Today I started a new "job", well, rather, a new volunteer position. It does come with perks, will be teaching me a new set of job skills and shows me that passions don't necessarily come with big paychecks attached. I already knew that from my years in the librarian profession. Considering how many things in that profession fall under "manual skills" I have to wonder half the time if we shouldn't just label it a "trade".
I digress.
Today I started my apprenticeship in the fine art of film projection. And really, it is an art, in the way that cooking or painting or mud wrestling is an art. No one way to really do it. It's somewhat like brain surgery or brick laying or souffle building, every time you do it seems to be a different thing altogether. Today I went in at two in the afternoon and came out at eight a different man. I finally got to see movies from the other end of the beast. That sounded strange, sure, but there's some crazy stuff afoot in a movie house once you climb up and above the comfy seats and go up into the projection booth.
My teacher and boss felt I had a leg up on the rest of his trainees he's had if only because I used an 8MM at home and was familar with threading my old reel to reel. I suppose in some ways, yes, that old up and over and around threading thing I was used to was there with me today, but man, it was a completely different ball game being up there in the booth with two movies going round and round simultaneously, with paying customers in the lobby wanting popcorn and waiting patiently in the auditorium for their films to start. You can dabble all you want at home with your music and old flicks but once you get paying customers in your midst all the variable change and everything you do becomes all too real. Or "reel" in my case.
Picture a large circular dining room table, oh, say, six feet or more in diameter..that's how big a platter is for films. Then picture this strange, overhead and underfoot sort of freewheeling jungle of film vines snaking in and out of a projector, going back and forth onto that huge platter, then top that off with old school projection technology and you get the kind of day I got to have four or five times today. My boss was patient...he's been in the business for a dozen years or so..and he walked me through the steps more than once. It felt like the first day of school. I couldn't absorb enough information fast enough, and frankly it made my head spin faster than those gigantic reels spun the film.
But you know what? I did it. With help, sure, but I managed to pull off threading and setting up four different movies today. Plus I learned how to work the popcorn machine. And I got to watch part of a Korean vampire film, the whole of the new Kevin Spacey film Shrink and even swept the floor during intermission. Next week I get to unload films from the platters and break them down into their shipper boxes, load up an upcoming film. All that for free.
All job descriptions I see these days ask for experience. Sometimes you have to go out of your way and be willing to grab that experience without pay. For me it's gravy, or rather a free movie, a bag of popcorn and a Coke on top of the new skill set. For others it would be out of the question. Will I get to use this new found experience later on? Who knows? But for the son of a grip and an old movie maven this is a job made in heaven. For the moment, anyhow. See you at the movies!
Salud!
Need movie times? Here's the Historic Orchard site:
http://www.orchardtheater.com/
I digress.
Today I started my apprenticeship in the fine art of film projection. And really, it is an art, in the way that cooking or painting or mud wrestling is an art. No one way to really do it. It's somewhat like brain surgery or brick laying or souffle building, every time you do it seems to be a different thing altogether. Today I went in at two in the afternoon and came out at eight a different man. I finally got to see movies from the other end of the beast. That sounded strange, sure, but there's some crazy stuff afoot in a movie house once you climb up and above the comfy seats and go up into the projection booth.
My teacher and boss felt I had a leg up on the rest of his trainees he's had if only because I used an 8MM at home and was familar with threading my old reel to reel. I suppose in some ways, yes, that old up and over and around threading thing I was used to was there with me today, but man, it was a completely different ball game being up there in the booth with two movies going round and round simultaneously, with paying customers in the lobby wanting popcorn and waiting patiently in the auditorium for their films to start. You can dabble all you want at home with your music and old flicks but once you get paying customers in your midst all the variable change and everything you do becomes all too real. Or "reel" in my case.
Picture a large circular dining room table, oh, say, six feet or more in diameter..that's how big a platter is for films. Then picture this strange, overhead and underfoot sort of freewheeling jungle of film vines snaking in and out of a projector, going back and forth onto that huge platter, then top that off with old school projection technology and you get the kind of day I got to have four or five times today. My boss was patient...he's been in the business for a dozen years or so..and he walked me through the steps more than once. It felt like the first day of school. I couldn't absorb enough information fast enough, and frankly it made my head spin faster than those gigantic reels spun the film.
But you know what? I did it. With help, sure, but I managed to pull off threading and setting up four different movies today. Plus I learned how to work the popcorn machine. And I got to watch part of a Korean vampire film, the whole of the new Kevin Spacey film Shrink and even swept the floor during intermission. Next week I get to unload films from the platters and break them down into their shipper boxes, load up an upcoming film. All that for free.
All job descriptions I see these days ask for experience. Sometimes you have to go out of your way and be willing to grab that experience without pay. For me it's gravy, or rather a free movie, a bag of popcorn and a Coke on top of the new skill set. For others it would be out of the question. Will I get to use this new found experience later on? Who knows? But for the son of a grip and an old movie maven this is a job made in heaven. For the moment, anyhow. See you at the movies!
Salud!
Need movie times? Here's the Historic Orchard site:
http://www.orchardtheater.com/
2 comments:
Ooooh! What was the vampire movie? I love vampire movies.
It sounds like you had a great time. I imagine that type of work would be fun! And getting free concessions and watching a free film would be icing on the cake! Bravo!
hoo. Good to read this and imagine you up in that twilight of the [projection room with film whirring around ya. My first job in libraries was in a regional HQ of a public library system. We had a 16 mm film library and projectors we loaned out to schools, the university and so on. We had a projection room in HQ to review, rewind and generally check for damage or whatever. Was the coolest part of a job: film review. Sometimes we would show movies to staff on quiet Friday afternoons in HQ too (when I was in charge....)....of course that was way back in the day and in another country where library material had to really earn it's worth, documentaries and educational/training films, not entertainment. Lot of good stuff on art and artists however. Reading your post just reminded me of the silver halide kind of smell of the films and their metal cannisters...
Post a Comment