We may be interested in parts!

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Originally posted by Stephen Winner:
We may be interested in parts!

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We have a fair amount of extra parts but none that we're ready to part with or that would probably be worth-while to you. We have one spare Super Simplex pedistal and two Peerless lamphouses, one fitted for carbon-arc and the other fitted for xenon. We also have complete sets of 2000' and 6000' reel cartridges for both projectors and a cool 2000' wall mount power rewinder.

We also have an old SuperPlatter but I may take that if I ever build a home theater even though it's a very evil machine. One of the more interesting items we found are 10 boxes of unopened Polaroid polorized 3D glasses from the 1950s. They look pretty cool!

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Not so fast their Colin...next we have to work on getting that second projector put (back) in....then you could take the SPECO for your home theatre! ;-)

Steve

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It would be great to get the extra projector running but it's missing one key element, the film head. It was gone by the time we got to the theater and may have been sold when they put in the SuperPlatter in the 70s. I'd love to have the Speco at home I think the plan now is to setup the projector with one of the Peerless lamphouses (probably the carbon-arc one) and a junk film head someone is giving us as a display item in the lobby.

Stephen Winner,

The Lyric is still an art house but we're not first run. We usually get them about a month after the inital release. The Grandin Theater in Roanoke (about 30 miles away) is a first run art house but we have a pretty dedicated clientel and they are willing to wait until we get the print. I'd like to be able to go back to changeovers but we've always just had one projector and a platter (sounds like a sitcom) and never had the option not to use it. Building up and breaking down the movie isn't too bad since it's usually only 1 film every week. We run a movie 11 times during that week so for me using the platter makes sense. It would just be more fun to run changeovers if we could.

The missing second head isn't such a big deal...Simplex XL heads can be had new and used.

I think the real issue is financial resources and priorities...as in how much is available and where does those in charge want it to go.

Each circumstance is different and one has to make the most of what they have. I have seen some that will put in a platter with the intention of pulling it later for the 2nd projector just so they could get over the financial hump of getting the theatre on-line (after all, the platter, like most projection equipment is ultimately saleable in the future). In other situations I have seen the second machine go in on the onset but the cut back was in the sound where they started with just mono (Dolby Mono with SR) and as money grew so did the sound system. Then there are some, and I will never understand it, just want the platter. While others (and it happened recently) took over a theatre and yanked the platter on inspection and put in the 2nd machine with priority above almost all else (God, I love those people)!

Sorry to ramble, I just love the 2-projector show.

Steve

The theatre looks amazing. How much did it cost to fully restore the theatre? Just being curious. I work in a pretty old theatre that uses old equipment. Were there pictures to compare to fir the renovation? Are there any pictures of old theatre set-ups available for reference in such cases.

Again, the the theatre looks awsome.

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Originally posted by Richard Quesnelle:
How much did it cost to fully restore the theatre? Just being curious. I work in a pretty old theatre that uses old equipment. Were there pictures to compare to fir the renovation? Are there any pictures of old theatre set-ups available for reference in such cases.

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I think the current cost of construction is right around $620,000 but there's still more to be done like the marquee and some interior detail work. It seems like a reasonable price to me considering all the work that was done.

Luckily all of the original architectural plans from 1930 were in the archives at Virginia Tech's library. They were very detailed and helped a lot in restoring the theater. There were a few pictures of the theater's exterior, but we could never find any of the interior and the plans didn't specify what the paint colors should be. We have an interior designer on board and he picked out the paint colors. We also found a piece of the original lobby carpet up under the balcony and based the new carpet pattern on that. One of the originial auditorium wall lanterns and some of the lobby doors were found in someone's basement and we used those to reproduce the ones in use in the theater.