CRASHTON TALKS
CRASHTON TALKS
EP 33. David Wharton (Cinema Projectionist)
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In this episode of CRASHTON TALKS, Chris sits down with his dad, David Wharton, to look back on an incredible career as a cinema projectionist throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s. From threading film reels to behind-the-scenes stories, David shares fascinating memories of working at Glasgow's iconic ABC Cinema, offering a nostalgic glimpse into the golden age of movie-going before the digital era.
What we start by saying we'd originally tried to do this at a couple of places that you'd worked in the past or that you had some sort of affiliation with when I say places I mean cinemas like theatres and in the Glasgow area, but you know, without going into too much detail, I think they were kind of bit apprehens apprehensive about letting us go in and film and stuff. So yeah, uh we're in my lovely living room, we'll just go down sort of memory lane. I think what one of the things that I wanted to I suppose capture in this at some point is you there's been various times over the years where you've spoken about your time being a projectionist, but also working obviously in the projection booth, but we've never really I suppose captured what it was like to from the minute you enter the projection booth and actually setting up a projector. We don't we don't I suppose need to go into that right this second, right? But at some point I think it'd be quite nice to actually um to relive that because it's it's an art an art form that's that no longer exists, uh everything's sort of moved over to digital. There are very few the cinemas that do do real to real are kind of it's a bit niche. There's very few few people that still know how to do it. Um I suppose what so what was what was your first job in the cinema?
SPEAKER_00Uh apprentice projectionist. Um my first day well I'll take it back before I even started at the ABC because it's something I'd always had an interest in since I was a kid. Um and then in my teens it was eight millimeter projectors and films, and I've told you many stories about that. But when the county cinema was out here in Cumbernauld, uh I wrote a letter to the manager, Akappy Menteith, um, and he allowed me to have a day in the box where I met the chief at the time, a Hugh Thompson, and I just got to see the whole operation. Ironically, the equipment that was in there was totally different from what I would work with in ABC. It was a one projector set up with what was called a tower, um and all in one huge reel. I remember seeing that and thinking, oh my god, look at the size of the M. There, there. Um and obviously getting the impression that that's what cinema was. Um it's also a very small booth, it was probably the same size as this room. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um where was the county cinema?
SPEAKER_00The county cinema is uh oh what's it called? Where Slim and World's held now. Cornerstone. Cornerstone Church. Um that was in fact the restaurant in there or the cafe in there is the actual cinema. That's where the cinema was. Right, okay. The other side used to be a bingo. So I got given a few days um of just seeing how everything worked. Then they put me in contact with Jack Graham, who was a regional engineer for ABC. And one thing led to the other. I got an interview and it was successful, and I started on the 28th of August 1978. Um I still remember that day because you can imagine, very first job, 16 years old. Terrified. A wee bit a mixture of excitement and being terrified. Um getting brought in, the manager took me up to the projection box, and then I was introduced to everybody. Um, and again, my eyes must have popped right out of my head because number two projection box for ABC Two was massive. It was absolutely massive. Two projectors, which I wondered, why is there two projectors?
SPEAKER_01Um why was there two projectors?
SPEAKER_00Because they were still reel to real, right? And we do what was called changeovers between a certain amount of reels, which was the old-fashioned way, right? So um I remember being so smug on my first day as well, like my chief Barney McHugh, getting me two pieces of film and showing me how to splice them together, and I thought I could do that, I've done that with eight millimeter film, and I took the thing and joined it all together, put a tape up, and then you go, and he went, No, that's wrong. I was eh, and one side did the soundtrack here, and the other side did the soundtrack down below. Oh bugger. I made a complete fool of myself for being smug. I soon learned don't get too big-headed. Yeah. Um, so gradually you start to learn things, eh, how to join the film together. I think my first job in those first couple of weeks was just rewinding the film. You know, as soon as the rules would finish, I would take it up and rewind it.
SPEAKER_01Was that a separate um machine that it was ruined on, or could you do it on it was within the projection box.
SPEAKER_00Um ABC2 had two sets of winders. One was a manual one, which I used most of the time, and one was actually electronic, so you could actually quickly make the thing up. Um, which to be honest, most of us didn't like using unless it was an emergency, unless something came in at the last minute.
SPEAKER_01A bit temperamental or something.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, it was the fact that if you're doing it by hand, because when films came in and they would come in in these massive tins and separate um boxes of reels, that the film wouldn't be on a metal reel. It just came in flat as film on a bobbin in the middle, right? So you would take that, you would put it on the rewind bench, right, and you'd be putting it onto a reel. So you'd you get your reel, you'd take the end of it, put it onto the thing, and as you wound it, you were checking the film for any faults, um, especially if it's an older film, right? So it was better to do it manually because you could actually take your time and check the actual reel. Uh so yeah, you get to learn those type of things, you got to learn what the different size of films or ratios and everything were, um, what the difference between cinema scope and widescreen was. Right. Um nowadays, if you look on DVDs videos, it will say, you know, whatever film 1.85 to 1, which is the size of it, which is literally it's either like that, or if it's cinema scope, it's like that. Right. Um, also the difference was with cinema scope, the picture was anamorphic, so you'd see a big long image. So if you didn't put it through an anamorphic lens, which sometimes happened if things went wrong, especially in the automation came when you got these big long figures, right? Um, you needed the anamorphic lens to unsqueeze it and it made it long, you know.
SPEAKER_01Would you have to adjust the cotton to depending on the scope?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um you got to learn first of all, as I say, how to handle the film, how to join it, how to rewind it, um and then obviously listen up the film into the projector. You were taught that. Um which yeah, that that was that was relatively easy. Um it's just remembering what path the film took. Right. And you got to learn that in no time at all you knew exactly how to what size the loops were for sound and whatever you had the two finger space there, check it down at the bottom.
SPEAKER_01Um so that's that's actually something I never thought about before that I think is quite interesting. So the sound is obviously it comes with it's built into the reel itself. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it do you know how that works at all, or is it there was a light system that I went through and that picked up the sound. Um way back in the earlier days there was magnetic sound on it, so it was like the easiest way to put it is you get an old tape recorder, magnetic heads like that, it would go through that and that would pick up the sound. Um even today, towards the end of filming and over to digital, it was a different system again, but I hadn't been working with it by that time. Um so you got to learn all the things. You got to learn that film ran at 24 frames per second, uh 90 feet per minute, all these things.
SPEAKER_01Um I have a memory of like going to see films with you, and um you you would you would be able to like recognise when the film had changed over. There would be like a flash or something in the the corner. Is that am I remembering that?
SPEAKER_00Well I'll talk about the first changeover. You get taught that, and anybody that will remember old films, you don't see it as much nowadays. I'll remember seeing a dot at the top right hand corner, a black dot across sometimes, whatever. They were all cues for changing reels. So to do a changeover, and my first changeover went absolutely perfect, and it was on Convoy with Chris Christopherson, right? Um you went over, you struck up the lamp on the projector, um, and you waited there to start the projector away, and so the first dot would come up, and that was your cute to start the projector, and you would open up the shutter for the light, open up the dowser, and when the second um mark came up, bump you'd press over, and that was a changeover. And if everything went well, nobody would see anything outside, and you just go from reel to reel. You were on a different projector, right? From say the first two reels were on that projector, you moved over to the third and fourth reels, which would be on this projector, so you did your changeover, that one shut off, that one opened, and outside nobody knew the difference.
SPEAKER_01Just to simplify, that's like another, it's basically the rest of the film. It's like the film separated on you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the f your average film took up a bit six reels, right? Right? Um so in those days you'd double up the reels onto uh or you double up each part onto a reel. So you'd get two parts on each reel. So you do two changeovers throughout that feature. Um you were asking about the cotton and stuff, so your program always started off sometimes it was a short um documentary type thing to start off with, sometimes it was a cartoon. Um depends on what the program was, yeah. And then you go into your trailers, that was all usually on one reel, anyway. You'd put it all joint all together, so you'd show the trailers um for what was coming up, what was maybe shown in the other screen, because when I started the ABC was only two screens, right? Um then you'd have your intermission trailers, which was your Kiora Orange and ice cream. Um when the Usherettes, those that remember the old days when the Usherette would come in with a train, you'd go down and get your ice cream and your Kiora Orange and whatever, and you'd have a 10-minute break or whatever. Um there again, right? You were asking about the curtains. Yes, if the film was widescreen, the curtains would go to a certain point, right? So that it was a nice even place. You also had a marker, we're talking about cue marks at the end of say the intermission, so that you knew we have to close the curtains, um and the same at the end of the adverts, yeah, right? There'd be a marker and that'd be your your curtain cue and you'd be close. Now, if you went from that being widescreen onto a widescreen film, you just you start the film away and the curtains, you'd open the curtains to the same spot. If it was cinemascope, um you'd finish your adverts and having go over to the other projector, you've put your anamorphic lens in, so you'd have to change the position of the mask, and that was a black surround you used to see when you went to the cinema that used to move each side it moved, and sometimes it'd go up as well. Um so you'd set all that to where it was supposed to be, everything was marked out in a a switchboard, um, and then you would start it away, take the lights back down, open the curtains, and here you'd have your your sensor and you're onto the film.
SPEAKER_01I wonder if now all of that's automated, like maybe that that comes with the the film itself, maybe that's digitally built in to move the curtains and stuff because it's actually crazy, it makes me appreciate so much more now every time I went to see a film that there was it was actually like a proper production. Like that's like when you go to the theatre and watch a a play, there's the sound guys and the uh like the the stage crew, there's so much going on behind the scenes that you're not aware of, you're just watching this performance, but there's an actual whole uh system of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It was the same type of thing. Uh when the ABC they they they shut down the number one hall, the old hall, which used to be the regal, around about 1979 to get it converted into another four screens, so it then opened up at the end of 79 or so um with Superman the Movie. Um I think it was Superman the Movie in number one. Maybe I'm wrong. Um but late '79 anyway, it opened up again, opened up in time for Christmas, and you had five screens, and it became the first multiplex cinema with five screens. In the UK or Scotland? Well, in the UK, in the UK, um and everything except box two was automated. But box two still had the two projectors, but you want to use the two projectors to change over. Everything had changed to this non-rewind system where instead of having separate reels, when the film came in, you checked it and then it was made up onto this these three tables, right? It was made up onto one of them, and there would be for the for your cue marks and everything else, um, because this had to be done for every single haul. You'd a certain point in the film where this metal strip would be put over it and you would uh make the perforations and the thing so it would run through the projector okay, everything like that. Um the reasons just swap themselves. Yeah, well, yeah, you did the everything was joined together, so you didn't have to have changeovers. Um but it also meant it was done for everything, even number two, which was manual, manual run. Um you had all these markers on it, so if it got changed to number three, which was an automated system, it would work under that. The automated system, it was where you see things starting to change in a way to me, something was lost because the show beforehand all depended on the projectionist, it was how he presented the thing, right? Everything was on you. If you had a mistake, we always used to say the thing about that job was if you made a mistake, everybody seen it. If somebody in the office made a mistake, they went and shoved it in the bin. So it was up to you to make sure everything went right. Once automation came in, you've got all the film joined together. So all you were basically doing was coming in in the morning, clean the machines down, lace them up, have it all set to go, and you had this matrix board, which is all pins and stuff. Um, inside was relays and whatever these cars with relays on it, and this all ran the automation. So you would set the thing up, and it was when the doors would open, what would bring the lights up. Um you would press a button to bring the lights up, and then when the time came to start the show, you'd press the button again and it'd move along this matrix board and bump the show would start away. Um, and even when it came to your your sales trailers and your your sales break, the thing would automatically go through all that and shut it down.
SPEAKER_01Right, okay.
SPEAKER_00Right, and then again, nine times out of ten, you were there until the feature went on, watching everything work. Um, and all you were doing was minding the shop.
SPEAKER_01So, what when it moved over to that system, what were the things that could go wrong? Or did they wrong?
SPEAKER_00Oh something sticking on the the matrix board not working, a pin, even a broken pin, would stop something from working. Um or because by this time the film's coming from to describe the tables. We used to call it a cake stand because that's what it looked like a three-tier cake stand. It was a modulate in the middle of the film. Instead of being at the outside of the reel, you laced it from the middle of this. You took out a ring that was holding it together, you put the ring on the other table, you then laced that through a load of pulleys there, and then you'd go around different pulleys, different bits, and bring it into the projector. So even if the film it could get caught on one of these, and it would hold there was an arm that worked for the speed of the thing along with this module, there was a wee thing that moved back and forward, right? And I'm I'm putting this very basic, um, and it would hit certain things here that would regulate the speed of the tables or whatever. But if one of the bits of film gets stuck on these pulleys, it would hold the arm back. So the thing would still think it was running. It's not the first time we got a phone call. There's something in front of the screen, and it was 2,000 feet of film lying on the floor because it had me, you know, I'd done that after you left. Uh-huh. Um so yeah, there was all those type of things.
SPEAKER_01I take it, was that a lot harder to fix that issue than when you were saying like when it was dependent on just a projectionist?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if something happened like that and you ended up with all that film, nine times out of ten your next screening, maybe the screening after that would be cancelled.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Because you were then having to put that all funnily enough back onto a reel and then run it back onto the table. Right. Um, which could take you hours. Right.
SPEAKER_01Um so what was I remember you saying um the times where maybe you had to run out to check another projection booth so if someone was off or something and you come back in and like the tape would be like smacking off the walls or something.
SPEAKER_00Oh aye um that yeah um not so much in there uh there was incidents incidents that happened at the GFT years later, right? But I'll go into that in a later point. I'll concentrate on the ABC right now. Yeah, it wasn't the first time downstairs. The way the ABC was set up, right? What used to be the circle became screen one. Right. What was the stalls became three was in the middle, uh four was over here and five was there. So you had a double projection box, which was screen three and three and five, right? So you were working between the two of them. But if something was to get done in number four, you had to leave that box run into number four, sort out uh whatever it was to get done. It wasn't the first time you got a call saying there's a black marker or something on the screen, and it was the aperture plate had it went across to say cinema scope, or it'd stuck going from cinema scope back to wide screen or whatever, and you'd have to go in and give that a push, and then later on you'd have a look at it, see if it what was needing to do to fix it. Um yeah, yeah, it was fun, especially on a Thursday night when it was time to change the adverts. See, the adverts changed every week. You had say like a green and a red set of Peril and Dean adverts that would come in, right? So one week you were shown such and such a set. When you had to make all them up, there were certain regulations like you couldn't show cigarette adverts to in a children's programme or certain especially cigarettes, yeah. Um drinks, adverts, whatever, yeah. So you'd have to take those adverts out and keep them in the tin for when you were sending them away and put them back in their place. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01So I I never knew that. I th I thought, and I guess it is true that maybe this part is that films came with adverts, but I suppose that would be maybe the sponsors of the film, they'd maybe paid a premium to get onto that, and then you're saying there's other sort of like maybe localized.
SPEAKER_00So every week the ABC, for instance, there was five sets of adverts came in. So you had to check all them. You got a list as well with a paper list, a printo of every single advert that was on it. Right. So you would score what you'd came to, and then when you came to Benson and Hedges or something, um SNP, you'd take that out and then join it back up, put that advert back in the town. Um and as I said, at the end of it all, you had to put that back in place, right? Um a Thursday night was hectic. Thursday night? A Thursday night. When I first started in '78, the films changed on a Saturday night. Right? So it'll be a new film on the Sunday. But that changed to a Thursday because the companies and the distributors discovered that it was better with the public if you were starting a new film on a Friday. Eh. Most people get paid at the end of the week. Right? So for the full weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, they had the new film. So Thursday night was hectic. If there was a film or two films going away, um you'd be spilling them off at the end of the night. But your adverts had to get changed during the night as well. We found ways of going getting roundabout things, but I'll go into that again at another time. So basically, you had to when you got to the end of your adverts, we used to separate it, right? Take the adverts off, put the new adverts on, rejoin it, and away you'd go. So on a Saturday, I'm saying Saturday, Thursday night, you had all that to do. You had your adverts made up and ready to go on the thing, but you would time it for the sales break, yeah, right. Um stop after the adverts before the feature goes on. So you put the feature on separately, right? And you'd get your adverts changed, any trailers changed, any new trailers, whatever. Um, and the following day, when you started the program away, you would rejoin into the feature the following morning. Again, we found ways of getting around that and making it easier. Um, but yeah, that was the main idea that had to be done. So if you were running downstairs, which was the three projection boxes, nine times out of ten there was only two or three men on duty, right? So if one man was downstairs when you've got three cinemas, you were running about crazy trying to get them all sorted out. Um again, through experience, you found ways of doing that. Um those are magical days, especially in the 80s. Some of the most fantastic movies you could see, Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, oh many other things I could talk about.
SPEAKER_01Did you show any of the Star Wars films?
SPEAKER_00No, no, that was another thing that was different in those days. Right. ABC had a certain amount of distributors of Delta film companies, Paramount, MGM, uh Universal were the three main ones, right? And the audience would show Fox and Disney and United Artists, whatever, Columbia, they'd have a different set from us.
SPEAKER_01Right, okay.
SPEAKER_00It was only years later that they amalgamated everything for that distributor, so everybody everywhere was shown the same things. Right. That's interesting, which again I think helped cinema sort of fall in a way because there was to me, you needed to have that adversary between Audience and ABC in different films because the public would go to the ABC to see a certain film, and then they'd go to the audience to see another film. When it all started that exclusivity, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because City Centre films used to get the films first, yeah. And then the suburb, the suburban cinemas like the county and uh other films would get it a few weeks later, right? So it was always city centre had the advantage that all changed, right? Everybody was getting everything at the same time, which gives people less of an incentive to go to a certain place. Because if you've got a cinema near to you and ah well, what they're showing dirty dancing and such and such, uh I don't have to go all the way through to Glasgow to see that. Yeah, I can see it. And I suppose that was good for a local type thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And then like I suppose like people going into a city centre would streamline but probably like retail as well, because while they're in Glasgow, they're going to they're going to spend the day in town.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's exactly what would happen. Um the ABC also had a couple of bars in it, so people would go there for a drink or whatever. They also had a cafe inside, so people could go in and get a small meal. Um, you could get breakfast if you wanted. It wasn't the first time we went down in the mornings and um we'd get a breakfast out of the place. Right. Um, yeah, so ABC Sucky Hall Street had all that set up long before what you see in a lot of modern cinemas nowadays.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. Um it seems like when you were saying there, like m Magic Times, like out of all the places you worked in, you worked in a good few cinemas, but when when I was younger, um it seems like that that particular job, there's there was something about it that you I mean you talk about it all the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because after the the ABC, I was there from 1978 up to 1991, and then I moved to the GFT when it became two screens. Um and I've got memories that excuse me, I've got memories of the GFT, which I'm very, very fond of as well, because in there it went back to two projectors and changeovers, and you were working with different ratios, different formats. There was a video set up, um, everything, and you're working with directors, you were working with and you met actors, and um yeah. So it's more like an art house. It was an art house, and I remember people saying when I went there at first, why you take that working in that place while they follow films. The truth of the matter is, say 1991 I was on something like 8,09,000 a year for the ABC. I was going over to GFT and getting 12,000 for running two screens, right? Um, there was a lot more work until, but that's your main incentive to get a bigger wage. Um but ABC is where my heart belongs. All my fondest memories. I had some of the greatest times, and I had some of the worst times, I suppose it's the same for everybody. Yeah. The biggest bugbear for the projection stuff. We all got on very, very well. Well, most years anyway, right? Um made friends that lasted all my life, really. Even Barney, who started off as Barney McHugh started off as my chief at 16. Then he left and went to the GFT about a year after that. And then I joined the GFT in 91, so I ended up working with Barney again, and he was just he was a friend, you know. Sometimes that was also how can I put it awkward because you thought of the person as your friend, but in the end he was your boss, and if you made a mistake and he gave you a good scalpel in the head, you know, type thing, tailed you off. You tended to take it a wee bit more personal. Fuck as you, you know, yeah, he's my pal, you know, but in the end he was my boss, and nine times out of ten he was right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um and it probably meant that what you there was an issue with what you'd done because he pro if it wasn't as bad, they maybe wouldn't have given you such hard.
SPEAKER_00There was there was some times that made it awkward as well. Because there was things going on in my private life that really did in the last few years of working in it, I loved the job. I still love the job. But the things going on in my private life, I was taking time off and dealing with the things in my private life. And maybe if I'd been more open, instead of just getting a sick line or something to say I was off with such and such, and it said, look, there's problems going on, I might have still been in the job. Right. Right. Um I never got fired from a job. Not once did I get fired, right? Um it came to the GFT and the first time I was ever out of work was in '96. Right. But it was made redundant because it was changes. It was government run. Right. Right. So you were at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were a civil servant, and that was part of the reason you got bigger wages as well. But when the government grant was cut, it was the old thing of last in, first out. So although I'd been there six years at the time, I was the last one in the technical section. So out of way. Um but I ended up moving to other places where I became chief.
SPEAKER_01Um I remember it you uh in the few years that I remember, you worked in I mean you were in the the quay, is that right? You worked in the key.
SPEAKER_00No, it wasn't the key, it was the the one you'll probably remember when me and your mum were going through divorce and I would take you for the weekend. Um there was a waterfront in Greenock, I took you down there a couple of times. Wishaw. And then there was Wishaw. I went to the Arrow Multiplex in Wishaw, which you loved every bit of yet, because if I was on shift and you came in with me that Saturday, or you and Pamela, yeah, um my bosses were good that way, they knew what was going through, they knew I had access to you that weekend. Nine times out of ten, if I had you for that weekend or had junior sister, they'd make sure it was an early shift it was doing, so I'd be finishing it at four o'clock, and then they'd have the Sunday off. Yeah. So you'd get a Saturday morning where you sat and watched, and I still remember one of your favourites, the one I keep falling asleep at, Flubber.
SPEAKER_01I've seen that film so many. I think that that must have been at the same time as Titanic because I remember 97. She was just sitting in the same screen watching Titanic over and over again, and I was watching Flubber.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna move back, I'm gonna move back to the ABC and keep most of the story at the moment for the ABC. There's funny stories I can tell behind the scenes because in 79, when everyone was changing over to the automation, uh two of the older guys I worked with, John Smith and Bert Burns, who I loved working with those two. Um they were characters. Something you don't get nowadays, these people were these two men were characters. They were like working with Laurel and Hardy. Um they were good friends, but they bickered with each other all the time. Um and it was just certain silly things that would happen.
SPEAKER_01Um the older guys, aye, aye.
SPEAKER_00Because they were really finding it difficult. They'd spent God knows how many years by then, you know, maybe it started in the 50s, you know, or beforehand. Some of them had started their training as a spoolboy, as it was in those days in the fif forties, and they were interrupted by the war and had to go serve uh in whatever forces that were in. Um they just couldn't understand how the film was in a reel and the the the start of the film would be at the top of the reel, but yet in this thing, the end of the film was at the you know, end of this whole pile of reels was put together and take the thing from that that that confused them. Um maybe I shouldn't tell these stories, but in the projection box in those days, you came to something like I remember doing this uh my first Fair Friday working in the place now. Anyone that is from Glasgow knows what Glasgow Fair is, but the Fair Friday, oh boy, 16 years old, and they all says, Do you want a uh a can of beer or something? I will put something to it. So I put say a pound or so, and they all got a carry out and we'd bring this up to the projection box, and I mean they shouldn't have, right? How different times how they got away with it, I don't know, but uh you certainly when they get away with nowadays. But I remember um I was supposed to finish at half four, but nine times out of ten there was a changeover right at four o'clock of the reels, and I would do that changeover in one of car right that's you, boy, on you go, get ready, go home. So I've never forgotten that it was death in the aisle we were showing it this time, right? And luckily we'd have been showing it for weeks, right? So I knew where the changeovers were as I discovered with my eyes closed. Um so it was Fair Friday, they all went and got a carry out and I'm 16 years old trying to be tough, big man. Ah, I'll take some of that. So I had a can of McCunes or whatever it was, and I mean what fun that managers have came up. I'm not sitting on the bench, right? And I'm sipping at that. And old John Smith comes out and says, Do you want a whiskey, lad? I went, ah, I'll take a whiskey. Straight, I went, aye, of course, straight, trying to be big. So John comes out with a clear glass which is about the size of that mug. And he's it's filled with whiskey. So I take a sip out. He goes, What are you doing? You don't sip it, you drink it. So what did I do? Just swallowed the whole thing, took a glass from me, aye that's better. And within about five minutes, my head's swimming. Oh god. Right, and the changeovers coming up.
SPEAKER_01Did you drink much about that point?
SPEAKER_00I hadn't drunk an awful lot. I wasn't a drinker, not even as a teenager at that point, right? Working with these guys, I soon learned how to take a pint or two. Yeah, but at that point, no, me and your uncle Eric going about together in a gang we went about, but at that point, no, we weren't a drinkers, so you can imagine it hit me quick, and I was absolutely I remember going over and right, okay, it's time for the changeovers coming up, checking the reel, five minutes to go. Right, got into the other projector, struck up the lamp, and stood waiting for the changeover, and I'm looking out the port at the screen, and I kid you not, the picture's going all over the place because I was pissed. Right. I'm looking at going okay, oh god, how am I how am I gonna do this? I can't even see the film straight to to see the cue marks. So I got this brilliant idea as I know where it is exactly from the soundtrack. I went over and I switched up the sounding the amp, right? So it was booming in the box, you could hear it. And I literally turned my back on the screen and listened and went, that's the first mark, started away, opened the dowser, uh bump, that's the second mark, and changed over and it went perfect. And all I heard was this applaud behind me. Well done, boy, and here's three of them at least standing, all applauding it. Totally scheming by this point. Of course they did, right? This is the first time I'd been with them. I'd only been I'd been with them about a year, it was maybe 17 by that point. Actually, I was, I was about 17, so I've been with them just under a year when this happened. Um you go home. And that was me. And I think I'll leave the story there until next time, yeah, and then uh I'll tell some of the other uh funny stories when on because I think we should aim on that and show people exactly how fun or how funny the funny things were, yeah, yeah, as well as the series stuff.
SPEAKER_01I think that's that's one of my my favourite things about hearing the stories is is that like I follow a lot of pages on online, I know you do as well, that are like like past Glasgow and stuff, and and it shows you what it was like just pip pictures and videos from those times. And when I hear you talking about Glasgow at that time, it's it's really like a like like you said, like a time capsule. It's like hearing it's like being in a time machine, you get to really visualise what life was like in Britain at that time. Yep. And it's it's great, it is really interesting. I think people will find this really interesting. Yep. Um but yeah, we can come back at some point and there was always a good rapport between most of the guys.
SPEAKER_00You all got on for I mean, um of course you had to because you were spending most of your time together.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm not saying there was a times that arguments would break out over something stupid or something serious even. Yeah. Um but you were like a family, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah. And especially when things changed over to the automation in 79. The shifts went from being split shifts, which meant one shift you came in at nine o'clock and finished at four, half four, and the other guy would come in and work from four o'clock to eleven o'clock when the place would close or whatever. And all of a sudden I went on to twelve hour shifts. Right? So you'd be working from eleven in the morning to eleven at night, maybe two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, you know, and then you get your three days off, whatever, right? That was hard going because you were in the building 12 hours, um and you had to get on to each other. I see, luckily most of us did, and we spent most of your time during the day cracking jokes, kidding each other on, and the day was just a pleasure to work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think, see, um, I was just thinking there, like, about I think this is like one of the things people are like most worried about with with with like AI coming in and a lot of digital systems coming into loads of different industries, is that at those times people had a a bit of a monopoly, like someone like yourself would have had a bit of a monopoly, or at least a bit of um bartering grounds to because they're hiring you based on your talent, you know what I mean? You've got a skill set that you can bring to a job, they need that skill set to make the job work. The more digitized something becomes, the the more invaluable you become, and inevitably that's what happened. That job sort of no longer exists. It's like A V managers and stuff.
SPEAKER_00I'm pleased to say I seen recently through Facebook, funnily enough. Um I think the GFT is doing it. I know for a fact that Film House in Edinburgh have taken on apprentices, right? And that they're teaching them. That's our first time in years that that's been done. Because I think film physical film analogue is making a bit of a comeback.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, same with audio as well, like vinyl, everybody's um so they're training boys up to do the job.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um I've got my regrets that I'm not in the job because as I go into it the job I was great. Well, I thought in my opinion I was great at, you know, I could well I knew backwards, right? I could put on a good show. Um things started to go wrong for me with things that were going on in my private life, as I said earlier. And eventually the job just wasn't the same for me. Um I still in my heart love it. And even now at 64, if somebody would come to me and say, I've got a position in such and such a place, would you like it? Even if it was part-time, I would turn around and do that. The sad thing about things going wrong in your life and how it affects your job is as an old saying, shit sticks. Right? And there's some people hear your name and think, oh hamper. Which isn't true. Nowadays I don't think they can get away with half the things they used to do. You know? I'm not saying that there is any, you know, jobs for the boys because that happens. Yeah. Guys that are lucky to get into the position because something came up for them. Good luck to them. Yeah. Right? If they learn the job properly. Where it's all started to change was instead of having people, that's why I said I was glad to see apprentices. I don't know how long the apprenticeship will last. For me, it was four years. And I remember the old guys like John and Bert that was talking about. So four years, it took me ten years, you know, to do their apprenticeship way back or seven years or whatever, and within four years you were getting your certificate. Um, yeah, it changed. So what happened was they were taking people that were ushers, right? Right? And they would take them up to the box, and you would show them the basics, uh, how to handle the film, how to lace it up, blah de blah de blah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They didn't learn any of the technical stuff, which we eventually learnt um to a certain degree. They had engineers and everything that came in and did the real hard stuff, but you had to know how to if something went wrong, xylamp exploded, you know, or just died, how to change all that, right? There was technical things you needed to know how to do, which these people were never taught. So they take them on, give them a pittance or wage compared to yours, and within six weeks they're considered to be a projectionist. I know now that things like the BFI and everything else are doing training courses. I'm really pleased to hear that because it means there'll be another generation that knows how to deal with film, get to know what ratios are and the art of running the film.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, and make it uh skill-based, like like we were saying it, that that is a talent to be able to like now understanding what was going on behind the scenes, that is it's a show, it's a performance that you're not in front of the audience, but you're you're orchestrating this this show for people, and that that's obviously what made it so enjoyable going along to watch films, is it's the whole the whole like literal theatre of it, yeah, you know like the the lights dimming, you don't notice it, but the lights dimming as the the the trailers are going on, and then eventually there was all timing to that, you had to learn it was called presentation, right?
SPEAKER_00And you had to learn how to it wasn't just a case of like nowadays the film goes slat onto your screen. There's not any such thing as I was talking about motorised masking and the curtains and everything, it's just a big white screen with the black run about it, but none of that moves.
SPEAKER_01I wonder probably not as much as as just the fact that people have I mean people have big TVs in the house now. But I wonder if that um that artistic side of it being missing is also plays a part in why people are just less interested in going on to the cinema. Yeah, yeah. It's maybe just a subconscious thing, is that it just feels unjoyable.
SPEAKER_00Right? And people had never seen any like this. It was more or less an extension of theatre. It was like a night out, you know. Um and of course there was a show put on for them. Um and that lasted for decades. That really did last for decades. It was one of the things I was proud of in the GFT. I used to get people actually came in and asked if I'd be on duty because they liked my presentation, you know. The example of that is showing something like Ben Hart from 1959, right? Where nowadays a film gets slapped on a screen, right? The prime example was as you know, at lockdown myself and my friend Grant and John do this United Home Cinema thing, and they'll pick a film a certain year, we've made advert reels up and whatever else that will go with it. So you get a cinema experience recently. Um it was 2001 a space odyssey we were shown, right? Now, films like that would have a play-in music, right? This would be on the film, you'd have a big blank area, maybe five-ten minutes of film, uh with nothing but sound on it. Right. So this would be your overture as you see on a video taper. So I'll use Ben Hur as an example, right? So Ben Hur, you'd start the film away, and this would be running through with all the sound and bam bam bam bam bam build up. And while that's going on, you'd get to a certain point and you had a cue, probably a piece of tape or whatever was on the edge of the film. Maybe you'd marked it with a coloured pen, something like that. But as soon as you've seen that coming through, so right, okay, take the side lights away, so you'd press and they would start to come away, right? And everybody's hearing this music, it's all building up, and another mark, and you'd take your lower stage lights away, right? Or sorry, you would take your top stage lights away, so they would start to go away, and when the last one came through, you'd take the lower stage lights away and open the curtains. So all going well, that music's all finished, and it would come up with the British Board of Film Censors, Ben Hart, such and such and such and such, and then you'd be on to them the movie. So you need to know you needed to know how to do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, you were trained in how to do these type of things and do that type of presentation. Then it gets so far into the movie, you see, that was a four-hour movie, you'd be two hours into it, and it's like about intermission. So you would close the curtains on that, and again on the film, you had a play out for the first act, right? So you'd play that wee bit of music, and then you would stop for your intermission, say 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it was. And then again, when you got to the second half, you had the same type of thing, so you'd start the film away, and the music would all play, and just repeat what I've said for the start of the film there. Um, you'd look for your cues, the music would end, your lights would go down, and the cartons would open onto the second act of the movie. Um, and the same thing at the end of it. You'd get to the end of the film, and the cast would finish, and everything. You maybe had another five minutes of music, the play out music that would play from this film. Place might be empty, right? You still had to play this thing through. That's funny, right? Um yeah, yeah, it was uh total different days, but you put on a show so people felt as if they were.
SPEAKER_01That is very much you can see how it came from theatre, especially having act one and act two, like it makes sense that they that's all they knew, how to present a storyline.
SPEAKER_00I sort of laugh, as you know, the thousands of DVDs, Blu-rays, 4Ks I've got in the house. I laugh when I look at older films, right? Silent Era, uh Bella Lugosi's Dracula, for instance, which all came from stage plays, right? Right, and Bella Lugosi had played this live for years on say Broadway or wherever. So you could tell the way it was filmed, it's still everybody faced the camera and presented their lines, and the person behind them would be standing facing the camera presenting their lines. So it was done very theatrical, nobody literally turned their back on them. Um you seem that changing as time went on, and things became more natural. Yeah, um, and there's all different things you see, styles of how the things were you know filmed and how the picture was presented, and yeah. Um yeah, again I think nowadays with digital and the way things are done, there's some absolutely fantastic movies out there. But I think there's more special effects-based.
SPEAKER_01Hi, apologies about the sudden cut-off there. Um we ran out of space, unfortunately, for filming, so we're gonna sort that out at some point. But thank you for watching. Um I was a little bit disappointed that it cut off when it did because we got into talking a lot about kind of how films moved into the kind of digital world. Um my dad spoke a little bit about um this thing that he's been doing over the past few years since the pan pandemic actually, called United Home Cinemas, where him and a bunch of other people kind of set some time on a Saturday and they um show some films in their own houses at the same time on like an actual cinema screen with a digital projector and stuff. So it was unfortunate that we we kind of lost that footage, and my dad also spoke a little bit about how he was kind of happy to hear that I don't I don't know if it's the picture house in Edinburgh, maybe. I might be thinking of this wrong, but he said that there's a place that's doing like kind of real to real and they're taking on um apprenticeships for young people to kind of learn real to real and he was kinda happy to hear that. And I I also asked him at the end, you know, um like did he have anything that he wanted to kind of promote? Because it has like social media pages and some people keep up with kind of what he does, and he said that he didn't he didn't want anyone to kind of follow him or anything, but if he could ask anything it would be that if if you're gonna go to the cinema or go go and see a film, but you do go and see it in a an authentic, real-to-real type cinema, and he recommended going to like the GFT in Glasgow and the Picture House in Edinburgh. I'm pretty sure it's a picture house. I may I may be remembering that wrong. I I think the picture house the picture house not a music venue? I don't know. But I really it's funny because like it's my dad and and I thought it would be strange interviewing him and and I've heard these stories a million times, but it was actually really interesting from my point of view. Even though I've heard a lot of the stories before, it was just I think my dad did a good job of painting a picture of life in Glasgow and and just in that industry really well, and it and it was it was really captivating. I I have like a really I mean you'll you'll notice even just in this like brief five minute video, I have a really like rubbish attention span. I don't I don't know why I'm wanting to do a podcast to be honest, because I like it's not until like I I the the reflection like when I've done interviews in the past. It's not until I'm actually watching them back that I'm able to like really take in the information and think about what's being said. A lot of the time I'm like thinking of the next question and what I want to say. And maybe that's like standard for people that are doing interviews, but uh yeah, but but with my what what I was getting to was with my dad, um I was able to be present and in the moment and really listen to what what he was saying, so that's pretty cool. So thank you for listening, and I'm sorry that uh it cut out when it did. And yeah, I'll see you next time.