I love the way the projection booth is set-up on the second storey with an apartment... I'm guesing the owners of this drive-in live upstairs.

If I had a drive-in, I'd put a living quarters and projection room on the second floor. I'd also have a couch/La-Z-Boy for the projectionest to rest in during the shows.

If I had the 2 projectors like this drive-in, I might use the second projector for the second feature. I'd make sure the booth was automated, so that if i had one projector, I could splice the 2 movies together and have an automation system... or maybe not!

Anyways, I love going to the drive-in. If I owned a drive-in, I'd probably have a living quarters on the property year round to save money. I'd also rent the land to trailers for the closed season.

Can you imagine having to do change overs in a drive-in! Shoot me now! So, this is what hell's like!

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Andrew McCrea

BTW, at the high current used to burn the 11 mm carbons, the longest trim we could get with a 20-inch long carbon was a little over an hour.

Your second point negates the first one. if its gonna be automated, why bother with the second projector? Or go with 6000' reels with an automatic changeover, for the best of both worlds.

>>Can you imagine having to do change overs in a drive-in! Shoot me now! So, this is what hell's like!<<

Changeovers in a drive-in are the same as changeovers in a hardtop... Been there, done that (see the first pic of 'Sonomarin Drive-In' in the warehouse for the drive-in changeover system I used to do...)

I am the projectionist at the Skyline drive-in theater in Shelton, Washington.

That apartment on the top right of the building (just like the manager's office on the top left) are dinky. They are only 12 feet wide by 24 feet long. The apartment was last rented out more than ten years ago and is only used for theater supply storage now. Those big windows on the front of the booth face directly into the afternoon sun and turn the upper floor of the building into a greenhouse effect. There is ZERO insulation in the cinder block building and one day 3 years ago it got up to 110 degress in the projection booth and melted a plastic gear inside the Simplex E-7 DURING THE SHOW. It slammed the projector and I had to unthread the broken machine and rethread the film into the spare (right hand) machine. I was only off screen for about one minute. Since we are out in the middle of nowhere that second machine was handy to have. The owners NEVER lived on the property, but there is a rental double wide mobile home at the very far left rear of the property and the renters watch over the theater in the off season. The owner of the theater lives in White Rock (a suburb of Vancouver) B.C. and drives 3 hours down here to run the theater (we are only open Friday and Saturday).

That second projector is still used as a backup emergency machine in case something happens to the left-hand projector. Originally the theater opened in 1962 with carbon arc lamphouses and twenty minute reels with manual changeover. In 1973 the carbon arcs were removed and replaced with the Christie H-40 xenon lamphouses shown in the pictures along with large (6000 foot) reels so only one changeover per feature was needed. Because the projection/snack bar building is located at the very rear of the field, our throw to the screen is a whopping 485 feet! Needless to say, our picture is DARK! Our owner is too cheap to buy a decent lamphouse and lenses (we're still using 1950's era Bausch & Lomb lenses).

If you want to see some more drive-ins (including shots of the field layout from the Terraserver satellite photos), try Arthur Allen's "Drive-ins of Western Washington" site at www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Pavillion/2216/driveins.html

Kodak also offers imaging services that can provide aerial photos of most any location:
Kodak Imaging Services
Kodak Special Imaging

Just for the fun of it, I looked up a Terraserver satellite photo of the Grandview Drive-In in Angola NY, where I worked from 1967 to 1970. This photo was taken by the satellite on April 21, 1994:
Terraserver Photo of Grandview Drive-In, Angola, NY

And here is a photo of Building 69 in Kodak Park in Rochester where I work. My building is the 8-story tall square one near the center of the photo, as you can see from the large shadow it casts:
Satellite Photo of Kodak B-69 where JP Works

And here's a photo of my house, with me in the backyard waving as the satellite passes overhead :
John Pytlak Waving at Satellite

"Big Bird" is watching!

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John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

This is the theatre that my wife and I frequent the most. I've got booth pictures of the theatre @ http://members.nbci.com/bcfdj/tndrivein/photo.htm

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What's so bad about changeovers? I personally like them. The only drawback is someone has to constantly be in the booth.

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I think projectionests work should be challenging, but fun. Not to easy, not to hard.

**I love goign to the Odeon Drive-In! I bet many can agree with me that drive-in theatres have a 'unique' and exciting environment. It's fun to get out of the house and go to the drive-in.**

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Andrew McCrea

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