Snot Man
In 1991, to promote the movie The Rocketeer, the Oaks 10 had a contest. Patrons were invited to create their own superhero and make a short film. Entries would be judged by management and the winners received prizes. The grand prize was a skydiving trip for two. Riley was the assistant manager in charge of the promotion.
There was one problem. The deadline was approaching, and Riley only had one submission. He was desperate for the promotion to at least appear to be successful (bonus pay may have been on the line).
I still had my parents's Handycam, and the guys and I already made short films for fun in our spare time. Riley knew this and asked if I would enter the contest, even though I was an employee. Like I said, he was desperate.
I took some footage Burt, Dom and I had already shot (some of our random late-night craziness) gave it a bit of editing, and added some cheesy voiceover. The impromptu footage--showing Burt apparently stopping a moving car with his bare hands--became the superhero film Average Man. The name Average Man seemed to fit the fact that our hero (Burt) wore street clothes instead of a costume. The editing was rough, the footage dark and shaky, but I entered it.
Another guy I worked with, Roc (his name was Rob but a misprint on his name tag kind of stuck), wanted to make an entry called Snot Man, about a superhero who has amazing sinus abilities. It was silly and fun, and I agreed to help him. I starred as the bad guy, Jack Weasel, donning a jester's hat and some goofy bat glasses we'd found in an empty movie theater. Riley even helped us. We shot the whole thing in one night. I think about 5 or 6 theater people were involved in some way. The climax of the 4-minute film had Snot Man snotting on me (to the death) in a post office parking lot. The snot was a random mixture of salad dressing and other condiments.
Despite the graphic death-by-bodily-fluids of Snot Man, it only finished in third place (out of three entries, i.e. last place). I blame the editing, which was so horrible it was practically unwatchable. In 1991, no one had editing equipment, and digital editing on a computer was still close to 10 years away. Hell, I didn't even own a computer yet. So I had to edit the primitive way: with one VCR playing and a second VCR manually recording and pausing as needed. It was crude as hell, and the finished product looked it.
The one legitimate entry (it was pretty bad too) won second place. And Average Man won the grand prize! Riley never got around to hooking us up with the skydiving trip though. Major letdown.
Snot Man 2
Average Man disappeared into the mists of obscurity, but Snot Man became legendary. Everyone at the theater knew about it, and if anyone hadn't seen it, they wanted to. All Average Man did was stop a car with his hands. Snot Man killed the bad guy with his snot! Rumor always makes things better than they actually are, right? Soon, I decided to make a proper sequel. Unlike the make-it-up-as-we-go technique, I actually planned out a story using various locations around Gainesville. I maintained some of the bits from the original (as per the official crappy sequel formula) such as a work-out scene, and a climactic snotting.
Snot Man 2, with Roc as Snot Man and me as Jack Weasel, was also filmed in one night. To avoid the crappy post-editing, I edited mostly in-camera (that is, I'd start shooting exactly where I wanted the shot to begin, and if we messed up, I'd back the tape up to the same spot and do it over. Tedious, but it produced a much cleaner final product).
Part of Snot Man 2 was filmed in my parents' apartment (they were living in Gainesville too). We shot those scenes in the middle of the night, and we couldn't be too loud for fear of waking my parents up. So even though it's the big climactic fight scene, we never really raise our voices. Comical.
After a bit of post-production (mainly sound related) we scheduled a party just to premiere the 18-minute long Snot Man 2. It was a good excuse to have a party (by this time, Dom and I were sharing an off-campus apartment). I suppose getting people together to drink alcohol and watch the latest Snot Man movie helped cement the love of these movies in the hearts of dozens of Oaks 10 employees.
That fall, I shot a 20-minute horror film (starring Dom and Karla) for a Halloween party. It's hard to make a scary movie (much easier to make something funny) without coming across as cliched or cheesy. But I think I almost pulled it off with Death and Redemption, about as well as a 19-year-old with crappy equipment can.
Snot Man 2 had intentionally ended as a bit of a cliffhanger, so towards the end of 1991, the calls to complete the trilogy were growing strong. I started writing Snot Man 3 after Halloween for an intended premiere at a Christmas party (or New Year's party...can't remember). As the script got more and more ambitious, I knew I wasn't going to be done in time. I would have had full-fledged revolt if I didn't have something, so I made a 3-minute trailer for Snot Man 3. Just a teaser, really, with the revelation that there would be a new bad guy (I wanted to write my character out so I could concentrate on shooting and directing).
Snot Man 3
In early 1992, I had a completed script for my epic masterpiece Snot Man 3. I didn't know how long it was going to be, but I knew it was longer than the first two combined. The script was a shooting script. That is, I had each shot described. Like a written storyboard. Not sure why I didn't actually storyboard it out. Too lazy, I guess.
Filming was complicated for a number of reasons. The cast was all theatre employees, most of which were also college students. So finding times when the actors were free was tricky. The locations included the mall parking lot, suburban neighborhood streets, the North Florida Regional Hospital duck pond, various apartments, a parking garages, and a few locations on the UF campus. The bulk of the third act was shot at night, so finding locations with decent nighttime lighting was also a challenge. I did it all with the Handycam, editing in camera.
Dom turned in an inspired performance as the new bad guy, Twisted Larry. His death-by-snot was as over-the-top as you'd expect. Of all the principle actors in Snot Man 3, the one I've lost touch with is the main star, Roc, who played Snot Man. I have no idea where he is today. I need to look him up on Facebook.
The final product took about 4 months to complete and came in a little over an hour long. The Snot Man 3 premiere party was one for the ages. The movie was so popular among the theatre employees that our general manager, Chuck Dewitt, knew about it and wanted to see it. AMC had a rule that managers were not supposed to fraternize with employees, and I had at least 2 managers with acting roles in Snot Man 3 (and several more who eventually became managers). So I refused to let him see the movie. He eventually sweetened the deal by offering me a birthday package at Aladdin's Castle (an arcade across from the theatre in the mall). A birthday package at Aladdin's Castle consisted of (if I remember correctly) cake, balloons, and game tokens for 8 people or so. I took it. I let him watch Snot Man 3 for cake and game tokens. I suppose you could say that was my pay for making the movie. His only comment after watching it was "pretty good." As far as I know, no managers received any discipline for fraternizing.
Post-Snot Man
I met my future wife about 2 months after Snot Man 3 premiered, and for the next few years I devoted my energy and time to building that relationship, graduating from college, and planning a post-college life, which involved grad school. So the moviemaking took a backseat. My experiences making little movies with my friends, combined with what I learned in Journalism school, would come full circle years later when I taught TV production at GHS.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
My Movie History - Part 4: College
My Weekend Education
When I went to college, I was craving knowledge: cinematic knowledge! While I was well-versed in the Spielberg-Lucas oeuvre and the cheap slasher-flick canon, I was really a cinematic novice. My thirst for a wider experience was partially instigated by an issue of Premiere magazine I bought in 1989 or 1990 (the magazine was relatively new then). The issue was devoted to the top 100 films of all time, and I realized that while many of the titles sounded familiar, I hadn't actually seen very many of them. The write-ups for each one piqued my interest. They were brief and avoided boring summary. Things like "Dr. Strangelove: Stanley Kubrick has been ensconced in his English house for so many years it's easy to forget what a firm grasp he had on the American psyche when he made this black comedy." Kudos to that writer, since I still remember the gist of his words over twenty years later.
My first semester at UF, high school buddy Burton Meahl was my dorm roommate but spent most of his weekends back in Inverness, Steve had moved back to Scotland, Dominick was mostly working at Red Lobster in Ocala and still living at home (I think), and Damian was at UCF in Orlando. Since UF was so big, and I've never been that adept on the social scene, I spent many weekends alone in my dorm room. So one of the first things I did was buy a VCR.
In 1990, Gainesville had a music and movie store called Spec's that rented VHS tapes. They had a large "classics" section. Having whole weekends to watch whatever I wanted, with no one else's tastes or opinions to consider in the selection of movies, allowed me to stock up on films that would, to most 18-year-olds, seem like lame, boring choices. I spent many weekends ensconced (like Kubrick in his English house) in my dark dorm room, watching Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, Dr. Strangelove, The Birds, Raging Bull, Touch of Evil, Rope,... pretty much every Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Scorsese movie I could get my hands on. Instead of going to Gator football games on Saturdays, I was eating corn flakes with George Roy Hill and tuna melts with Orson Welles. It was bliss.
I'll always have fond memories of those weekends alone in the dorm room, watching so many great films for the first time. That was as much a part of my education as the classes that I went to during the week.
By the time Spring semester came around, three things happened that changed my weekend habits. First, Dom moved to Gainesville, as did Burt's girlfriend. Dom was much more available to hang out with, and Burt was in the dorm a lot more often on the weekends. Second, I took a class called "Writing About Film." After my semester-long film gorge, I felt much more competent, but the class still opened me up to directors I hadn't yet gotten to, like Zeffirelli and Kurosawa and Jacques Tati. Thirdly, I got another job at a movie theatre, this time at AMC in the Oaks Mall. Not only would this broaden my choices for seeing current movies, it would also give me the social network I lacked during the fall. Suddenly, I had people to hang out with, and they all loved movies as much as I did.
One more memory about that film class. The professor showed most of his films on a 16mm film projector rather than a VCR. During the first week of class, he asked for a volunteer to thread up the projector each week. I told him I had worked as a projectionist in a movie theatre back home. I got the job.
That class was one of the best classes I ever took. Unfortunately, I got a B+, only because I skipped one of the film viewings. Steve was visiting from Scotland, and besides, I'd already seen the film. But missing a viewing dropped your grade one letter grade. Oh well.
Laserdiscs
During that first year of college, I had educated myself about aspect ratio and mise en scene, enough to a) know that you lost a lot of the picture when you watched a movie on your TV and b) to care. There was a new format of home video just becoming popular that appealed to cinephiles like myself: laserdisc.
Even before everybody's TV was widescreen, most laserdiscs were released widescreen, and the audio and visual quality was far better than VHS or Beta. I saved up my money and got a laserdisc player in early 1991. My friend Damian worked at a Service Merchandise in Orlando. I gave him the money to buy my laserdisc player with his employee discount. It was a basic, no-frills model. Pioneer. I think I paid $325 for it.
The first laserdiscs I bought were the Star Wars trilogy. I got them through a mail-order movie/music service called Columbia House for something like 49 cents each (with an obligation to buy 3 more in the next year...you probably know the drill). Dom, Steve, and I (Steve was visiting from Scotland) inaugurated my laserdisc player by watching all 3 Star Wars movies, in succession, together. It was the first time any of us had seen the Star Wars movies widescreen since seeing them in the theater.
Over the next 5 or 6 years, I amassed a laserdisc collection of about 100 movies. When DVD came out in the late 90's, I knew laserdiscs' time was up. Luckily, I sold almost all my laserdiscs on eBay before DVD became fully entrenched. I got pretty good prices for them too. Definitely broke even. In 2003 or so, I finally sold my laserdisc player (still working fine) to one of my students. For sentimental reasons, I kept the Star Wars trilogy, an REM concert that Steve and Dom had bought me for my birthday, and a Paul McCartney concert film.
The Perfect College Job
Wanted: a young person who can stay up late, occasionally work hard with plenty of slow times where he can surreptitiously study, and get paid slightly more than minimum wage. Perks: free movies, popcorn, and soda. What college student wouldn't want that job?
Unlike my theater job in Inverness, I was now working with college students. A whole new ball game. It didn't take long before I had a big group of friends who I spent most of my free time with. Many of these people I'm still friends with today.
Within my first month working at the AMC Oaks 10, I asked a girl from my film class, Laura, to see Silence of the Lambs with me. It was the first time I'd asked a college girl out since being in college. Ten years later, Laura would work at GHS at the same time I did. Yep, Gainesville is a small town.
The summer of 1991 was glorious. Dom started working at the Oaks as well, and we spent most of the summer with Tesa and Karla, two of our co-workers. It was all platonic, but we'd work together, and spend many an evening together at someone's house, watching movies, cooking, and sleeping. College life at its best.
At some point, Burt also got a job at the Oaks, and when Steve came to visit in the summer of 92, we had enough pull with some of the managers to get him hired just for the summer. For the first (and probably last) time ever, Dom, Steve, Burt, and I worked at the same place.
I kept that job until the birth of Sofia in 1996 (my notice of resignation was for 4/30/96: Sofia's due date), though by then I was only working an occasional shift, mostly to retain free movie privileges. It was awkward to work there while student-teaching at P.K. Yonge, where invariably I would find myself selling popcorn to one of my students. I never got into management, like Burt did. Although when I neared graduation in 94 and wasn't sure what I wanted to do, I considered going the management route. But booth supervisor and then Senior Staff (which was the step right below part-time manager) was as far as I went with AMC. It was a good run, but I'm glad my life took a different turn.
I admit, though, that I occasionally miss working in a movie theatre. I still feel nostalgic when I see the projectors through the windows, or even when I see the ushers standing at the back, waiting to clean up, as the end credits roll.
When I went to college, I was craving knowledge: cinematic knowledge! While I was well-versed in the Spielberg-Lucas oeuvre and the cheap slasher-flick canon, I was really a cinematic novice. My thirst for a wider experience was partially instigated by an issue of Premiere magazine I bought in 1989 or 1990 (the magazine was relatively new then). The issue was devoted to the top 100 films of all time, and I realized that while many of the titles sounded familiar, I hadn't actually seen very many of them. The write-ups for each one piqued my interest. They were brief and avoided boring summary. Things like "Dr. Strangelove: Stanley Kubrick has been ensconced in his English house for so many years it's easy to forget what a firm grasp he had on the American psyche when he made this black comedy." Kudos to that writer, since I still remember the gist of his words over twenty years later.
My first semester at UF, high school buddy Burton Meahl was my dorm roommate but spent most of his weekends back in Inverness, Steve had moved back to Scotland, Dominick was mostly working at Red Lobster in Ocala and still living at home (I think), and Damian was at UCF in Orlando. Since UF was so big, and I've never been that adept on the social scene, I spent many weekends alone in my dorm room. So one of the first things I did was buy a VCR.
In 1990, Gainesville had a music and movie store called Spec's that rented VHS tapes. They had a large "classics" section. Having whole weekends to watch whatever I wanted, with no one else's tastes or opinions to consider in the selection of movies, allowed me to stock up on films that would, to most 18-year-olds, seem like lame, boring choices. I spent many weekends ensconced (like Kubrick in his English house) in my dark dorm room, watching Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, Dr. Strangelove, The Birds, Raging Bull, Touch of Evil, Rope,... pretty much every Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Scorsese movie I could get my hands on. Instead of going to Gator football games on Saturdays, I was eating corn flakes with George Roy Hill and tuna melts with Orson Welles. It was bliss.
I'll always have fond memories of those weekends alone in the dorm room, watching so many great films for the first time. That was as much a part of my education as the classes that I went to during the week.
By the time Spring semester came around, three things happened that changed my weekend habits. First, Dom moved to Gainesville, as did Burt's girlfriend. Dom was much more available to hang out with, and Burt was in the dorm a lot more often on the weekends. Second, I took a class called "Writing About Film." After my semester-long film gorge, I felt much more competent, but the class still opened me up to directors I hadn't yet gotten to, like Zeffirelli and Kurosawa and Jacques Tati. Thirdly, I got another job at a movie theatre, this time at AMC in the Oaks Mall. Not only would this broaden my choices for seeing current movies, it would also give me the social network I lacked during the fall. Suddenly, I had people to hang out with, and they all loved movies as much as I did.
One more memory about that film class. The professor showed most of his films on a 16mm film projector rather than a VCR. During the first week of class, he asked for a volunteer to thread up the projector each week. I told him I had worked as a projectionist in a movie theatre back home. I got the job.
That class was one of the best classes I ever took. Unfortunately, I got a B+, only because I skipped one of the film viewings. Steve was visiting from Scotland, and besides, I'd already seen the film. But missing a viewing dropped your grade one letter grade. Oh well.
Laserdiscs
During that first year of college, I had educated myself about aspect ratio and mise en scene, enough to a) know that you lost a lot of the picture when you watched a movie on your TV and b) to care. There was a new format of home video just becoming popular that appealed to cinephiles like myself: laserdisc.
Even before everybody's TV was widescreen, most laserdiscs were released widescreen, and the audio and visual quality was far better than VHS or Beta. I saved up my money and got a laserdisc player in early 1991. My friend Damian worked at a Service Merchandise in Orlando. I gave him the money to buy my laserdisc player with his employee discount. It was a basic, no-frills model. Pioneer. I think I paid $325 for it.
The first laserdiscs I bought were the Star Wars trilogy. I got them through a mail-order movie/music service called Columbia House for something like 49 cents each (with an obligation to buy 3 more in the next year...you probably know the drill). Dom, Steve, and I (Steve was visiting from Scotland) inaugurated my laserdisc player by watching all 3 Star Wars movies, in succession, together. It was the first time any of us had seen the Star Wars movies widescreen since seeing them in the theater.
Over the next 5 or 6 years, I amassed a laserdisc collection of about 100 movies. When DVD came out in the late 90's, I knew laserdiscs' time was up. Luckily, I sold almost all my laserdiscs on eBay before DVD became fully entrenched. I got pretty good prices for them too. Definitely broke even. In 2003 or so, I finally sold my laserdisc player (still working fine) to one of my students. For sentimental reasons, I kept the Star Wars trilogy, an REM concert that Steve and Dom had bought me for my birthday, and a Paul McCartney concert film.
The Perfect College Job
Wanted: a young person who can stay up late, occasionally work hard with plenty of slow times where he can surreptitiously study, and get paid slightly more than minimum wage. Perks: free movies, popcorn, and soda. What college student wouldn't want that job?
Unlike my theater job in Inverness, I was now working with college students. A whole new ball game. It didn't take long before I had a big group of friends who I spent most of my free time with. Many of these people I'm still friends with today.
Within my first month working at the AMC Oaks 10, I asked a girl from my film class, Laura, to see Silence of the Lambs with me. It was the first time I'd asked a college girl out since being in college. Ten years later, Laura would work at GHS at the same time I did. Yep, Gainesville is a small town.
The summer of 1991 was glorious. Dom started working at the Oaks as well, and we spent most of the summer with Tesa and Karla, two of our co-workers. It was all platonic, but we'd work together, and spend many an evening together at someone's house, watching movies, cooking, and sleeping. College life at its best.
At some point, Burt also got a job at the Oaks, and when Steve came to visit in the summer of 92, we had enough pull with some of the managers to get him hired just for the summer. For the first (and probably last) time ever, Dom, Steve, Burt, and I worked at the same place.
I kept that job until the birth of Sofia in 1996 (my notice of resignation was for 4/30/96: Sofia's due date), though by then I was only working an occasional shift, mostly to retain free movie privileges. It was awkward to work there while student-teaching at P.K. Yonge, where invariably I would find myself selling popcorn to one of my students. I never got into management, like Burt did. Although when I neared graduation in 94 and wasn't sure what I wanted to do, I considered going the management route. But booth supervisor and then Senior Staff (which was the step right below part-time manager) was as far as I went with AMC. It was a good run, but I'm glad my life took a different turn.
I admit, though, that I occasionally miss working in a movie theatre. I still feel nostalgic when I see the projectors through the windows, or even when I see the ushers standing at the back, waiting to clean up, as the end credits roll.
Monday, January 21, 2013
My Movie History - Part 3: High School
A few years ago, I was thinking about my earliest memories of movies. Those thoughts developed into a post covering my "movie history." It quickly turned into too much for one post, so I broke it into chunks: the Boone years and the Star Wars years. I started the next chapter, but then I forgot about it and the draft lay buried for years. Finally dug it up and the history continues.
Sony Handycam
In 1988, my parents bought a Sony Handycam 8mm video camera. Of course the family used it to film the usual stuff, birthdays, vacations, graduations, etc. But it also was the beginning of a period of filmmaking which would become one of my biggest hobbies for the next five years. Dom, Steve, Burt, Damian, and I made many short films of varying quality, like Invasion of the Rats. And any chance I could get to make a video for a school project, I did. I made a video demonstrating Einstein's theories for my calculus class. And Steve and I made a video for our senior externship project at McKean and Associates.
My best work with the Handycam would happen in college. More on that later.
The Perfect High School Job
My first job was a busboy/dishwasher. It lasted 2 weeks. I wasn't old enough to drive, and it was quite a distance from home. Not very convenient (especially for my dad, who had to drive me there and pick me up). My second job, not including a summer of cutting grass with my dad, was bagging groceries at Publix (grocery store). I held that job for the better part of my junior year of high school. Until I got the mother of all high school jobs: movie theater usher.
For anyone who loves going to the movies, what better part time job could you have than a movie theater job? Inverness had a brand new 6-screen theater (quite the upgrade from the small single-screen downtown). A band friend (he also played trumpet) worked at the new theater from the time it opened. I had put in an application and I would often ask him if he thought they were going to do any more hiring. Finally, one night we were seeing Star Trek V and Mike walked through the theater before the movie started. I asked him if I had a job and he told me to talk to Mary (the manager). I was so excited that I completely enjoyed what turned out to arguably be the worst of all the Star Trek movies.
After the movie, I talked to Mary and she offered me a job. I was in.
I started working at Citrus Cinemas at the start of summer of 1989, a blockbuster-packed summer with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman. It was a blast. I loved everything about it. The job only paid minimum wage, which at that time was somewhere in the range of $3.50 an hour. But I also got free movies, which for a high schooler in Inverness was a significant perk.
As the other ushers moved on to other jobs, my best friends took their places, until finally it was Dominick, Damian, Burt, and me working there together. The only thing better than a movie theatre job is working with your best friends. If Steve had joined us, it would have been perfect, but he already had a good job at the Crown Hotel.
I bought my first car with the income from that job. A silver 1979 Volkswagon Scirocco. $1000. I got a loan from my grandmother and paid her every month (plus interest) until it was paid off. It was a stick shift. The front fenders were rusted, but I fancied that it looked a little bit like the DeLorean from Back to the Future. I loved that car.
The Booth
At Citrus Cinemas, projectionist was a full-time position. Even though there were only 6 screens (rinky-dink compared to the big megaplexes that would blossom in the next ten years) they hired guys who only worked in the booth. That meant you got to wear street clothes and spend all your time tending to the projectors instead of dealing with customers. I expressed interest in learning projection and soon I was working booth more than usher. Spending hours upon hours in a dark, noisy room with no other people might sound like Hell, but I loved the chance to listen to music, work on homework, all while doing a job and getting paid. Sometimes I'd bring an alarm clock, stretch out on the floor, and take a short nap, the alarm waking me up before the first movie ended. Too bad the projection booth didn't have a comfy chair or small sofa.
Citrus Cinemas had curtains that rose before the movie started. The curtains were triggered by a little piece of metal tape we'd place on the film at a certain spot. The tape tripped a sensor that signaled the curtains to rise or lower. But the projectionist also had manual control of the curtains. At any time, with the flip of a switch, I could make the curtains go up or go down.
A metal bar went across the bottom of the curtain, and we discovered that if someone held on to that bar, the curtains, when raised, could lift the person all the way up to the top of the screen. "Riding the curtain" was only done in between movies, when we were cleaning the theatre (and it had to be a slow day, when patrons weren't waiting to come in. Someone usually stood guard at the door just in case).
One night, Burt and another usher named Dennis were cleaning the biggest house. Burt called to me while I was threading the projector. I opened the window and Burt told me to raise the curtain. I started the curtain and Burt held on to the bar, lifting off the ground. Dennis saw what he was doing and ran up to the curtain, leaped up and grabbed on. We had never lifted two people before. It seemed too risky. But the curtain couldn't be stopped in mid-travel. Once it was going up it had to go all the way up before it would go down again. I just shook my head and watched the two of them rise towards the top of the screen. But when it got three-fourths of the way up, the curtain suddenly stopped. Burt and Dennis called out for me to let it down. I flipped the switch and nothing happened. Flip, flip. I tried the switch over and over, but nothing happened. Burt and Dennis, hanging about 20 feet off the ground, yelled out for me to stop playing around, that they couldn't hold on much longer. I yelled back to them that I didn't do it, they must have broken it.
They held on for a little while longer, hoping that the curtain would go down. The alternative to them dropping 20 feet was for me to go get a manager to get a ladder (assuming they could hold on that long, which was doubtful) but then they'd be caught red-handed. Me as well. I told them they just had to drop.
Dennis went first. It looked like it hurt. He walked it off, but I could see the pain on his face. Then Burt. His feet hit the tiled floor and went forward, his butt crushing a board that ran along the bottom of the black masking below the screen. Limping and bruised, Burt and Dennis were off the curtain now, but we had another show that night and the curtain was a quarter of the way down. I kept trying the switch but the curtain was dead.
I called Mary and told her that for some reason the curtain in house 6 was malfunctioning. They had to cancel the last show of the night.
The next day, Dom and I worked the opening shift. Mary told us they were bringing in a technician from out of town to fix the curtain. Dom and I went into house 6 and crawled under the screen to look at the curtain motor. While checking it out, we found a circuit breaker reset button and pressed it. I ran up to the booth and tried the switch. The curtain went up all the way.
We told Mary that we fixed the curtain. We weren't quite the heroes that we'd hoped we'd be, but she was grateful that she could cancel the technician. Best of all, our secret was still safe. The last thing we wanted was some smart-pant technician telling her that the only thing to trip the circuit breaker would be pesky kids riding on the curtain.
We still rode the curtain after that incident. But never two at a time.
I worked at Citrus Cinemas till I left for Gainesville to go to college, a total of about 14 months. So many fond memories, though the assistant manager Jack nearly drove me insane. It was a good lesson in working for people who treat you poorly.
Needless to say, I saw a lot of movies in those 14 months.
Sony Handycam
In 1988, my parents bought a Sony Handycam 8mm video camera. Of course the family used it to film the usual stuff, birthdays, vacations, graduations, etc. But it also was the beginning of a period of filmmaking which would become one of my biggest hobbies for the next five years. Dom, Steve, Burt, Damian, and I made many short films of varying quality, like Invasion of the Rats. And any chance I could get to make a video for a school project, I did. I made a video demonstrating Einstein's theories for my calculus class. And Steve and I made a video for our senior externship project at McKean and Associates.
My best work with the Handycam would happen in college. More on that later.
The Perfect High School Job
My first job was a busboy/dishwasher. It lasted 2 weeks. I wasn't old enough to drive, and it was quite a distance from home. Not very convenient (especially for my dad, who had to drive me there and pick me up). My second job, not including a summer of cutting grass with my dad, was bagging groceries at Publix (grocery store). I held that job for the better part of my junior year of high school. Until I got the mother of all high school jobs: movie theater usher.
For anyone who loves going to the movies, what better part time job could you have than a movie theater job? Inverness had a brand new 6-screen theater (quite the upgrade from the small single-screen downtown). A band friend (he also played trumpet) worked at the new theater from the time it opened. I had put in an application and I would often ask him if he thought they were going to do any more hiring. Finally, one night we were seeing Star Trek V and Mike walked through the theater before the movie started. I asked him if I had a job and he told me to talk to Mary (the manager). I was so excited that I completely enjoyed what turned out to arguably be the worst of all the Star Trek movies.
After the movie, I talked to Mary and she offered me a job. I was in.
I started working at Citrus Cinemas at the start of summer of 1989, a blockbuster-packed summer with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman. It was a blast. I loved everything about it. The job only paid minimum wage, which at that time was somewhere in the range of $3.50 an hour. But I also got free movies, which for a high schooler in Inverness was a significant perk.
As the other ushers moved on to other jobs, my best friends took their places, until finally it was Dominick, Damian, Burt, and me working there together. The only thing better than a movie theatre job is working with your best friends. If Steve had joined us, it would have been perfect, but he already had a good job at the Crown Hotel.
I bought my first car with the income from that job. A silver 1979 Volkswagon Scirocco. $1000. I got a loan from my grandmother and paid her every month (plus interest) until it was paid off. It was a stick shift. The front fenders were rusted, but I fancied that it looked a little bit like the DeLorean from Back to the Future. I loved that car.
At Citrus Cinemas, projectionist was a full-time position. Even though there were only 6 screens (rinky-dink compared to the big megaplexes that would blossom in the next ten years) they hired guys who only worked in the booth. That meant you got to wear street clothes and spend all your time tending to the projectors instead of dealing with customers. I expressed interest in learning projection and soon I was working booth more than usher. Spending hours upon hours in a dark, noisy room with no other people might sound like Hell, but I loved the chance to listen to music, work on homework, all while doing a job and getting paid. Sometimes I'd bring an alarm clock, stretch out on the floor, and take a short nap, the alarm waking me up before the first movie ended. Too bad the projection booth didn't have a comfy chair or small sofa.
Citrus Cinemas had curtains that rose before the movie started. The curtains were triggered by a little piece of metal tape we'd place on the film at a certain spot. The tape tripped a sensor that signaled the curtains to rise or lower. But the projectionist also had manual control of the curtains. At any time, with the flip of a switch, I could make the curtains go up or go down.
A metal bar went across the bottom of the curtain, and we discovered that if someone held on to that bar, the curtains, when raised, could lift the person all the way up to the top of the screen. "Riding the curtain" was only done in between movies, when we were cleaning the theatre (and it had to be a slow day, when patrons weren't waiting to come in. Someone usually stood guard at the door just in case).
One night, Burt and another usher named Dennis were cleaning the biggest house. Burt called to me while I was threading the projector. I opened the window and Burt told me to raise the curtain. I started the curtain and Burt held on to the bar, lifting off the ground. Dennis saw what he was doing and ran up to the curtain, leaped up and grabbed on. We had never lifted two people before. It seemed too risky. But the curtain couldn't be stopped in mid-travel. Once it was going up it had to go all the way up before it would go down again. I just shook my head and watched the two of them rise towards the top of the screen. But when it got three-fourths of the way up, the curtain suddenly stopped. Burt and Dennis called out for me to let it down. I flipped the switch and nothing happened. Flip, flip. I tried the switch over and over, but nothing happened. Burt and Dennis, hanging about 20 feet off the ground, yelled out for me to stop playing around, that they couldn't hold on much longer. I yelled back to them that I didn't do it, they must have broken it.
They held on for a little while longer, hoping that the curtain would go down. The alternative to them dropping 20 feet was for me to go get a manager to get a ladder (assuming they could hold on that long, which was doubtful) but then they'd be caught red-handed. Me as well. I told them they just had to drop.
Dennis went first. It looked like it hurt. He walked it off, but I could see the pain on his face. Then Burt. His feet hit the tiled floor and went forward, his butt crushing a board that ran along the bottom of the black masking below the screen. Limping and bruised, Burt and Dennis were off the curtain now, but we had another show that night and the curtain was a quarter of the way down. I kept trying the switch but the curtain was dead.
I called Mary and told her that for some reason the curtain in house 6 was malfunctioning. They had to cancel the last show of the night.
The next day, Dom and I worked the opening shift. Mary told us they were bringing in a technician from out of town to fix the curtain. Dom and I went into house 6 and crawled under the screen to look at the curtain motor. While checking it out, we found a circuit breaker reset button and pressed it. I ran up to the booth and tried the switch. The curtain went up all the way.
We told Mary that we fixed the curtain. We weren't quite the heroes that we'd hoped we'd be, but she was grateful that she could cancel the technician. Best of all, our secret was still safe. The last thing we wanted was some smart-pant technician telling her that the only thing to trip the circuit breaker would be pesky kids riding on the curtain.
We still rode the curtain after that incident. But never two at a time.
I worked at Citrus Cinemas till I left for Gainesville to go to college, a total of about 14 months. So many fond memories, though the assistant manager Jack nearly drove me insane. It was a good lesson in working for people who treat you poorly.
Needless to say, I saw a lot of movies in those 14 months.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Vivien
Back in 2007, I blogged about a new addition to our family. Vivien, a French bulldog. It was only my second blog post. That was a little over five years ago. And on Monday, as it eventually is with all living things, it was Vivien's time to go.
I don't really want to talk about it. But I need to. A little.
This is day 3 after Cristina and I watched Vivien take her last breath on our living room floor. She had been having some digestive issues for a couple of days, not able to poop to put it bluntly, and things took a turn for the worse on Monday. The vet came, we made a plan, and life--if not Vivi's bowels-- was flowing along normally. He needed to get her hydrated, so we were giving her coconut water every hour. We had the deworming medicine ready to go as soon as she was able to hold down liquids. We didn't know for sure if she had worms, but there was a suspicion, so it was a reasonable course of action.
Never got that far. Though she seemed a bit more normal after the vet's visit, she died around 8:30 pm.
I don't want to recount every detail of her last few days. I don't want to remember her staring at her water bowl just an hour before she died, probably wanting to drink, but knowing she couldn't. I don't want my lasting memories to be the horrible, sinking feeling--surreal really--when it finally hit us that she wasn't breathing anymore. All that stuff is still fresh right now. Still an open wound. But I want desperately to remember the thousands of little moments that made having her in our life so pleasurable. I want the painful memories to fade, as they always do. The sooner the better. But I don't want to lose the happy memories in the process.
I never understood the kind of love a parent has for a child until I had my own. I think it's impossible to truly know that kind of love until you experience it. It's like skydiving. We can all imagine skydiving, we can picture it very clearly, understand what a thrill it must be, but if we've never actually jumped out of a plane, we can never truly understand what it's like to skydive.
Just about everyone has a pet of some kind. And everyone who owns a pet will eventually lose a pet. It's part of the deal. But you can never really know what it feels like to lose a pet until you've lost one. I've had lots of animals in my life. At one point during my childhood, we had several dogs and cats, hamsters, birds, goats, donkeys, and a horse. An abundance of animal riches. I should be so used to losing pets that it's easy to deal with. But losing Vivien has made me realize something. It's not just the loss of the pet that is so hard. The loss is magnified by having a family who is simultaneously experiencing that disconnection of love that occurs when the pet dies. I'm sad that my little Frenchie doesn't greet me at the door anymore, but that sadness is compounded by Alex's sadness that his dog can't snuggle with him, and add Bella's intense, 8-year-old feelings of crushing loss, and Sofia's, and Cristina's. The collective impact is almost unbearable.
So I'm going to make a list. Whatever comes to my mind, in no particular chronological order or priority of importance. These are the things that if we weren't all still so sad, we could talk about at the dinner table with smiles and fondness.
We'll miss you, Viv.
I don't really want to talk about it. But I need to. A little.
This is day 3 after Cristina and I watched Vivien take her last breath on our living room floor. She had been having some digestive issues for a couple of days, not able to poop to put it bluntly, and things took a turn for the worse on Monday. The vet came, we made a plan, and life--if not Vivi's bowels-- was flowing along normally. He needed to get her hydrated, so we were giving her coconut water every hour. We had the deworming medicine ready to go as soon as she was able to hold down liquids. We didn't know for sure if she had worms, but there was a suspicion, so it was a reasonable course of action.
Never got that far. Though she seemed a bit more normal after the vet's visit, she died around 8:30 pm.
I don't want to recount every detail of her last few days. I don't want to remember her staring at her water bowl just an hour before she died, probably wanting to drink, but knowing she couldn't. I don't want my lasting memories to be the horrible, sinking feeling--surreal really--when it finally hit us that she wasn't breathing anymore. All that stuff is still fresh right now. Still an open wound. But I want desperately to remember the thousands of little moments that made having her in our life so pleasurable. I want the painful memories to fade, as they always do. The sooner the better. But I don't want to lose the happy memories in the process.
I never understood the kind of love a parent has for a child until I had my own. I think it's impossible to truly know that kind of love until you experience it. It's like skydiving. We can all imagine skydiving, we can picture it very clearly, understand what a thrill it must be, but if we've never actually jumped out of a plane, we can never truly understand what it's like to skydive.
Just about everyone has a pet of some kind. And everyone who owns a pet will eventually lose a pet. It's part of the deal. But you can never really know what it feels like to lose a pet until you've lost one. I've had lots of animals in my life. At one point during my childhood, we had several dogs and cats, hamsters, birds, goats, donkeys, and a horse. An abundance of animal riches. I should be so used to losing pets that it's easy to deal with. But losing Vivien has made me realize something. It's not just the loss of the pet that is so hard. The loss is magnified by having a family who is simultaneously experiencing that disconnection of love that occurs when the pet dies. I'm sad that my little Frenchie doesn't greet me at the door anymore, but that sadness is compounded by Alex's sadness that his dog can't snuggle with him, and add Bella's intense, 8-year-old feelings of crushing loss, and Sofia's, and Cristina's. The collective impact is almost unbearable.
So I'm going to make a list. Whatever comes to my mind, in no particular chronological order or priority of importance. These are the things that if we weren't all still so sad, we could talk about at the dinner table with smiles and fondness.
- Vivien snoring. Sometimes so loudly we had to turn the TV up while watching a movie.
- Vivi trembling during car rides, despite our attempts to reassure her that she'd be okay.
- The ka-pow explosion of the dog door when Vivi would pass through it full speed.
- Vivi going outside on cool days and finding a sunbeam to stretch out in. One time I was watching her lay in the sun from the dining room. One of the kids passing through asked me what I was looking at. "Vivi," I said quietly, and she popped up and came inside. She had heard her name through the glass sliding door, through the back porch, and out in the yard.
- Vivi on her back in my lap, getting her belly scratched. She would let me do that for hours if I wanted to.
- Vivi loved being touched. Anytime, anywhere. If you were willing to pet, rub, scratch, or even just touch her, she was yours. Often I would scratch her belly with my foot while sitting on the couch, and when I stopped, she'd reposition herself so that my foot was in place to rub again.
- Any time I would be cutting any kind of meat in the kitchen, she would join me, hoping that I'd share.
- If I dropped something on the kitchen floor, like a piece of meat or cheese, I'd call Vivien. She'd come grunting around the corner from her favorite napping spot in the living room and happily clean up whatever I dropped. Snacks trump naps everytime.
- Vivi sitting when the kids had her food bowl filled and ready to put down.
- Ling Ling rubbing her head against Vivi. She was always very affectionate towards Vivi. On Vivi's last day, while the vet was checking her out, Ling Ling walked up and rubbed her forehead against Vivi's face.
- Putting my finger in the little dent above Vivi's nose. I liked to scratch it for her, since I knew it was a spot she could never get to herself.
- Vivi getting jealous when she saw one of us petting one of the cats. She always wanted in on that action.
- Vivi's terrible gas was not something to remember, but it was always nice to blame your own on her. She didn't mind.
- Taking Viv camping near Payson, Arizona, and going on a hike which turned out to be too long for her and having to carry her most of the way back.
- Watching TV and a dog in the movie barks and Vivi hops up with a return bark and runs out the dog door to investigate.
- Vivi snuggling with Alex or Bella.
- Walking by Bella's room and finding Vivi curled up on Bella's bed, which could only be accomplished by Bella putting her up there. She'd look at me with a guilty look but make no attempt to hop down.
- Vivi eating her food with loud slurps and grunts, and usually a loud belch afterwards.
- Bathing Vivi in the bathtub and when finished, trying to get her to shake off before I toweled her dry. She rarely shook for me.
- Vivi's little stuffed "squirrel" (I think it's actually some kind of Pokemon character). It was the only toy she ever played with. She'd play fetch with it, sit and chew on it, or lick it. Years of use, and yet it never lost it's tail or an ear, though one ear is dangling. We wanted to bury it with her, but when we were burying her, we couldn't find it. We found it a few days later and plan to put it on her grave.
- Vivi loved to lay on things. If there was a discarded towel, pair of dirty jeans, fallen pillow, that was what she would sleep on. She was even able to pull pillows off the sofa or jackets off of their pegs. We'd come home and find a jacket on the floor, now covered with dog hair, and a guilty-looking Viv watching us hang it up again.
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