Page 16 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

Brian Quigley struck up a frienship with Jim White shown here in
a self portrait at the rewind bench of the Barkly Footscray.
Brian transferred to the nearby Trocadero, another old theatre
given a complete makeover.

What projection equipment did they
have at the Trocadero?
The Trocadero was similar to the
Regent South Yarra - Simplex on
Western Electric. The machines had
been modified from the days of the
universal bases, and now had big
flywheels on the side and short drives,
doing away with the long motors and
the gearboxes on the universal bases.
I stayed at the Trocadero for
another 18 months and was then
transferred into the Capitol, one of my
favourite theatres. As a youth I couldn’t
understand how the projectionist at the
Capitol got up into the ceiling to get to
the projection room.
And how did he?
You didn’t go near the theatre at all.
You went into Capitol Arcade at the side
of the theatre where there were two or
three lifts, the old birdcage sort, with a Capitol Swanston Street. The projection ports are in the high, dark section of the
lift driver and everything, and you went ceiling. How does the projectionist get up there?
up to the fifth floor and you got out into
this office building, walked around the
passageway, out through a big heavy
iron door, a fireproof door, and then
there was another fireproof door you
went through and down two steps and
through a tunnel about four feet high,
that’s about a metre high, and you had to
walk in bent down, and it opened out
into the Capitol projection room.
And then you went down two or
three more wooden steps and you were
on the level of the projectors, which
were on about a 20-degree angle
downwards because you were halfway
along the ceiling inside the cinema.

16 2008 CINEMARECORD