Yet another day in the direction of 40...
One of my favorite jobs was when I worked first for Mid State Theaters and they were bought out by Lowes in Ohio. I ran the movie projectors. My good friend Doug Conn got me the job at the local theater. He apparently told the manager he thought I was smart enough to run projectors. Doug is a fantastic magician and was on his way out of town to start touring doing street magic. Doug and I had hung out quite a bit doing magic here and there and even getting tossed out of a couple places for it.
I loved that job. Besides cleaning the theaters I had my time to myself up stairs and after hours I had a ginormous stereo to play. We did in fact have parties in the theater late nights.
My second summer running the movies we had a special run of Die Hard. It was in 70mm this means a much better picture and much better sound. I remember the sound especially because I got on average 2 to 2 and a half complaints a day right after the first scene. A Boeing 747 lands over the camera and the sound hit (yes we measured it) 102Db. That if you are unfamiliar with the scale is really fucking loud.
So because it was 70mm we couldn't leave the projector. The print was too valuable and the projector would have eaten it had anything gone wrong. Yes I know there is supposed to be a fail safe on it that stops it when the film breaks but we didn't have that part in 70mm and corporate decided my ass per hour was cheaper than the part. This was good and bad news. Good news was I didn't have to wear the outfit (you know the maroon vest with a white shirt and black pants.) but I did have to stay in the booth the entire time the film was running. Good thing I had a bathroom. Surprisingly the other projectionist who was a 40 year old union member card carrying mutherfucker who lived in his parents basement and his other job was at a comic book store where I shit you not they paid him in trade. Seriously if this guy had worked in a record store he would have been dick out of High Fidelity. He also had wardrobe malfunction problems which could have been easily solved by a belt. I digress. He (the pantsfallingdowncomicbooklovin guy) decided to take his PAID VACATION (Did I get this? no Am I still bitter? yes.) So I had to pull doubles for 2 solid weeks while this guy went to a comic com or some shit. What is the net of all this digression? I know every word in Die Hard as I watched six times a day (seven on fri/sat) for 2 solid weeks. Actually it was a little more because they scheduled his days off on the other ends. I know every word in Die Hard. Now while I still like the film, it is not my favorite movie by far. I don't even own it on DVD. I mean really why?
You know this whole post is a digression. I mean I aimed at movie quotes and I ended up just talking about my stint as a movie projectionist. Or operator as we're called in the biz.
Ah well. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. (Seriously I had to look that up.)
I loved that job. Besides cleaning the theaters I had my time to myself up stairs and after hours I had a ginormous stereo to play. We did in fact have parties in the theater late nights.
My second summer running the movies we had a special run of Die Hard. It was in 70mm this means a much better picture and much better sound. I remember the sound especially because I got on average 2 to 2 and a half complaints a day right after the first scene. A Boeing 747 lands over the camera and the sound hit (yes we measured it) 102Db. That if you are unfamiliar with the scale is really fucking loud.
So because it was 70mm we couldn't leave the projector. The print was too valuable and the projector would have eaten it had anything gone wrong. Yes I know there is supposed to be a fail safe on it that stops it when the film breaks but we didn't have that part in 70mm and corporate decided my ass per hour was cheaper than the part. This was good and bad news. Good news was I didn't have to wear the outfit (you know the maroon vest with a white shirt and black pants.) but I did have to stay in the booth the entire time the film was running. Good thing I had a bathroom. Surprisingly the other projectionist who was a 40 year old union member card carrying mutherfucker who lived in his parents basement and his other job was at a comic book store where I shit you not they paid him in trade. Seriously if this guy had worked in a record store he would have been dick out of High Fidelity. He also had wardrobe malfunction problems which could have been easily solved by a belt. I digress. He (the pantsfallingdowncomicbooklovin guy) decided to take his PAID VACATION (Did I get this? no Am I still bitter? yes.) So I had to pull doubles for 2 solid weeks while this guy went to a comic com or some shit. What is the net of all this digression? I know every word in Die Hard as I watched six times a day (seven on fri/sat) for 2 solid weeks. Actually it was a little more because they scheduled his days off on the other ends. I know every word in Die Hard. Now while I still like the film, it is not my favorite movie by far. I don't even own it on DVD. I mean really why?
You know this whole post is a digression. I mean I aimed at movie quotes and I ended up just talking about my stint as a movie projectionist. Or operator as we're called in the biz.
Ah well. Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker. (Seriously I had to look that up.)
posted by J.R. at 8:57 AM
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