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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Topic: New screen - need to make it look pretty
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Ray Bernardi
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 120
From: Antrim, NH, USA
Registered: Feb 2003
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posted 05-19-2003 08:28 AM
I'm back in the real world again. The "fog of war" of last week is slowly going away. I've finally had eight hours of sleep, in one row! I even got to sit down and eat a meal for a change. I think the world may get back to normal now. What we accomplished in 6 short days is nothing short of super-human. Here's a run down of the events of the last week and a half.
The theatre closed as planned after the show on May 8th. When that show was done we went to work. The seats were unbolted that night and made ready to move. That's about all we did that night.
Friday morning arrived and we got down to it. The story I'm about to tell you unfolded in pretty much this order, but please remember the days all bled into one for me. We were working from 7 am until 2 am every day during this time period. Okay, here we go....
The duvetyne on the front wall was so old it had basically rotted in place. If you touched it, it would fall apart in your hand. In addition, I took a piece outside and touched a match to it and it went up like flash paper. It clearly had to go, it could not be built over.
The entire front wall was pulled down. The dust load in that duvetyne was impressive. We had about a half inch of dust on the floor in front of the wall once we pulled it down. The old duvetyne was bagged and removed from the theatre. Now we had access to the wall and could get in behind it.
We found a way in and went looking for the speaker wires we had dropped in there earlier in the week. You have to remember that before all this started, I had already prewired the room to save some time. Two days were spent in the attic and in the walls pulling wires and prewiring the rack.
We found the speaker wires and routed them to where they needed to be. The old sheetrock screen was left in place and painted flat black. The front wall was cleaned of all old nails and staples and once we were sure we didn't need to get back there again we insulated it. That finished the front wall prep.
The screen frame was put up and secured to the walls and floor. We needed to do some serious metal work to get this to happen. In its factory configuration it stood 2 and a half feet out from the wall. Too far. We cut it down to 18 inches and installed it. The new speakers were placed on the shelves and their wires were brought to them.
The seats were taken completely out of the theatre. The gunk that had built up on them was pressure washed off. All metal surfaces had a good scrub down with a nylon brush and the pressure washer. They got very clean. They look new.
The old baseboard was removed from the entire auditorium. It had been wrapped in the drape fabric and was loaded with crap. There was gum and candy and rips and it was just a terrible mess. We couldn't save it. It was broken up and removed. Once the baseboards were gone we unpinned the drapes. Years of hanging there had caused them to stretch and they looked pretty tired. We did not have enough money in the budget to replace them so we had to work with them. We spent hours removing all the nails and staples that had been shot through them over the years for one reason or another. We freed the drapes from floor to ceiling and shook the hell out of them. Again, the dust load was huge.
Once the drapes were free we went up under them and redid the insulation in the walls. The walls are 2x6 stuffed with insulation, and then draped. No sheetrock, no echo or sound bounce! It makes the room a dead hole, it sucks up sound. As we layed in the new insulation we used chicken wire over it to avoid it dropping as the old stuff had done. The drapes were left to hang free for a few days and were then shaken lightly, not stirred, and re-pleated. We then used soft brushes to buff them up and get a shine back in them. It came out well. They look new.
All the old baseboard was replaced, and painted the appropriate color. Red around the floor, black around the exits and doors etc. The color scheme is red and black.
The floors were done while the seats were out. We got down on our hands and knees and scraped them clean. We then went after the carpeting. It was a mess. At one time it had a beautiful curve to it way up the front of the room, but that had been lost. Someone installed carpeting all the way up under the first two rows of seats. It's pretty stupid to put carpeting under the feet of a movie audience. The floor is the trash can. The old carpeting was flattened and loaded with years of coke spills and other unmentionables. We cut it right out and found the original lines of the room. We removed about 15 feet of carpeting and cut it back to the original curve.
The floor under the carpeting was covered with glue. we removed it using scrapers and acetone. This was the point in construction when the most serious injury occurred, and yes, it happened to yours truely.
The acetone had to be scrubbed in to losen the glue. Then scrapped, then you had to repeat the process again and again until you had wood again. It took forever my friends. As I was laying down acetone, I was using my hand as a spreader to get good coverage. I pulled my hand toward me as I dragged it across the floor and I impaled my right middle finger on a tear in the plywood. I had a shaft of wood about the thickness of the inside tube of a ball point pen go in one side of my finger and out the other. Please remember that the wood had been soaked in acetone before this happened. To get the full effect, next time you get a good sized cut run into the bathroom and pour some nail polish remover in it. There you go.
After some war-like surgery, we had the "splinter" out of my finger. We cleaned it out good and wrapped it tight and got back to work.
The floors finally got clean and we could then degrease them before we started the ceiling. The floor is slanted of course, and we needed to be able to position a lift and drop the outriggers for stability to get to the ceiling. The lift is 750 pounds. We did not want it to slip and kill some one so we used TSP on the floors first. We mopped them down about 5 times until they were spotless and had no more grease covering. Then the ceiling got underway.
We had to replace about 150 ceiling tiles. The old tiles were white and had sagged and had water spots in them. The ceiling looked bad. Very bad. We began the ceiling at 4:30 one afternoon. I'll never forget it.
We positioned the lift and rode it to the ceiling. I reached up and removed the first tile. On top of it was a 6 inch layer of blown insulation that rained down like snow. Tons of it. It was all over the entire ceiling. Every time we removed a tile we had all this ![[bs]](graemlins/bs.gif) drop out. It was a mess. We had a meeting.
The insulation had thrown a wrench into the plans. We needed to decide if we were going to go through with doing the ceiling. After a 15 minute meeting and a call to our frien who runs the local hardware store we decide to take the high road and just do it. We had an emergency delivery of insulation in rolls. We pulled out the old ceiling and we were knee deep in insulation. We bagged it up and removed it. We got the floor clean again. We used spray paint to black out the old tile grid and then cut insulation to fit on top of the tiles. Each new tile was layed into place and the insulation was placed on top of it. It took about 80 man hours to do the ceiling alone. It came out great. It was worth it.
During all this my wife was working in the concession stand. It was stripped and cleaned. Everything was painted. New shelves were put in. A popcorn station was built. Warmers were installed to keep butter melted. The concession stand got a full face lift.
The first coat of paint went down on the floors one night after we had finished everything else. It was looking pretty new inside.
Upstairs in the booth the new sound head was installed, the new rack was hung and wired. The connections were made to all the speakers and the sound system finally came to life one night about 8PM. WOW! It was great. We now had music in a big way that we could work to. The rock and roll never stopped. It drew people like flies to sugar. Word spread and more and more came to look and see what was happening.
We finished the floors after three new coats of paint. The seats were brought back in and bolted down. The new screen hung and masked. It looks great.
There were tons of other little jobs as well. We moved heaters and repiped them, we moved electrical outlets, the general rule of thumb was "if it moves, oil it, if it doesn't paint it".
We finished the job on Wednesday the 14th at 8:30 PM. The carpet layers installed the new carpet the next morning and cleared out two hours before we needed to open the doors for the Matrix.
During the carpet installation we had our fire inspection and we were cleared by them to reopen. It was done.
The next 4 days are a blur of Matrix Reloaded shows to sell out crowds. The new theatre has been well received. Lots of thumbs up from the folks that have been through it. The quality of our presentation is so much better now. Word spead like wildfire and we had lines 200 strong at times. For a little town that's a big event.
If you build it, they will come.....
And they did.
That, gentlemen, to the best of my ability is a recap of what we did to our little theatre. I will send in some construction and after pictures to add to the before pictures you've already seen.
Thanks again for your support, advice and encouragement. You've all been great.
EDIT - I've sent in the construction and after pics and dropped Brad an email as he told me to do. We should see them soon! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
[ 05-19-2003, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: Ray Bernardi ]
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