Many years ago, I worked with an architect, Drew Eberson, on some theaters our company did. If you look in the older SMPTE projection manual, you will see photos of some of his theaters. (His father, John Eberson, created the large "atmospheric theaters" popular in the 1920's; fancy, ornate places with stars on the ceiling, etc.)

Anyway, Drew E. told me he was being called in as an expert witness for a lawsuit going on in New York city. A developer had put small "theaters" in the basement of a building, and wanted to start getting first-run product. Representatives from Fox, Paramount, Universal, etc. came and looked at the place, and said that it was so poorly made, "It is not a theater." They refused to send any prints there. (Drew E. said that in one auditorium, patrons had to duck under a sewer pipe to get to some seats. In another, anyone standing up in the first 6 rows would block the light to the screen.)

The developer sued the distributors to get first-run product. So, the issue came down to what is a theater.

Sadly, shortly after giving his testimony, Drew E. died. The case was setted out of court, so I never did learn, "What is a theater."

So, I ask anyone interested: What would a make a place "A theater / not a theater?" Fixed 2:1 masking? A screen smaller then 10 feet wide?

Remember, I'm thinking of a place that charges admission and runs first-run product.

Bottom line in most legal definitions is: a theatre is a place of public assembly. Movies are incidental.

Re Cobb:
Bear in mind that MD was a latecomer to Cobb, and was given a lot more leeway than previous directors of operation. Chris had been around for years in Florida, but the decisions came out of Birmingham for most of that time. Chris was always high thought of, and survived many purges.

Most of the people who survived Cobb went on to bigger and better things. Brian Mercer is running a chain in the southwest, Ambrish built his own theatres, Larry Mullins rebuilt his own circuit, Bill Homer has taken over Kent Theatres, Freddie is well respected on the equipment and installation side of the business, and I've done OK as well. Cobb was an excellent training ground for a lot of people during the 80s.

I like the idea of studios refusing to send material to theatres that aren't up to certain standards. If the studios would stop allowing scope movies to be shown on 1.85:1-only screens at the Huntsville Regal theatres, I bet that adjustable masking would be installed at the top of those screens within two weeks!

Distributors make unreasonable demands all the time. "We want this film to run in your largest auditorium only, for the entire length of the run." IIRC, that was the Lucas demand. Try complying when every distributor learns exhibitors will cave in to such demands and begin demanding the same treatment. Consolidated got around such "requests", and audience complaints of small auditoriums, by building their theatres with identical sized auditoriums, which sucked even worse, because you never got to see a new film on a really big screen, which, as we know, are economically unfeasable if not filled with customers regularly. Unreasonable demands result in unreasonable reactions.

Everyone knows how unreasonable trailer placement is. Trailer placement demands have only become worse over the years. A few years back, NATO fought back, but that seems to have been forgotten, now that NATO seems more interested in trade shows than political activism. (Yeah, I live dangerously )

That theatre was built using the "pod" design where auditoriums share little of their walls with adjacent auditoriums.

See http://home.hiwaay.net/~criswell/theatre/images/nashville/ for pictures of several theatres, including University 6, built this way. There are also some pictures of the defunct Fountain Square 14 (not built with "pods").

Oh, and pounding the masking issue here is like beating a dead horse, but maybe more accurately it would be described at beating an old dead eaten ear of corn. (Sorry, I couldn't resist). (We need a special smiley for that, like a Kurt Cobain smiley or a Sammy Davis Jr. wink).

About trailer placement: one thing I find humorous is at the end of Regal's "girl with the man voice badly in need of a brain wrap" policy trailer, the words, "Feature Presentation" appear on the screen, which is invariable followed by one last trailer before the "feature presentation". It would have been smart to leave off the "Feature Presentation" words at the end of that beast, which can be viewed at http://www.regalcinemas.com/ .

I think Lucas's demands that Star Wars I be shown in the best auditoriums was a good one, but after the rush died down and attendance dropped, it would have been nice to be able to see other new movies in the larger auditoriums with digital sound. The requirement should probably have only covered the first 3-4 weeks of the run. Theatres affected the most by the demand were those with only one larger screen with digital sound. They couldn't show "Austin Powers 2" on their best screen with digital sound.

Evans

You can usually tell a Consolidated Theatre of that vintage by the hose bibb at the back of each auditorium and drain at the front. When the Consolidated theatres were regularly hosed down, no one stuck to the floor, but the wet smell was something like that found in a boy's locker room. He had a great idea, but the execution left a little to be desired.

Feature presentation snipes are a pain. I still like the old way of closing curtains after the pre-show and then opening on the film company logo.

Level 0 means it has just the star projector.
Level 1 means it has slide projectors
And so on.....

If a planetarium wants to "book" a show, you have to be a certain level to book that show. It might have automated control of the star field or it might use video projection. You obviously couldn't play shows like that on a level 1 or 2.

Why couldn't we bring that idea into the projection booth?
Level 1 would mean "mono" or something
Level 2 would mean stereo
and on down the line...

Studios could more easily book films if they could say, "We want to put this in level "X" theatres for its first two weeks.....

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As for our "Little Girl" policy tag, it's supposed to be the last trailer coming just before the feature. Anyplace you've seen another preview trailer following it is simply not doing things right.

I don't know if I'd be a good judge of a place, because I have only projected (never managed or had to worry about bugets and payroll, etc.) So, I think theaters should be designed from the booth out. In real life, I know this is not possible.

I also must wonder what this world has come to that 14 screen theatres are being closed down. Century just opened an 18-Screen in Las Vegas and closed their OWN 16-Screen down the road. WHAT are these people doing?

Evans

((Regal's Hollywood 27 in Nashville - THAT'S A MARQUEE !!)) - Although their signs which post the show title's are uglier than Carmikes.

I too was amazed to see Carmike close an 8 year old theatre - what a waste. It was PRIME real estate. They closed a relatively new 8 plex on Highway 96 in Franklin several years ago when they opened the original Cool Springs location. Now they BOTH sit empty.

It has been 3874 days since the last post.

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