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Author Topic: Projection room vs Bio box Matthew Peters Expert Film Handler Posts: 179 From: Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Australia Registered: Nov 2002 posted 02-21-2004 10:54 PM                     At my small theatre I/we usually refer to the booth as the Projection room. However, some of our employees who have worked for other Australian cinema chains call it a bio box. I’ve noticed when visiting other cinemas and I go to the counter to bitch about their presentation, they usually reply, “ok I’ll let the bio staff know.” What is the origin of the word(s) bio box? A search for bio yielded a couple of results; I only found Aussie projectionist use the term bio. I guess it must be a local thing.  |  IP: Logged Paul Trimboli Master Film Handler Posts: 274 From: Perth Western Australia Registered: Dec 2002 posted 02-21-2004 11:48 PM                     That is funny you should ask that, I have often wondered where the term Bio Box comes from. I call it the projection room and Bio Box as well. Even in high school the sound mixing and lighting room at the back of the auditorium was called the Bio Box.  |  IP: Logged Stephen Jones Master Film Handler Posts: 314 From: Geelong Victoria Australia Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-22-2004 12:26 AM                     Hi Matthew, For as long as I can remember the projection room has always been called Bio or Bio box and the term is used all around the country.We never used the term Booth.So its an Australian termanolgy. Now I think it came from the days when cinemas were known as the biograph,now I will stand corrected if any of our guys here in oz know more. You could check out the C.A.T.H Vic web site as the members may know the exact story. Here at my site its known Bio. Cheers Stephen  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 02-22-2004 01:11 AM                       I was just going to suggest Biograph... Booth seems to be the American preference, while I've heard Box used consistently in England (projection box, telephone box, etc.).  |  IP: Logged Wolff King Morrow Master Film Handler Posts: 490 From: Denton, TX, USA Registered: Feb 2004 posted 02-22-2004 04:48 AM                        Yeah, booth is pretty much what we use here. Though I personally refer to it as simply "upstairs".  |  IP: Logged Hugh McCullough Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Old Coulsdon, Surrey, UK Registered: Jan 2003 posted 02-22-2004 07:24 AM                        Biograph An instrument for exhibiting life-movements by photography. The cinematograph projector. (Greek word meaning depict) The term 'projection box' used in the UK comes from the early days of cinema. Due to some very nasty, and fatal fires caused by the nitrate film catching fire, the projector being in the auditorium, regulations were brought in that all projection equipment should be used in a fire proof room constructed of brick, or iron. As the owners of some buildings could not build a special fire proof room an enterprising manufacturer made a cubed shaped, fireproof iron box for the projectors, and projectionists. As this passed the fire regulations it could be assembled anywhere in the auditorium. Hence the term 'projection box'.  |  IP: Logged Bob Koch Expert Film Handler Posts: 183 From: williams ca Registered: Nov 2001 posted 02-22-2004 02:31 PM                     Clear out in the wild and wooly west coast when I was still in high school,in the switch room under the balcony stairway of the Oaks Theatre in Berkeley Ca the main feed to the booth was labeled "Biograph Room". Quite awhile ago, I`m 81 now.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 02-22-2004 02:56 PM                     In the first decade of movie exhibition, the term "Bioscope" was also often used (in different spellings all over european countries).  |  IP: Logged Carl Martin Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1424 From: Oakland, CA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-23-2004 04:09 AM                        ah bob, that's my "neighborhood theater", but not the one i work at. my sister worked there a few summers. now a twin, split down the middle, and the balcony unused. i've been meaning to ask the projectionist for a booth tour. he owes me one since i helped him push-start his truck once. they have a bygone projector on display near those roped-off balcony stairs now. don't know the model, but maybe it's one you used to thread. carl  |  IP: Logged Gilbert Travin Expert Film Handler Posts: 101 From: Villeurbanne / France Registered: Jan 2004 posted 02-23-2004 08:34 AM                        Hi ! I also agree with "biograph" . In America have you a "nickname" to indicate the projectors ? In France, we (the projectionnists !) say "chrono" in remember of the Leon Gaumont's "Chronophotograph" ...  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-23-2004 10:01 AM                     quote: an enterprising manufacturer made a cubed shaped, fireproof iron box for the projectors, and projectionists. ...allowing the film -- and the projectionist -- to burn safely inside the iron box while the audience breaks for intermission! No thanks... I don't refer to it as a "box" or a "booth" anyway. I'd hate to think that I work in a box. And "going to the booth" sounds like I'm preparing myself for a loooong stay in the bathroom. I just call it the projection room or upstairs, especially since it's not a booth at all... it's the whole second floor! "Bio box" sounds like a place you would store a misbehaved child. -- "Billy was getting rambunxious, so I locked him in the Bio Box until he calms down." =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Hugh McCullough Expert Film Handler Posts: 147 From: Old Coulsdon, Surrey, UK Registered: Jan 2003 posted 02-23-2004 11:26 AM                        quote: allowing the film -- and the projectionist -- to burn safely inside the iron box while the audience breaks for intermission! No thanks... Yes, even in the early days the projectionist was treated as an expensive nuisance. The cry would go up from the cinema owner "Let him fry. We can get another, cheaper, one off the street anytime."  |  IP: Logged Gerard S. Cohen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 975 From: Forest Hills, NY, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 02-23-2004 03:40 PM                     Apropos Hugh's history of the origin of projection "box", I worked in the 1970's in a row of theatres on 42nd Street built as stage theaters around 1900 to 1910. Some of these theatres showed burlesque, and began to use films as "chasers" to clear the audience for the next paying live show patrons. The "temporary" boxes they built in the second or third balconies were made of sheets of asbestos board, and remained intact until the theatres were demolished or remodled as legit stage theaters again in the 1980's and 1990's. But we always called them "booths."  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 02-23-2004 04:00 PM                        I call it the gundeck.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 02-23-2004 07:45 PM                     I have operating projection equipment in my "office".  |  IP: Logged

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