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THE PROJECTION ROOM AND ITS REQUIREMENTS
By F. H. Richardson
This article is presumed to deal with the projection machine enclosure, and to set forth, as briefly as may be, some of its more important requirements. It would, therefore, seem fitting that a short resume of the evolution of this enclosure, from a cloth walled affair to what it now is, will not be inappropriate.
In the earliest days of the industry, the projection machine enclosure was usually merely a surrounding drape of black, or dark colored cloth, designed merely to conceal, or partly conceal the apparatus and its attendants from the audience. This form of enclosure continued to be used until motion picture theatres came into existence. The advent of the theatre very naturally suggested a more permanent housing for the projection apparatus, and the need was first met by a woodenwalled room, which, probably by reason of its smallness and the nature of its immediate predecessor, was dubbed the "booth."
Films coming from the projector were run either into an open basket, or a sack attached at its open end to a hoop. This plan was later changed by substituting a large metal tank, which same was made to act as a base for the projection machine itself. Operators (they were little more than mere operators of a machine in those days) were allowed to and usually did smoke at will. The top of the metal tank was often used as a convenient shelf for temporary deposit of red-hot carbon butts, whence one would occasionally roll into the opening of the film tank. As may well be imagined, the combination of a wood-walled room, cigar and cigarette butts and red-hot carbon stubs made for trouble. The resulting fires raised a tempest of very caustic newspaper comment, and the demand for a fireproof enclosure for the projection apparatus. Incidentally it was the tremendous speed of combustion occurring under such circumstances (one and often two reels of film run into a sack or tank in a loose pile) which gave rise to the absurd, but for several years very familiar, "Film Explosion" newspaper scareheads.
The first result of the fires (several of which were rather serious in the item of property loss, and a few in injury to theatre patrons, the latter resulting almost entirely from panic) was an attempt to fireproof the enclosure by covering its walls with sheets of either tin or iron. This proved highly ineffective, and was later ordered put on with locked joints; still later the metal covering was backed with sheet asbestos.
Some very amusing instances of official stupidity occurred in connection with the early attempts at fireproofing. Chicago had just passed an ordinance requiring the interior of all picture shows located in buildings in which families lived, to be fireproofed with pressed steel, backed by sheet asbestos 3-8 of an inch thick. An inspector visited a North Clark Street "store room" theatre, on one side of the auditorium of which was a 24-inch brick wall, finished with plaster ap
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