Really enjoyed the tour of the theatre. I worked in theatres for years, here are answers for a few questions. The odd seating spacing is because several of the theatres were divided, that is, split into two smaller ones. That’s also why there were so many extra seats up in the projection booth. The screens are torn due to equipment recovery. When a theatre is closed, any usable equipment is salvaged. To remove speakers from behind the screens, the screens need to be removed. Since screen fabric is usually not considered “salvageable”, they’re just cut away. In the projection booth, the first big thing of film you see is a 2-hour movie on 35mm film, set up to project from a platter system. You can see several of these platters (huge silver discs) leaning against a wall later. The small grey tables are make-up tables, used to transfer film from reels to the platter system. Each movie would come on 5 or more separate reels that would need to be spliced together by the projection staff on these tables. The big boxes just past those are lamp houses for the projectors. The little rolls of film toward the end are trailers, which are spliced to the beginning of the movie for previews. Where are the projectors? The film projectors have been gone for over a decade, since all movie theatres went digital. They were recovered and likely used for parts at art houses for a few years. The digital projectors were probably the first things recovered after the theatre closed, to be used in other theatres. I hope this explanation was half as fun as your video. Thanks!
@@RogerDavid647 just left behind for years. Most theaters went digital between 2008-2013. A Second run theater like this would've been towards the end of that or maybe even a year or so later, but there's 0 chance it was film til the end, you couldn't get film prints anymore. You either went digital or closed.
How wild! I used to live in Dayton for a LONG time and my dad would take me to this movie theater a ton as a kid. I had no idea it had been shut down. You walking through all those areas really took me back and made me even a bit sad. Thanks for the video man. Can't believe its really gone.
I was a thearter protectionist back in 02. So much fun. The reason why the screens are ripped is because they are worth a lot and it was not done by vandals. However, I noticed that some speaker drivers were taken. That may have been done by vandals. What you saw in the projecton room were the bodies of projectors. The large silver discs you also saw are called platters. They hold the film print on it's side.When a fully operationally film projector is working it has a Xenon bulb with a lens on the front of the projector the displays the image onto the screen. To thread the film from the platter to the projector there is a network of pulleys. You have to make sure you have enough slack in the film gate so the film doesn't get stuck and burn or rip. The other device you saw looks like a film splicer. We had those for that very reason so you can repair the print. The small film rolls were trailers. The larger ones were the actual full film. It really hurts to see any thearter in that condition.
Aw man, this pulled at my heartstrings and hit me with some serious nostalgia! I saw so many movies here. Every Thursday, select movies would be $1 in their last day at the theater, so I would take my daughters to see every good kids movie that came through. It became our regular daddy-daughter movie dates. Best part was since it was the last day the movie was playing in theaters, and the fact that this was a second-run theater, it meant that most people had already seen the movie by then, so 95% of the time I took my girls to the theater on a Thursday afternoon, we had the theater to ourselves. So I'd let them dance in the aisles or run up to the front of the screen, change seats, etc. I let them do whatever they wanted to do to enjoy themselves since no one else was in there with us. Some wonderful memories for both myself and my daughters. If it was a Disney movie or an animated movie that came out from 2012-2019, chances are we saw it there! Occasionally, if there was another customer in there buying tickets when we were (which was rare), I would offer to buy their tickets for them. I thought spending a few extra bucks to spread good karma and to impress upon my daughters the importance of doing something nice for strangers was well worth it. I also saw plenty of movies here without my girls. The best being Mad Max: Fury Road, which I saw for $1 on its last day in theaters because I needed to see it on the big screen one more time, after seeing it in 3-D previously at another theater. When was this video filmed? It was obviously a long while ago. The theater was razed many months, if not more than a year, ago. I believe they are putting a car dealership in its spot. That was the last I heard, anyway. The theater was falling into disrepair for years before it closed. Once COVID hit, I knew it was doomed. There were usually no more than two employees working in the whole place when I was there. The ticket booths in the front weren't used for years; you would just buy your tickets from the concession counter and they would rip them there and send you on your way. The concession stand in the middle of the theater also wasn't operating for at least a decade prior to it closing. A lot of the arcade games were often out of order as well, much to my daughters' chagrin. The fabric was ripping off the walls for years and the carpets and seats certainly didn't appear to be the most sanitary. It definitely was a bit of a dump, but dammit, it was our dump and we forged many good memories from here! And when the kids weren't old enough to know any better, then they couldn't have cared less about the state it was in. As long as a fun movie was playing on the big screen and they had some overpriced, overbuttered popcorn, life was good! Thanks for the video!
A car dealership wouldn't shock me in the slightest as here in NY that is all that we get. Literally every good thing gets torn down and turned into a dealership, usually an RV one. As if we need anymore dang dealerships when nobody can even afford a car. Unreal.
I was a union (IATSE) projectionist from 1972 to 87. You wondered what that weird looking table was with the pulleys. I can tell you. All 35mm films are sent to theaters in heavy film carrying cases. It usuall takes 6 reels of film to make up a two hour movie. Most containers held 3 reels of film. Ask any former usher and they'll tell you how heavy those film cans are! The projectionist used the table to feed each reel onto a large platter. The platter had a removable hub in the middle that the film was wound onto. Each one of those six reels had a leader and tail. The projectionist removed the leaders and tails, and used a tape splicer to join the film together. Those small rolls of film that you showed were trailers, or coming attractions. They were usually the first things spliced onto the hub of the platter along with the theater's logo, and warnings about talking or using your cell phone in the theater. Anyway, once the film was completely assembled the projectionist removed that inner hub and slowly pulled the film out onto a long arm that sent messages to the feed motor below the platter. Depending on how fast you pulled the film that's how fast the platter spun. The platter system always reminded me of the old 8-Track tape cartridges where the tape was pulled out of the middle when it was played. It's too bad the 35mm projectors and platter feeding systems aren't still in the booth. That way you'd get an idea of what I'm trying to tell you. Maybe you can do some searching on UA-cam to see a platter system booth in operation. Oh, and one more thing, you showed two black boxes with the numbers 8 and 12. Those are Xenon lamps. They produced a very intense, bright light. The video quality sure beats the video projection systems currently in theaters today. When I joined the Union back in February 1972 most theaters had two large 35mm projectors in the booth. The projectionist threaded up the projectors begining with reels one and two. As I mentioned each reel was aproximately 20 minutes long. There was usually a warning bell to let the projectionist know it was time to get the second projector ready. Back then most booths used carbon arc lamps. Quite similar to the search light lamps you see outside theaters during a movie premier. The projectionist would make sure the carbon rod was long enough to handle twenty minutes burning. The projectionist threw a switch on the lamp, strike the rods to produce the flame and get ready for the change-over cues in the top right corner of the screen. When the projectionist saw the first circle, or cue he would start the second projector, open the heavy dowser to the lamp, and the second cue he'd push a button that would quickly snap a plate that shut off the light from the first projector and quickly open the plate of the second projector. The optical sound track would also switch from the first to second reel. The audience never saw the film switching over. To them it was just a continuation of the movie. I miss being up in the booth running the shows. I had to go to projectionist school. I had to leaarn about the mechanical sysytems of various projectors. How to repair and maintain booth equipment. Back in my time we still had old tube amplifiers. We had to know how to replace the tubes and adjust the optical sound systems. In class we learned how to take apart Simplex, Century, and Norelco projectors. After three years of school we finally received our IATSE International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union card. Yes, I miss the good old days.
What happened to the old film? Was it destroyed or recycled, or just sent back to studios? Doesn't seem like it would have any use after theatrical release.
@larrymashburn7789 Very good question. Most studios would run off so many prints for major city release. They'd be played in first run theaters and then shipped to second run or dollar admission neighborhood theaters. They ended up running in drive-in theaters as ND eventually they would be sent back to the local film exchange. Where I lived in the suburbs outside of Detroit I became friends with a fellow film collector who had connections with the general manager of the exchange. After a number of runs the prints suffered splices or minor vertical scratches that looked bad on the big screen. CFI Consolidated Film Industries used to mass produce the prints shown in theaters. They'd ship them out on yellow lab cores to various film exchanges. The local exchange would note the serial numbers, wind them onto metal reels and place them into three or two reel containers that were shipped to the theaters. Once these prints had lived out their lives and sent back to the exchanges they were supposed to be destroyed. It was cheaper to destroy the film rather than send it back. I had heard that there was a time they did go back to CFI to reclaim the silver from the emulsion, but from my experience my film collector friend had made a connection with the guys who were supposed to take the prints out to the city dump. There were a number of collectors who purchased used 35mm projectors from the a number of theaters who upgraded their booths or had closed. I owned two 35mm Holmes Projectors and the original tube amplifier system. I was able to buy a number of great movies that were only a few years old after their initial run. I owned Wait Until Dark, Love Story, The Wild One, Easy Rider, Psycho, The Birds, Bonnie & Clyde, 2001 Space Odyssey, Let it Be, Help!, Hud, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Prime Cut, Last Tango in Paris, Charly, Midnight Cowboy, Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, Harlow starring Carol Baker, In Cold Blood to name only a few. In 1975 the studios found out where their prints were going. They tracked down the collectors, and we were charged with copyright violations. I was tipped off by a friend that we were in big trouble. I moved all my movies to a barn my aunt owned in New Boston, Michigan. When the FBI showed up all they took was a 35mm Popeye cartoon and a reel of trailers. I got a good lawyer who was also a fellow film collector, and after a few months I decided to sell my projectors and liquidate my collection. What's really weird was in 1976 the first VHS machine appeared on store shelves and films such as Butch Cassidy, Patton and Mash were released on video tape. When I was a collector I felt like I belonged to a unique club. We all had fancy theaters set up in our garages or basements. However, after the VHS and beta machines came out, no one really cared to drive over to someone's house to see a movie.
@@MrThomascrownaffair this is amazing. I would have never though they would have gone to these lengths for possession. They didn’t know what was about to hit them 30 years later when the internet happened. Thanks for the story.
23:20 I used to work as a projectionist. Those are the tables used to build the big films that you saw on the floor earlier. They come in like 6 parts to put together. 24:11 The projectors are all gone. They are huge actually. Those were just the shoes of it I believe. 24:34 those are the platters that the films lay on and spin as it feeds into the projectors, and then it feeds onto another platter as the film comes out of the projector. Damn everything was replaced by digital projectors at my old job 15 years ago, and my job was gone. Surprised they still made film in 2020.
Also a projectionist, with an added detail. Those big boxes at 23:48 were part of the projectors, namely the housing for the projector bulbs. Powerful bulbs like the ones projectors use are under high pressure, and generate a lot of heat. If one burst, it was kind of like a hand grenade going off, so they had special casings. When one burnt out, we had a special shielded box they went into, like we were part of a bomb squad. (Mind you, we'd just chuck them off the roof into the parking lot once everybody went home.)
Those boxes of sodas are called BIBBS, and they would have hooked into those sludgy filled tubes and set up on the wire rack each bibb to a tube which led to the fountain machine. Those bibb boxes are probably empty to the point they would not have come out of the hoses anymore and a new one would have been hooked up. We have them at the convenience store I work at, and those suckers are HEAVY when full. The one set of tubes would probably be for the slushies, they would have their own machine that freezes the liquid. Great explore, Big Banks, good job!
Isn’t it funny how lite the diet soda is vs the full flavor soda like Dr Pepper lol diet soda is like 25 pounds and regular soda is like 50 or 60 pounds lol
The cinemark down the road from that Dan berry has always been more popular, I've seen so many movies at that Dan berry before it shut down,live 20 minutes away from it, they didn't build another theater after, just some small factory. And yes that was an arcade and yes that place was going down hill before covid
I went to this theatre as a kid. It was basically in the parking lot of the Dayton Mall. I can say the reason it looks so decayed is because Danbarry didn’t have the money to take care of their theatres. They spent all the money on their theatre in Middletown which was a first run theater. Danbarry went under as a company. Their theatre in Middletown was sold to another small chain and is still open.
I worked at the $1.50 theater here in Orange County, CA (outside the City Mall which is now called The Outlets at Orange). The theaters were set up very similar to this one you're exploring. You brought back so many memories. Ours closed when the area became less safe. A woman was raped and killed in a garbage dumpster just across the street but she came from the night club next door. Then there was a shooting and our security guard was killed. The projectors were huge and are not in the rooms you explored. The small reels you found are the previews. That huge reel was a movie and I can't believe it's still there as those cost a ton to rent/borrow. They'd be dropped off in multiple containers on multiple reels and we'd put them together upstairs in the booths. I went to a different theater in North Hollywood after the $1.50 theater closed. Left there when they kept getting robbed of the speakers behind the screens. We had an armed guard at that theater too. Love your video!
@23:18 Those are called make up tables. They guided the reels of film onto the platters - which are the big silver discs at 24:37 - The platters then fed the film to the projectors.
@23:49 are the lamphouses that produced the light for the movie. The projector heads attach onto the front of the console, but those appear to be gone. They converted all of those theaters to digital and just left a bunch of film stuff lying around.
I just saw your birth year as 1998! That was my first year of teaching, and I was 43 years old! You seem like such a sweet young man. I just love hearing your voice, so kind and gentle. I pray you have happiness and success in everything that you do and you find someone to share your life with that loves you, and is as good to you as you are to her (him). (I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest anything, I just don’t want to be presumptuous.) Be happy with whoever and whatever you choose in life.❤❤
@@nila7259 I loved providing children with exciting & motivating learning experiences! It’s so wonderful seeing them shine with pleasure when they come to understand through discovery❤️❤️❤️ Thank you for your kind comments💕
You're 2 years older than me. I love watching Banks and his videos. I agree with you about the life that stretches in front of him. It's a big adventure he's just starting out on. I love the way he shows us everything and with such enthusiasm.
This place is less than a mile from my house. They demolished it a few months ago and are building something else there now. It closed when covid hit and never reopened. It was creepy driving by it because it still had the titles of the movies that were playing at the moment the whole world shut down still on the marquee. It looked almost post-apocalyptic.
Love the video, I worked at a movie theater in Arkansas that shut down due to covid and it was heartbreaking. That theater looks like it has not been active since the world shut down the first time. I remember all those movies when I was working in the months before we left. Sad to see an old theater go but happy to see someone still cares enough to build them.
❤i been waiting for this one . I love old abandoned theaters. This is definitely a retro theater .. With all the digital an streaming movies 🎥 🍿 Some movie threaters are struggling I never heard of the movies Thank you big bankz ❤
This theater looked like it was stuck in the 80s and 90s before it closed and LOVED THAT! My favorite spot to sit in a theater is usually in the center, not too close to the front but not too far in the back either. And as for the speakers, theaters have speakers all over the walls as well as in the walls in order to create that surround sound effect. You can do this with your own stereos at home too if you have big speakers (car stereo speakers work fine for this) with smaller speakers scattered around the room. Doing so will almost mimic the sound quality of a real movie theater.
definitely pre digital, which came around in 2014, but I loved being a projectionist, you felt as much part of the movie as anyone in it, nowadays someone thousands of miles away pushes a button to make it go
Before Covid we frequented a 5 dollar movie theater similar to this... place was packed on weekends,so family friendly cost wise until the pandemic wiped them out... they never recovered... now it's all AMC & REGAL theaters running the movie scene.... not an accident.
I would go to this theater with my grandfather and watch two movies every Sunday. We would play air hockey in the blank area that was the arcade in between movies. Thanks for giving me one final look at it before it’s demoed
I liked to sit in the middle area of the theater. I remember a theater I went to when I was a kid in Wheaton, IL. It was a nice cheap theater that always showed the best movies . It brought the town together. I like those the best . There are so many memories.
As a super movie buff, I sit dead center with the screen perfectly eye level, so I get the full benefit of the surround sound and I read that best viewing in theaters (and home) is screen eye level.
Yes, but the sound system is tuned, and levels are set, about 2/3rds back in the auditorium and slightly off center. You avoid any phase-cancellation effects that way and hear it the way the installation engineer set it up to Dolby and THX specifications. ;)
All the amplifiers and digital projectors have been removed. They're really the only things still usable in theatres today. The screens are torn from vandals stealing speakers, most likely. I see some familiar equipment I'll try to ID for you. I was a projection and sound engineer for over 45 years. I installed and serviced theatre projection and sound equipment. 23:40 XeTron brand xenon lamp and power supply consoles. For film projection. (Projectors and soundheads have been removed). This would have been done in the conversion to digital projectors. 24:10 Those are motor covers for RCA 9030 or 9050 soundheads, for film projection. This tells me this theatre opened with used equipment as those soundheads date to the 1940s. 24:18 On the floor are the RCA soundheads and very old Brenkert BX-60 projectors they used to show film... 1940s vintage. Also, it's useless today. 24:36 horizontal discs for Potts/Strong platter type film transport systems. Probably a single 3-disc unit per screen. All the reels of a movie were spliced together on a platter, which made it one uninterrupted large reel, so the film projection could be automated. 24:46 Several Kelmar mono sound systems on the table and the floor, and an Ultra Stereo stereo film processor at R on the table. All worthless since the industry converted to digital. 25:36 Master Image 3D polarizer for digital projectors. This wheeled in front of a digital projector and its polarizing disc synced with the projector, spinning at a high rate of speed in front of the lens, to polarize the stereo image pairs coming from the projector. This was both the chintziest and cheapest way to get digital 3D. It was also very dangerous, as the polarizing discs often would come flying apart, throwing shrapnel everywhere. I'm not surprised it was left behind. Spawn of Satan 3D. The equipment left behind is obsolete, but even in film days, it was sub-par. The only things that were top quality are the XeTron consoles and Strong (Potts) platters. The projectors and sound reproducers were 1940s vintage. The Kelmar amps were reliable, but were mono. Again, it's academic now because it's all worthless today.
When I was a kid my father worked as Assistant Manager of a movie theater so it was good to relive some memories while watching this tour. I still have a copper squirrel broach that someone lost and didn't claim and that was back in the 1950's. Sitting closer to the back in the middle makes it easier to see the whole screen. If you're too close there's a chance that you might miss something on the left of the screen because you have your head turned to watch something on the right (less neck strain). The equipment has changed a lot but the machines you saw at 23:24 may have been splicers. If your foot is a recent injury I hope it heals quickly. Good video.
I sit on the ends in the middle!😊Those seats are sooo old. Our seats in my area has electrical seats that recline! Tre’ 😎. We have a giant theater in my area that went under from covid still sitting decaying 😢
My husband's father ran the local theater when he was younger, back in the 1930s and 40s. He ran the local one that had one movie at a time in the little town they lived in. I grew up in Amarillo, and lived as an adult on 18th and S. Hughes (a duplex), across the street from what used to be the Esquire Theater. I was sitting on the porch the day they hit the building with a wrecking ball. I heard the beautiful chandelier hit the floor and shatter. It was one of those beautiful, ornate theaters. As for where I sit in a theater, it's the middle, up even with the center of the screen. I get motion sick otherwise. Now, however, they stick me at the top or middle since I'm in a wheelchair. And the little reels? Like Dragonheart? Those are "coming attractions" or "trailers".
A probable reason for the screen damage was to remove the speakers from behind the screen. You will notice all the wall surround speakers were also missing. The units at 23:41 were in fact the lamp houses which were normally placed behind the projector heads.
They probably reused the speakers. It looks like they left in a hurry since there is a complete print in the booth. I agree they probably just cut the screens to access the speakers (probably the subs) behind the screen. Most of the theaters I have been in have angle iron frames and the screens are attached with springs so there is a lot of tension on them and not much space to work in making it a lot easier to just cut them instead of removing springs.
This theater was in bad shape prior to closing. It is sad to see the empty lot where it once stood, but it was time for it to go. A lot of the seats had broken springs, you stuck to the floor, paint and carpets were dirty. However, it was a great place to see movies on the cheap.
Sit in the middle ,not to far back ! Classic old time movie theater , and the prices are so reasonable except for the candy 😄 ! Get that foot checked out, hope it's nothing to bad ! Thanks BB 👍
I used to be a projectionist from 2002 to 2005. The small rolls of film on the wooden table were trailers. I'm really curious what the fully assembled print on the floor was.
The big silver things are called platters. the big roll of film you saw on the floor goes on the plater then fed through the projector. The smaller rolls of film are the trailers and adds you see at beginning of the movie.
another movie theater isnt going to be built there as there is a rave right around the corner and a cinepolis 5 minutes away, its going to be a mazda dealership
At Six Flags New England in Agawam Massachusetts they have a similar soda setup where they have a room where the soda containers are located and they have tubing for pumping soda to the soda dispenser in the restaurant. The restaurant is called JB's Smokehouse and barbieque.
What i really miss are the giant one stadium theaters of long ago. From the 30s to the 80s they survived and had style and class, before the cookie cutter multi plex came with its smaller screens and ever increasing rowdy and rude crowds. The obnoxious rude cell phone ringing bringing crying babies in theater crowds made me say goodbye to the theater. New large UHD 4k and better TVs and awesome home theater sound systems will never replace the good old days but at least you can enjoy the movie in peace
Omg I love the old carpet in that theater. Great explore! 1917 is one of my all time favorite movies, it’s so cool seeing it promoted out front and the theater where it was played. Wonder if it was on any reels upstairs
Underwater is the last movie I saw in a theatre before the pandemic shut everything down. It's a really good flick! It's similar to Leviathan with a Lovecraft reveal at the end.
The screens are made from a thick white fabric in most projector style theaters. Theives could have easily torn the fabric trying to get to something that was worth money like the speakers or something that had copper in it.
I kinda laughed when you opened the filing cabinet and found a payroll folder. Hopefully no one had their identity stolen because that should have been secured. And i guess a few things were left behind. Cleaning supplies, the cart, the concession stand supply closet. I would say nothing major but why not just donate the cleaning stuff to a goodwill or something.
Super cool seeing this, I’m a Dayton Native. Not at all surprised that this shut down during covid- it was always unfortunately in very rough shape. It wasn’t cared for for years. The building has in fact been demolished!
If you notice the wall speakers were all removed. They usually cut the screen to get to the speakers behind. With the exception of one, it appears all the other auditoriums with cut screen were missing the speakers behind.
The small films you saw were trailers. The giant roll of film you saw was probably an entire show (movie and previews). It would have been on one of those large round discs you saw and was actually a continuous loop where it played it from the outer edge and fed it back to the center. That way, they never had to rewind.
I can tell you right now WHY they cut the screens at a theater near me. They cut a large section of the screen so they can use it at home for a PROJECTION WALL. Those commercial projection screen are VERY reflective and work great at home if you connect your TV broadcast to a overhead projector, great for movies and video games.
Nice change of pace guys, but what would be really great is to tour one of those old classic movie theater's built in the 1930s, built for silent movies, outstanding art work, and architecture.
In Los Angeles there's a whole district of them. Dozens were torn down but about a dozen still remain. Some still show concerts like the Orpheum and the United Artists. The Tower Theater was turned into an Apple Store, super cool, available for exploration.
@@themoviedealers I am from Detroit MI, we had a black Mayor, his name was Young, he had a great idea, he took one o those old movie Theaters, kept it from being torn down, refurnished it, to its original look, it is beautiful inside, and there isn't a bad seat in the house, and it makes a ton of money.
This theater is very similar to one we have in Summerville, SC. Ours has had a few updates, but still a bit retro. It’s also the cheapest theater in the area.
This theater may have closed during the Covid pandemic. Movie theaters took a huge loss during that time but it's my opinion that the primary reason this theater closed was it's very run down condition. I saw the mess this building was in. It's possible that it was that way when it closed, well at least to a certain extent. That theater didn't completely get that way since it's been closed. Looks to me like it's been abandoned for quite some time. I'd say the theater was at least 30 to 40 years old. An old building that the owner did not maintain properly. It's also my opinion that the theater screens were intentionally ripped down when it closed knowing that the closure was permanent and there were no plans to remodel and reopen. Movie attendance isn't what it used to be with high quality home entertainment electronics. That being large screen high definition televisions and streaming services that can people at home. I haven't been out to see a movie in over ten years. There isn't a theater in my small town and hasn't been in a long time. There wasn't enough attendance to keep our four screen theater open. I don't know about movie attendence in the larger cities. Going out to see a movie became very expensive.
I haven't been to a movie in years. The last time I did go to one, my daughter was in high school - she's about to be 30. So it's been over a decade. It was astronomical to go to one back then, so I can only imagine what it would cost now. I much prefer to get movies on Black Friday or check them out from the library.
We have a couple of theaters like this in Greensboro NC. They have suffered decay and abuse over the years while still open because the owner could only afford minimal upkeep. Entrance was very cheap. They are small theaters. One of them has been bought out and refurbished. Haven't been there yet. Thank you for sharing ❤
Imagine all the joy that building saw. The dates, the friends, the families, the people super excited about some movie or just people relaxing during their leisure time. If a thing takes on the energy of the people and activities it was involved in theaters must have good energy. Sadly I don’t feel like theaters are likely to make a comeback since Hollywood itself seems to be dying. Theaters were definitely the best way to see great movies when they were being made.
this makes me so sad! i grew up coming here! the last movie i saw here was zombieland 2 and it was so ran down even then. it had been a few years before since i had been and i was shocked at how bad it was. the screens weren't ripped but the seats were nasty (i sat on the edge of my seat the whole time so i didn't touch the back) and the fabric on the walls were torn and the floors were stained. in the early 2000s it was epic though.
As a former projectionist myself, i LOVE gettin to see the projection booth! I cant believe they still ran film. Most theatres turned digital in 2010ish. The film days were awesome. I worked with film for many years. The projectors were probably sold. Thats why they are not there. The device you didnt know what they were are: the first is to load the film from reels into the projector's platters. And the 2nd was a lamphouse. Part of the projector that houses the bulb. You then attach to it the actual projector that moves the film. The projector part was missing because they likely sold it to 3rd world countries
Love this video. Enjoy places like this. There was a dollar theater at the old century three mall in Pittsburgh. It was always a busy hustling place. I always sit towards the back middle section.
23:36 those are editing tables for the films. Back then the movies arrived in 15 minute reals. I worked at AMC in the early 90s. For example...a movie might arrive by carrier in two cases of 15 minute reals (4 each case) (example 2 hour movie). This editing table allows each theater to edit the 15 minute reals into one big large real then set those in the platter system they used back then. The platter system used to allow the theater to show the same film real to multiple theaters at once without having to rent out two films. These films would then be de-spliced beck into the 15 minute reals and places back in cases for shipment to another theater chain. great vid!
I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's. We used to have drive-in theaters. When they were closed and abandoned we used to hang out in the old parking lot and sit for hours .
Longtime movie theater worker…the screens are typically the most expensive things in the building. The previous owners will typically cut them so they can’t be used again or taken.
Hi Big Bankz, this was reel (pun intended) nice to see, I wonder if the new owners cut the screen t see what type of sound systems were behind them, because you're right, there just isn't enough damage to be from vandals. Cool find thanks for showing us this one. Love from N.Y.
I worked as a trainee projectionist for a bit before I left for my current job but I had access to passcodes for the imax set up and also understood how to start our digital projectors (before it was all automated) and saw a little bit of the old 35mm before digital projection. 22:40 Movie projectors are not always owned outright. A lot of them are considered “collateral assets” for banks and can be taken by the banks as collateral for loans for the theatre. The reason you don’t see any around is likely they where the first thing sold off to pay for any outstanding loans or debts. 23:16 I think that’s a splicing table. A whole reel for a film is rarely delivered as a single piece. They are usually delivered in what are called “buckets” and have to be spliced together (like cutting and glueing the strips) 23:40 I think those are part of the sound system and also work in concert with the projectors to feed and spool up the “platters” (the big reel of film you saw when you walked in) when the movie plays and then later gets rolled back up. (Actually I differ to full fledged projectionists I’m reading in the comments, seems those are for housing the arc lamp bulbs.) 24:06 So the knives out booth, those are called buckets, that is what a whole movie will come in, typically 3-5 buckets. 24:35 Silver platters are for film, called “platters” they feed and spool up the film when playing. 24:44 You barely see it, but you passed a sound rack on the left as you walk by the platters I think. 25:46 Those smaller film strips are all preview rolls for building preview packs. As I understood, you had to be careful when building those because you don’t want to show red band (adult R stuff) with green band (kids and general audience) before your movie. Okay, I think that’s it!
also the speakers behind the screen, a lot of people think that doesn't make sense, but look closer there are lots of tiny holes in movie screens, and the sound comes through the screen for what is happening right on the screen, mostly dialogue, makes you feel as if you are in it with them
The things at 23:27 are for rewinding film. There is usually two giant silver disc's called platters attached to them. The next thing you came to are reel sets used to string one piece of film between multiple theaters for premiere nights and such. My theater was digital, but we still had all those things in the booth..
I always wanted to own a theater growing up because it always felt like the ultimate escape. You’d get to see advanced screenings of the movie too. Not to mention all the awesome swag and posters. 😎 One of my friends worked at a theater growing up, so sometimes I’d get to see the advanced screenings. 😎
All the little "films" on the floor are trailers. You'd have to build several of those together at the beginning of a film. This theater used platter systems so there wasn't rewinding. The film sets on a platter feed through the projector and back onto another platter, which is why 35 mm films couldn't be rewound in theaters. One cool thing about 35mm films was interlocking, in which you could run one 35mm print in several auditoriums at the same time by threading one print through multiple projectors all interlocked by rollers along the way, like from the ceiling. I think the most we interlocked was 5 or 6 auditoriums once since we had 6 in the main hallway of the theater I managed.
Wow, I can't believe this. And it's actually one of my old childhood theaters. It's actually in huber heights which is right outside of dayton I've been to this theater so many times I've seen a lot of good movies there. I didn't even know it was closed until a year ago. And there was never another theater. There's some kind of storage business there now.
Good to see you are back me and my boyfriend we like to sit in the middle row up in the middle so we can see the movie we seen thr 1917 movie wnen it came out that was a excellent movie and you take care of your foot too
Former Drive in projectionist here, pre digital era and post sound era, the silver tables are not rewinders, they are part of a system that makes up the films for continuous runs, so the films in the pre digital days came in on 8 shipping reels typically, that held around 20 minutes of the movie, and depending on the length of the film came on 6 to 8 typical, then Titanic came and came on a few more than that, so each reel (in my early days of doing it around 1996 to halfway through the 1997 summer season) we would just put them on bigger reels that held around 3 to 4 shipping reels (the reels the distributor sent the theater), then about half way through the 1997 season we had a triple deck platter system put in which could hold the whole movie on a single platter and NO CHANGEOVERS, also we could dump one of the two projectors, those are the big silver things you seen they load onto a metal armature that typically sit near the projector and motors hooked to the platters regulate the film payout and the film take up, nice to have in 97 for Titanic or was that 1998, hard to tell anymore, the things next to the make up table looks like a projector lamphouses, the little spools of films you found are trailer reels, those would typically be spliced on prior to the movie, which most movie goers know that, at the theater I used to work we would get trailers for movies we were going to show during that season, they were called trailers because they used to trail the movie, when they were moved to the front of the movie, the name stuck, because no one would watch trailers AFTER the movie
Really enjoyed the tour of the theatre. I worked in theatres for years, here are answers for a few questions.
The odd seating spacing is because several of the theatres were divided, that is, split into two smaller ones. That’s also why there were so many extra seats up in the projection booth.
The screens are torn due to equipment recovery. When a theatre is closed, any usable equipment is salvaged. To remove speakers from behind the screens, the screens need to be removed. Since screen fabric is usually not considered “salvageable”, they’re just cut away.
In the projection booth, the first big thing of film you see is a 2-hour movie on 35mm film, set up to project from a platter system. You can see several of these platters (huge silver discs) leaning against a wall later.
The small grey tables are make-up tables, used to transfer film from reels to the platter system. Each movie would come on 5 or more separate reels that would need to be spliced together by the projection staff on these tables.
The big boxes just past those are lamp houses for the projectors.
The little rolls of film toward the end are trailers, which are spliced to the beginning of the movie for previews.
Where are the projectors? The film projectors have been gone for over a decade, since all movie theatres went digital. They were recovered and likely used for parts at art houses for a few years. The digital projectors were probably the first things recovered after the theatre closed, to be used in other theatres.
I hope this explanation was half as fun as your video. Thanks!
Cool thanks for this comment
what is the film for then if they are all digital? is there a weird quality thing?
@@RogerDavid647 just left behind for years. Most theaters went digital between 2008-2013. A Second run theater like this would've been towards the end of that or maybe even a year or so later, but there's 0 chance it was film til the end, you couldn't get film prints anymore. You either went digital or closed.
How wild! I used to live in Dayton for a LONG time and my dad would take me to this movie theater a ton as a kid. I had no idea it had been shut down. You walking through all those areas really took me back and made me even a bit sad. Thanks for the video man. Can't believe its really gone.
I used to go there as well. Havent seen it in a long time. Dayton in the 90s was a fun place back then
Same. I visited it and they demolished it. It will forever be in memories.
I was a thearter protectionist back in 02. So much fun. The reason why the screens are ripped is because they are worth a lot and it was not done by vandals. However, I noticed that some speaker drivers were taken. That may have been done by vandals. What you saw in the projecton room were the bodies of projectors. The large silver discs you also saw are called platters. They hold the film print on it's side.When a fully operationally film projector is working it has a Xenon bulb with a lens on the front of the projector the displays the image onto the screen. To thread the film from the platter to the projector there is a network of pulleys. You have to make sure you have enough slack in the film gate so the film doesn't get stuck and burn or rip. The other device you saw looks like a film splicer. We had those for that very reason so you can repair the print. The small film rolls were trailers. The larger ones were the actual full film. It really hurts to see any thearter in that condition.
The pattern of the movie reels on the carpeting is a really nice touch for a movie theater. Thank You for taking us on this abandoned explore.
@@GremmPaltakin reel to reel... whatever your speech impediment is.
Aw man, this pulled at my heartstrings and hit me with some serious nostalgia! I saw so many movies here. Every Thursday, select movies would be $1 in their last day at the theater, so I would take my daughters to see every good kids movie that came through. It became our regular daddy-daughter movie dates. Best part was since it was the last day the movie was playing in theaters, and the fact that this was a second-run theater, it meant that most people had already seen the movie by then, so 95% of the time I took my girls to the theater on a Thursday afternoon, we had the theater to ourselves. So I'd let them dance in the aisles or run up to the front of the screen, change seats, etc. I let them do whatever they wanted to do to enjoy themselves since no one else was in there with us. Some wonderful memories for both myself and my daughters. If it was a Disney movie or an animated movie that came out from 2012-2019, chances are we saw it there! Occasionally, if there was another customer in there buying tickets when we were (which was rare), I would offer to buy their tickets for them. I thought spending a few extra bucks to spread good karma and to impress upon my daughters the importance of doing something nice for strangers was well worth it.
I also saw plenty of movies here without my girls. The best being Mad Max: Fury Road, which I saw for $1 on its last day in theaters because I needed to see it on the big screen one more time, after seeing it in 3-D previously at another theater.
When was this video filmed? It was obviously a long while ago. The theater was razed many months, if not more than a year, ago. I believe they are putting a car dealership in its spot. That was the last I heard, anyway.
The theater was falling into disrepair for years before it closed. Once COVID hit, I knew it was doomed. There were usually no more than two employees working in the whole place when I was there. The ticket booths in the front weren't used for years; you would just buy your tickets from the concession counter and they would rip them there and send you on your way. The concession stand in the middle of the theater also wasn't operating for at least a decade prior to it closing. A lot of the arcade games were often out of order as well, much to my daughters' chagrin. The fabric was ripping off the walls for years and the carpets and seats certainly didn't appear to be the most sanitary. It definitely was a bit of a dump, but dammit, it was our dump and we forged many good memories from here! And when the kids weren't old enough to know any better, then they couldn't have cared less about the state it was in. As long as a fun movie was playing on the big screen and they had some overpriced, overbuttered popcorn, life was good!
Thanks for the video!
A car dealership wouldn't shock me in the slightest as here in NY that is all that we get. Literally every good thing gets torn down and turned into a dealership, usually an RV one. As if we need anymore dang dealerships when nobody can even afford a car. Unreal.
A 7 million dollar Kia car dealership deff is what it became after this theater was demolished.
Its crazy to see places like this just frozen in time! Keep it up bro 🔥
👍
Was frozen till it got demolished 🤦🏼♂️
A stitch in time here
I was a union (IATSE) projectionist from 1972 to 87. You wondered what that weird looking table was with the pulleys. I can tell you. All 35mm films are sent to theaters in heavy film carrying cases. It usuall takes 6 reels of film to make up a two hour movie. Most containers held 3 reels of film. Ask any former usher and they'll tell you how heavy those film cans are! The projectionist used the table to feed each reel onto a large platter. The platter had a removable hub in the middle that the film was wound onto. Each one of those six reels had a leader and tail. The projectionist removed the leaders and tails, and used a tape splicer to join the film together. Those small rolls of film that you showed were trailers, or coming attractions. They were usually the first things spliced onto the hub of the platter along with the theater's logo, and warnings about talking or using your cell phone in the theater. Anyway, once the film was completely assembled the projectionist removed that inner hub and slowly pulled the film out onto a long arm that sent messages to the feed motor below the platter. Depending on how fast you pulled the film that's how fast the platter spun. The platter system always reminded me of the old 8-Track tape cartridges where the tape was pulled out of the middle when it was played. It's too bad the 35mm projectors and platter feeding systems aren't still in the booth. That way you'd get an idea of what I'm trying to tell you. Maybe you can do some searching on UA-cam to see a platter system booth in operation. Oh, and one more thing, you showed two black boxes with the numbers 8 and 12. Those are Xenon lamps. They produced a very intense, bright light. The video quality sure beats the video projection systems currently in theaters today.
When I joined the Union back in February 1972 most theaters had two large 35mm projectors in the booth. The projectionist threaded up the projectors begining with reels one and two. As I mentioned each reel was aproximately 20 minutes long. There was usually a warning bell to let the projectionist know it was time to get the second projector ready. Back then most booths used carbon arc lamps. Quite similar to the search light lamps you see outside theaters during a movie premier. The projectionist would make sure the carbon rod was long enough to handle twenty minutes burning. The projectionist threw a switch on the lamp, strike the rods to produce the flame and get ready for the change-over cues in the top right corner of the screen. When the projectionist saw the first circle, or cue he would start the second projector, open the heavy dowser to the lamp, and the second cue he'd push a button that would quickly snap a plate that shut off the light from the first projector and quickly open the plate of the second projector. The optical sound track would also switch from the first to second reel. The audience never saw the film switching over. To them it was just a continuation of the movie. I miss being up in the booth running the shows. I had to go to projectionist school. I had to leaarn about the mechanical sysytems of various projectors. How to repair and maintain booth equipment. Back in my time we still had old tube amplifiers. We had to know how to replace the tubes and adjust the optical sound systems. In class we learned how to take apart Simplex, Century, and Norelco projectors. After three years of school we finally received our IATSE International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union card.
Yes, I miss the good old days.
What happened to the old film? Was it destroyed or recycled, or just sent back to studios? Doesn't seem like it would have any use after theatrical release.
@larrymashburn7789 Very good question. Most studios would run off so many prints for major city release. They'd be played in first run theaters and then shipped to second run or dollar admission neighborhood theaters. They ended up running in drive-in theaters as ND eventually they would be sent back to the local film exchange.
Where I lived in the suburbs outside of Detroit I became friends with a fellow film collector who had connections with the general manager of the exchange. After a number of runs the prints suffered splices or minor vertical scratches that looked bad on the big screen.
CFI Consolidated Film Industries used to mass produce the prints shown in theaters. They'd ship them out on yellow lab cores to various film exchanges. The local exchange would note the serial numbers, wind them onto metal reels and place them into three or two reel containers that were shipped to the theaters.
Once these prints had lived out their lives and sent back to the exchanges they were supposed to be destroyed. It was cheaper to destroy the film rather than send it back. I had heard that there was a time they did go back to CFI to reclaim the silver from the emulsion, but from my experience my film collector friend had made a connection with the guys who were supposed to take the prints out to the city dump.
There were a number of collectors who purchased used 35mm projectors from the a number of theaters who upgraded their booths or had closed.
I owned two 35mm Holmes Projectors and the original tube amplifier system.
I was able to buy a number of great movies that were only a few years old after their initial run. I owned Wait Until Dark, Love Story, The Wild One, Easy Rider, Psycho, The Birds, Bonnie & Clyde, 2001 Space Odyssey, Let it Be, Help!, Hud, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Prime Cut, Last Tango in Paris, Charly, Midnight Cowboy, Thomas Crown Affair, Bullitt, Harlow starring Carol Baker, In Cold Blood to name only a few.
In 1975 the studios found out where their prints were going. They tracked down the collectors, and we were charged with copyright violations. I was tipped off by a friend that we were in big trouble. I moved all my movies to a barn my aunt owned in New Boston, Michigan. When the FBI showed up all they took was a 35mm Popeye cartoon and a reel of trailers.
I got a good lawyer who was also a fellow film collector, and after a few months I decided to sell my projectors and liquidate my collection.
What's really weird was in 1976 the first VHS machine appeared on store shelves and films such as Butch Cassidy, Patton and Mash were released on video tape.
When I was a collector I felt like I belonged to a unique club. We all had fancy theaters set up in our garages or basements. However, after the VHS and beta machines came out, no one really cared to drive over to someone's house to see a movie.
@@MrThomascrownaffairyou are atleast 69 or 70 if you started work in 1972 I was born in Dec 74 I will be hitting 50 next year and it don’t seem real
I am 72. Time zooms be too fast..@@jamesstripling7178
@@MrThomascrownaffair this is amazing. I would have never though they would have gone to these lengths for possession. They didn’t know what was about to hit them 30 years later when the internet happened. Thanks for the story.
23:20 I used to work as a projectionist. Those are the tables used to build the big films that you saw on the floor earlier. They come in like 6 parts to put together. 24:11 The projectors are all gone. They are huge actually. Those were just the shoes of it I believe. 24:34 those are the platters that the films lay on and spin as it feeds into the projectors, and then it feeds onto another platter as the film comes out of the projector. Damn everything was replaced by digital projectors at my old job 15 years ago, and my job was gone. Surprised they still made film in 2020.
Also a projectionist, with an added detail. Those big boxes at 23:48 were part of the projectors, namely the housing for the projector bulbs. Powerful bulbs like the ones projectors use are under high pressure, and generate a lot of heat. If one burst, it was kind of like a hand grenade going off, so they had special casings. When one burnt out, we had a special shielded box they went into, like we were part of a bomb squad. (Mind you, we'd just chuck them off the roof into the parking lot once everybody went home.)
@@JonathanAvuerro I used to chuck them in the parking lot too lol; big BOOMS!
I'm still a film projectionist!
Those boxes of sodas are called BIBBS, and they would have hooked into those sludgy filled tubes and set up on the wire rack each bibb to a tube which led to the fountain machine. Those bibb boxes are probably empty to the point they would not have come out of the hoses anymore and a new one would have been hooked up. We have them at the convenience store I work at, and those suckers are HEAVY when full. The one set of tubes would probably be for the slushies, they would have their own machine that freezes the liquid. Great explore, Big Banks, good job!
Hello how's the weather over there
Isn’t it funny how lite the diet soda is vs the full flavor soda like Dr Pepper lol diet soda is like 25 pounds and regular soda is like 50 or 60 pounds lol
The cinemark down the road from that Dan berry has always been more popular, I've seen so many movies at that Dan berry before it shut down,live 20 minutes away from it, they didn't build another theater after, just some small factory. And yes that was an arcade and yes that place was going down hill before covid
I went to this theatre as a kid. It was basically in the parking lot of the Dayton Mall. I can say the reason it looks so decayed is because Danbarry didn’t have the money to take care of their theatres. They spent all the money on their theatre in Middletown which was a first run theater. Danbarry went under as a company. Their theatre in Middletown was sold to another small chain and is still open.
I've learned a lot about movie theaters just by reading the comments here. Thank you, everyone, for sharing your expertise!
I worked at the $1.50 theater here in Orange County, CA (outside the City Mall which is now called The Outlets at Orange). The theaters were set up very similar to this one you're exploring. You brought back so many memories. Ours closed when the area became less safe. A woman was raped and killed in a garbage dumpster just across the street but she came from the night club next door. Then there was a shooting and our security guard was killed. The projectors were huge and are not in the rooms you explored. The small reels you found are the previews. That huge reel was a movie and I can't believe it's still there as those cost a ton to rent/borrow. They'd be dropped off in multiple containers on multiple reels and we'd put them together upstairs in the booths. I went to a different theater in North Hollywood after the $1.50 theater closed. Left there when they kept getting robbed of the speakers behind the screens. We had an armed guard at that theater too. Love your video!
oh yeah, we did not have an rmed garud there.
Was that the Regency on Victory? Gone now. It was good to still have a $3 theater, but it shut down even before COVID.
I remember that theater
Wtf damn people are scary 😨
@23:18 Those are called make up tables. They guided the reels of film onto the platters - which are the big silver discs at 24:37 - The platters then fed the film to the projectors.
@23:49 are the lamphouses that produced the light for the movie. The projector heads attach onto the front of the console, but those appear to be gone. They converted all of those theaters to digital and just left a bunch of film stuff lying around.
Either vandalism or previous owner didn't want anyone else using it.
Hello Ryan how's the weather over there
It shut down because of covid 🤦🏼♀️
Seems like previous owners to me, unless vandals only came in to screw up the screens.? 🤷🏼
There are speakers behind the screens the previous owners probably wanted them out
I just saw your birth year as 1998! That was my first year of teaching, and I was 43 years old! You seem like such a sweet young man. I just love hearing your voice, so kind and gentle. I pray you have happiness and success in everything that you do and you find someone to share your life with that loves you, and is as good to you as you are to her (him). (I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest anything, I just don’t want to be presumptuous.) Be happy with whoever and whatever you choose in life.❤❤
You seem like a very sweet person yourself, you must have been a great teacher. What a nice comment.
@@nila7259 I loved providing children with exciting & motivating learning experiences! It’s so wonderful seeing them shine with pleasure when they come to understand through discovery❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for your kind comments💕
You're 2 years older than me. I love watching Banks and his videos. I agree with you about the life that stretches in front of him. It's a big adventure he's just starting out on. I love the way he shows us everything and with such enthusiasm.
@@Mollymommy your students were lucky. We need more people like you in this world
@@nila7259 Thank you💕. You’re very kind as well❤️
This place is less than a mile from my house. They demolished it a few months ago and are building something else there now. It closed when covid hit and never reopened. It was creepy driving by it because it still had the titles of the movies that were playing at the moment the whole world shut down still on the marquee. It looked almost post-apocalyptic.
I actually used to work in this same Danbarry it was my first job! Thank you for the video!
Me too!
Love the video, I worked at a movie theater in Arkansas that shut down due to covid and it was heartbreaking. That theater looks like it has not been active since the world shut down the first time. I remember all those movies when I was working in the months before we left. Sad to see an old theater go but happy to see someone still cares enough to build them.
❤i been waiting for this one . I love old abandoned theaters. This is definitely a retro theater .. With all the digital an streaming movies 🎥 🍿 Some movie threaters are struggling I never heard of the movies Thank you big bankz ❤
This theater looked like it was stuck in the 80s and 90s before it closed and LOVED THAT! My favorite spot to sit in a theater is usually in the center, not too close to the front but not too far in the back either. And as for the speakers, theaters have speakers all over the walls as well as in the walls in order to create that surround sound effect. You can do this with your own stereos at home too if you have big speakers (car stereo speakers work fine for this) with smaller speakers scattered around the room. Doing so will almost mimic the sound quality of a real movie theater.
This place was built in the early 2000's and it was always a budget theatere.
definitely pre digital, which came around in 2014, but I loved being a projectionist, you felt as much part of the movie as anyone in it, nowadays someone thousands of miles away pushes a button to make it go
Before Covid we frequented a 5 dollar movie theater similar to this... place was packed on weekends,so family friendly cost wise until the pandemic wiped them out... they never recovered... now it's all AMC & REGAL theaters running the movie scene.... not an accident.
I would go to this theater with my grandfather and watch two movies every Sunday. We would play air hockey in the blank area that was the arcade in between movies. Thanks for giving me one final look at it before it’s demoed
I liked to sit in the middle area of the theater. I remember a theater I went to when I was a kid in Wheaton, IL. It was a nice cheap theater that always showed the best movies . It brought the town together. I like those the best . There are so many memories.
Wife and I do the same. All the way to the back
Hello Kim how's the weather over there
@stevenanthony199 Hello Steve. I do not live in IL anymore. But I remember the summers being hot and humid.
@@kimholch1006 The weather over here's okay
As a super movie buff, I sit dead center with the screen perfectly eye level, so I get the full benefit of the surround sound and I read that best viewing in theaters (and home) is screen eye level.
Hello Micheal how's the weather over there
Yes, but the sound system is tuned, and levels are set, about 2/3rds back in the auditorium and slightly off center. You avoid any phase-cancellation effects that way and hear it the way the installation engineer set it up to Dolby and THX specifications. ;)
My ex-husband was a filmmaker. He refused to sit anywhere else, but dead center for the very same reasons.
@@michellepoutre7913 Hello Michelle how's the weather over there
All the amplifiers and digital projectors have been removed. They're really the only things still usable in theatres today. The screens are torn from vandals stealing speakers, most likely.
I see some familiar equipment I'll try to ID for you. I was a projection and sound engineer for over 45 years. I installed and serviced theatre projection and sound equipment.
23:40 XeTron brand xenon lamp and power supply consoles. For film projection. (Projectors and soundheads have been removed). This would have been done in the conversion to digital projectors.
24:10 Those are motor covers for RCA 9030 or 9050 soundheads, for film projection. This tells me this theatre opened with used equipment as those soundheads date to the 1940s.
24:18 On the floor are the RCA soundheads and very old Brenkert BX-60 projectors they used to show film... 1940s vintage. Also, it's useless today.
24:36 horizontal discs for Potts/Strong platter type film transport systems. Probably a single 3-disc unit per screen. All the reels of a movie were spliced together on a platter, which made it one uninterrupted large reel, so the film projection could be automated.
24:46 Several Kelmar mono sound systems on the table and the floor, and an Ultra Stereo stereo film processor at R on the table. All worthless since the industry converted to digital.
25:36 Master Image 3D polarizer for digital projectors. This wheeled in front of a digital projector and its polarizing disc synced with the projector, spinning at a high rate of speed in front of the lens, to polarize the stereo image pairs coming from the projector. This was both the chintziest and cheapest way to get digital 3D. It was also very dangerous, as the polarizing discs often would come flying apart, throwing shrapnel everywhere. I'm not surprised it was left behind. Spawn of Satan 3D.
The equipment left behind is obsolete, but even in film days, it was sub-par. The only things that were top quality are the XeTron consoles and Strong (Potts) platters. The projectors and sound reproducers were 1940s vintage. The Kelmar amps were reliable, but were mono. Again, it's academic now because it's all worthless today.
Thank you for the information
I always sit in the very center for experienceing the best sound.
I like sitting on the right as you go in at the top in the back i can see the movie better and see people as they come in as well.
When I was a kid my father worked as Assistant Manager of a movie theater so it was good to relive some memories while watching this tour. I still have a copper squirrel broach that someone lost and didn't claim and that was back in the 1950's. Sitting closer to the back in the middle makes it easier to see the whole screen. If you're too close there's a chance that you might miss something on the left of the screen because you have your head turned to watch something on the right (less neck strain). The equipment has changed a lot but the machines you saw at 23:24 may have been splicers. If your foot is a recent injury I hope it heals quickly. Good video.
Hello Carol how's the weather over there
@lynny-cp4pe Hello Lynn how are you doing today
I sit on the ends in the middle!😊Those seats are sooo old. Our seats in my area has electrical seats that recline! Tre’ 😎. We have a giant theater in my area that went under from covid still sitting decaying 😢
I know there's still some theaters that use that type of seating .I don't know if I would ever go back to that type of seating.
Actually it Was "Spy's in Disguise" Movie from 2019😅
Love love love old movie theaters!!! Fun explore Bankz!! 😊😊😊
Wow I can remember going to see movies with my dad here every weekend. Now that he’s gone and this place is boarded up, I really do feel old.
My husband's father ran the local theater when he was younger, back in the 1930s and 40s. He ran the local one that had one movie at a time in the little town they lived in. I grew up in Amarillo, and lived as an adult on 18th and S. Hughes (a duplex), across the street from what used to be the Esquire Theater. I was sitting on the porch the day they hit the building with a wrecking ball. I heard the beautiful chandelier hit the floor and shatter. It was one of those beautiful, ornate theaters. As for where I sit in a theater, it's the middle, up even with the center of the screen. I get motion sick otherwise. Now, however, they stick me at the top or middle since I'm in a wheelchair.
And the little reels? Like Dragonheart? Those are "coming attractions" or "trailers".
Hello Charlayned how's the weather over there
ours had not been demoshed yet.
A probable reason for the screen damage was to remove the speakers from behind the screen. You will notice all the wall surround speakers were also missing. The units at 23:41 were in fact the lamp houses which were normally placed behind the projector heads.
They probably reused the speakers. It looks like they left in a hurry since there is a complete print in the booth. I agree they probably just cut the screens to access the speakers (probably the subs) behind the screen. Most of the theaters I have been in have angle iron frames and the screens are attached with springs so there is a lot of tension on them and not much space to work in making it a lot easier to just cut them instead of removing springs.
This. I feel that it is highly likely that the reason was to remove the speakers.
This theater was in bad shape prior to closing. It is sad to see the empty lot where it once stood, but it was time for it to go. A lot of the seats had broken springs, you stuck to the floor, paint and carpets were dirty. However, it was a great place to see movies on the cheap.
Sit in the middle ,not to far back ! Classic old time movie theater , and the prices are so reasonable except for the candy 😄 ! Get that foot checked out, hope it's nothing to bad ! Thanks BB 👍
I used to be a projectionist from 2002 to 2005. The small rolls of film on the wooden table were trailers.
I'm really curious what the fully assembled print on the floor was.
It could be vandals that tear up the movie theater screens off maybe to see if there's any speakers to rip off and take for money.
Exactly.
This is crazy! I live just up the road from here! So cool to see you in are area touring.
Hello Heather how's the weather over there
I'm not too far, in the Springfield area. Is this still standing?!
The big silver things are called platters. the big roll of film you saw on the floor goes on the plater then fed through the projector. The smaller rolls of film are the trailers and adds you see at beginning of the movie.
Great explore. Did like the carpet, that was so neat. Hope your foot feels better soon. I wouldn't be touching anything in there. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
So glad to watch another place in time with you
AWESOME, AS ALWAYS.
❤❤❤❤❤
ALWAYS GLAD TO SEE YOU.
Awesome 😎💯 Can't wait to see this episode.
i literally work across the street from where this use to stand and watched it get torn down while at work at the skyline across the street
another movie theater isnt going to be built there as there is a rave right around the corner and a cinepolis 5 minutes away, its going to be a mazda dealership
At Six Flags New England in Agawam Massachusetts they have a similar soda setup where they have a room where the soda containers are located and they have tubing for pumping soda to the soda dispenser in the restaurant. The restaurant is called JB's Smokehouse and barbieque.
Riverside park!
What i really miss are the giant one stadium theaters of long ago. From the 30s to the 80s they survived and had style and class, before the cookie cutter multi plex came with its smaller screens and ever increasing rowdy and rude crowds. The obnoxious rude cell phone ringing bringing crying babies in theater crowds made me say goodbye to the theater. New large UHD 4k and better TVs and awesome home theater sound systems will never replace the good old days but at least you can enjoy the movie in peace
Omg I love the old carpet in that theater. Great explore! 1917 is one of my all time favorite movies, it’s so cool seeing it promoted out front and the theater where it was played. Wonder if it was on any reels upstairs
The ting that was in the middle of the seats in the theater at the beginning of the vid scared me for a sec
I love when you look at and zoom in on all the paperwork & nick knacks! It’s like being transported back in time
aw nice to see you again
I would be sitting up front, in the middle lol
Thanks for sharing and for uploading. ❤❤️❤️👍🏼👍🏼🤗✌🏼
Underwater is the last movie I saw in a theatre before the pandemic shut everything down. It's a really good flick! It's similar to Leviathan with a Lovecraft reveal at the end.
I was an employee here until COVID. I showed up for work and no one was there. Crazy place to work. Crazy job to have in high school. Great memories!
Could the screens have torn in extreme cold of winter, assuming no heat was on. And then extreme heat of summer?
Probably from people stealing speakers. Seen it many times.
The screens are made from a thick white fabric in most projector style theaters. Theives could have easily torn the fabric trying to get to something that was worth money like the speakers or something that had copper in it.
I kinda laughed when you opened the filing cabinet and found a payroll folder.
Hopefully no one had their identity stolen because that should have been secured.
And i guess a few things were left behind.
Cleaning supplies, the cart, the concession stand supply closet.
I would say nothing major but why not just donate the cleaning stuff to a goodwill or something.
Super cool seeing this, I’m a Dayton Native. Not at all surprised that this shut down during covid- it was always unfortunately in very rough shape. It wasn’t cared for for years.
The building has in fact been demolished!
If you notice the wall speakers were all removed. They usually cut the screen to get to the speakers behind. With the exception of one, it appears all the other auditoriums with cut screen were missing the speakers behind.
Visited this cinema many times. It’s now torn down. Was cool to see you visited it! Miss this place!
The small films you saw were trailers. The giant roll of film you saw was probably an entire show (movie and previews). It would have been on one of those large round discs you saw and was actually a continuous loop where it played it from the outer edge and fed it back to the center. That way, they never had to rewind.
I can tell you right now WHY they cut the screens at a theater near me. They cut a large section of the screen so they can use it at home for a PROJECTION WALL. Those commercial projection screen are VERY reflective and work great at home if you connect your TV broadcast to a overhead projector, great for movies and video games.
I live in Dayton Ohio I used to go to the theater all the time
Nice change of pace guys, but what would be really great is to tour one of those old classic movie theater's built in the 1930s, built for silent movies, outstanding art work, and architecture.
In Los Angeles there's a whole district of them. Dozens were torn down but about a dozen still remain. Some still show concerts like the Orpheum and the United Artists. The Tower Theater was turned into an Apple Store, super cool, available for exploration.
@@themoviedealers I am from Detroit MI, we had a black Mayor, his name was Young, he had a great idea, he took one o those old movie Theaters, kept it from being torn down, refurnished it, to its original look, it is beautiful inside, and there isn't a bad seat in the house, and it makes a ton of money.
This theater is very similar to one we have in Summerville, SC. Ours has had a few updates, but still a bit retro. It’s also the cheapest theater in the area.
This theater may have closed during the Covid pandemic. Movie theaters took a huge loss during that time but it's my opinion that the primary reason this theater closed was it's very run down condition. I saw the mess this building was in. It's possible that it was that way when it closed, well at least to a certain extent. That theater didn't completely get that way since it's been closed. Looks to me like it's been abandoned for quite some time. I'd say the theater was at least 30 to 40 years old. An old building that the owner did not maintain properly. It's also my opinion that the theater screens were intentionally ripped down when it closed knowing that the closure was permanent and there were no plans to remodel and reopen. Movie attendance isn't what it used to be with high quality home entertainment electronics. That being large screen high definition televisions and streaming services that can people at home. I haven't been out to see a movie in over ten years. There isn't a theater in my small town and hasn't been in a long time. There wasn't enough attendance to keep our four screen theater open. I don't know about movie attendence in the larger cities. Going out to see a movie became very expensive.
I haven't been to a movie in years. The last time I did go to one, my daughter was in high school - she's about to be 30. So it's been over a decade. It was astronomical to go to one back then, so I can only imagine what it would cost now. I much prefer to get movies on Black Friday or check them out from the library.
6:47 I think meant to be spies in disguise, someone was probably there before you and switched it out LOL
This is right by my house lol 😊
amazing to see you back Big Banks's I really enjoy watching you're you're amazing watching you're video have amazing Labor weekend
Hello Brenda how's the weather over there
We have a couple of theaters like this in Greensboro NC. They have suffered decay and abuse over the years while still open because the owner could only afford minimal upkeep. Entrance was very cheap. They are small theaters. One of them has been bought out and refurbished. Haven't been there yet. Thank you for sharing ❤
Imagine all the joy that building saw. The dates, the friends, the families, the people super excited about some movie or just people relaxing during their leisure time. If a thing takes on the energy of the people and activities it was involved in theaters must have good energy. Sadly I don’t feel like theaters are likely to make a comeback since Hollywood itself seems to be dying. Theaters were definitely the best way to see great movies when they were being made.
I learn what you show of the abandoned houses I enjoy your videos
Happy to watch another place in time with you.
Hello Emma how's the weather over there
Hello, and good seeing you again and I like slashes as well a a warm pretzel. 😀 Thank for sharing.
Good to see you! 😊
this makes me so sad! i grew up coming here! the last movie i saw here was zombieland 2 and it was so ran down even then. it had been a few years before since i had been and i was shocked at how bad it was. the screens weren't ripped but the seats were nasty (i sat on the edge of my seat the whole time so i didn't touch the back) and the fabric on the walls were torn and the floors were stained. in the early 2000s it was epic though.
As a former projectionist myself, i LOVE gettin to see the projection booth! I cant believe they still ran film. Most theatres turned digital in 2010ish. The film days were awesome. I worked with film for many years.
The projectors were probably sold. Thats why they are not there.
The device you didnt know what they were are: the first is to load the film from reels into the projector's platters. And the 2nd was a lamphouse. Part of the projector that houses the bulb. You then attach to it the actual projector that moves the film. The projector part was missing because they likely sold it to 3rd world countries
22:31 believe me when I say… Even for an abandoned theater this projector room is clean
Love this video. Enjoy places like this. There was a dollar theater at the old century three mall in Pittsburgh. It was always a busy hustling place. I always sit towards the back middle section.
It’s just sad to see this happen to a great movie theater. May it R.I.P.
That area you pointed out at 5:38 used to have arcade games
That was a cool video thanks I enjoyed watching
23:36 those are editing tables for the films. Back then the movies arrived in 15 minute reals. I worked at AMC in the early 90s. For example...a movie might arrive by carrier in two cases of 15 minute reals (4 each case) (example 2 hour movie). This editing table allows each theater to edit the 15 minute reals into one big large real then set those in the platter system they used back then. The platter system used to allow the theater to show the same film real to multiple theaters at once without having to rent out two films. These films would then be de-spliced beck into the 15 minute reals and places back in cases for shipment to another theater chain. great vid!
What awesome place frozen in time I love it. Keep up the great work. Have a great and safe holiday weekend 😊
I grew up in the late 70's, early 80's. We used to have drive-in theaters. When they were closed and abandoned we used to hang out in the old parking lot and sit for hours .
I have a lot of good memories of that theater. Thank you for posting this at least I got to see it in a video one last time.
Longtime movie theater worker…the screens are typically the most expensive things in the building. The previous owners will typically cut them so they can’t be used again or taken.
Hi Big Bankz, this was reel (pun intended) nice to see, I wonder if the new owners cut the screen t see what type of sound systems were behind them, because you're right, there just isn't enough damage to be from vandals. Cool find thanks for showing us this one. Love from N.Y.
I worked as a trainee projectionist for a bit before I left for my current job but I had access to passcodes for the imax set up and also understood how to start our digital projectors (before it was all automated) and saw a little bit of the old 35mm before digital projection.
22:40 Movie projectors are not always owned outright. A lot of them are considered “collateral assets” for banks and can be taken by the banks as collateral for loans for the theatre. The reason you don’t see any around is likely they where the first thing sold off to pay for any outstanding loans or debts.
23:16 I think that’s a splicing table. A whole reel for a film is rarely delivered as a single piece. They are usually delivered in what are called “buckets” and have to be spliced together (like cutting and glueing the strips)
23:40 I think those are part of the sound system and also work in concert with the projectors to feed and spool up the “platters” (the big reel of film you saw when you walked in) when the movie plays and then later gets rolled back up. (Actually I differ to full fledged projectionists I’m reading in the comments, seems those are for housing the arc lamp bulbs.)
24:06 So the knives out booth, those are called buckets, that is what a whole movie will come in, typically 3-5 buckets.
24:35 Silver platters are for film, called “platters” they feed and spool up the film when playing.
24:44 You barely see it, but you passed a sound rack on the left as you walk by the platters I think.
25:46 Those smaller film strips are all preview rolls for building preview packs. As I understood, you had to be careful when building those because you don’t want to show red band (adult R stuff) with green band (kids and general audience) before your movie.
Okay, I think that’s it!
also the speakers behind the screen, a lot of people think that doesn't make sense, but look closer there are lots of tiny holes in movie screens, and the sound comes through the screen for what is happening right on the screen, mostly dialogue, makes you feel as if you are in it with them
Love your videos and glad to see your adventures as well. Thanks for posting this too. Have a nice day now.
The things at 23:27 are for rewinding film. There is usually two giant silver disc's called platters attached to them. The next thing you came to are reel sets used to string one piece of film between multiple theaters for premiere nights and such. My theater was digital, but we still had all those things in the booth..
Great video!!! I love the very smack dab in the middle are the best seat to sit in I love them!!! 🤗🎞📽🎬❤️
I always wanted to own a theater growing up because it always felt like the ultimate escape. You’d get to see advanced screenings of the movie too. Not to mention all the awesome swag and posters. 😎
One of my friends worked at a theater growing up, so sometimes I’d get to see the advanced screenings. 😎
Omg. I used to go to this theater all the time in the 90’s. It didn’t change at all except for being torn up.
All the little "films" on the floor are trailers. You'd have to build several of those together at the beginning of a film. This theater used platter systems so there wasn't rewinding. The film sets on a platter feed through the projector and back onto another platter, which is why 35 mm films couldn't be rewound in theaters. One cool thing about 35mm films was interlocking, in which you could run one 35mm print in several auditoriums at the same time by threading one print through multiple projectors all interlocked by rollers along the way, like from the ceiling. I think the most we interlocked was 5 or 6 auditoriums once since we had 6 in the main hallway of the theater I managed.
Wow, I can't believe this. And it's actually one of my old childhood theaters. It's actually in huber heights which is right outside of dayton I've been to this theater so many times I've seen a lot of good movies there. I didn't even know it was closed until a year ago. And there was never another theater. There's some kind of storage business there now.
Don’t care that it’s an explore that took place a while back (wedding band), it’s new to us 😍😉
Thankz Bankz 🙌🏻
Hello Kim how's the weather over there
Good to see you are back me and my boyfriend we like to sit in the middle row up in the middle so we can see the movie we seen thr 1917 movie wnen it came out that was a excellent movie and you take care of your foot too
Former Drive in projectionist here, pre digital era and post sound era, the silver tables are not rewinders, they are part of a system that makes up the films for continuous runs, so the films in the pre digital days came in on 8 shipping reels typically, that held around 20 minutes of the movie, and depending on the length of the film came on 6 to 8 typical, then Titanic came and came on a few more than that, so each reel (in my early days of doing it around 1996 to halfway through the 1997 summer season) we would just put them on bigger reels that held around 3 to 4 shipping reels (the reels the distributor sent the theater), then about half way through the 1997 season we had a triple deck platter system put in which could hold the whole movie on a single platter and NO CHANGEOVERS, also we could dump one of the two projectors, those are the big silver things you seen they load onto a metal armature that typically sit near the projector and motors hooked to the platters regulate the film payout and the film take up, nice to have in 97 for Titanic or was that 1998, hard to tell anymore, the things next to the make up table looks like a projector lamphouses, the little spools of films you found are trailer reels, those would typically be spliced on prior to the movie, which most movie goers know that, at the theater I used to work we would get trailers for movies we were going to show during that season, they were called trailers because they used to trail the movie, when they were moved to the front of the movie, the name stuck, because no one would watch trailers AFTER the movie