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Kyle Abel
General Manager
Plano Movies 10

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I'm a Wetired Lunatic who pwior to wetiring in 1986 at the age of 48 worked as a pwojectionist and sound specialist for many years... if you could call being a Pwojectionist "work," that is. First learned the craft as a teenager, back when the crust of the earth was still cooling. For me it was always very relaxing and enjoyable. You see, if you know the sound and electronics side of it, the rest is all mechanical; and nothing will ever break down on you because it "knows" it won't do it any good to break down, it will just get fixed immediately. Usually equipment waits for some poor relief guy to be on duty who doesn't know anything, then breaks down on him.

Since then I exclusively pursue all of my many diverse hobbies and interests, one of which is my private film library comprising thousands of titles. Enjoy a movie nearly every day.

I'm also a LP record collector; silent movie & theatre pipe organ enthusiast and have hundreds of theatre organ albums in my library. While most are in mint condition, a forthcoming project that I am desperately trying to get to is audio restoration of many of these and conversion to cd; then maybe reissue if rights & legalities can be straightened out as these titles are EXTREMELY hard to find these days if somebody wants one. It is a fact that even LP's in "mint" condition given the best of care and played only on studio equipment tend to pick up little pops and ticks over the years. Counting several other collections here including what's at Yellowstone Public Radio we guesstimate over 50,000 LP's and it desperately all needs to be put on computer, but when?

We suffer constantly from the "Librarian's Nightmare" of knowing we have something.... but where? Misfiled. My film library is in somewhat better shape but not perfect either.

There are no movie theatres where I live, in Billings MT.

My decision to ComPwetely Wetire was based upon the growing desire to pursue other interests, but mostly the way the industry seemed to be going downhill with all the automation and the virulent determination of managements everywhere to get rid of projectionists, especially the union guys.

For example, at the time I had been aware of the infamous Moyer circuit in the Portland OR area which instantly fired the union projectionist upon taking over a house and next day the automation went in. Thus, this became a part of the country noted for the phenomenon of film going in on reels in cans and coming back out in plastic bags.

Before discovering this site, I really thought that projectionists had gone the way of the dodo bird. It's great to read that many good film people are actually alive and well, working in exhibition.

j.

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Avalon Cinema
160 NW Jackson
Corvallis, OR 97330
541 752 4161

I will not stop until my projection is perfect, damn it.

See you around.

I am a Senior Research Associate at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where I have worked since April 18, 1988 (full time since September 19, 1989). I work in the Information Technology and Systems Center, which is a research center within the University. Long ago, we were a part of the Computer Science Department but part of our staff are still co-located with the CS department.

I'm also working on a Ph.D. in Computer Science here at UAH and am going for a concentration in computer graphics and image processing, since these are the areas of the field in which I'm the most interested. I got my M.S. degree in Computer Science back in the summer of 1989, and also have a B.S. degree in Mathematics which I got in December 1987 at Jacksonville State University (Alabama). Actually, for the B.S., I double majored in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Since childhood, I've had an interest in all types of audio-visual equipment, including film projectors, televisions, etc. My 7th and 8th grade years, I was the person responsible for taking the 16mm projectors to classrooms and setting them up, and I really enjoyed doing that each morning before school. I was always upset when no teachers at the school needed a projector that day. I got so good at getting those Bell and Howell (two autoload, one slot load) projectors to work when problems developed that sometimes, teachers would come and get me out of class rather than get the librarian.

During my younger years, I was deprived of going to movie theatres. I had parents that would never go to an indoor first-run theatre. Occasionally, they'd go to the Cedar Valley Drive-In on Highway 27 south of Rome, GA but all it showed were B-movies which were rated R. When I moved to Huntsville in 1988, I had been to indoor theatres on 3 occasions. After moving to Huntsville and getting out on my own, I was too bashful and shy to go to a movie theatre by myself, and would only go if a friend wanted to go see something.

In 1997 I decided I was going to start going by myself so I could see movies when they came out without having to wait for them to come out on video. Shortly afterwards, after I was going very often, I began to notice the widely varying quality of presentation at different locations and started keeping score. At that time, I had such a good memory of previous visits (there weren't many) that I included them in my lists as well.

On February 9, 1988, I wrote a letter to Regal about several successive bad experiences at Regal Madison Square 12 and the complaints listed in that letter for specific shows was reformatted and the format was used for each theatre's showing list and it became the first version of the movie theatre review site I now run.

Currently, I have seen nearly 300 movies at the local theatres and each theatre currently in operation has at between 45 and 68 visits, each of which has a grade assigned to the quality of presentation. At some point, instead of pounding the numbers into a calculator each time I added a movie to calculate stats, I wrote a Perl program to do it, and eventually, made most of the site be generated automatically. It's been a fun thing to do.

I discovered film-tech back in 1999, I believe, and lurked for a long time before registering. I remember having an old Silicon Graphics workstation that was very slow and outdated, so it had to be before September 1999. I've probably been reading this site for two years now.

One thing I should say is that none of my posts here represent my employer.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Info Site

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http://www.autoramadrivein.com

I'm currently the General Manager of the Marcus Prospect Mall Cinema, a 3 screen theatre on the "Fabulous East Side" of Milwaukee.

I started with Marcus 2.5 years ago as a part time job (while I worked full time as the office manager of the Public Safety Department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and finished up by BA in Criminology at Marquette University) at the 16 screen Marcus South Shore Cinema. I started out as a vendor and cashier, and after a year I was promoted to an Assistant Manager when I discovered that I was hooked into the business. In January of 2000, when I graduated, I quit my job at MSOE (I only worked there because they paid for me to finish my BA) and went to work full time at the theatre as an assistant manager where I learned so much from both my General Manager and City Manager (who was based out of our theatre). As of February of this year, I was given the opportunity I had been waiting for and was promoted to the General Manager of the Prospect.

Its funny how things like this work out. 5 years ago if you would have told me that I would be doing what I am doing I probably wouldn't have believed you. But I wouldn't change a thing either.

Also was film critic for inhouse magazine under the pseudonym 'Fuzzy Rodent' for a number of years.

Interests: Foreign films - particularly good French comedies written by Francis Weber.

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