Cinerama Projection Booth Uptown Theater Washington DC

[MANTLEBERG]

FILM ON THE FLOOR?? I USED TO GET MY ARSE KICKED FOR DOING THAT.

[mielr]

Thanks for posting- is this the 1997 Special Edition or is it a print from the original 1983 run?

[MisterScott99]

@mielr 1997 Special Ed.

[duckyousuckr]

Amazing.

[Johnlocke29]

since i was a little guy...THE MAGIC OF THE PROJECTION ROOM....dim the house ...start to open the majestic red velvet curtains.....THE MIGHTY PROJECTOR COMES TO LIFE....and your dreams unfold............THOSE WERE THE DAYS ...............miss you lyric pines

[Salmagundiii]

Thanks for posting. I'm glad I got to see some pictures at the Uptown near the end of its heyday.

[bob007fan]

I worked as a projectionist at the Uptown between 1982 and 1985 as one of the folks who would come in when Bill Curtin had a day off. It was a great time to work there because 70MM was in it's heyday. In fact during those three years, we only ran three movies in 35MM.

[MANTLEBERG]

I got sick of this night after night, especially when we had the bloody awful julie andrews in the sound of crap music, we were not allowed to turn off the monitor speaker in the box, arrrrrrrgggghhhhh.death.

[chuckycheese09]

cool video thanks

[cartoonyboy]

I thought "Return Of The Jedi" was released in 1982!

[MisterScott99]

This was one of the 1996 revival screenings.

[sgtpepper1138]

actually it would have been in 1997

[jozdundar]

Actually the original release was 1983, with the Special Edition in March of 1997

[popejohn666]

The Uptown is equipped with SRD, and nothing else. They have a DTS drive but no reader and this video was before AMC installed a platter in that tiny booth. This is also not the Cinerama booth, this is the booth currently used for 35mm Anamorphic and Flat films. The Cinerama booth has three seperate projectors and dust covering everything. I miss the days when Uptown was reel to reel. Some of the best presentation available in DC.

[MisterScott99]

To the best of my knowledge, when 3-projector Cinerama played there, this was the booth for the middle projector. When single-strip 70mm Cinerama was installed, this was the booth that contained the two 70mm projectors pictured here. The brand name "Cinerama" is written on these projector's sprocket housings. Tell me about "dust covered everything."

[popejohn666]

I was in the old upstairs three projector booth about 2 months ago and was told it was for cinerama. I am not entirely familiar with that technology and know only what I have been told. I have only been a projectionist for ten years and I try to learn everything I can about old technology like carbon arcs and cinerama, non-safety film and reel to reel. I have worked many a reel to reel house including the uptown back when Andy McCormack and Jose Gonzalez were the main operators.

[MisterScott99]

Well, if it was upstairs it was probably not for 3-panel Cinerama, which needed a largely straight projection angle (as did the 70mm Cinerama system). The upstairs booth probably preceeded the Cinerama era. Ask me anything you want about Cinerama. I'm an expert -- worked on the documentary and published articles about it.

[sguttag]

The current projection booth IS one of the Cinerama projection booths...Baker to be precise...Charlie contains the rectifiers used in Baker, Able is just storage. The booth you refered to at the top of the balcony was decomissioned due to Cinerama. Loews was toying with putting it back on line with a platter at one point...hence the ports were once again visible to the audience...but the down angle combined with the screen would have resulted in a horribly distorted picture.

- Steve

[sguttag]

So when Jose and Andy were operating the Uptown...and I was there on Saturdays...just when were you operating it? We didn't have that many subs. Who might you be? Just curious. -Steve

[popejohn666]

I am Fernando Lopez, I covered every shift for either Andy or Jose when they went on vacation or did anything that required them to not work. Jose would constantly smoke his long brown ciggarettes in the booth and Andy would constantly complain about management. Then when the new contract went into effect Jose and Andy both left and it became my booth, then Paavo Hantsu had triple bypass surgery and I had to "Cover" the 4000 wisconsin ave. I ended up there till it closed in November of 2006.

[tripjet999]

Should have NEVER allowed smoking anywhere in the theater. ILLEGAL! Destroys people's health, equipment and film. Terrible! Should have been reported!

[sguttag]

The Uptown does indeed have DTS readers (70mm and 35mm) though they were put away when the #1 reader was replaced with a Cat 700 (was a Cat 699)...the difference in readers caused a lip sync issue with DTS since the spacing was no longer identical...it would have been possible to invert which reader to come first but the Uptown always favored Dolby Digital.

-Steve

[salemcripple]

I always thought it would be cool to be a projectionist. How much training (if any) is there? Do you have to go to school for it or something? Sorry for the stupid questions. This vid it the first time i've ever even seen someone running these projectors.

[MisterScott99]

Read the text by this projectionist on this video's page that starts with "Taped around 1996 during the revival" by pressing "more" this will give you a better ide of the state of projectionist's life these days. You need to love machines or it would get pretty boring, and there's also can be a lot of pressure when lots of films are running at once. I think you have to "know someone" to get a projectionist job, or else work yourself up gradualy from popcorn seller or ticket tearer.

[salemcripple]

Well i'm a hotrod builder by trade. So working with machines is natural to me. And i love working around cars / automotive indus. And i think dropping what i'm doing now, to take a job at the Box office soly for the purpose of becomeing a projectionist. Would be kind of a bad carreer move. Since i don't know anyone already there.

[MisterScott99]

I understand Lucas' personal archive prints are the Technicolor IB ones from the original release. Because of the metal-based dyes they don't fade.

[MisterScott99]

The screen size, according to the Uptown's web site, is 70 feet wide and 32 feet high. Instead of being flat, the screen curves around the audience, so the visual impression is of one about three times that width. I don't believe any 70mm prints were struck of the Star Wars special editions from the 1990's but there is no doubt the trilogy originally ran there in 70mm.

[MisterScott99]

I believe that was a 35mm DTS print. You can see the white light of the DTS time code reader shining into the camera above and to the left of Steve's head at 03:07/04:17. I doubt that it's a THX house but I'm not sure.