August 8, 2022 • 46 mins
Nothing beats seeing a good movie on the big screen. But in the age of online streaming, how do theaters survive and continue to stay relevant? Featuring Jules McLean, Director of Operations for the New Beverly Cinema.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Ephemeral is a production of iHeart three D audio for full.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Exposure, listen with that phones, open the pod bay doors. Hell,
I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There's nothing quite like seeing a good movie on the
big screen. If you've ever watched something like two thousand
and one A Space Odyssey in a theater, you'll understand
how visceral it can be to experience that level of
visual and auditory immersion, and how different it is from
watching at home. Theaters have always been an important part
(00:46):
of the film industry. In the early nineteen hundreds, companies
like Paramount and Columbia help to open the first picture palaces,
opulent and decadent houses for exhibiting film. Eight saw a
huge boom in movie going culture as theater chains expanded
the accessibility of movies across the country. But recently, the
(01:09):
COVID pandemic and the rise of streaming services have threatened
the existence of movie theaters altogether. So now where do
movie theaters fit into our modern culture today? Producer Trevor
Young walks us through the turbulene but grand history of
movie theaters and visits one special theater in Los Angeles,
(01:30):
which still thrives on independent cinema.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Last year I had the opportunity to move to Los Angeles.
As you probably know, we're huge film nerds here on
the Ephemeral Team, and LA is a huge film town.
So I was excited to visit all the local theaters
around here. But what I wasn't expecting was just how
opulent and dense with historical meaning all of the mainstay
theaters here really are. Most of them have been around
(02:00):
for decades, some for over a century. They're full of life,
and the people in them carry a genuine love for film,
and especially coming out of COVID, it feels like all
the moviegoers that these theaters agree this is a special event.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You know what you can't get from sitting at home watching, say,
a movie like The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, I think, what was Marty Augusty doing here the
other night? How did you know him here from my place?
So dropped by to have a word or two with me,
and I was just curious to see who else he
wanted to talk to. A turn out to be you.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You can't get Elliot Gould sitting in the seat across
the aisle from you watching The Long Goodbye. He is
literally sitting three feet from me. I mean, come on,
that's one of my favorite movie going experiences.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
I'm like, oh my god, it's Elliot cool.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
This is Jules McLean, director of operations at the New
Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. The New BEV, as it's
often called, is owned by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. He bought
the historic theater in two thousand and seven and has
since devoted the theater to screening revival cinema. Jules is
a personal friend of Quentin and join the NUBEV in
(03:13):
twenty fourteen, and her job can be a little intense at.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
The New Beverly.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Kind of a jack of all trades, but I do
oversee everything. I communicate with Quentin a lot. I'm the
one person that has an open line of communication forum.
We get programming for him, We bounce ideas off. I'm
lucky that I have a good team in place, because
you would not imagine everything it is to run a theater.
(03:40):
There's booking, there's establishing relationship with filmmakers and distributors, studios,
film collectors. Because we're a film only house. There's the
day to day stuff of running a business. You need permits,
health permits. You have to like take into consideration pricing
because everything is now skyrocketing navigating through COVID waters.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
But Jules says it's all worth it to her. Movie
theaters like the New BEV are the most valuable cultural spaces.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
We have two things.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
One it's an escape for me, and the other thing
is the communal aspect. Just this last Saturday, went and
saw Live and let dive one of our matinees.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Easy, Charlie, let's get there on one piece, Charlie.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Big James Bond fan here.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And afterwards, you know, people are buzzing, stayed in the lobby.
I mean people are staying in the lobby for like
a half an hour. Finally I had just kind of
shoot people away because we had another show coming in.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
But I remember one of our regulars, Sarah, we were talking.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
She's all like, I've made a lot of friends standing
in line at the New Beverly.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
This place is magic. I don't know, you're not going to.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Get that experience sitting at home on your couch.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
You got to get out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
It doesn't matter if it's at the New Beverly another theater,
and so we support independent theaters the most. But even
if you get out and you go to the bigger
chain theaters, just get out of your house, go to
the movie, see it with an audience. Oh my gosh,
Live and Let Die, wonderful action pack, but also had
this moments of comedy and just being in a theater,
(05:16):
a pack theater, and sharing laughter with somebody's it really
is Sarah's raight is magical.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Jules told me that the new Bets reminded her of
the kind of theaters she used to go to growing up.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
When I was I'm going to stay five, but I
think I was actually six, my mom took me to
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids. But Cassidy's Hole in
the Wall Gangcasi's Hole in the Wall Gang, that's me,
the whole bank of over close to twenty fives.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
What hard you do your planning for you? You want
them to do your thinking for you. You want him
to run things.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You can shut up now, news or not yet till
I get the good part. Butch and before y'all be
judge everyone. I really wanted to see Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kids. She just didn't pick that out of
the blue. The next movie was The Great Gatsby, and
I think I was seven, and I wasn't very into it.
You want too much?
Speaker 5 (06:09):
I love you now?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Isn't that enough?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
I can't help what's passed.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I did love him once, but I loved you too.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And then we stood in line for like Star Wars,
like my mom rocked as far as like movies go,
and that just really formed my sensibilities. That's a movie
going experience. I just, I mean, decades later, I remember
that I take my nieces to the theater. I mean,
I just I hope people continue to go out to
(06:37):
the movies.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
One unique thing about the New Beverly is that they
only show film, meaning actual analog reels and no digital
film whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It's not easy, but we know a lot of collectors,
a lot of the studios, in fact, the majority of
them have opened up their repertory. They do lend out
prints a lot of times. There's costs and volve in
the shipping aspect. Sometimes the archives are local and we
can go pick them up. And luckily we actually went
back through all our programming and one of the reasons
(07:10):
Quinton got the theater in the first place is that
he has a very large film print collection. Over half
the titles that we play come from his collection. So
that's a way for him to share it with audiences.
Because actually we had to do that for tax purposes too.
It's like, oh no, no, no, he really does play
his prints at that theater.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But it's not just an arbitrary choice. The new bev
uses real film for a reason.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Seeing actual film, they've done studies and I forget if
it was Harvard or Yale. But the brain's reaction to
twenty four frames per second, you have a different emotional connection.
Digital very flat thirty five offers a different texture. Your
brain takes it in differently, you have a different emotional reaction.
I mean that's a big part of what's different now
(08:00):
days two because it's all digital projection and this and that, which,
by the way, I'll still go to see digital films.
I'm not pooh pooing them if I have a choice,
darn right. Like I waited forever to see Nightmare Alley
because I know we were going to show it and
I wanted to see it on film.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
Oh I see an older man. Oh the boy hates cinema.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, the boy would love to be loved, but he
hates that man. Death.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Death. I'm no wish to death.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
As you can tell, Jules has a deep love for
all things cinema, and she's very attuned to the vast
history of theaters in LA and across the country. So
we thought she'd be the perfect person to help us
learn a little bit more about theaters, or as they
were originally called, picture palaces.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
The nineteen tens the nineteen twenties. A lot of the
older theaters were actually live performances converted to a movie
theater once the talkies came about.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Early film studios like Paramount or Warner Brothers were deeply
involved in the movie palaces. They were, of course, the
only venues for their product.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Once they got a little bit of this success in
the studios operated a lot of them. They just kept
getting bigger, seating like twenty five hundred three thousand downtown
Los Angeles, wonderful like two mile stretch of just like
picture palace after picture palace after picture palace.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
One thing most people either forget about or don't realize,
is that there was a whole show before the film
back then you'd have the news ads, a cartoon or short.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Film, television highlights of the news of yester year.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That's something you might also see at the New Beverley.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Cartoons were a big draw in the thirties. Cereals those
were a big draw. You'd package cereals and cartoons and
maybe a comedy shortened.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
That's their entertainment for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I go on private forums and stuff like that, and
I'm always looking for cool things because we will play
newsreels from the thirties, the forties, the fifties.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
In Gary, Indiana, struck mills or idol behind picket lines
composed of women.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Cartoons were big on cartoons. When Quentin took it over,
he really wanted to kind of mimic what happened in
the past, which was you would play like a tag,
a little like kind of commercial or something cool for
like Coca Cola.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to
the lobby.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Then you would play like a short, you know, Three
Stooges short or you know, bugs Bunny cartoon, and then
it's like trailers and trailers for either up and coming
films or trailers that thematically fit what you're showing that night,
and then you go into the actual feature and that's
what they did that then it was a different movie
going experience. I know, you get the trailers when you
(11:09):
go and see your first run films and stuff, but
you know, it's not quite the same.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
One other interesting thing is that most theaters did not
have concessions back then.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I don't know how they survived. I forget what decade
concessions came into, but can you imagine going to the
movies and not having concessions. Now as an exhibitor, I'm like, oh,
oh gosh, we would not be in business if we
had to close our concessions.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
I have to have my popcorn.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
But by far the most striking feature of the old
picture palaces was the architecture.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Stunning, absolutely stunning. I can tell you that a lot
of thought went into them. You can tell by the
little decorations, very ornate, very thematic. You had two theaters
in Los Angeles that had an Egyptian theme and they
were two different architects.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
You know, you see.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Middle Eastern themes. You just see a lot of art
deco themes. I would love to go back in time
and just kind of sit in on some of the
planning and what people thought. But again, studios behind a
lot of the big picture palaces, so they could throw
a lot of money into them, and they wanted to
appeal to a wider class of people. They did want
(12:20):
the theaters to reflect that.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I asked Jules to mention a few examples and to
tell us what her favorites are.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Believe it or not, Radio City Music Hall, which does
not show film anymore. I don't think the Music Box
in Chicago. There's a handful that a still around in
downtown Los Angeles. A secret movie club is out of
the million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles. And then
there's other venues that are open. We've had premieres of
Quinton's films at a couple of the theaters. I really
(12:52):
like the Metrograph in New York. I love the Bellcourt
in Nashville. You know, I was a big fan of
the Ramadome and even the arc Light Complex in general
because I thought they had, you know, really nice big theaters.
I do like when I travel, i'd like to see
the independent movie theaters. I like to experience them. I'll
tell you a wonderful one is the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon. Amazing, gorgeous,
(13:19):
wonderful programming. I got a little tour and everything. There's
fun little basement hangout, you know. And I get kind
of jealous of theaters like the Hollywood because they have
so much room and can do so much and the
guy that runs it, oh, here's two free drink tickets.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
I'm like, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
It's like, yeah, we don't get drink tickets at the
New Beverly. We don't even starve alcohol and stuff. So
I did a little jealous, But I mean, theaters are
just wonderful one. They're in every town and it's yay,
they're magic.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Jules says that back in the day going to the
movie theater was a big.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Deal throughout the country. I think they were packed. That
was your night out. You're getting dressed up to go
to these places. Now part of it, Yeah, you want
to be seen dressed up, drive your car there. Maybe
it was the equivalent to when we go to maybe
to the Pantagious in Los Angeles to go see Hamilton
or something, or if you go to Broadway you would
(14:16):
have more like the Douglas Fairbanks action, you know, buccaneers.
I also think a lot of the comedies you have
the Harold Lloyd's MaxEnt and comedies, and I think a
lot of like shorter films that are just they're lost
now even if they were found.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Is there an audience form, I don't know so.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Because the studios largely funded the movie palaces back then,
the theaters were a lot more strict about what they
could or couldn't play.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I know, there wasn't a lot of like cross pollinations.
So if it was, you know, a Warner Brothers theater,
they only played Warner pictures. There were studios that didn't
have theaters, and I think it was a tougher time
for them to get in into some of the established
studio owned But I mean that broke up, and I
(15:06):
think that was probably good. There certainly were, I mean
studios are cranking it out in the heydays, forties fifties. Absolutely,
if they made money, they were going to produce some
some not so great that you can say that for
today's films too.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
The New Beverly did not yet exist by this point,
so it's not technically a picture Palace, but its history
is interesting nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, New Beverly's built in twenty nine, so it was originally,
I believe, a candy store. Then somebody sold wine out
of it, and it eventually became Slapsy Maxis, which was
a live club. In nineteen fifty, it became a movie theater.
I mean, there's been one ever since. But it's had
so many iterations and so many different names, it's kind
(15:54):
of crazy. It was even split into a twin theater
called the Riviera Capri Crazy.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I can't imagine it now because I still think it's
a little small. It was the.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Arrows, the Riviera Caprids, the Beverly, the New Yorker. It's
an adult theater, as we all know, kind of referenced
in Once upon a Time in Hollywood, What's.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
Going on at the Dirty Movie Place?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Well, they're having a premiere. Dirty movies have premieres.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, they're fun.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Which is really cool.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
If you watched Once upon a Time in Hollywood at
the New Beverly, you got.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
That d joke.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Been home to a lot of different theaters and made
many people happy.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
She says. Theaters like this started to become more common
in the fifties instead of the grand picture palaces, now
we were getting more small, single screen theaters.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They popped up because people are moving to the suburbs.
You know, you can build a giant picture palace their
neighborhood theaters, so I think they served their neighborhoods.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
But soon big companies would take notice of the success
of movie theaters and they would create the franchises we
know today chains that all but doomed the independent theaters
of the last century. These days the most common movie
(17:21):
theaters are the chains, amc, Cinemak, Regal and so on.
But before these, in the early days, the studios themselves
were the franchises.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
They were up.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
During the picture palaces, you had your lolls and your
warners and stuff, so you saw them. But when the
studios were told that they couldn't be exhibitors, there were
opportunities for corporations. Probably sixties they really started getting going.
Seventies probably their heydays, seventies and eighties.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
Then the slide began.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Unfortunately, theater chains radically shifted the movie business in the eighties.
Now you have these big buildings with a dozen or
more screens showing every available movie, usually more than once
a day. While Jules prefers the older art house single
screen theaters, she understands why these types of theaters became popular.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
There's your economic aspect as an exhibitor, where you're not saddled.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
If a movie bombs.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You open it in your big three hundred seat theater,
and at bombs you move it over to the fifty
seater and you can put something in where you will
make money. As far as the movie going experience, it's
just like now, it's a lot of options. I want
to go see the two ten show of so and so,
but I missed it. But look at two thirty, I
(18:43):
can make this so it's not a complete wash. I
don't have to get back in my car. I don't
have to kill two hours to the next showing. As
a teenager or as a young college person, multiplexes were
great because you could see two or three movies a
day and only pay once.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
But Juele says we lost a lot of value when
we transitioned away from the neighborhood theaters.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
There more things like textually, if you go to the Vista,
you have the manager that has worked there for decades, Victor,
and he'll greet you and you have interactions and you
can you know, it's your neighborhood theater. I live in
that neighborhood, so I always run into friends there. But
you don't have that kind of interaction at an AMC.
And it's so big, and you don't like stand in
(19:29):
a lobby and talk about the film afterwards. You don't
like meet people and say, hey, let's go get coffee
over here and talk about the film. You go, you
see the movie. It's great, you know what you're getting,
and you go home. Go someplace like New Beverly, you
know the vista, the Arrow Los Biless three. It's a
(19:49):
different experience. It's more of a movie going experience. I
don't know if I can put my finger quite on it,
but it just isn't a little bit more at an AMC,
shall we say.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Of course, the biggest impact of the chain theaters was
the eventual closure of indie theaters. For the older single
screen theaters and picture palaces, companies like AMC signaled near
certain death.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I don't know how a single screen theater makes it.
I have zero idea. We've come close to closing several times,
despite Quentin Tarantino being the overall owner. That doesn't mean
he has to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
You know, the American cinema tech is at the low
SPI list three. I don't know if they have all
(20:37):
three screens, but I think they have like two of them.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
At least. That gives you an.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Opportunity to make your programming a little bit. I don't know,
I'm like diverse or something, but you can fall back
onto something and gives you a little bit more flexibility.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Where if we put.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
A dog in there, it's bad for us, you know,
can't really overcome that. Now we have to try to
think like, okay, what can we do to make up
like we're losing five thousand dollars by showing this one movie?
You know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and there's twelve people here.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
This is bad. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We still have to pay the studios their licensing fee.
Now we're paying employees not to serve you popcorn, or
sell you tickets or monitor the show. I do not
know how single screen theaters exist.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well. Jules is thankful that the new BEV is surviving.
She says running a single screen theater is both complicated
and difficult in ways that chain theaters don't have to
worry about.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Well B corporations.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Obviously, you can like move your money around at this
theater location. B you don't take a loss, and it's different.
No place to hide for the single screen theater, I'll
tell you that. Much like in twenty fourteen, when we
took over the new Beverly to pick up our trash,
it was like one hundred and eighty six dollars. Now, oh,
five hundred and thirty four dollars. Yes, we do have
(22:04):
to raise our ticket prices occasionally, and it's everything.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's clockwork.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's a certain vendor that sends a notice at the
beginning of the year, a big vendor, we need to
raise our prices three to five percent. I'm like, oh
my gosh, but I don't pass that along to our patrons.
I know other theaters don't do that either. Part of
the movie going experience is feeling like you're not being gouged.
I go to a lot of theaters and I take
(22:31):
pictures of their concession things, and I'm like, how in
the world is this big theater? I will leave out
a name charging four seventy five for a small bottle
of water is like wow.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
The next big blow to small theaters was television.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
I think it was pretty damning to theater going well.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I mean, all of a sudden, it was almost like
a novelty, almost like wow, you got this little screen
and you can just like you can watch the Howdy
Duty Show. Oh my gosh, you can like you can
bring your meal and put it on a tray and
you can.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Watch from your home home.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I don't think it was anything with economics, but I
think it was just like, Wow, we've got.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Like a screen in our home. Now.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It's a little better than the movie screen, but there's
always something on and oh.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Wow, they're showing a John Wayne movie. Wow. And theaters
had to overcome that, and they did.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
And then came streaming things like Netflix and Hulu. I
asked Jules how the New Beverly survived the streaming era.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Definitely, attendance took a hit at the New Beverly. We
didn't come in until twenty fourteen. But the dynamics of
movie exhibition have changed. But I think at least we've
reached a point now where it's harmonious.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Jewels says streaming is probably her least favorite way to
watch movie. She says that at theaters there's a kind
of community you just don't get by flipping through Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It's so nice when people come to the New Beverly,
Like I'll tell you that the family matinee, we were
playing Disney's The Barefoot Executive.
Speaker 8 (24:16):
I'm not interested in your theories on ratings, and I'm
certainly not interested in doing a show called Abraham Lincoln's
Doctor's Dog, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And it was directed by Robert Butler. He brought his grandchildren.
Now the grandchildren get to see it on the big screen.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
They get to see the audience laughing. They get to.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
See people coming up to their grandfather Robert Butler afterward
and say, oh man, that was so cool, and that's
so cool that you came out taking pictures by the
one sheets and everything like.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
You don't get that experience at home.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
And that's actually one of the things I'm most proud
about the New Beverly is that that we offer people
that experience and you don't have to be Robert Butler
and his family to so recognize, if you were at
that screening, how important that is and how special that is.
Like I was just work in the box office, and
it's like, that's pretty darn cool. You're not going to
(25:12):
get that watching the movie on Netflix.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
But clearly streaming isn't going anywhere. So this begs the
question can theaters and streaming services live harmoniously.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
I don't know if I ever see that they exist
equally harmoniously. I think you're seeing that now. I mean,
we have a wonderful relationship with say Netflix. Netflix took
over the Egyptian Theater, so they will be showing their
films there. There's a merger of theater and streaming, and
(25:44):
I remember Netflix at one point was very resistant, but
they saw the potential, they saw a wider audience. They
saw that Hey, Academy Awards, you know, we get some
of our films nominated, win some Oscars.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Pretty darn cool.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Luckily, there has been a movement in recent years to
preserve the history of rich spaces like picture palaces and
single screen theaters. Quentin Tarantino, of course, saved the New
Beverly from extinction, as well as the Vista Theater, also
in Los Angeles. But finally, other filmmakers are also starting
to step up.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
There's certainly the Paul Thomas Anderson's and the christ Different Nolan's.
I don't think they have a foundation or do anything,
but just by you know, making film and insisting that
you know, it gets a theatrical run. That's important. Playing
Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza was amazing.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Do you know who my girlfriend is? Ubishi send barbustres
sand sand sand, You're like sands, like the ocean, like
harbisi sand. No striy sand sand.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
He brings his children to the New Beverly, to the
family matinees amazing. That little bit of support he pays.
There's some people that are like, oh, oh, can I
get him free? I'm like, no, Like why do.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
You work here?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Because that's the perk of working here. Otherwise, please support us,
your friend of Quentin's. No, he wants you to pay.
He wants you to support theaters.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
But in order to survive, small theaters need to be creative,
and the New Beverly is a great example.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
We took over the New Beverly.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It wasn't much of a social media presence, but that
was something identified very quickly in that we needed somebody
and my social media manager film Lankenship came on board,
and I think that has helped immensely. We would not
be where we're at today without a social media presence.
And honestly, a lot of it starts with community too.
(27:49):
You can cultivate a good film community. We have regulars
and so do other theaters because I go to them
that will stand in line for like two or three
hours before the show just to get their favorite seat
or just to catch up with their friends. And you
kind of make it a movie going experience, going back
to affordable concessions, affordable ticket prices, good value for your screen.
(28:15):
I love that Quinton put in pre shows. Now folks
are like, oh, oh, what cartoon are you shine?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Or what shorter? I like to write down the trailers,
but what was the second trailer that you played?
Speaker 1 (28:27):
You get people excited to see the movie and you
know that it's quality. Like we remodeled in twenty eighteen,
and when we did that, we did.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Some very simple upgrades. Speakers in the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I have never seen people go gaga over speakers in
the bathroom, but you look at our social media and
like they put speakers in the bathroom. Yeah, it's a
no brainer. Gotta go get up, use the restroom. You're
missing the visual aspect, but you can still kind of
hear what's going on, so you feel like you haven't
missed everything. I just have to keep looking at different
(29:01):
ways to get people engaged.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Jules says that over time, the New Beverly became a
trusted venue for cinophiles all across southern California.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
What's really cool is when we took over in twenty fourteen,
you know, Quinton did the majority of the programming, and
we just developed an audience, like a trust between Quinton
the programmer and the audience, Like you might not have
heard this film, but I'm not going to play it
if it's not good. You're going to get something out
(29:34):
of that film. I love seeing black and white movies
at the New Beverly. I think the New Beverly was
built to play black and white movies, and I just
love that we continue to find black and white movies
to play that maybe we haven't shown before, and that
audiences are willing to take a chance on.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
As you can imagine, the COVID pandemic had a huge
impact on theaters, especially on small theaters like the New BEV.
But Once they were able to pull through, it became
obvious that people were craving the in person movie going experience.
For better or worse. The pandemic reminded us that's sitting
at home isn't always the ideal way to watch a movie.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
At the end of the day, We're all human and
we need human interaction. You can only sit at home
in front of your TV or computer screen for so long.
The movie theater lets you have that interaction, even if
you're not friends with somebody. I remember when I went
to the arc Light and I saw Girls Trip. It
was me and one other person. We were dying in
(30:39):
that film, laughing out loud. And then afterwards, you know,
talked to a few minutes, but you're like, oh, that
was crazy, and he's like, I'm so glad you're in
the theater and I wasn't the only one laughing alone.
I'm like, I know, it was so cool to hear
you laughing and just having that experience. It wasn't the
full theater everybody laughing out wow, but we had that moment.
(31:02):
That moment I still remember years later. You know, if
I get that experience at home, maybe if you have
your friends over and you're watching a movie in great
it's a good time and stuff. But I know it's
not the same as going out. It's not the same
as interacting, interacting with strangers where you have this one
common thing together.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
And I'll go back to that story of the New
BEV regular Sarah. It's like she's made friends there. We've
all made friends at the New Beverly.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back, we're going to take a tour of the
New Beverly and we'll see, or rather hear, the ins
and outs of running analog film on a projector. Jules McLean,
(31:50):
director of operations for the New Beverly Cinema, was kind
enough to offer me a tour of the theater. We
walked through the lobby, the auditorium, and I got the
special experience seeing the projection room.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So we're in the lobby of the New Beverly Cinema
right now. And when Quentin took over the business part
of the cinema, we made a few changes but kept
a lot of stuff intact. One of the big things
that really made the lobby what it is today, not
that it's a tiny lobby, but there was a small
(32:24):
wall partition by the women's room, and we were probably
a week away from opening and finishing construction, and Quenton
came in and he's.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
All like, do we really need this wall?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And luckily the contractor happened to be right there too.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It's not a load bearing wall and we can get
rid of it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
The next day we got rid of it and it
just a opened up the lobby. But really, what Quinton
wanted to do with the wall being gone, it opened
up wall space, so we can now have large oversized
frames that we put French two panels in, an Italian
oversized posters in, and that's That's actually two of the
(33:05):
biggest things that I like that Quinton did was not
only removing the partition, but saying, hey, I want oversized
frames in, and I want the frames changed out every
you know, three or four days or whatever we do
to advertise a movie.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
He has a lovely.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Poster collection, so we utilize a lot of that, and
over the years we've amassed a nice collection. So it's
nice and people love taking pictures in front of it.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
So what else.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's the original box office.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
We still have the original ticket tape, puncher that the
Torgans had and uh, you know, we have gone to
an online type of ticketing service. However we still kind
of punch out the old tickets and you know they
almost look like carnival tickets. But they seeing you beverly
on them and it's kind of cool.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
I always like.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Seeing you know, people like post them, you know, pictures
of them on social media and by the marquee and stuff.
And you know the concession stand, it's small, but mighty,
we pack a lot in there. Great ideas is that
when we showed Oakcha, the Netflix film, we because it's
very you know, animal rights, we brought in vegan dogs
(34:21):
for that and we called them Oakja Dogs.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
They sold so well we've kept.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Them to this day. So again, always looking for interesting things.
I love the posters, just the one sheet posters. Some
of the artwork on the posters is gorgeous. They don't
make them like they used to, is very true. I mean,
look at that Goldfinger poster, kids says, I love it.
One thing we did when Once upon a Time in
Hollywood opened is we decked out the lobby and a
(34:47):
lot of the props which you will still see to
this day. We didn't take them down. Make Love Not
War signs over there. CLO Drive is above the women's room,
and on the box office, we had only candy that
would have been sold in nineteen sixty nine, only bottled
soda that would have been sold in nineteen sixty nine.
We did like fun stuff like candy, cigarettes and everything.
(35:11):
We had walk in music that was you know, very
specific to you know KHJ that was playing in the film,
but it was actually, you know, an on air broadcast.
So now we're in the auditorium of the new Beverly
we seat two hundred and twenty five. In twenty eighteen,
we had to completely gut everything. What was nice about
(35:35):
the remodel was that we were able to do some
really small things that I think just made the theater
even more special. People don't know what we did because
you can't see it, but we did new curtains, but
we kept the same color scheme. So we have big
blue panel of curtains right here and on the side curtains,
(35:57):
and then we have a little strip of red.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Well that was reversed.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
It was big panels of red, little strips of blue.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
But underneath it now we have.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Acoustic material, so it really makes the sound oh special.
Another thing that helped us because we had to like
tear down the roof. Now we have acoustic paneling in
the roof. Honestly, I'm on to brag here, it's some
of the best sound in Los Angeles. I was watching
I'll use Quintin's movie again because it's this theater once
(36:27):
upon a Time in Hollywood, and my manager Brian Quinn,
had the same experience. We both saw the film other places,
but during the Musso and Frank scene, like you could hear,
you know, the tables talk and everything, so much so
that both of us at one point or another turned
around and looked.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Like, who's talking in the theater? Oh, No, one's talking.
That's the background noise of Musso and Franks. Oh, our
sound is good. You don't get that at every theater.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Because I've watched Quintin's movie at other theaters and I
did not have that experience.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
So the seats, you know, they're not the greatest seats
in the world, they're not the worst seats in the world.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't know if we'll ever change them, maybe, but
I just feel that we would lose some seating capacity
if we went to some newer seats, and we certainly
wouldn't go into any seats that recline or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
That's not us. That's for another theater.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Things that Quinton did is he wanted again oversized posters
as you exit, so you can see we've got two
of them. We have one Nebraska Gym, which is a
fake movie in Quinton's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
and then we have Richard Gears Breathless.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
We can go upstairs to the booth.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Coming up, gentlemen. Well, you're in sacred territory now here
it is in all its glory.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
To your right.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
We have a wall of trailers, thirty five millimeter trailers
we use in our pre shows. The first feature always
has a cartoon or a short, and then followed by trailers.
They're either thematic that they tie into the future you're
about to see, or they're up and coming. They also
have like intermission tags or adverts from England. I mean,
(38:17):
we've got a thousand of them.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
But you'll see that in the show too.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It's like, oh, Doctor Pepper and Martian Snapbar whatever, you know,
just a little bumper and then it'll go into the
cartoon or the trailers. We have our Simplex XL projectors.
They're dual projectors. We have no platter system. At the
New Beverly when Quentin took over and put me in charge,
(38:41):
they kept telling me like we had a periscope system,
so the light would hit a mirror and then hit
another mirror and then be shot onto the screen. It
wasn't a crisp image. So I'm like, there's got to
be a way. So I pulled Quentin's personal projectionist, Jeff Nowicki.
He got his friend over here who used to work
for Fox.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
And you got to chop off the bass.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
You can chop off the base and then you'll have
a straight shot to the screen and lo and behold.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
The image improved. It was.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I guess it's a little hard for the projectionist because
they have to stoop down. That's why you see the
chair is very low, but it.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
Is absolutely worth it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
David. This is our chief projectionist, David Chan. So if
you'll explain a little bit how that works much better
than I could.
Speaker 8 (39:33):
Yeah, we start off with the reel up here, and
then we thread down towards the take up as it
passes through different rollers. You'll notice straight away that the
potentially the first section it'll pass through is the a
Dolby digital reader. The SRD track would be read through
this component. But if it's an older print and only
has one channel or standard stereo sound, we would bypass
(39:54):
that entirely and it would just go down through here
and to the gates where obviously light passes through and
into the lens. Then it goes down further to the soundhead.
What's notable about that, and when I think most people
are surprised to learn, is that if you're looking at
a frame of film on thirty five milimeter, the sound
for that frame is twenty frames ahead of it. So,
(40:15):
for example, you have an image that's starting here. If
you were to run film and have it pause, if
you were to catch that instance, the sound for that
image is already passing through twenty frames later down here
into the soundhead. It continues from there to these other
two rollers and then down into take up. We use
two thousand foot reels, which means that we can really
(40:36):
truly handle prints in the safest way. I'm going to
actually remove this anyways, but we can unscrew this and
then we have a multitude of lenses you can see
here this is our one three seven lens, which is
common for older Hollywood aspect ratio or for cartoons that
we're able to run. For our pre shows, we could
do scope, we could do one eight five, we could
do the European one sixty six. It opens it up
(40:57):
so we can play a good variety of movies and shorts.
Speaker 6 (41:00):
What kind of preparation do you have to do with
these trends in order to get them ready to play
in the projective?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I mean, if they're in good shape, you probably just need,
you know, an hour and a half of inspection. But
if we're getting something from Quentin's collection that hasn't played
in twenty years, you could be very brittle now, so
you have to like reinforce splices. I know films that
have taken eight hours to repair just so we can
get it through the projectors. Typically, though if it's not
(41:28):
in great shape, it might take about four hours, which
is very labor intensive, trust me, not at all cost effective.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
So it takes a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
To run a film only house. I don't know how
many films that we've run a year, but it's what
do you think, David, It's least eight hundred.
Speaker 6 (41:47):
Right, yeah, because I know for like three months in
a row.
Speaker 7 (41:50):
Now we're averaging about forty features a month, man.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Which means in your warehouse it must have like how
many canisters.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
A film, like well over five thousand.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
The joke is the final shot of Raiders of the
Lost art endless amount of film.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
We actually have a print traffic manager because it gets
so busy and we're lucky that we're in Los Angeles
that we can actually physically go to a lot of
the places and pick up the film. We keep copies
of all our pre shows. There's print reports for every
print that's been inspected, and then we do store a
lot of that online and drop box, but we keep everything.
(42:31):
So we're a repertory cinema, so chances are it could
get played again, it might be the same print. At
least having the print report might cut down on some
of the work.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
And your indition.
Speaker 7 (42:41):
It might be possible to do like a brief demo
if that's not too much.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, do you think you could just thread something up
so we can get sound bites of the sure?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I guess I could throw on a pre show.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Yeah, Scope lens in there, changing the focus to scope.
Speaker 7 (43:00):
It's ready to be threaded.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
That we start today with giving the projectors a nice cleaning.
Will we initially start off a thread to a point
that's eleven feet before the first frame of image. In
this case, there's a drunk driving PSA that precedes the
coming attractions.
Speaker 7 (43:17):
Tag usually have at least eighteen feet of chad leaders,
so we'll have enough to put onto the take up
reel without worrying about any shortage. Perfect.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
So I guess I can fire up the lamp houses
and then it'll be ready for showtime. Fire up the
lamp house.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
LEAs there you go, you being sing good.
Speaker 8 (43:51):
Light your damn people.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Get four of.
Speaker 6 (43:58):
The tag the for coming down the pike.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, look who's here?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
When the action is too rough for one man? Send
for Savano's seven. First of all, it's no ordinary cleanup job.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Once we take out one of those bananas, we've got
to wipe out the rest of them in thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
If we're gonna get this thing done, we're gonna get
it done quick. Salvano's seven's the playmate, the black belt,
the dregster, the comic, the professor, the cowboy, seven. Death
is their way of life.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Seven it looked and sounded good.
Speaker 8 (45:04):
No problem if you said no superpols.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Can I say one thing, obviously if you come to
Los Angeles, would love everybody to visit the New Beverly
and stuff. But Los Angeles in particular has the Broadway
theater district that just has beautiful picture palaces from like
the Orpheum the Los Angeles, the Million Dollar Theater, which
is home to some of the Secret Movie Club screenings.
(45:32):
It's just wonderful, and the Grand Central Market is down there.
You can make a whole day of it. Even if
you don't go on the tour. It's just nice walking
up and down Broadways starting at third kind of going
all the way down to ninth and just seeing the
rich history and there's some amazing stuff here and in
other parts of the country. And applaud everybody that's kind
(45:53):
of keeping the movie theaters alive.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
This episode of Ephemeral was written and produced by Trevor Young,
with producers Max and Alex Williams. Jules MacLean is the
director of Operations at the New Beverly Cinema and David
Chen is the lead projectionist at the New Bad, Big
thanks to Quentin Tarantino for the behind the scenes pass
into his theater and for all the work he does
(46:20):
to preserve film culture. We'd love to hear from you about.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Your favorite theaters.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Is there a special or historic theater in your city?
What do you love about the movie going experience? Let
us know on social media. We're at ephemeral show and
for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ephemeral is a production of iHeart three D audio for full.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Exposure, listen with that phones, open the pod bay doors. Hell,
I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
There's nothing quite like seeing a good movie on the
big screen. If you've ever watched something like two thousand
and one A Space Odyssey in a theater, you'll understand
how visceral it can be to experience that level of
visual and auditory immersion, and how different it is from
watching at home. Theaters have always been an important part
(00:46):
of the film industry. In the early nineteen hundreds, companies
like Paramount and Columbia help to open the first picture palaces,
opulent and decadent houses for exhibiting film. Eight saw a
huge boom in movie going culture as theater chains expanded
the accessibility of movies across the country. But recently, the
(01:09):
COVID pandemic and the rise of streaming services have threatened
the existence of movie theaters altogether. So now where do
movie theaters fit into our modern culture today? Producer Trevor
Young walks us through the turbulene but grand history of
movie theaters and visits one special theater in Los Angeles,
(01:30):
which still thrives on independent cinema.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Last year I had the opportunity to move to Los Angeles.
As you probably know, we're huge film nerds here on
the Ephemeral Team, and LA is a huge film town.
So I was excited to visit all the local theaters
around here. But what I wasn't expecting was just how
opulent and dense with historical meaning all of the mainstay
theaters here really are. Most of them have been around
(02:00):
for decades, some for over a century. They're full of life,
and the people in them carry a genuine love for film,
and especially coming out of COVID, it feels like all
the moviegoers that these theaters agree this is a special event.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You know what you can't get from sitting at home watching, say,
a movie like The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, I think, what was Marty Augusty doing here the
other night? How did you know him here from my place?
So dropped by to have a word or two with me,
and I was just curious to see who else he
wanted to talk to. A turn out to be you.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
You can't get Elliot Gould sitting in the seat across
the aisle from you watching The Long Goodbye. He is
literally sitting three feet from me. I mean, come on,
that's one of my favorite movie going experiences.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
I'm like, oh my god, it's Elliot cool.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
This is Jules McLean, director of operations at the New
Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. The New BEV, as it's
often called, is owned by filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. He bought
the historic theater in two thousand and seven and has
since devoted the theater to screening revival cinema. Jules is
a personal friend of Quentin and join the NUBEV in
(03:13):
twenty fourteen, and her job can be a little intense at.
Speaker 5 (03:18):
The New Beverly.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Kind of a jack of all trades, but I do
oversee everything. I communicate with Quentin a lot. I'm the
one person that has an open line of communication forum.
We get programming for him, We bounce ideas off. I'm
lucky that I have a good team in place, because
you would not imagine everything it is to run a theater.
(03:40):
There's booking, there's establishing relationship with filmmakers and distributors, studios,
film collectors. Because we're a film only house. There's the
day to day stuff of running a business. You need permits,
health permits. You have to like take into consideration pricing
because everything is now skyrocketing navigating through COVID waters.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
But Jules says it's all worth it to her. Movie
theaters like the New BEV are the most valuable cultural spaces.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
We have two things.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
One it's an escape for me, and the other thing
is the communal aspect. Just this last Saturday, went and
saw Live and let dive one of our matinees.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Easy, Charlie, let's get there on one piece, Charlie.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
Big James Bond fan here.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
And afterwards, you know, people are buzzing, stayed in the lobby.
I mean people are staying in the lobby for like
a half an hour. Finally I had just kind of
shoot people away because we had another show coming in.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
But I remember one of our regulars, Sarah, we were talking.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
She's all like, I've made a lot of friends standing
in line at the New Beverly.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
This place is magic. I don't know, you're not going to.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Get that experience sitting at home on your couch.
Speaker 5 (04:55):
You got to get out.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
It doesn't matter if it's at the New Beverly another theater,
and so we support independent theaters the most. But even
if you get out and you go to the bigger
chain theaters, just get out of your house, go to
the movie, see it with an audience. Oh my gosh,
Live and Let Die, wonderful action pack, but also had
this moments of comedy and just being in a theater,
(05:16):
a pack theater, and sharing laughter with somebody's it really
is Sarah's raight is magical.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Jules told me that the new Bets reminded her of
the kind of theaters she used to go to growing up.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
When I was I'm going to stay five, but I
think I was actually six, my mom took me to
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids. But Cassidy's Hole in
the Wall Gangcasi's Hole in the Wall Gang, that's me,
the whole bank of over close to twenty fives.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
What hard you do your planning for you? You want
them to do your thinking for you. You want him
to run things.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
You can shut up now, news or not yet till
I get the good part. Butch and before y'all be
judge everyone. I really wanted to see Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kids. She just didn't pick that out of
the blue. The next movie was The Great Gatsby, and
I think I was seven, and I wasn't very into it.
You want too much?
Speaker 5 (06:09):
I love you now?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Isn't that enough?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
I can't help what's passed.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I did love him once, but I loved you too.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
And then we stood in line for like Star Wars,
like my mom rocked as far as like movies go,
and that just really formed my sensibilities. That's a movie
going experience. I just, I mean, decades later, I remember
that I take my nieces to the theater. I mean,
I just I hope people continue to go out to
(06:37):
the movies.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
One unique thing about the New Beverly is that they
only show film, meaning actual analog reels and no digital
film whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
It's not easy, but we know a lot of collectors,
a lot of the studios, in fact, the majority of
them have opened up their repertory. They do lend out
prints a lot of times. There's costs and volve in
the shipping aspect. Sometimes the archives are local and we
can go pick them up. And luckily we actually went
back through all our programming and one of the reasons
(07:10):
Quinton got the theater in the first place is that
he has a very large film print collection. Over half
the titles that we play come from his collection. So
that's a way for him to share it with audiences.
Because actually we had to do that for tax purposes too.
It's like, oh no, no, no, he really does play
his prints at that theater.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But it's not just an arbitrary choice. The new bev
uses real film for a reason.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Seeing actual film, they've done studies and I forget if
it was Harvard or Yale. But the brain's reaction to
twenty four frames per second, you have a different emotional connection.
Digital very flat thirty five offers a different texture. Your
brain takes it in differently, you have a different emotional reaction.
I mean that's a big part of what's different now
(08:00):
days two because it's all digital projection and this and that, which,
by the way, I'll still go to see digital films.
I'm not pooh pooing them if I have a choice,
darn right. Like I waited forever to see Nightmare Alley
because I know we were going to show it and
I wanted to see it on film.
Speaker 6 (08:16):
Oh I see an older man. Oh the boy hates cinema.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, the boy would love to be loved, but he
hates that man. Death.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Death. I'm no wish to death.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
As you can tell, Jules has a deep love for
all things cinema, and she's very attuned to the vast
history of theaters in LA and across the country. So
we thought she'd be the perfect person to help us
learn a little bit more about theaters, or as they
were originally called, picture palaces.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
The nineteen tens the nineteen twenties. A lot of the
older theaters were actually live performances converted to a movie
theater once the talkies came about.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Early film studios like Paramount or Warner Brothers were deeply
involved in the movie palaces. They were, of course, the
only venues for their product.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Once they got a little bit of this success in
the studios operated a lot of them. They just kept
getting bigger, seating like twenty five hundred three thousand downtown
Los Angeles, wonderful like two mile stretch of just like
picture palace after picture palace after picture palace.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
One thing most people either forget about or don't realize,
is that there was a whole show before the film
back then you'd have the news ads, a cartoon or short.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Film, television highlights of the news of yester year.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
That's something you might also see at the New Beverley.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
Cartoons were a big draw in the thirties. Cereals those
were a big draw. You'd package cereals and cartoons and
maybe a comedy shortened.
Speaker 5 (10:00):
That's their entertainment for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I go on private forums and stuff like that, and
I'm always looking for cool things because we will play
newsreels from the thirties, the forties, the fifties.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
In Gary, Indiana, struck mills or idol behind picket lines
composed of women.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Cartoons were big on cartoons. When Quentin took it over,
he really wanted to kind of mimic what happened in
the past, which was you would play like a tag,
a little like kind of commercial or something cool for
like Coca Cola.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to
the lobby.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Then you would play like a short, you know, Three
Stooges short or you know, bugs Bunny cartoon, and then
it's like trailers and trailers for either up and coming
films or trailers that thematically fit what you're showing that night,
and then you go into the actual feature and that's
what they did that then it was a different movie
going experience. I know, you get the trailers when you
(11:09):
go and see your first run films and stuff, but
you know, it's not quite the same.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
One other interesting thing is that most theaters did not
have concessions back then.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
I don't know how they survived. I forget what decade
concessions came into, but can you imagine going to the
movies and not having concessions. Now as an exhibitor, I'm like, oh,
oh gosh, we would not be in business if we
had to close our concessions.
Speaker 5 (11:33):
I have to have my popcorn.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
But by far the most striking feature of the old
picture palaces was the architecture.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Stunning, absolutely stunning. I can tell you that a lot
of thought went into them. You can tell by the
little decorations, very ornate, very thematic. You had two theaters
in Los Angeles that had an Egyptian theme and they
were two different architects.
Speaker 5 (11:59):
You know, you see.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Middle Eastern themes. You just see a lot of art
deco themes. I would love to go back in time
and just kind of sit in on some of the
planning and what people thought. But again, studios behind a
lot of the big picture palaces, so they could throw
a lot of money into them, and they wanted to
appeal to a wider class of people. They did want
(12:20):
the theaters to reflect that.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
I asked Jules to mention a few examples and to
tell us what her favorites are.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Believe it or not, Radio City Music Hall, which does
not show film anymore. I don't think the Music Box
in Chicago. There's a handful that a still around in
downtown Los Angeles. A secret movie club is out of
the million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles. And then
there's other venues that are open. We've had premieres of
Quinton's films at a couple of the theaters. I really
(12:52):
like the Metrograph in New York. I love the Bellcourt
in Nashville. You know, I was a big fan of
the Ramadome and even the arc Light Complex in general
because I thought they had, you know, really nice big theaters.
I do like when I travel, i'd like to see
the independent movie theaters. I like to experience them. I'll
tell you a wonderful one is the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon. Amazing, gorgeous,
(13:19):
wonderful programming. I got a little tour and everything. There's
fun little basement hangout, you know. And I get kind
of jealous of theaters like the Hollywood because they have
so much room and can do so much and the
guy that runs it, oh, here's two free drink tickets.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
I'm like, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
It's like, yeah, we don't get drink tickets at the
New Beverly. We don't even starve alcohol and stuff. So
I did a little jealous, But I mean, theaters are
just wonderful one. They're in every town and it's yay,
they're magic.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
Jules says that back in the day going to the
movie theater was a big.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Deal throughout the country. I think they were packed. That
was your night out. You're getting dressed up to go
to these places. Now part of it, Yeah, you want
to be seen dressed up, drive your car there. Maybe
it was the equivalent to when we go to maybe
to the Pantagious in Los Angeles to go see Hamilton
or something, or if you go to Broadway you would
(14:16):
have more like the Douglas Fairbanks action, you know, buccaneers.
I also think a lot of the comedies you have
the Harold Lloyd's MaxEnt and comedies, and I think a
lot of like shorter films that are just they're lost
now even if they were found.
Speaker 5 (14:33):
Is there an audience form, I don't know so.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Because the studios largely funded the movie palaces back then,
the theaters were a lot more strict about what they
could or couldn't play.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I know, there wasn't a lot of like cross pollinations.
So if it was, you know, a Warner Brothers theater,
they only played Warner pictures. There were studios that didn't
have theaters, and I think it was a tougher time
for them to get in into some of the established
studio owned But I mean that broke up, and I
(15:06):
think that was probably good. There certainly were, I mean
studios are cranking it out in the heydays, forties fifties. Absolutely,
if they made money, they were going to produce some
some not so great that you can say that for
today's films too.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
The New Beverly did not yet exist by this point,
so it's not technically a picture Palace, but its history
is interesting nonetheless.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, New Beverly's built in twenty nine, so it was originally,
I believe, a candy store. Then somebody sold wine out
of it, and it eventually became Slapsy Maxis, which was
a live club. In nineteen fifty, it became a movie theater.
I mean, there's been one ever since. But it's had
so many iterations and so many different names, it's kind
(15:54):
of crazy. It was even split into a twin theater
called the Riviera Capri Crazy.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I can't imagine it now because I still think it's
a little small. It was the.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Arrows, the Riviera Caprids, the Beverly, the New Yorker. It's
an adult theater, as we all know, kind of referenced
in Once upon a Time in Hollywood, What's.
Speaker 7 (16:15):
Going on at the Dirty Movie Place?
Speaker 5 (16:17):
Well, they're having a premiere. Dirty movies have premieres.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Yeah, they're fun.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Which is really cool.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
If you watched Once upon a Time in Hollywood at
the New Beverly, you got.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
That d joke.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Been home to a lot of different theaters and made
many people happy.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
She says. Theaters like this started to become more common
in the fifties instead of the grand picture palaces, now
we were getting more small, single screen theaters.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
They popped up because people are moving to the suburbs.
You know, you can build a giant picture palace their
neighborhood theaters, so I think they served their neighborhoods.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
But soon big companies would take notice of the success
of movie theaters and they would create the franchises we
know today chains that all but doomed the independent theaters
of the last century. These days the most common movie
(17:21):
theaters are the chains, amc, Cinemak, Regal and so on.
But before these, in the early days, the studios themselves
were the franchises.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
They were up.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
During the picture palaces, you had your lolls and your
warners and stuff, so you saw them. But when the
studios were told that they couldn't be exhibitors, there were
opportunities for corporations. Probably sixties they really started getting going.
Seventies probably their heydays, seventies and eighties.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
Then the slide began.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Unfortunately, theater chains radically shifted the movie business in the eighties.
Now you have these big buildings with a dozen or
more screens showing every available movie, usually more than once
a day. While Jules prefers the older art house single
screen theaters, she understands why these types of theaters became popular.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
There's your economic aspect as an exhibitor, where you're not saddled.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
If a movie bombs.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
You open it in your big three hundred seat theater,
and at bombs you move it over to the fifty
seater and you can put something in where you will
make money. As far as the movie going experience, it's
just like now, it's a lot of options. I want
to go see the two ten show of so and so,
but I missed it. But look at two thirty, I
(18:43):
can make this so it's not a complete wash. I
don't have to get back in my car. I don't
have to kill two hours to the next showing. As
a teenager or as a young college person, multiplexes were
great because you could see two or three movies a
day and only pay once.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
But Juele says we lost a lot of value when
we transitioned away from the neighborhood theaters.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
There more things like textually, if you go to the Vista,
you have the manager that has worked there for decades, Victor,
and he'll greet you and you have interactions and you
can you know, it's your neighborhood theater. I live in
that neighborhood, so I always run into friends there. But
you don't have that kind of interaction at an AMC.
And it's so big, and you don't like stand in
(19:29):
a lobby and talk about the film afterwards. You don't
like meet people and say, hey, let's go get coffee
over here and talk about the film. You go, you
see the movie. It's great, you know what you're getting,
and you go home. Go someplace like New Beverly, you
know the vista, the Arrow Los Biless three. It's a
(19:49):
different experience. It's more of a movie going experience. I
don't know if I can put my finger quite on it,
but it just isn't a little bit more at an AMC,
shall we say.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Of course, the biggest impact of the chain theaters was
the eventual closure of indie theaters. For the older single
screen theaters and picture palaces, companies like AMC signaled near
certain death.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I don't know how a single screen theater makes it.
I have zero idea. We've come close to closing several times,
despite Quentin Tarantino being the overall owner. That doesn't mean
he has to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
You know, the American cinema tech is at the low
SPI list three. I don't know if they have all
(20:37):
three screens, but I think they have like two of them.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
At least. That gives you an.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Opportunity to make your programming a little bit. I don't know,
I'm like diverse or something, but you can fall back
onto something and gives you a little bit more flexibility.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Where if we put.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
A dog in there, it's bad for us, you know,
can't really overcome that. Now we have to try to
think like, okay, what can we do to make up
like we're losing five thousand dollars by showing this one movie?
You know, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and there's twelve people here.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
This is bad. Doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We still have to pay the studios their licensing fee.
Now we're paying employees not to serve you popcorn, or
sell you tickets or monitor the show. I do not
know how single screen theaters exist.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Well. Jules is thankful that the new BEV is surviving.
She says running a single screen theater is both complicated
and difficult in ways that chain theaters don't have to
worry about.
Speaker 5 (21:39):
Well B corporations.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Obviously, you can like move your money around at this
theater location. B you don't take a loss, and it's different.
No place to hide for the single screen theater, I'll
tell you that. Much like in twenty fourteen, when we
took over the new Beverly to pick up our trash,
it was like one hundred and eighty six dollars. Now, oh,
five hundred and thirty four dollars. Yes, we do have
(22:04):
to raise our ticket prices occasionally, and it's everything.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
It's clockwork.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
There's a certain vendor that sends a notice at the
beginning of the year, a big vendor, we need to
raise our prices three to five percent. I'm like, oh
my gosh, but I don't pass that along to our patrons.
I know other theaters don't do that either. Part of
the movie going experience is feeling like you're not being gouged.
I go to a lot of theaters and I take
(22:31):
pictures of their concession things, and I'm like, how in
the world is this big theater? I will leave out
a name charging four seventy five for a small bottle
of water is like wow.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
The next big blow to small theaters was television.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
I think it was pretty damning to theater going well.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I mean, all of a sudden, it was almost like
a novelty, almost like wow, you got this little screen
and you can just like you can watch the Howdy
Duty Show. Oh my gosh, you can like you can
bring your meal and put it on a tray and
you can.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Watch from your home home.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
I don't think it was anything with economics, but I
think it was just like, Wow, we've got.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Like a screen in our home. Now.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It's a little better than the movie screen, but there's
always something on and oh.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Wow, they're showing a John Wayne movie. Wow. And theaters
had to overcome that, and they did.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
And then came streaming things like Netflix and Hulu. I
asked Jules how the New Beverly survived the streaming era.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Definitely, attendance took a hit at the New Beverly. We
didn't come in until twenty fourteen. But the dynamics of
movie exhibition have changed. But I think at least we've
reached a point now where it's harmonious.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Jewels says streaming is probably her least favorite way to
watch movie. She says that at theaters there's a kind
of community you just don't get by flipping through Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
It's so nice when people come to the New Beverly,
Like I'll tell you that the family matinee, we were
playing Disney's The Barefoot Executive.
Speaker 8 (24:16):
I'm not interested in your theories on ratings, and I'm
certainly not interested in doing a show called Abraham Lincoln's
Doctor's Dog, whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And it was directed by Robert Butler. He brought his grandchildren.
Now the grandchildren get to see it on the big screen.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
They get to see the audience laughing. They get to.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
See people coming up to their grandfather Robert Butler afterward
and say, oh man, that was so cool, and that's
so cool that you came out taking pictures by the
one sheets and everything like.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
You don't get that experience at home.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
And that's actually one of the things I'm most proud
about the New Beverly is that that we offer people
that experience and you don't have to be Robert Butler
and his family to so recognize, if you were at
that screening, how important that is and how special that is.
Like I was just work in the box office, and
it's like, that's pretty darn cool. You're not going to
(25:12):
get that watching the movie on Netflix.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
But clearly streaming isn't going anywhere. So this begs the
question can theaters and streaming services live harmoniously.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
I don't know if I ever see that they exist
equally harmoniously. I think you're seeing that now. I mean,
we have a wonderful relationship with say Netflix. Netflix took
over the Egyptian Theater, so they will be showing their
films there. There's a merger of theater and streaming, and
(25:44):
I remember Netflix at one point was very resistant, but
they saw the potential, they saw a wider audience. They
saw that Hey, Academy Awards, you know, we get some
of our films nominated, win some Oscars.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
Pretty darn cool.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
Luckily, there has been a movement in recent years to
preserve the history of rich spaces like picture palaces and
single screen theaters. Quentin Tarantino, of course, saved the New
Beverly from extinction, as well as the Vista Theater, also
in Los Angeles. But finally, other filmmakers are also starting
to step up.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
There's certainly the Paul Thomas Anderson's and the christ Different Nolan's.
I don't think they have a foundation or do anything,
but just by you know, making film and insisting that
you know, it gets a theatrical run. That's important. Playing
Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza was amazing.
Speaker 6 (26:40):
Do you know who I am?
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:42):
Do you know who my girlfriend is? Ubishi send barbustres
sand sand sand, You're like sands, like the ocean, like
harbisi sand. No striy sand sand.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
He brings his children to the New Beverly, to the
family matinees amazing. That little bit of support he pays.
There's some people that are like, oh, oh, can I
get him free? I'm like, no, Like why do.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
You work here?
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Because that's the perk of working here. Otherwise, please support us,
your friend of Quentin's. No, he wants you to pay.
He wants you to support theaters.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
But in order to survive, small theaters need to be creative,
and the New Beverly is a great example.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
We took over the New Beverly.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
It wasn't much of a social media presence, but that
was something identified very quickly in that we needed somebody
and my social media manager film Lankenship came on board,
and I think that has helped immensely. We would not
be where we're at today without a social media presence.
And honestly, a lot of it starts with community too.
(27:49):
You can cultivate a good film community. We have regulars
and so do other theaters because I go to them
that will stand in line for like two or three
hours before the show just to get their favorite seat
or just to catch up with their friends. And you
kind of make it a movie going experience, going back
to affordable concessions, affordable ticket prices, good value for your screen.
(28:15):
I love that Quinton put in pre shows. Now folks
are like, oh, oh, what cartoon are you shine?
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Or what shorter? I like to write down the trailers,
but what was the second trailer that you played?
Speaker 1 (28:27):
You get people excited to see the movie and you
know that it's quality. Like we remodeled in twenty eighteen,
and when we did that, we did.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Some very simple upgrades. Speakers in the bathroom.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
I have never seen people go gaga over speakers in
the bathroom, but you look at our social media and
like they put speakers in the bathroom. Yeah, it's a
no brainer. Gotta go get up, use the restroom. You're
missing the visual aspect, but you can still kind of
hear what's going on, so you feel like you haven't
missed everything. I just have to keep looking at different
(29:01):
ways to get people engaged.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Jules says that over time, the New Beverly became a
trusted venue for cinophiles all across southern California.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
What's really cool is when we took over in twenty fourteen,
you know, Quinton did the majority of the programming, and
we just developed an audience, like a trust between Quinton
the programmer and the audience, Like you might not have
heard this film, but I'm not going to play it
if it's not good. You're going to get something out
(29:34):
of that film. I love seeing black and white movies
at the New Beverly. I think the New Beverly was
built to play black and white movies, and I just
love that we continue to find black and white movies
to play that maybe we haven't shown before, and that
audiences are willing to take a chance on.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
As you can imagine, the COVID pandemic had a huge
impact on theaters, especially on small theaters like the New BEV.
But Once they were able to pull through, it became
obvious that people were craving the in person movie going experience.
For better or worse. The pandemic reminded us that's sitting
at home isn't always the ideal way to watch a movie.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
At the end of the day, We're all human and
we need human interaction. You can only sit at home
in front of your TV or computer screen for so long.
The movie theater lets you have that interaction, even if
you're not friends with somebody. I remember when I went
to the arc Light and I saw Girls Trip. It
was me and one other person. We were dying in
(30:39):
that film, laughing out loud. And then afterwards, you know,
talked to a few minutes, but you're like, oh, that
was crazy, and he's like, I'm so glad you're in
the theater and I wasn't the only one laughing alone.
I'm like, I know, it was so cool to hear
you laughing and just having that experience. It wasn't the
full theater everybody laughing out wow, but we had that moment.
(31:02):
That moment I still remember years later. You know, if
I get that experience at home, maybe if you have
your friends over and you're watching a movie in great
it's a good time and stuff. But I know it's
not the same as going out. It's not the same
as interacting, interacting with strangers where you have this one
common thing together.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
And I'll go back to that story of the New
BEV regular Sarah. It's like she's made friends there. We've
all made friends at the New Beverly.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
We're going to take a quick break, but when we
come back, we're going to take a tour of the
New Beverly and we'll see, or rather hear, the ins
and outs of running analog film on a projector. Jules McLean,
(31:50):
director of operations for the New Beverly Cinema, was kind
enough to offer me a tour of the theater. We
walked through the lobby, the auditorium, and I got the
special experience seeing the projection room.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So we're in the lobby of the New Beverly Cinema
right now. And when Quentin took over the business part
of the cinema, we made a few changes but kept
a lot of stuff intact. One of the big things
that really made the lobby what it is today, not
that it's a tiny lobby, but there was a small
(32:24):
wall partition by the women's room, and we were probably
a week away from opening and finishing construction, and Quenton
came in and he's.
Speaker 5 (32:33):
All like, do we really need this wall?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And luckily the contractor happened to be right there too.
Speaker 5 (32:39):
It's not a load bearing wall and we can get
rid of it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
The next day we got rid of it and it
just a opened up the lobby. But really, what Quinton
wanted to do with the wall being gone, it opened
up wall space, so we can now have large oversized
frames that we put French two panels in, an Italian
oversized posters in, and that's That's actually two of the
(33:05):
biggest things that I like that Quinton did was not
only removing the partition, but saying, hey, I want oversized
frames in, and I want the frames changed out every
you know, three or four days or whatever we do
to advertise a movie.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
He has a lovely.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Poster collection, so we utilize a lot of that, and
over the years we've amassed a nice collection. So it's
nice and people love taking pictures in front of it.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
And stuff like that.
Speaker 7 (33:34):
So what else.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's the original box office.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
We still have the original ticket tape, puncher that the
Torgans had and uh, you know, we have gone to
an online type of ticketing service. However we still kind
of punch out the old tickets and you know they
almost look like carnival tickets. But they seeing you beverly
on them and it's kind of cool.
Speaker 5 (33:57):
I always like.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
Seeing you know, people like post them, you know, pictures
of them on social media and by the marquee and stuff.
And you know the concession stand, it's small, but mighty,
we pack a lot in there. Great ideas is that
when we showed Oakcha, the Netflix film, we because it's
very you know, animal rights, we brought in vegan dogs
(34:21):
for that and we called them Oakja Dogs.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
They sold so well we've kept.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Them to this day. So again, always looking for interesting things.
I love the posters, just the one sheet posters. Some
of the artwork on the posters is gorgeous. They don't
make them like they used to, is very true. I mean,
look at that Goldfinger poster, kids says, I love it.
One thing we did when Once upon a Time in
Hollywood opened is we decked out the lobby and a
(34:47):
lot of the props which you will still see to
this day. We didn't take them down. Make Love Not
War signs over there. CLO Drive is above the women's room,
and on the box office, we had only candy that
would have been sold in nineteen sixty nine, only bottled
soda that would have been sold in nineteen sixty nine.
We did like fun stuff like candy, cigarettes and everything.
(35:11):
We had walk in music that was you know, very
specific to you know KHJ that was playing in the film,
but it was actually, you know, an on air broadcast.
So now we're in the auditorium of the new Beverly
we seat two hundred and twenty five. In twenty eighteen,
we had to completely gut everything. What was nice about
(35:35):
the remodel was that we were able to do some
really small things that I think just made the theater
even more special. People don't know what we did because
you can't see it, but we did new curtains, but
we kept the same color scheme. So we have big
blue panel of curtains right here and on the side curtains,
(35:57):
and then we have a little strip of red.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Well that was reversed.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
It was big panels of red, little strips of blue.
Speaker 5 (36:03):
But underneath it now we have.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Acoustic material, so it really makes the sound oh special.
Another thing that helped us because we had to like
tear down the roof. Now we have acoustic paneling in
the roof. Honestly, I'm on to brag here, it's some
of the best sound in Los Angeles. I was watching
I'll use Quintin's movie again because it's this theater once
(36:27):
upon a Time in Hollywood, and my manager Brian Quinn,
had the same experience. We both saw the film other places,
but during the Musso and Frank scene, like you could hear,
you know, the tables talk and everything, so much so
that both of us at one point or another turned
around and looked.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
Like, who's talking in the theater? Oh, No, one's talking.
That's the background noise of Musso and Franks. Oh, our
sound is good. You don't get that at every theater.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Because I've watched Quintin's movie at other theaters and I
did not have that experience.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
So the seats, you know, they're not the greatest seats
in the world, they're not the worst seats in the world.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
I don't know if we'll ever change them, maybe, but
I just feel that we would lose some seating capacity
if we went to some newer seats, and we certainly
wouldn't go into any seats that recline or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
That's not us. That's for another theater.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Things that Quinton did is he wanted again oversized posters
as you exit, so you can see we've got two
of them. We have one Nebraska Gym, which is a
fake movie in Quinton's film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,
and then we have Richard Gears Breathless.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
We can go upstairs to the booth.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Coming up, gentlemen. Well, you're in sacred territory now here
it is in all its glory.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
To your right.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
We have a wall of trailers, thirty five millimeter trailers
we use in our pre shows. The first feature always
has a cartoon or a short, and then followed by trailers.
They're either thematic that they tie into the future you're
about to see, or they're up and coming. They also
have like intermission tags or adverts from England. I mean,
(38:17):
we've got a thousand of them.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
But you'll see that in the show too.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
It's like, oh, Doctor Pepper and Martian Snapbar whatever, you know,
just a little bumper and then it'll go into the
cartoon or the trailers. We have our Simplex XL projectors.
They're dual projectors. We have no platter system. At the
New Beverly when Quentin took over and put me in charge,
(38:41):
they kept telling me like we had a periscope system,
so the light would hit a mirror and then hit
another mirror and then be shot onto the screen. It
wasn't a crisp image. So I'm like, there's got to
be a way. So I pulled Quentin's personal projectionist, Jeff Nowicki.
He got his friend over here who used to work
for Fox.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
And you got to chop off the bass.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
You can chop off the base and then you'll have
a straight shot to the screen and lo and behold.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
The image improved. It was.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I guess it's a little hard for the projectionist because
they have to stoop down. That's why you see the
chair is very low, but it.
Speaker 5 (39:22):
Is absolutely worth it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
David. This is our chief projectionist, David Chan. So if
you'll explain a little bit how that works much better
than I could.
Speaker 8 (39:33):
Yeah, we start off with the reel up here, and
then we thread down towards the take up as it
passes through different rollers. You'll notice straight away that the
potentially the first section it'll pass through is the a
Dolby digital reader. The SRD track would be read through
this component. But if it's an older print and only
has one channel or standard stereo sound, we would bypass
(39:54):
that entirely and it would just go down through here
and to the gates where obviously light passes through and
into the lens. Then it goes down further to the soundhead.
What's notable about that, and when I think most people
are surprised to learn, is that if you're looking at
a frame of film on thirty five milimeter, the sound
for that frame is twenty frames ahead of it. So,
(40:15):
for example, you have an image that's starting here. If
you were to run film and have it pause, if
you were to catch that instance, the sound for that
image is already passing through twenty frames later down here
into the soundhead. It continues from there to these other
two rollers and then down into take up. We use
two thousand foot reels, which means that we can really
(40:36):
truly handle prints in the safest way. I'm going to
actually remove this anyways, but we can unscrew this and
then we have a multitude of lenses you can see
here this is our one three seven lens, which is
common for older Hollywood aspect ratio or for cartoons that
we're able to run. For our pre shows, we could
do scope, we could do one eight five, we could
do the European one sixty six. It opens it up
(40:57):
so we can play a good variety of movies and shorts.
Speaker 6 (41:00):
What kind of preparation do you have to do with
these trends in order to get them ready to play
in the projective?
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I mean, if they're in good shape, you probably just need,
you know, an hour and a half of inspection. But
if we're getting something from Quentin's collection that hasn't played
in twenty years, you could be very brittle now, so
you have to like reinforce splices. I know films that
have taken eight hours to repair just so we can
get it through the projectors. Typically, though if it's not
(41:28):
in great shape, it might take about four hours, which
is very labor intensive, trust me, not at all cost effective.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
So it takes a lot.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
To run a film only house. I don't know how
many films that we've run a year, but it's what
do you think, David, It's least eight hundred.
Speaker 6 (41:47):
Right, yeah, because I know for like three months in
a row.
Speaker 7 (41:50):
Now we're averaging about forty features a month, man.
Speaker 6 (41:55):
Which means in your warehouse it must have like how
many canisters.
Speaker 5 (41:58):
A film, like well over five thousand.
Speaker 6 (42:01):
The joke is the final shot of Raiders of the
Lost art endless amount of film.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
We actually have a print traffic manager because it gets
so busy and we're lucky that we're in Los Angeles
that we can actually physically go to a lot of
the places and pick up the film. We keep copies
of all our pre shows. There's print reports for every
print that's been inspected, and then we do store a
lot of that online and drop box, but we keep everything.
(42:31):
So we're a repertory cinema, so chances are it could
get played again, it might be the same print. At
least having the print report might cut down on some
of the work.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
And your indition.
Speaker 7 (42:41):
It might be possible to do like a brief demo
if that's not too much.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Yeah, do you think you could just thread something up
so we can get sound bites of the sure?
Speaker 2 (42:49):
I guess I could throw on a pre show.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 6 (42:51):
Yeah, Scope lens in there, changing the focus to scope.
Speaker 7 (43:00):
It's ready to be threaded.
Speaker 6 (43:02):
That we start today with giving the projectors a nice cleaning.
Will we initially start off a thread to a point
that's eleven feet before the first frame of image. In
this case, there's a drunk driving PSA that precedes the
coming attractions.
Speaker 7 (43:17):
Tag usually have at least eighteen feet of chad leaders,
so we'll have enough to put onto the take up
reel without worrying about any shortage. Perfect.
Speaker 6 (43:38):
So I guess I can fire up the lamp houses
and then it'll be ready for showtime. Fire up the
lamp house.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
LEAs there you go, you being sing good.
Speaker 8 (43:51):
Light your damn people.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
Get four of.
Speaker 6 (43:58):
The tag the for coming down the pike.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
Well, look who's here?
Speaker 2 (44:07):
When the action is too rough for one man? Send
for Savano's seven. First of all, it's no ordinary cleanup job.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Once we take out one of those bananas, we've got
to wipe out the rest of them in thirty minutes.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
If we're gonna get this thing done, we're gonna get
it done quick. Salvano's seven's the playmate, the black belt,
the dregster, the comic, the professor, the cowboy, seven. Death
is their way of life.
Speaker 4 (44:53):
Seven it looked and sounded good.
Speaker 8 (45:04):
No problem if you said no superpols.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
Can I say one thing, obviously if you come to
Los Angeles, would love everybody to visit the New Beverly
and stuff. But Los Angeles in particular has the Broadway
theater district that just has beautiful picture palaces from like
the Orpheum the Los Angeles, the Million Dollar Theater, which
is home to some of the Secret Movie Club screenings.
(45:32):
It's just wonderful, and the Grand Central Market is down there.
You can make a whole day of it. Even if
you don't go on the tour. It's just nice walking
up and down Broadways starting at third kind of going
all the way down to ninth and just seeing the
rich history and there's some amazing stuff here and in
other parts of the country. And applaud everybody that's kind
(45:53):
of keeping the movie theaters alive.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
This episode of Ephemeral was written and produced by Trevor Young,
with producers Max and Alex Williams. Jules MacLean is the
director of Operations at the New Beverly Cinema and David
Chen is the lead projectionist at the New Bad, Big
thanks to Quentin Tarantino for the behind the scenes pass
into his theater and for all the work he does
(46:20):
to preserve film culture. We'd love to hear from you about.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Your favorite theaters.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Is there a special or historic theater in your city?
What do you love about the movie going experience? Let
us know on social media. We're at ephemeral show and
for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ephemeral News
Host
Alex Williams
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