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Author Topic: Projection room vs Bio box Gracia L. Babbidge Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 709 From: Bowdoin, Maine Registered: Aug 2000 posted 02-24-2004 11:11 AM                        I liked to refer to myself as working in the 'dungeon upstairs'.  |  IP: Logged Gary Crawford Expert Film Handler Posts: 200 From: Neptune NJ USA Registered: Nov 2003 posted 02-24-2004 01:10 PM                     When I started in the early 1970s they all were called "booths" no matter now big or small they were. One old former stage house had a six-sided cube of transite (hard asbestos panels) installed in what used to be an attic. That was also a "booth." Projection "room" seems to have come into being when the first multis were built, at least around here. It actually was a room as opposed to after-thought hanging metal boxes or rebuilt attics and upper balconies. Around here we simply call the projectors "machines". Thread up #1 machine, trim the lamp in #2 machine, etc. Other things we used to have were simply "spots", "FX", "Slide", etc. and with numbers (starting with the left side machine as seen from the back of them). Not very creative but we all knew what machine was being referred to. One of our guys claimed that a "booth" was accessed by a ladder and a "room" via a real staircase. Makes sense I guess. My little concrete "booth" is lovingly referred to as "Gary's Little Cage." My own escape from the world, no one wants to climb that ladder. Fine with me.  |  IP: Logged Matthew Bailey Master Film Handler Posts: 461 From: Port Arthur,TX Registered: Sep 2000 posted 02-24-2004 06:31 PM                     For simplicity & shortness of text should a projector head be called an image head?  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-24-2004 06:34 PM                     Moving Picture Machine is the correct term. Mark  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-24-2004 06:51 PM                     The Paramount Publix Theatres Corporation employee book of 1926, refers to the booth as Kinobooth.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-25-2004 12:01 AM                        I've seen 'room' & 'booth' in blueprints, & 'biograph box' sometimes, mostly in 'teens -era literature. It's a booth in the Capitol/Metropolitan/Wang's 1st mezz plan (1925).  |  IP: Logged Gary Crawford Expert Film Handler Posts: 200 From: Neptune NJ USA Registered: Nov 2003 posted 02-25-2004 02:42 PM                     If have a manual from the 1920s from the Chicago Fire Dept (who was by far the toughest when it came to fire regulations for theaters in those days) and they refer to "film handling rooms". I believe this is a blanket term though, for anywhere film might be kept, including distribution warehouses and the like.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-26-2004 01:17 AM                        F.H. Richardson, _Motion Picture Handbook for Managers & Operators_, NY, 1910. F. H. Richardson wrote the Operators Column for the main US exhibition periodical Moving Picture World for many years.  |  IP: Logged David Kilderry Master Film Handler Posts: 355 From: Melbourne Australia Registered: Sep 1999 posted 02-26-2004 06:57 AM                        Yep, here in Australia it is mostly referred to as either the bio box or projection room, I use both terms. The Cinematograph Operators Board, who presided over the former projection licence here in the state of Victoria, Australia, referred to it as the "biograph cabin" in some literature. As Hugh and others point out, one explanation from my own research has indeed been where the biograph equipment was housed. Another explanation I have come across, was that many early live houses ran film as just another entertainment during a burlesque or vaudeville show, in this instance the "life" or "bio" came from the box at the rear instead of the stage. Hence bio box. David  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-26-2004 08:18 AM                        Does the "booth" or "box" designation apply only to the room with the projectors or also to adjacent rooms with related equipment? It seems pretty common in older houses for there to be a large room with at least two film projectors and maybe a slide projector (Brenograph) and/or followspot, as well as a separate rewind/film storage room and a third room for rectifiers/generators and dimmer rheostats (sometimes located underneath the room with the projectors). Apparently some localities required these separate rooms and others didn't. In Massachusetts, it is (and, presumably, was) legal to have rheostats in the same room as the projectors. This probably wasn't true in other areas.  |  IP: Logged Hugh McCullough Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Old Coulsdon, Surrey, UK Registered: Jan 2003 posted 02-26-2004 10:39 AM                        In the UK it was common to use the term "Projection Suite". This comprised of the projection box, rewind room. rectifier room, dimmer room, workshop, non-sync room, and other ancillary rooms etc. If we were lucky it also had a rest room for the projectionists to, as the regulations put it, "Partake of light refreshment".  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 02-26-2004 07:24 PM                       quote: "Partake of light refreshment". I love the genteel way Britians say things. I'm sure living there would agree with me tremendously. I could live out my days in utter happiness.  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2004 12:23 AM                        quote: Does the "booth" or "box" designation apply only to the room with the projectors or also to adjacent rooms with related equipment? It seems pretty common in older houses for there to be a large room with at least two film projectors and maybe a slide projector (Brenograph) and/or followspot, as well as a separate rewind/film storage room and a third room for rectifiers/generators and dimmer rheostats (sometimes located underneath the room with the projectors). In the 19teens it was typical for the whole mess to be in the one fireproof room: projectors, rectifiers, etc. By about 1924 it was more typical to have a separate room for the rectifiers/motor generators. The room would either be off the booth, or in the entry hall/vestibule to the booth. In both cases, the construction of the room (or hall if there were rectifiers or generators there) was also bomb-proof concrete like the room with the projectors. In blueprints, I've seen it identified as either rectifier room or motor room. I don't know if it was an NEC or building codes thing, but designs seemed to be fairly univerally adopted as they went along, for safety or to play it safe with regs. By the time of the SMPTE Motion Picture Projection & Presentation Manual's 1969 diagram of a basic booth in "Physical Aspects of the Projection Room", the rectifiers are just sitting in the same single booth space with the projectors, etc.  |  IP: Logged Jackson Gilman Film Handler Posts: 37 From: Madison, WI, USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 03-01-2004 06:40 PM                     Sometimes it will be a while before I can do my laundry...and since I only get one uniform shirt, I work in a B.O. box.  |  IP: Logged Matt Frankish Film Handler Posts: 8 From: Croydon,Surrey, / Uk, Uk Registered: Jan 2004 posted 03-02-2004 05:05 PM                    We like to call it "the Whirring Box."  |  IP: Logged

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