Page 24 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

A Kinoton FP 30 projector, similar to
those at Knox 10.

Xenon is a continuous light - once
you lit them in the morning, you just
left them burning until eleven or so at
night. There was quite a bit of heat, but
less than with a carbon arc and the
lamp-house itself was very well cooled,
with in-built fans as well as the
extraction fan to the outside. Carbons
gave off a powder, which, if it wasn’t
extracted with an external exhaust fan,
could coat the walls of your projection
room in a very short time. And no good
for the projectionist’s lungs either. I’m
still coughing.
So you had a pretty big job there,
looking after this whole system?
I had about 52 projectionists to
roster on their daily work, and I had to
do it about a month in advance.
Holidays were rostered twelve months
in advance. You can never keep
everybody happy I found, as much as
you tried, but I still... we got through it.
I used to use a lot of casual or relief
projectionists - projectionists who had
been put aside from theatres that had
closed and taken outside work, who
were still looking for an extra dollar or
two in their pocket. And I had a number
of projectionists allocated as permanent
relief for the annual holidays.
While I was Chief Engineer there
Village Theatres Ltd. became a public
company, Village Roadshow
Corporation. I was asked to become the
employers’ representative on the
Cinematograph Operators Licensing
Top to bottom: Foyer of Village Knox 10 and Cinemas 5 and 6 at the time of Board. This involved setting exams for
opening. Both were fitted with THX Lucasfilm sound systems. up-and-coming assistant projectionists
Three images: David Kilderry and taking them through the practical
side in the projection room at the RMIT
(Royal Melbourne Institute of
Technology. And that was quite a
responsibility too, setting examinations
on sound and optics and all that stuff.

24 2009 CINEMARECORD