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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Author
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Topic: Scale Model of Working Theater
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Bruce Cloutier
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 161
From: Gibsonia, PA, USA
Registered: Aug 2016
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posted 08-23-2019 09:08 AM
I potentially have a project in connection with a museum wherein we would build a scale model of a working cinema for public display. I am looking for help here so maybe the end result will be pertinent, realistic and something really interesting to see. It would be an ongoing exhibit which may travel.
Most of the people involved in this at this point have have modelling expertise and portfolios of works in model railroading with a lot of experience with scale buildings, city blocks and naturally transportation. A lot of impressive stuff. But they are not theater designers. They can however create things with an impressive amount of detail.
There is a go/no-go decision coming up and there are 3 questions on the table. One is budget naturally. Another is scale as we would want to build in a scale (like HO, O, G) that offers access to off-the-shelf elements such as doors, seats, people, etc. The 3rd thing is what kind theater to build? This is where I am hoping you all here might help.
Obviously we could target a classic landmark theater that everyone might recognize in which case the details might all be dictated by the era and actual photos and memories. There is actually interest in implementing a present day theater design and not something completely vintage.
A modern new-build theater design offers the ability for the exhibit to expand over time. Initially it might be a single/dual screen facility. Next year it might expand into a multiplex. I guess that opens the door to surrounding city blocks and/or malls. The possibility of nearby public transportation (train guys you know). Also the use of recognizable product brands through placements in subtle ways is a possibility. Your theater could be represented on the marquee.
So do any of you have any ideas? Maybe one of you has a design for a future theater complex that you might want to see modeled? Perhaps something that you had wanted to build but that never came to be? Maybe something that might still get built but that you are willing to share. It would give you a chance to see it rendered in physical 3D and have a chance to get feedback.
Actual architectural drawings/concepts would be awesome. Maybe some renderings of decor. Here we are not just talking about screens with some model chairs lined up in front of them but an entire building with the theaters, projection booths, projectors, media systems, speaker systems, lobby, halls, concessions, restrooms, ticketing and exterior. The concept is for an open roof where you look down inside from above. We want to show actual current content (trailers, pre-show and feature) on the screens. This could be fun.
Any comments? Anyone here have an interest in consulting on this project? Um, right now we are looking for volunteer efforts since a budget has not been created. But there would be recognition involved. That could be a bonus.
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Phillip Grace
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 164
From: ACMI. Melbourne. Australia.
Registered: Mar 2004
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posted 08-26-2019 01:24 AM
Here's an update on the fantastic model Odeon cinema.
In June 2018 it was housed in a not for profit museum in Ynyshir, Wales.
Paul Kirner's Music Palace, South Street, Porth CF39 0EG U.K.
This links to a post on their Facebook page from 14 June 2018. You might need to search within the posts on Barbier Odeon to find the specific item.
www.facebook.com/pg/paulkirnersmusicpalace/posts/?ref=page_internal
I picked up a couple of useful facts from the various published material.
The model is 1/30 scale, which seems to be well suited to show all of the detail you would find in a cinema building. (The original Odeon would have been much the same size as a multiplex).
The resulting model is still quite a reasonable size for display, and portability, and the breakaway sections are really useful for showing the internal features.
It took Mr Barbier 28 years to build his Odeon. Current 3-D printing and CAD technology would help enormously in scaling components from original drawings, and the repetition production of a lot of elements.
The model also includes a working electronic screen and DVD player, which sort of points in the direction of Bruce's project, and raises the question of suitable scale if any practical elements are to be included. How small could a plausible working model projector be made, for example?
FWIW I'd go for a scale model building in preference to VR simulation any day of the week.
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Phillip Grace
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 164
From: ACMI. Melbourne. Australia.
Registered: Mar 2004
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posted 08-26-2019 06:47 PM
A model of a modern multiplex cinema would be an exercise in repetition itself, and require a lot of work to cover the same ground over and over, which probably wouldn't give the modelers much enjoyment. One multiplex auditorium is pretty much identical to the other 10, 15 or 20 on a site.
I think that for best historical value the model should represent a building incorporating equipment and technologies that really did/do exist somewhere, and were socially or commercially relevant.
Here in the 1970's and 1980's there were quite a number of back to back twins created inside older main street single screen theatres. Typically they had a common bio-box in the middle, with a screen at each end of the site. A larger auditorium was formed from the original screen end, and a smaller one over the entrance foyer, with the screen at the street end. These buildings had quite a long commercial life.
A model of one of these would offer the opportunity to show differing decor, projection technology, seating styles, etc. and indicate the operating economies of the arrangement, which was very much the precursor of the multiplex. Even if a specific real-life prototype doesn't exist, it might have.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-30-2019 06:39 AM
True that! As for capturing the transition period from single screens to the early multiplexes, that's one period in cinema's history that best be left on the garbage heap of Worst Ideas Ever. Beautiful, opulent movie palaces (and even the not-so grandiose neighborhood single screens in the day which were as ubiquitous as Starbucks is today) had character and architectural flourishes that made them unique and actually quite classy. True, not every one was an Odeon or Grauman's Chinese, but even the humble neighborhood single screen had elements that distinguished it. Then came this horrendous concept of spittling and quading ad infinitum until every inch of space of the proud ladies was turned into a "cinema." Even janitor's closets were in danger of becoming Screen nn. And most often with the multiplexing of the grand single screen theatres came the downfall of elegant presentation, the death of showmanship and the painting over of beautiful frescoes and sconces and gilded cornesses with gallons and gallons of flat black paint.
One of my fellow 306 colleagues who was involved with trying to save the RKO Keith's in Flushing NY, which was a "wonder theatre" that had a two story statue and water fountain in the main lobby and theatre interior was a motif of an outdoor courtyard surrounded by villas, he took me up to Screen #4 and showed me that the new screen (less than 1/4 the size of the original) and its frame had just been bolted on top of the carved facade of the original proscenium and there you could see that they had simply painted over all that gold leaf with black paint. As Henry Higgins once said, It could make the angel weep. And it did. Here was a theatre that started the show by having the lighting as you walked "into" the outdoor courtyard bright and cheery-- the sun at noon. As the preshow music played, the lighting went from sunshine to dusk -- you could see moving cloud formations projectioned in the "sky" which went from orange and purple hues to deep blue as the sun "set." As dusk became night, thousands of stars began to be seen in the sky -- twinkling, no less. The sun had set and it was night and the curtain could part and the movie began. And THAT, boys and girls, is what needs to be modeled and documented for posterity.
And when they weren't destroying the old single screens and torturing them into horrid, little dark, dank holes in the wall with miniscule screens and mind-numming repetitive sameness, the new builds seemed to incorporate that same penchant for boring, cookie-cutter, lifeless and totally uninspiring rooms that could be any theatre anywhere in the country. Be let it be known, moviegoing wasn't always like that. When I grew up, I had 6 or 7 different single screens that I frequented as a kid. ALL of them, from the majestic RKO Keith's the modernist flagship theatre of the Century Theatres chain -- the Fresh Meadows in Queens -- to the quaint neighborhood Skourus' Bayside Theatre, to the Valencia palace in Jamaica NY and the UA Dimension 150 in Syosset LI with its Cinerama-mimicking, deep curved screen, each and every one was unique unto itself and you could place me and any of my 12 and 13 yr old friends blindfolded in any one of these theatres, pull off the blindfold and in less time than it takes to say Ouch when you stub your toe, we'd be able to identify the theatre we were in. Each had character and class -- I think they even had their own unique scent.
People will be interested in witnessing what time has tried to erase, not the barely interesting utilitarian replacements of today. And as has been already wisely pointed out in this thread, if you are building a model of today's cinemas, just build one and then multiply it over and over again for as many "screens" as you want in your godzillaplex. Actually, you barely have to fret over details of the screening rooms -- they are pretty much incidental to the whole operation -- you'll want to document where the REAL action is. If your model is to be representative of 21st century cinemas, be sure to pay special detail to the massive food courts that are, in actuality, the heart of today's exhibition business. These bright, gleaming chrome and glass...all neon and LED lights and animated menus and "concessions" service counters that wrap around a block-long lobby -- these are the primary focus focus and the financial rockbed of any multiplex.
Then you venture away from the sparkle and excitement of the food court lobby, you may find a gaming room with myriad of electronic games usually based on superhero movie charaters.
But venture further into the bowels of the building and you will eventually to find row upon row of doors all numbered and displaying a movie title and you think, oh yah...this is where the movies are...in those small, dark rooms with naked screens and oddly stale smells, there as almost an after-thought away from the main attraction, which of course, is the food court lobby. And oddly enough -- or perhaps not so odd when you come to understand the exhibition business -- anywhere in that corridor and in those screening rooms, you won't find any theatre personnel. It as if, once you leave the concession area, you are on your own.
Now that feeling of abandonment might be hard to portray in a model, but at the very least, if you populate your screening rooms with miniature people, you simply MUST have a group of them chatting and facing each other rather than the screen and at least have two or three with cellfones in their hands (any chance you the cellfones would be rigged to light up and illuminate like ten rows all around them? And of course you'll be sure to NOT have anyone who might remotely look like an usher or manager anywhere within blocks of the screening room.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 08-30-2019 08:28 PM
There really is no answer, Bruce, other than finding a time machine. It's just change and the only thing anyone can do is to deal with it. And I suppose also to just be happy we were lucky enough to experience it. Obviously those experiences of having lived through the Era of the Great Movie Palaces were powerful enough to inspire Cyril Barbier to spend decades capturing those memories in his incredible Odeon model. I wrote a chapter in Brooklyn - A State Of Mind about my memories of the Loews Kings in Brooklyn, another Wonder Theatre that happily, decades later after neglect, vandalism and the elements devastated the interior, it been has been fully restored. To many people's dismay, so far, they do not show movies in this great lady.
[URL] www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x89c25b493b5ae649%3A0xfbaa9e9d6f1ddde0!2m22!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m16!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!2m2!1m1!1e6!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMtiPkREMTuAtK gVgWehzufNj6KUNcdlEhYbxHo%3Dw213-h160-k-no!5sthe%20kings%20theater%2C%20brooklyn%20ny%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipMtiPkREMTuAtKgVgWehzufNj6KUNcdlEhYbxHo&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiKwq-v-6vkAhXSnuAKHUU7A0sQoiowE3oECAsQBg[/URL]
Didn't mean to be a Debby Downer, Bruce, but it is pretty depressing at least for me, anyway. I suppose as time keeps marching on, people who have never experienced what we did as kid and young adults won't think they are missing much. It's only depressing if you know what it was. I think it was Bobby who said eventually people will get used to the "soap opera" look and it won't be a negative anymore, it will just be the way it is.
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