.Well, first I should explain the reasons for this closings. the Rogers 5 in Wasau and the Rogers 5 in Stevens Point closed becuase the leases were up, not because of the Chapter 11. Carmike has wanted to close these theatre's they inherited from Excellence for a long time, but Excellence had signed long term leases, so they didn't have a chance until now. Of course they ran them into the ground, more on that later though. The Fox River 10 in Appleton was closed due to the Chapter 11. The Marcus and Regal theatre's killed us there. I won't say the exact number, but Carmike was losing A LOT of money in that theatre.
Beginning the Trip....
So its Thursday and I'm busy showing someone how to build up movies. Buys the whole afternonn with trailers, etc. 7:30 rolls around, going to go home in an hour, or so I thought. We get a call from our District Manager tellling us to withold a certain amount of petty cash from that nights deposit and be ready to go Friday morning to clean out the Wasua, Stevens Point, and Appleton theatres. Ok, fine, we rose to the challenge. I got all of my Friday stuff done, Thursday night. Took me until 12:20, but I got it done. Moved film, everything. The opener on Friday-who was supposed to be me-whcih we called in had nothing to do except 'normal' duties.
So the next day, after my morning class in college, we met up with our DM at the theatre and took off for Wasua in his Cadillac. About halfway there, we find out that there aren't any Uhauls or Ryder's for rent in Wasua. Ok, so we just keep going to Stevens Point where there is a 26' Uhaul available figuring we'll just do that theatre first. We get to Stevens Point and NOTHING IS PACKED YET. Never mind that the theatre has been closed for over a week, in which time the manager was supposed to be packing stuff. We were not pleased. So we left he there to do the packing by herself and moved on to Appleton. This was better, everything was packed and ready to go.
The Fox River 10-The Death of a Classic
The Fox River 10 was built by Esseness Theatres (that spelled right?)-later known as Excellence Theatres (was just a name change, not take-over)- in 1984/85 as a 6 plex. A few years later, unsure when exactly, they added on 4 more screens. In its day this was a beautiful theatre (even though there were no cieling tiles in the theatres!!). It still was when I was there. It had been kept up (by dedicated staff I'm sure, not Carmike) and was in beautiful shape. Almost everything was original and still shinning. The seats were cleans and not broken, the concession stand was well kept, the fermica wasn't chipped or pealing. Even the booths, which featured 'vintage' equipment and sound systems (pictures on the way) were clean and well kept. We loaded up all the stock, the computer system, cash registers, janitor's supplies, light bulbs, Xenons, etc. All the 'major equipment' had to stay because the Bankruptcy court will decide what is done with it. So at about 6pm we started out of Appleton and headed back toward Stevens Point.
The Rogers Theatres: Background
A man by the name of Paul Rogers runs several theatre's throughout central Wisconsin. Rogers apparently is obbsessed with building screens. Not nescessarily adding on to his theatre's mind you, he seems to lik his auditoriums on the smallish side. All of his theatres are converted buildings/single screens that have been chopped up into multiple theatres. Back in the hey day of Excellence Theatres, Excellence negotiated with him to take over operation of all his theatres, making him just a landlord. Not long after that deal Carmike did a hostile takeover of Excellence, inheriting those leases.
The Rogers Cinema Stevens Point-Unbelievable
This theatre is...it is...unbelievable. Part of it used to be a gas station if you can believe that. The theatre features tiny 'shoe box' auditoriums and a pitiful lobby. Three booths for five screens, featuring two five deck platter systems. Same deal as Appeleton, only we didn't take the 'big stuff' this time becuase ofthe lease agreement. Believe it or not, the owner (Paul Rogers) is going to remodel and add on to it!!
Homeward Bound
Well, the truck was full after Stevens Point, so we resolved to do Wasua the next day. We set out from Stevens Point at about 9:30 pm on Friday. On the way back we stopped at another Rogers theatre, this one operated by the man himself, in Marshfield. This was a single screen and now, with the addition of the former music store next door, is a 7 screen!!! I was expecting a dump-not so. This theatre is VERY nice believe it or not. It had just been completely remodeled. The auditoriums were not too small, good lobby, nice, clean booths that were still running Century SA's and Simplex's (god bless them) next too brand new strong platters. Only one auditorium had digital sound, but the stereo was very crisp and clear. The multi-lvevl desing htat allowed 7 screens actually flowed very nicely. I was very impressed with this theatre.
On To Wasua
Saturday moring we called in the staff early so we cold get the truck unlaoded. That's right, we get to be the storage area-the booth specificaly-for all this junk. After getting the truck unlaoded we took off for Wasua at 11:30. Arriving at 2:30 we proceeded to the downtown area-only to find the path of our 26' Uhaul blocked by a street carnival. We illegaly park the truck and strike off for the theatre, hoping to find a route there for the truck. The DM was already there, and him having school bus driving experience it is decided he should manuver the truck through the downtown area to the front of the theatre. So in the meantime I do a little exploring. This is a 5 plex with 4 booths and 3 levels. The 1st floor was the original single screen, now twinned. The second floor was apartments at one time, now turned into two screens. The basement-that's right the BASEMENT-is home to one screen and many support columns, which must have made finding a good seat a challenge. Apparently when they added the basement theatre they had to dig it out by hand!! The booths had Century projectors, strong platters, and some ancient sound system's I didn't recognize. The upper booth that ran both the 2nd floor theatre's was equiped with a 5 deck platter. The film actually has to travel around a corner on a series of complex rollers to get to one of the projectors!!
The place was of course a dump, being in Carmike's care for 9 years. The manager of the theatre wasn't there but if he had been I would have asked him why the f*ck he stockpiled os much stock. They had more shit there that we do at our theatre, and we're a 12 plex! And of course, Paul Rogers already has the plans in the works to remodel it and reopen it.
We finnaly made it back to Eau Claire, unloaded the stuff, and parked the truck to return tommorrow. Now that our booth is full of junk we've gotta sort through it and do inventory on the concession stock. I'm looking forward to it .
Thus ends this tale of three theatres. I'll get pictures to Brad as soon as I can.
My manager tells me stories of how they all used to wear tuxedos and white gloves. He used to work in Chicago though and admits those theatres were dumps.
quote:
Well I got my pictures back today. The ones from Wasua turned out very nice. I'll have all three sets labeled and in the mail to Brad by tommorrow hopefully.
Do people have no sense?
I'm guess that the soundhead is an RCA 9030 (rare with Century projectors) and is that a Brenkert base?
Looks like the operator had to hold himself up while threading.
Seeing booths like this makes me glad for the industry "shake-out" going on. Dump like this have got to go.
Also, Paul Rogers is the president of Wisconsin NATO. You'd think he'd try for some better quality theatres.
Stairs up to the two auditoriums
Auditorium 4 Notice the 4 surround speakers. You'll see the significance of this later. Beware of the back row, you might not see the actors heads!!
The projector for screen 4 Notice the stepladder in the background for threading. I wonder if that is OSHA approved 
. The projector for screen 3 is behind the camera and to the left, as seen here:
Projector 3
The 5 deck platter that serves both projectors 3 and 4-3 being to the left and 4 to the right. The soundracks shown in the next picture are on the wall opposite the platter, behind the camera. Notice the corner I mentioned in a previous post that the film must go around to get to projector 3.
Sound Racks 3 and 4. The identical soundracks for theatres 3 and 4. My question is this: Why even bother having surround speakers (as pointed out in previous pictures) when you only have one amp per screen?! Does this make any sense? Or is my understanding of sound more rudimentry than I thought.
It makes perfect sense. The QSC amplifier is a two-channel unit, and the configuration for these auditoria is most obviously a 'center-surround' or 'front-surround' setup. Basically all three screen channels sum to center (mono) and the surrounds are extracted either by decoding the matrixed analog track or by synthesizing a pseudo-stereo from a mono track.
I hope you didnt take the Starscopes... Those belong in one place... a dumpster.
Aaron
Notice the big film acculmator back there? Probably didn't want to pay for interlock motors, so they just would thread it in the middle of it's travel and hope for the best. Well, you can just use a rag on the motor shaft of whatever projector is going too fast to bring 'em back in "sync."
Actually, I bet the operator(s) here were pretty good, to keep all this shit running.
Scott, you are right - that is an old BX-10 Brenkert base (I have one of those monsters in my storage shed). There are plenty of Century/RCA 9030 setups in several junkhouses in Washington State.
I did service the Roger's Cinemas years ago, and some of the equipment he had then belonged in the landfill, and not a theater. He had a bunch of Kneisley lamphouses that were not vented, and as a result, Rogers through xenon bulbs like crap through a goose!
Now, if you think some of that junk shown in the pictures was bad, you should have seen what I had to service in his outdoor theater. I dreaded servicing that booth. Those soundheads he had there were one step above a Weber Syncro-film. It was an old Ballentyne, but I forgot the model number. 5? maybe 6? Yeah - the ones you used a broom stick handle to glue a solar cell to. Parts were unavailable for that, too.
Essessness Theaters in Delavan were likewise junk houses. So was Kenosha, Wi. They had BX-100's in the indoor. The drive-in's were equipped with Motiograph AA's, and the ORC RPS-60 power supplies. All garbage. They had one nice theater - forgot the name of the city - but it was on the boarder of Illinois and WI. And, you should have seen that crap in Green Bay......The Bay theater was the better of the two.
. When he was in our 'old side' booth he was bitching and moaning about how bad the Centrury SA was (?!?). He said to me, "The timing devices (yes, that is what he called them) were junk, no matter what you did you couldn't start the show in frame."Dear God. He aslo said he went through 2 intermittents (in a 4 screen), "and not because there wasn't enough oil." Gee, I wonder if it could have been due to the framing knobs being cranked on all the time .
That location (Beloit) was shut down a long time ago.