Kane, PennsylvaniaHere's a shot from the drive-in theater series, done in the winter of 2007. A snapshot of the setup was posted back then. It's interesting to note that using the back of a drive-in screen for billboard advertising is unusual even though it would seem an obvious way to pick up some extra income.
5 comments:
The first thing that caught my eye: hey, there is snow on the ground. I am so used to your drive-in photos that give me a taste of heat, dry land, high skies, glaring suns (perhaps I am making this up, might be) that this is a little bit strange to me. This is a theater still in use? I guess otherwise it wouldn' make sense to have the billboards on the screen ..
Martina, "The Family" (along with Sunset and Moonlite, one of the most frequently-encountered DI theater names) is very much alive and well.
You are right that a number of the pictures in the series are from dry, hot land in the American West. However, the states with the largest concentration of surviving drive-ins are in the mid-west states and east into rural New York and Pennsylvania—areas that see plenty of snow every winter. The theaters of course can only operate on a three-season calendar. Another economic pressure against their survival.
The glaring sunlight is a practical necessity for many of the pictures. If I want an angle that shows off the big white rectangle of the screen, an overcast day simply won't do unless the screen is backgrounded by trees or a hillside. It takes hard sun on the screen with blue sky behind it to delineate the forms.
Not "moonlight"? (I am always wondering about this transition light > lite). So the DI's have different naming conventions than the "usual" cinemas? That is interesting.
Martina,
As usual, interesting observations. I bet a bunch of PhDs have been earned in language sciences and literature about the American propensity to abbreviate (growing up in New Jersey in the 1950s-60s, our parents called a Chevrolet a "Chevy," so we kids called it a "Chev"). There's also a strong tendency that I think has been pushed by the advertising industry to misspell on the mistaken assumption that it's cute.
As a four-decades-ago English major myself, I think that misspellings like "lite" are a distancing mechanism similar to scare quotes. Or air quotes. That may be a reason Madison Avenue likes them so much.
As for DI naming conventions, there seems to be much more variety at the drive-in. Of course names like Sunset and Moonlite (however spelled) carry the implication of the outdoor venue and so would probably never be used on a hardtop (DI term for regular movie house). "Family" of course telegraphs the intended audience, and I'd be surprised if a regular movie theater has ever used it. But I've encountered several DIs named The Roxy, which was a very common name for an in-town movie house. I wrote 'was' because the in-town movie house with a decent size screen is at least as endangered as the drive-in. Multiplexes showing a dozen different films in tiny little rooms with screens that hardly seem worth bothering with compared to a prosperous person's Home Entertainment Center are the rule now. Old, formerly grand, theaters are cut up into little rooms and screens on the multiplex model, but I suspect these will disappear before long. It's amazing how many abandoned multiplexes you see from the highway considering the whole idea is only about thirty years old, while, I suspect, drive-ins will continue to survive in small but enthusiastically supported numbers for some time to come.
I fully understand that mankind likes to abbreviate - Chevrolet has three syllabes, it has an unusal (French) pronunciation, so ... . And of course, you can't use the sweet word "Chevy" as a kid, "Chev" is far more cool (even if to my ears this sounds more like a Russian tank model, ;-)). Even in Germany "Chevy" is a common colloquial word for Chevrolet. But I never understood lite vs. light. Just read, that it is en vogue "in advertising to use words that are incorrectly spelt. For example, sox for socks and lite for light." Like you said. Cute, hm? Advertising ruling the language - not that it is any different with German advertising and German language, ;-).
Multiplexes - multiplexes in Germany are really biiiig with big screens - and all the other movie theatres in the cities are dying - they tried the same thing you descriped for multiplexes, i.e. dividing one theatre in many small rooms. But of course this could not work out. Fortunately in university cities like Mainz the traditional movie theatre is still alive (haha, since about 12 months - again alive) - not showing Hollywood blockbusters of course.
Guess what the name of many of the DI's in Germany is? Mostly "Drive-In" ... ;-)
And hardtops (I really like that) are Apollo, Rex, Metropol, Capitol, multiplexes are of course Cinemaxx, Cinestar, Cinedom.
And there are the "Lichtspiele" - a more traditional name for a movie theatre ... Burglichtspiele, Lindenlichtspiele ... not sure how to translate - perhaps "Plays shown with the help of light"?
Now you know everything I know about movie theaters, :-D.
I am still thinking about why DI's didn't make it in Germany ... not sure it is all about the tiny European cars ... but I have no other idea, either.
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