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Author Topic: How old were you when you wanted to become a projectionist? Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-28-2008 07:19 PM                        Same experience as most of you guys -- being intrigued by that magic light coming out of a hole in the wall (and how they mysteriously switch from one hole to the other), so much so that I would brave the DO NOT CROSS ropes to get up to that booth door which was almost always cracked opened enough to look in; I'd first watch the movie, then go up there and sit peering in, watching the Wizard of Oz ply his craft. It was like I was mesmerized -- I couldn't pull myself away. One nice fellow caught me watching and rather than throw me out, actually let me come in to watch a few change-over and oooh those incredible arcs! I also have to give a tip-of-the-hat to my dad who was as a fireman by vocation, but he loved to take home movies. He was shooting 8mm film from the time I was born, so there was always a projector showing home movies from as early as I can remember. I took over as projectionist from dad probably as soon as my fingers could manage the threading. I made an 8mm film (with sound -- a Reeve dual system using a special 1/4in tape with strobe lines printed on the tape to allow syncing the speed of the projector). That was when I was 14yr old. I quickly turned my basement into my first Home Theatre! Naturally I got on geek AV squad in HS running 16mm, but when they installed the Century's in my HS auditorium booth, I decided I HAD to get in that booth. I broke into the booth (my Brooklyn street skills) and I had a Disney cartoon projecting the on the screen correctly and with sound within half an hour. And I got suspended for that little caper. But then on, it was just a matter time for me to figure out how I was going to maneuver my way into a projection booth, some place, somewhere. My very 35mm first movie that I was paid to run was THE MIRACLE WORKER at college -- not quite a commercial theatre, but it was a real movie house and a real audience and that's all I needed. There were also four 16mm theatre across campus which I ran, the challenge being to get them to look just like real 35mm theatres. Then I dropped out of college and off to Texas when I worked in the first theatre as a commercial projectionist -- The Venus Theatre right outside Houston. The rest is history.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 10-28-2008 10:10 PM                       OBTW, same here with the family home movies and 16mm at school. Saw my first 16mm in 4th grade, and gravitated straight towards it. I was amazed it played SOUND films... our 8mm's were silent. Frank, where in Houston was that theatre?  |  IP: Logged Chris Dugan Film Handler Posts: 18 From: Goodyear, AZ Registered: Jul 2006 posted 10-29-2008 01:30 AM                        Ahhh... Back when the re-release of the SE Star Wars. Got to build one. Been in love with it ever since. Still doing it today and kinda sad to see it go when Digital takes over. And I'm only 28 now  |  IP: Logged Charles Greenlee Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 801 From: Savannah, Ga, U.S. Registered: Jun 2006 posted 10-29-2008 02:26 AM                        I was around 20, I beleive. That was back in 2000, or 2001. I really enjoy it. Still trying to find a way to slide back into it.  |  IP: Logged Cameron Glendinning Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 845 From: West Ryde, Sydney, NSW Australia Registered: Dec 2005 posted 10-29-2008 05:47 AM                     My story is also similar, but my interest in cinema projection started with an episode of Columbo that I saw when I was 14 in 1984. For those that haven't see it I won't spoil it, basically the projectionist is murdered mid show and the theory of change overs was explained. The penny dropped? Already in the schools hall A/V crew I ended up responsible for the wet weather 16mm screenings and did my first c/o there. For school work experience I ended up double booked at the old Village Ascot and Greater Union Cinemas in Sydney. So I asked Village if it would be ok if I could do the work experience during my school holidays and next thing you know I had my first cinema job in the candy bar and had treaded my first vic 8. The next year for school work experience, Greater Union took me in a second time, this time at their former film lab, Colorfilm. I spent most of the week in the Dolby Stereo mixing suite with a film director called Philip Noyce imdb . (It was second hand, it was the same desk that had mixed Star Wars) All I can say is the difference between the exceptionally high technical quality that the filmmakers were making and how crappy cinemas were in reproducing it still amazes me. My High School Art major work was a video of the demolition of the Village/ Kings Mosman, Art Modern 1930s Cinema and the restoration of the neighbouring Egyptian themed deco Orpheum cinema in Cremorne. Which eventually landed me a contract with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in the cinecamera section working with 16mm film. Projectionist in 50 or so cinemas later, several custom built complete cinema speakers systems, directing, producing, DOP, sound recording, credits to my name. My love of film and cinema continues.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-29-2008 09:00 AM                        Tim, I am not really sure where the Venus Theatre was located -- for the short time I worked there, one of the fellas from the local would drive me there, maybe a 15min drive, so it couldn't be too far. It played Spanish language films exclusively -- pretty much a rundown dump of a theatre, but it was mine! I did aprentice in a large, bigger theatre in Huston proper, but I can't recall the name of that house -- I was only there for a week or two while the chief showed me the ropes. From there it was to the Mattsonian Drive-in in Caldwell (one horse town) and Mr. Mattson's hard top on Main Street in Caldwell. Then to the Campus Theatre in Bryan-College Station. Then it was good-bye to Texas and hello back home to Brooklyn!  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 10-29-2008 09:35 AM                       I remember several of those kinds of theatres (Spanish language bills) in Houston, including one drive-in... yes, all were dumps. quote: Cameron Glendinning my interest in cinema projection started with an episode of Columbo That was 1973's Double Exposure. The other Columbo episode having to do with projectors and changeovers was Make Me a Perfect Murder, from 1978.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2008 10:05 AM                        quote: Jim Cassedy This is the card I picked on that birthday in 1960. I want to say, for all of the Catholics and ex-Catholics in the group, that prayer card is to DIE for  |  IP: Logged Blaine Young Master Film Handler Posts: 477 From: Kirkland, WA, USA Registered: Sep 2006 posted 10-29-2008 01:46 PM                     Going back to elementary school - probably 4th or 5th grade, I was an AV geek, and we had the auto-threading B&H 16mm projectors. By the time I hit Jr. High, that school was using older projectors that were manual thread. The projector could accept a jig that would allow for automatic threading, and then you pulled the jig out for operation. Could have sworn it was an RCA projector, but cannot find any images of it anywhere. Trouble was the jig seemed to disappear - there were probalby only two in the entire school so had to learn manual threading. I continued my AV Geekdom through High School (graduated in '83). I talked my way into a 35mm booth in 1987, were I worked in a twin for 2 weeks (Century heads, Cristie AW3 platters). I quit to go work for an 8-plex that had Century heads with ORC lamphouses. 6 were change-over houses running 6k reels, and 2 had ORC platters (which I hated). I loved that theater. Alas, it is long gone. Next worked for a 10-plex running Cinemeccanica Vic-5 and Vic-8 projectors with AW3 platters.  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 10-29-2008 02:45 PM                        Wanted to run film since sometime in elementary school, so maybe from 10 years old or so (1965). Started running 16mm at age 12 in junior high, and 35mm from age 17 in high school (definitely was an AV Geek). First paid 35 and 70mm work began at age 19 after I joined the IATSE in 1974.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 10-29-2008 02:52 PM                        I remember in elementary school when we'd have "film strips" in class and more often than not the film would break at least once. The teacher or whoever would just take the broken part, tuck it to the take-up reel (no tape or anything) and rethread. Of course anyone and everyone was qualified to run those films since they had a threading diagram on the projector itself, just like a lot of theater chains do these days!  |  IP: Logged Laurie Higgins Film Handler Posts: 45 From: Norcross, GA, USA Registered: Jun 2008 posted 10-29-2008 05:27 PM                        Well I have always been a big movie buff. I always preferred seeing a movie in the theater with giant screens and total darkness. The theater has always been a magical place to me. I first saw the booth when my sister in law's friend who owns a private screening room in Atlanta was screening some horror movies for a Halloween party I was at and he let me in the booth. It was the first time I ever saw a platter system and was totally amazed. I had no idea. I asked him if he would teach me how and he said yes. That never happened as I went back to my regular job and it drifted away. But about a decade later I got laid off and another friend who owned a small mom and pop style twin cinema gave me a job and I learned the ropes shortly thereafter. I was 39.  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 10-29-2008 06:09 PM                        When I was about 10 my family went to see "The Sound of Music" at the Roxy. I got interested in the how the projectors worked, so my dad asked his friend Don (the theatre owner) if I could sit in the booth while the show ran. It was OK with Don, so I spent the next night in the booth. My grandfather owned a 16mm sound projector -- why he ever bought it, I don't know -- and my dad would borrow that to show corporate films at training meetings held at the auto parts store where I now work days. Inevitably the projector wound up living at our house, and somehow I found out about Modern Talking Picture Service, a company that distributed corporate films to be shown at meetings and libraries, etc. I started ordering movies from them and put together a "theatre" in my bedroom. I hooked up an extension speaker (a 6x9 in an apple crate) so the sound would come from the screen. I would coerce my parents to come and watch movies. They hated it. Then in high school I started hanging out with a friend whose parents owned the drive-in theatre in town. That was my intro to running the machines. I worked there unofficially for a couple of years. Then in late '76, a projectionist job opened up at the Roxy and three years after that, Don, the owner, retired, and my brother-in-law and I bought the place.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 10-29-2008 09:04 PM                     ...and how many of us remember Films Incorporated for our 16mm school feature film provider? Along with the Bell Systems Science Films that Frank Capra produced in the late 50's and early 60's which are now all-time classics to find: "Hemo the Magnificent". "Strange Case of the Cosmic Rays" and the other 6 that were released through Bell Systems. I ran them all while in the AV dept. Also did 3 years in the highschool AV dept being their 16mm projectionist (running a pair of RCA's in changeover mode) when the school had special after-school films to present. From these special showings, one film that the Latin class sponsored and rented out that became my favorite classic that finally own on DVD, Sam Bronson's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" - the newly released two disc version. This was before I got introduced to 35mm cinema projection.  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 10-29-2008 10:36 PM                       quote: Monte L Fullmer how many of us remember Films Incorporated I do! I do! And Audio Brandon. Also recall MTPS, as Mike mentioned. First feature my class saw for assembly was in 7th grade: The Fuller Brush Man.  |  IP: Logged

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