art house. I don't play that crap!"). It gets a little old doing their bookkeeping for them, but they've come a long way from consistantly delivering two cans of reels one, two, and three.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Avalon must've liked what he heard

You ought to see what happens when you run out of delivery help from either ETS or tech and now prints are delivering to the daily newspaper delivery guys and the guy who drives the route seems like he was an abused child with terminal anger issues and he enjoys leaving your print on the floor whenever he feels like it. It makes you appreciate a "real" service even when they screw up.

---

Michael Hurley
Impresario

I hate it when I repeat myself. I say again, I hate it when...Not to be redundant, but I hate it when.... (one of these days I will know the difference between the edit and quote icon. Went a long way to change a "there" to a "their.")

I prefer orange. Their reels are now mostly all new. It costs the same no matter how they are packaged; one, two, three cans or one box or whatever (oh yeah, they don't do those 200# boxes!). I know the movie will be here on time. They come and pick up inside my theatre using their key. It is hassle free.

Gray shipping is time-intensive. First call is to make sure the depot has the booking and my print is ready. Second call to shipper. Often times there is a third call to find out where the print is and when it will be here. Once the print arrives there are usually surprises inside. Broken reels are common. Forgotten dts disks occur occasionally, but they do get them here on-time if I realize it by Thursday.

My only suggestion for you would be to skip the call to the home office and only call the depot where your prints actually are shipped from. The guys in my depot are friendly and helpful and know what is going on.

Maybe you should examine your courier options.

[This message has been edited by BurneyFalls (edited August 11, 2005).]

thanks burney, I've come to that realization, too. I think I'll just deal with the depot directly. The orange guys always answer the phone, though, and the gray ones do only when it suits them.....

Oh delivery what a thing but not usually any trouble until it is coming off a screen and routing to the theater. If we play day and date we have only had trouble 2 times in 6+ years if comes from a depot and not direct from a theater no trouble. From another theater well excuse me "what time did you say your first show was 'supose' to be?" There have been 3 occassion where it was bulit up with minutes to spare, 6 or 7 times when we missed the 4:00 and got it on screen on the 7 and at least 2 times it started on saturday with no friday shows at all! It doesn't seem to matter if it is technicolor or ets on that!



[This message has been edited by RonOne50 (edited August 17, 2005).]

Darn it I thought I put the correction in but I guess not!