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Film Switching by Fred Page

Fifty seven years ago, long before the saturation of general release of films as occurs today, Hoyts Theatres issued a
small handbook to the managers of their suburban theatres, roughly 36 pages. The handbook explained their responsi-
bility to anange program times with other managers when transferring reels of film between theatres. This was known
as switching.

Films were obtained from the iilm exchanges on reels of I OOOft with a running time of about 10 minutes. These were
freighted in metal film containers called cans which were designed to withstand the rigours of rail freighting, a popular
mode of dispatch to outer suburban and country theatres. The projectionists in turn spliced Uoined) the film onto spools
of 2000ft for use in the theatres.

[fa manager was the number one exhibitor he had to engage "runners" to facilitate the sharing of films between two, or
more, theatres. This was a fairly uncomplicated matter if only two theatres were involved, however for three or more
theatres the situation became somewhat complicated and the likelihood of error increased dramatically. A retired pro-
jectionist claimed that, such was the public d~mand to see the Queen's coronation film " A Queen is Crowned" in 1953,
that the demand for prints exceeded supply necessitated the switching of the one tilm print between up to five theah·es.

To achieve satisfactory switching of films the theatres had to be in close proximity to each other, preferably with a travel
time of less than 15 minutes. Switching was usually done by motorcycle, but travel by foot and public tTansport was not
unknown. The person doing the job was called the runner. Jn Bendigo the switch between the city Lyric and the
suburban Eaglehawk Town Hall (now the Star) was often done by the connecting tram drivers. In larger cities specialist
businesses provided the switching services.

The following table, using fictitious films and theatres, has been adapted from the Hoyts handbook as an example of a
three way switch. Ln the example only the main feature is being switched from the No I theatre, the Empire, Rosanna
to No 2 theatre, the Civic, Macleod and No 3 theatre, the Tivoli, Watsonia. Each theatre has to organise its own supp01i
programs.

Two runners have been engaged and the idea is to spread the workload between th-:m as evenly as possible. The feature
film" Wally's Kingdom" runs for 1 hour and J 7 minutes= 8 parts i.e. 7x 10 minute reels and I x7minutes reel).

No 1 -Empire Rosanna Time No 2 - Civic Macleod No 3 - Tivoli Watsonia

7.50 Newsreel 7.50 Newsreel 7.50 Newsreel
8.00 Wally's Kingdom 8.00 Support Film * 8.00 Short subjects
9.17 Interval 9.07 Interval 8.20 Support Film
9.27 Newsreel 9. 17 Newsreel 9.20 Interval
9.37 Support Film * 9.27 Wally's Kingdom 9.40 Newsreel
10.44 Finish 10.44 Finish 9.50 Cartoon
9.58 Wally's Kingdom
11.15 Finish

* Same support film witl1 each theatre having its own copy. (Note timing would allow a switch)

Runners Schedule: Runner A takes reels 1,2,3, and 4 from the Empire to the Civic
Runner B takes reels 5,6, 7, and 8 from the Empire to the Civic
Runner A takes reels 1 ,3,5 and 7* from the Civic to the Tivoli
Runner B takes reels 2,4,6 and 8* from the Civic to the Tivoli

Note: I. Reels I & 2 , 3 & 4, 5 & 6, 7 & 8 make up 4 spools for the switch between the Empire and the Civic
2. * Spools broken down to single reels for the switch from the Civic to the Tivoli.

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