Loews Keystone Park 16
Dallas, Texas, USA
Shot of the outside of the theater from the parking lot. 16 screen theater, recent Loews construction. The lobby cuts through the building right in the middle diving the projection booth into 2 parts. 10 on the left 6 on the right. To get from one side to another projectionist must descend a flight of stairs, cross a potentially packed lobby, and climb another flight of stairs. Often only 1 projectionist on duty, so shifts can be pretty exhausting.
Reverse shot of the lobby looking towards the box offices.
Reverse shot of a medium sized auditorium about 180 seats.
Forward shot of the same auditorium. Masking is top and side movable.
This is the only projector that has the platter on the operator side.
The projectionist has to be careful not to trip on the film here.
This booth has an all Christie package. SLC lamphouses and gearless projectors. 3Q automation.
Tape and cardboard is put on the port windows to keep the booth light out of the auditoriums.
Close-up of the 3Q automation. Simple, but effective and very reliable. That is a digital start timer on the bottom left. The projectionist can input a full week's schedule in this timer. All they have to do is thread.
Typical sound rack. All theaters have DFP-2000 for SDDS, DCP-1000 for analog and QSC MX-1500a amplifiers. All auditoriums are bi-amped. 6 of 16 auditoriums are configured for 8 channel sound.
In an attempt to eliminate static, metal rollers were tried in the brains. This helped, but not as much as film-guard would have.
Typical genius projector configuration, with the SDDS reader mounted above a kelmar cleaner bracket, rendering the bracket useless.
Projector for one of the smallest auditoriums - about 80 seats. Check out that down angle! The screen was tilted upwards to help with keystoning problems.
The "low side" booth, housing projectors 1-10.
Reverse shot of the "low side" booth. The cinder block walls, tile floor, concrete ceiling and exposed duct work made the booth VERY loud.
The "high side" booth which housed projectors 11-16.
Reverse shot of "high side" booth.
Another shot of the "low side booth. Projectors 4 and 5 down the stairs to the left, 6 and 7 down the stairs to the right.
A static brush in another attempt to eliminate static. Why all the problems with static? Lets see the next pic.
There it is! Those particle transfer cleaners do nothing to help with static and even with cleaning after every show, still didn't remove dirt either. Also a test of a tension failsafe. Only one platter had this.
What's this? Something that's not a Christie. It's a JJ-3 that was removed from the closed and now demolished Loews Park Central. It was brought over with the thought that they may eventually show a 70mm movie. Projectionists tried to clean up years and years of neglect.
Another shot of the disassembled JJ as it was being restored. Sadly, to my knowledge this projector was never re-assembled or ran film again.
Special thanks to Jason Burroughs for the pics