Oceanside Twin

I know this site is meant to mourn the passing of movie theaters but in this case, I can hardly feel sad about losing the Oceanside. It was an insult to movie going. The owners always kept the theater trashy as hell. It was horrible going there. The only reason why it ever stayed open is that the neighborhood is very nice and it deserved a better theater.

There was no fire damage to the theater itself. There was very heavy smoke and water damage. Most of the damage came from the firefighters ripping open the ceilings and walls. I understand that they have to do this, but the extent to which they did made no sense. It is highly unlikely that the theater will ever re-open. To repair all the damage would not be cost effective.

Not that this has anything to do with the Oceanside Theater but for anyone who knows the area or grew up there, it might be interesting to know that the “lovely” Oceanside Motel is going to be demolished. This “great” place has been a fixture in Oceanside right across the street from the movie theater since 1962.

Where the movie theater is and the motel is a strange place because most of Long Beach Road is very nice (though way overdeveloped). The particular store front where the movie theater is in is positively SLUMMY as hell. It looks more like a storefront in a rundown town. Maybe with the motel’s closing (they’re making it a town parking lot) it will improve that section.

Just an FYI…

I remember years ago when we would order tickets they would sometimes offer us tickets printed for other theatres that had errors on them or they had gone out of business.

I recently went to this theater and I got a ticket stub from the Strand Twin; the address is listed on the ticket as 25-15 Broadway. Small world.

Also, just one other comment/question that I’ve wondered about even in today’s megaplexes: how they HELL did you guys sit through the same movie over and over and over and over and over without losing your minds? I mean, at least in today’s movie going environment, the films change over a lot. But “back in the days” (even when I was a kid in the 70’s) films would stay in the same single screener for months. “Jaws” played at the Green Acres in Valley Stream from it’s release in May or June of 1975 until Christmas. I thought it would never leave. The projectionists there must’ve gone out of their minds!

I can recall when I first learned of the changeover cue marks and the fact that changeovers occurred approximately every 20 minutes.(hour changeovers must have been a later development). I even got to the point of noticing the cue marks at the top right of the screen and anticipating the change to the next reel. A few times the warning bells could be heard from the booth. Most often the changeover would be seamless, but occasionally there’d be a glitch and everything went to black, or for whatever reason there’d be a wobbly start to the next reel. I gather that the cue marks were a permanent part of the film since I notice that they still appear in some of the older movies shown on tv.

CConnolly

The two (or more) projectors were a few feet apart from each other so the projectionist could thread the film and clean and maintain the projectors. Each projector had it’s own hole usually called a portal, which in most houses had a pane of glass to keep the sound out. In the better theatres we operated we had special optical glass, the other plain glass or plexi-glass. The projectors were indeed bolted to the floor, although in some theatres the base was so heavy that this was not neccesary. You asked about watching for the cues, well there was a series of bells that rand to tell you that the reel was getting close to the changeover. There were 20 minute reels and hour long reels. Glad to try to clarify some of this for you.

OConnolly, Before platters, 2 machines were used. There are 2 sets of cue marks at the end of each reel. The projectionist would watch near the end of the reel for them. When the first set would pass, he or she would turn on the motor for the next machine. When the second set would pass (about 8 seconds later) they would press a button that would changeover the picture and sound at the same exact time. You would never notice the change. Some houses still use changeovers.

That is very true. We get way more life out of the bulbs at my theater. Its all in the way you care for them. Like a car engine, its the starting of the bulb that degrades them. We light the bulbs at the start of the first show and never shut them down till midnight. Also each machine has it’s own exhaust. The cooler you keep them the longer they last. We use 1000 watt bulbs at my theater. You usually get around 2000 hours out of them. We average around 7000 hours. Even at 7000 hours, we get 16FL in the center with around 14FL at the sides. Also when bulbs get older it will change the color of the light on the screen. A brand new bulb will burn nice and white. As it ages, it gets a brownish tint to it.

You have to understand something very important about Xenon bulbs and lamphouses. If you run a xenon bulb below the proper amperage, you decrease the life of the bulb. To change the power output of the bulb, you change the amperage not the voltage. The voltage remains at around 25 volts DC. A 2000 watt bulb, like they use at oceanside, runs at around 75 amps DC. It may save electricity (pennies maybe) but you will kill the bulb. You change the brightness of the light on the screen by moving the bulb closer or further away from the reflector inside the lamphouse. Bulbs should always be run at full power. As far as burning the screen, it does not matter how close the projector is to the screen. What matters is how big the screen is. The more area of screen you have to cover, the darker the light is. Oceanside runs the bulbs at full power. They just run them until they burn out or explode.

Here’s an interesting Q & A from Roger Ebert’s 10/03/04 column concerning screen brightness. Hey, CConnolly, maybe we should get a light meter and check out some of these local houses!

Q. I know well your well-deserved attacks on theater managers who don’t have bulbs at full brightness. So when I was hired as the general manager of the Grand Cinema, a non-profit movie theater in Tacoma, Wash., I resolved not to be one of those managers. One of my first questions to my projectionist was whether we have the bulbs of our three screens at full power. We don’t.

And five months later, we still don’t. As he tells me, our theaters are so small (no more than 50 or 60 feet from projector to screen) that having our bulbs at full would burn our screens and wash out a picture. I’ve relied on his judgment, but I think it’s time to check this. Is there any evidence to suggest that a bulb should be dimmed slightly or significantly if playing in a very small theater?

Erik Hanberg, Tacoma, Wash.

A. Steve Kraus of the Lake Street Screening Room in Chicago, who is a scholar of film projection, tells me: “Yes, it is possible to be too bright. Of course you can’t literally burn the screen but the picture could be washed out and uncomfortable to watch. There are many factors in picture brightness, but there is no reason for guessing. A technician with a light meter can read the reflected brightness of the screen with the projector running without film. It should be 16 foot-Lamberts. I would recommend the forum section at www.film-tech.com, where he can get detailed advice about his particular equipment.”