35mm Century Projector model MSA
Century Sound Reproducer model MTR3-67
Kni-tron Lamphouse model L-100-1
Kni-tron Rectifier model R-2180-1
ORC Electric Platter System model MP303E3
GoldE Model DH Deluxe Rewind

and of couse we have DTS.

Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions please let me know!
Thanks a million.

Sara Serine Orton
University of Idaho

I don't know about the rest, but I can tell you that the Century Projectors are outstanding. Quiet, reliable, easy to operate and repair. The ORC platters, on the other hand, I have found to be a real pain in the ass. I don't know which model I used, but the one I worked with was one tempermental beast. For reasons unknown to me, the film kept coming off the rollers. I hope you have better luck.

Cheers
Chris

We had a comic book and a magnifying glass.

We were poor in those days, but we were happy...

Because we were poor!

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At any rate, Century seems to be one of the best. I am a Simplex man,myself! ORC...Never used one of their platters, just lamphouses.

Sara, sounds like you're set.

The other sports a Century SA atop an R3 with a basement Dolby Digital reader retrofit, ORC XH-45C lamphouse with a 3k lamp, a Potts platter, a CP-500, etc., etc. Second-run films at cheap prices are run twice-weekly there.

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Bruce McGee and I amazingly have about the same story -- making a theatre using old B&H projector! My dorm had a small rec room with a stage on one end. They had one B&H 300 series projector. I got there & told the rector I wanted to show films once in a while in the rec room. In those days there was no such thing as video. They released films to TV about ten years after the theatres. He reluctantly said OK and me and my cohorts moved in and took over the place. First off, one projector, as Bruce says, just wouldn't do. We had to get a second machine. I told the rector that "you can't show feature films unless you have TWO projectors....the distributor won't allow it" He bought it. I got my second machine and then told the shop that you can't run feature films unless the two projectors were on high stands and blimped to stop the projector noise. They bought that too. They constructed two portable "booths" on wheels and a blimped box on top with the inner walls treated with ceiling tile, vents & small fan for air flow. The reel arms were remounted on the outside of the box. The dormies called these rolling things the Trojan horses. I wish I had taken a picture of the setup.

On the front inside wall of the box I had mounted changeover solenoids. They weren't 35mm projector models designed for that purpose but actual 110v solenoids that I rigged on a fulcrum with a blade to block the light. They didn't work all that well and were really noisy because they only worked in one direction with a spring action. They had to always be energized to keep them in the closed position. To make matters worse, 115vac solenoids hum like crazy when they are energized. The changeover sounded pretty much like regular changeover relays on steroids. I saw people in the back area of the room actually jump when I threw the changeover switch, so after a few shows I abandoned that idea and switched to a dual switch arrangement that would turn one bulb on and the other off simultaneously. That worked pretty good, even though the changeover was not rock hard instantaneous like the mechanical ones.

I put the ceiling lights on a huge rheostat that had a 2 foot rotating handle and which heated up to dim the lights. During the summer it was murder. The curtain warmers were on a smaller autotransformer (there were none of these neat pocket sized triac wall dimmers for 10 bucks like we have today).

One of my dormmates doubled as the curtain and mask motor -- he stayed backstage and pulled the mask and the curtain when the appropriate pilot lights went on or off. They were rigged to the control panel on the portable booths, a 12 conductor cable being run in the cellar between the "booths" and the stage. I had to buy lots of beer for the curtain/mask motor man.

For the very first few shows, I put both booths OUTSIDE the recroom (now call the Dujarie Hall Theatre), aiming the beams through two windows on the opposite side of the room. This was my original idea, but it proved to be a nightmare. In the summer the Indiana misquotes ate you alive....I never bothered to see what the Indiana winter would be like. So that idea was abandoned and the blimped booths were nearly as good as a separate projection booth inside the theatre.

The real problem was the screen. There wasn't any. Nor was there money to buy an expensive roll up screen -- the stage still needed to be keep useable for other events. My recollection was that the CinemaScope width must have been about 20 ft. We would have needed to rob a bank for what a professional screen of that size would have cost. So I decided to build a screen. It would be on a frame that would be strapped at the top and then pulled up to lay flat across the entire stage ceiling when not in use.

The frame was made by the trusty wood shop and I covered it with cotton sheet material that I got from the university laundry. I wrapped the material around the frame and then painted it with a coat of white ceiling paint. After it was painted, much to my dismay, it was sagging and wrinkling all over the place. I went to bed to get a few hours sleep before class, and when I returned that night, low and behold, the cloth had shrunk so tightly around the frame that it looked like a store bought screen. It worked beautifully.

I replaced the 1000w incandescent bulbs that were standard for the B&H and put in 1200W quartz bulbs that had the same prefocus base but which were used for stage lighting (to this day I am not sure if those bulbs were ever intended for projection work, but they should have been). That light was whiter and brighter than the standard bulb and the projector wiring and cooling didn't seem to mind the extra 200W.

I got extra aperture plates and lenses so that I could do cropped 1.85:1 ar. I think it actually worked out to be 1.70 or something like that. Epoxied two piece of thin aluminum to the "flat wide screen" aperture plates to crop the picture correctly using a 2" lens. Academy square and 'Scope used 2 1/4" lenses.

The projector outputs were also on a changeover sound switch; they were padded down so they could feed my Heathkit 50w tube amp (those great 6L6's) and a very massive folded horn speaker bin behind the screen with a 15" woofer. It had a passive 3way crossover feeding two 8" midrange and two lensed dome tweeters. The sound was very impressive, as I was told many times by the rector whose misfortune was that his bedroom was right over the stage and the bass bin. The masking below and above the screen was China black silk material and virtually transparent to sound. I was constantly being told to "turn it down." "But the film companies will not let us rent their features if the sound is not set to their SMPTE reference level," I would tell him. He bought it.

The very first feature I ran was WAR OF THE WORLDS. Awesome Technicolor print. We had a Hollywood feature every other week from Films, Inc. or Audio Brandon or Twyman Films and on alternative weekends I programmed a lot of free stuff from Associated Films and Sterling Films. The staple of the non-feature nights was The Twentieth Century -- a CBS half hour program with Walter Cronkite that Prudential sent out just for the asking and the postage (how I wish I had some 16mm prints of those shows). Every Sunday night was "Sportsreel Spectacular" nite with a 40 min sports reels supplied free from the US Army and which I supplemented with Heckle & Jeckel cartoons that I weaseled out of the campus TV station library. The jocks all showed up. To the guys who ran the pizza and beer concessions, I was their hero. Movies, it seems, makes booming business for a variety of enterprises.

I ran this thing for 3 years before I dropped out of college (that was the thing to do in those days) to wander around the country looking for movie theatres that needed a projectionist.

My second job is at a college. (Mercyhurst College, Erie, PA) We're hoping to expand our program. Obviously money is a factor in that. Our administration has spent big $$$ to install a good system.

www.film-tech.com/picwarehouse/mercyhurst.html

Now, we have to get bodies into seats. We get a good enough response for the 'cultural' films. (Up to 300 on good nights) What I/we want is to get more films for the people at the college and in the community. The idea is to show movies that don't come to the Googolplex. (Which I ALSO work at.) Problem is kinda' like a Chicken-Egg thing. We don't get films that would draw a lot of people. (consistently) But we don't get enough people to have a lot of 'good' films either.

The boss, here is pretty good at P.R. We get articles in the "Showcase" section of the paper each week and a listing at the bottom of the Theatre page, too. It's just that people don't know about us well enough OR they don't think we have a quality presentation. (ie: They think we're still a bunch of "college kids" tinkering with 16mm.)

This is why we want to have a "Y2K Sci-Fi Fest" this year. (Probably in the summer) Problem is that we gotta' get BODIES in those seats! If we have a lackluster turnout in the future, the Pres. of the college might say, "Better luck next time..." but if the FIRST event is a 'dog', there won't BE a next time.