Last Reels - 1. The Looming Iceberg

2010 - Bill

Imagine you are sitting in the steeply raked auditorium of a suburban super cinema, built sometime in the nineteen-thirties. Back then, cinemas like this brought a touch of Hollywood glamour into ordinary people’s lives, but time has moved on and audiences have declined, pulled away by other forms of entertainment. The seat you are sitting on is well worn. The decorative lighting is kept deliberately dim, to hide the peeling paint on the side walls and the badly patched holes in the ceiling where an electrician accidentally put his boot through. The screen curtains tremble slightly, as if in anticipation of the coming film. The more prosaic reason is that there’s a hell of a draught coming in from backstage where local youths lobbed a brick through the windows yet again.

Both lights and background music begin to slowly fade. The curtains swish open and a piercing beam of light is released from the small rectangular porthole behind you. A picture comes to life on the screen.

Grainy black and white footage indicates that this is the past; a caption reads AUGUST 1963. A young man strolls down the street, past the imposing frontage of this very cinema.

A voiceover begins. ‘That summer, I’d just left school and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. There’d been talk of going as an apprentice plumber with one of my dad’s mates, but so far, it hadn’t come to anything. The local factory was always after production line workers, but the work was so boring, no-one lasted long. Or if they did, they became brain dead, like those zombies you saw in films.’

Something catches his eye. He climbs the steps and peers at a notice, hand lettered.

Wanted. Part time ushers and usherettes. Full time rewind boy. Apply within.

‘I’d always enjoyed going to the cinema, but I’d never thought about working in one. It seemed a bit exotic, like going off to join the circus or something.’

The door opens and he steps into the foyer. It’s much grander than it appears today, with an imposing central pay box like a pulpit. There’s a small queue of people waiting in front of this. We hear the chink of the ticket machine as it dispenses small, cardboard rectangles. Posters advertising forthcoming attractions are dotted around in freestanding frames. Smartly uniformed staff stand beside the inner doors, guiding people through to the stalls. The slightly better off patrons climb the stairs towards the circle.

‘This was show business, not an everyday sort of job like most folk had.’

He meets the manager inside the general office, followed by a brief conversation.

‘I was a practical sort of lad and I wanted full time work. He said I’d be best off talking to the chief projectionist.’

Another man comes in, wearing a long brown coat over his suit. They shake hands. A door labelled Projection Box opens onto a room where two large machines point towards the portholes. There is the unmistakeable sound of film running through a projector.

‘And that was how my career in the cinema business began…’

The frame judders; stops, then the film begins to melt and curl as a bright white light burns through the centre. Another voice comes in, in the style of a news reporter.

‘But now, in two thousand and ten, it looks as if Bill’s long service to the industry is about to come to an abrupt end.’

The white screen wipes to modern day footage, in colour, showing a very different style of projection room; a wide, shiny corridor with projectors arrayed each side. Some of these are running film, served from large rotating platters to one side of them. Others are squat black boxes, only identifiable as projectors from the lenses facing the portholes.

‘The cinema industry is about to go digital. And in this brave new world, is there a place for the projectionist?’

The camera swoops through an open doorway into a comfortably furnished staff room. Two middle-aged men are sitting at a table. Half-finished mugs of tea and an open tin of biscuits lie between them.

‘Listen, Bill, they’ve wanted to get rid of projectionists for years and digital will give them the perfect opportunity.’ The younger of the two men taps a finger pointedly on a printed document. The surface of his tea shivers, as if a monster stalked the projection room with a heavy, ominous tread.

Bill sighs. ‘I’ve heard all that before. So have you, Jim. It’ll be the same this time. A few jobs will go, granted, but that’s always been the way with progress.’

‘“We won’t make anyone redundant unless we have to.” That’s what it says in here.’ Jim picks up the document and waves it in the air, scattering biscuit crumbs. ‘Maybe not, but they’ll make our lives so bloody difficult that anyone who can will go and get another job and save them paying out redundancy. It’s all right for the young ones – they can find other work.’

‘You’re only fifty-four.’

‘And I’ve been working in projection since I left school. Who’s going to take me on, at my age? At least you’ll be safely retired before it all kicks off.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Bill points out. ‘I don’t intend to retire at sixty-five if I’m still healthy and enjoying the work. I know where you’re coming from, Jim. I’ve seen it all before. Back in the sixties, when automation first came along, they cut the number of men in the box. Then they started tripling the old cinemas and had to take on extra people again. Single manning cut the numbers, multiplexes put them up. It’s the way the business goes.’ He’s warming to the theme. ‘Now look, we’ve had a couple of digital projectors for a while now. We know the problems. They’re not reliable, are they? Think how often they crash on start up.’

Jim nods reluctantly. ‘Yeah, I know…’

‘Of course, there won’t need to be as many projectionists because there won’t be the volume of film to make up any more. But customers aren’t going to tolerate it if they have to sit looking at a blank screen, or a picture with no sound. Good presentation will still be important. The company won’t want to refund money all the time because something’s gone wrong, will they? And that means having technical people on site. People like us, with experience and knowledge. It’s common sense.’

Jim drains the last of his tea and stands up. ‘I hope you’re right, I really do.’ He glances at the clock on the wall. ‘Better go and start screen eight.’

Bill sits there alone with the distant sound of film running through projectors in the background. The picture slowly fades to black.

Dean

All day Dean had wondered how he was going to tell Mark. He must know about the vacancy by now; they worked for the same company and read the same internal bulletin published each week. And he’d mentioned often enough that if the chance came, he’d like to become a Projection Engineer.

Mark’s career in the cinema had started in a similar way to his - working front of house during his time studying at university. Like Dean, he’d enjoyed the cinema business sufficiently to make it a career once he’d achieved his degree. Except that he had chosen to become a manager, which made all the difference. Mark looked on his position as a stepping stone which suited his plans and ambition for the time being. He’d said often enough he couldn’t understand why the General Manager at his site had worked for the same company all his life and demonstrated a degree of loyalty that would never be repaid.

Dean could understand it perfectly. He felt the same about cinema; to him, it wasn’t just a job, but a way of life. Like Mark, he had a degree and transferable skills that would allow him to change his career if he wanted to. He just didn’t want to.

‘Once this digital revolution happens, you may not have a choice,’ Mark had pointed out often enough. Of course, he was right. Dean knew that the projectionist’s role was bound to change when there was no more film to show on a regular basis. There would be job losses and no one could say for sure how many. Practical considerations said that there would always be a need for at least one technical person per cinema, yet digital cinema articles and adverts trumpeted the proud fact that at long last new technology would make the totally automated and unmanned projection room possible. Self-preservation made it necessary to think of a way that he could continue working in the industry.

He’d always been good at the technical side of the job, which was the reason he’d risen from Trainee to Chief Technician in just three years. The natural career progression was from Chief to Engineer. Normally, jobs only came up when people retired, but all the installation work necessary for the digital roll out meant that there were now four new vacancies. It was a no brainer.

How to explain his reasons to Mark, though? He could stress the positives - better salary, company car, and promotion - but knew that deep down, Mark would prefer him to put his IT qualifications to their appropriate use and change industry while he was still young.

So while he drove home, he played and replayed the possible conversations in his head, trying to counter all the arguments Mark might muster against his decision.

‘Of course, I might not even get the job,’ he pointed out, some hours later. ‘There’s bound to be a lot of applications. But I need to try, if only to prove to myself that I can do it. It doesn’t mean I’ll do it forever.’

Mark poured himself the last of the wine. ‘But you will, Dean. If you get this job, you’ll think it’s saved you the effort of moving on and stay too long. You’ll get happily stuck in a rut. Then when it all falls apart ten or fifteen years down the line, you’ll have nowhere to move to.’

‘Cinemas will always need engineers.’

‘Will they, though? Ten years ago, you could have said the same about projectionists. At least if they decide to cut the number of managers I have a load of transferable skills I can take to another industry. Cinema projection is just too specialised.’

‘Digital cinema is about servers and networks. It’s totally different to film.’

Mark didn’t listen, but carried on with his theme. ‘Who’s to say there’ll even be cinemas in ten or fifteen years? Look at what happened to the music industry once everyone started downloading instead of buying a physical product. What happens if people don’t want to go to cinemas anymore?’

‘People will always go to the cinema. I heard my dad and uncle have that very same argument back in the eighties. Dad was convinced video players would kill the industry. But it didn’t. And way before that, they said the same about TV.’

‘But we’re not living back then. Things are changing even more quickly. Our generation won’t have jobs for life. We need to cover our backs and try to think ahead of the game.’

Dean opened the fridge and took out another bottle. Best to go along with Mark, for a bit. After the best part of a bottle of wine, he could be really stubborn. ‘I know what you’re trying to say. I just need to prove I can get this job, on my own merits. In any case, I’ve heard it might just be temporary, while they’re installing the kit. And it would look good on my CV.’

Mark took a drink. ‘It’s not that I don’t want you to apply,’ he said slowly. ‘I just don’t want to see you stuck in a dead end. Maybe if you took the redundancy...’

‘Oh, come on. We’ve talked about that before and done the maths. It’s not worth it for someone like me with just a couple of years’ service. And what if I don’t find another job right away? We couldn’t afford the rent for this place on just one wage.’ He saw Mark’s face change and realised he was on the right track. He liked living here and wouldn’t want to trade down.

‘You’ve got a point there. And you’re right; it did say some of the vacancies were temporary...’

He drove it home. ‘Plus the wage is better, so I can put away a bit more for a deposit.’ It would be years before they were able to buy a place, but they were both saving what they could and tried not to be too extravagant.

‘What if you don’t get the job?’

That didn’t bear thinking about, but he wasn’t going to admit it to Mark. ‘Then I’ll start looking around, get my CV updated and register on a few job sites.’

‘Sounds like a plan.’

‘Indeed.’ Together, they drank a toast to the future.

Cat

Cinemas didn’t have staff Christmas parties in the way other industries did. It was too difficult to fit them in given the unsociable hours of cinema opening, especially during school holidays when the first film started at around nine thirty in the morning and the last shows ended close to midnight. Also where most businesses shut down for at least a few days, having realised the staff would all be hungover and unable to work productively, cinemas only closed for the day itself, December 25th.

During the twenty-five years Cat had worked in the business, she had never felt hard done by due to this. Christmas, in her opinion, was overrated for everyone older than ten; a day of stuffing yourself silly and putting up with your most annoying relatives in winter weather that forced everyone to stay indoors and get on each other’s nerves.

The highlight of her December celebrations was the annual Projectionists’ Party up in London, usually held at the Odeon Leicester Square in the grandly titled Royal Retiring Room, an overheated little cubby-hole in the bowels of the cinema. The lime green walls were festooned with black and white pictures of stars and Royalty shaking hands during the many premieres held since the cinema had first opened in the nineteen-thirties. It would be a fascinating place to browse for many a film buff, but most of the guests at the party didn’t give a second glance at these historic records. Not when there was the far more important task of drinking as much free booze as possible and catching up on gossip with people you only saw once a year.

There were the award ceremonies too; Projection Team of the Year and the Frank Littlejohn award. During these presentations, Cat often felt that people were keeping quiet more from politeness than any real interest in the proceedings, itching to carry on with their rounds of the room as soon as decently possible. This year, even more so.

This year, they had been upgraded from the ‘dungeon’ to the grander surroundings of the circle foyer, whose full length windows framed a view of the frosty Square. And all the talk was of the looming iceberg ahead - the impending change from film to digital.

Even as she arrived to see the smokers gathered in groups beneath the famous canopy, the conversation had steered toward the first casualties of the digital programme.

‘Did you know Phil’s taking voluntary redundancy? He’s only fifty-something, but he’s had enough. His last day’s Christmas Eve.’

She’d met Phil a few times before. Like many of his generation, he’d always kept to the high standards drummed into him as a trainee. ‘Is he here?’ She asked. ‘I’d like to say goodbye.’

A gesture of the head toward the stairs. ‘Up there. You’ll find there’s a lot going and some already gone.’ He mentioned another well-known character. ‘Mike went two weeks ago. The company made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Another union man out of the way, that’s how they see it. Less resistance from whoever’s left.’

‘“Resistance is futile,”’ she quoted.

‘Exactly. I’ll give you a bit of advice. Don’t wait too long. The best deals are going fast.’

‘But I don’t want to leave.’

An exhalation of smoke punctuated the air. ‘Listen, love, it ain’t about what the likes of you and me want. We’re like those poor sods clinging on to the Titanic as it sank. No one wants to jump off, but if you don’t you’ll go down with the ship for sure.’

On the train going home, her thoughts still slightly hazy from the afternoon’s alcohol, they suddenly pulled to a sharp focus. She remembered other events with a similar atmosphere - people drinking to numb the pain of something about to come to an end. It had reminded her of the closing parties of the early eighties; the time when her first job in the cinema had been cut short.