Remembering Good Times at the Cinema

JediMichael

JediMichael

Master Member
EDIT: Renamed this from the collecting movie ticket stubs, as its now reflecting that as well as general Cinema memories and themes.


I hardly go out to the movies anymore, but when you are younger, its the cool thing to do with friends....and then I got a job at the theater and worked there for 8 years. (1998-2006)
There were times in a Thursday night where a new movie was coming out the next day. Projection had built the new movies and were suppose to watch them and make sure they were going to play alright. There were actually a ton more movies from those nights I didnt have a ticket for. During business hours while not working, they could print a pass (free ticket) for myself and a friend.
We had 22 screens, so there was always plenty to pick from.

20211220_192517.jpg


The very left is the Star Wars Special Editions.
Then the 4 times I saw SW Ep. I
Then Ep. II eight times. (I seem to missing one of those tickets somewhere)
Ep. III seven times.
The 5th row starts with my oldest ticket, Independence Day, and runs down through the movies before I worked at the theater.
Row 6 has the three LOTR movies.
Fight Club
Lost in Space (first movie at my theater 4/11/98)
and the Matrix movies.
Everything on the right of those are just a random layed out mess, somw which are super faded and hardly readable anymore.

20211220_192632.jpg


20211220_192551.jpg


Newest is Ghostbusters: Afterlife
20211220_194227.jpg


Just thought I'd share some neediness. (Just saw what that said. NERDINESS!!! Not neediness. Lol)
 
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JediMichael said:
I hardly go out to the movies anymore, but when you are younger, its the cool thing to do with friends....and then I got a job at the theater and worked there for 8 years. (1998-2006)
There were times in a Thursday night where a new movie was coming out the next day. Projection had built the new movies and were suppose to watch them and make sure they were going to play alright. There were actually a ton more movies from those nights I didnt have a ticket for. During business hours while not working, they could print a pass (free ticket) for myself and a friend.
We had 22 screens, so there was always plenty to pick from.

View attachment 1522532

The very left is the Star Wars Special Editions.
Then the 4 times I saw SW Ep. I
Then Ep. II eight times. (I seem to missing one of those tickets somewhere)
Ep. III seven times.
The 5th row starts with my oldest ticket, Independence Day, and runs down through the movies before I worked at the theater.
Row 6 has the three LOTR movies.
Fight Club
Lost in Space (first movie at my theater 4/11/98)
and the Matrix movies.
Everything on the right of those are just a random layed out mess, somw which are super faded and hardly readable anymore.

View attachment 1522533

View attachment 1522534

Newest is Ghostbusters: Afterlife
View attachment 1522535

Just thought I'd share some neediness.
Click to expand...
Thats awesome!

I have about 90% of my mine from 1988 to present and a few before then. Some have faded but the last time I looked most were in great shape. I haven't counted but there's quite a bit. I honestly don't remember why I initially started saving them but stuck with it.

Theaters now usually use receipt paper when buying physical tickets which is complete garbage. I've shrunk down a few of my digital tickets and printed them on archival paper but it's a bit too much to bother with.
 
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I used to save the ones of the movies that were the most important to me, but eventually got rid of them. It is a cool thing to collect though. You can make a really cool display out of them by framing them all behind glass.
 
I used to keep my ticket stubs for every film, almost 15 years, until I had to give it up. The stack was almost 2 inches thick and I would enjoy going back through them from the beginning from time to time, trying to figure out the faded stubs and what they said. I had to stop when they switched to digital projections and the stubs were like paper tickets. The shape (along with the prices) changed as they progressed and the kind of paper... it just didn't feel right anymore.

Boy, I miss film projection. I miss the sound that loading and switching reels added. I think the last film projection I remember seeing before the change was Phantom Menace.
 
ScourgiousJinx said:
Thats awesome!

I have about 90% of my mine from 1988 to present and a few before then. Some have faded but the last time I looked most were in great shape. I haven't counted but there's quite a bit. I honestly don't remember why I initially started saving them but stuck with it.

Theaters now usually use receipt paper when buying physical tickets which is complete garbage.
Click to expand...
Yeah, my most faded ones are with that receipt paper type stuff. Its probably a lot cheaper for the theater, but no good for us collectors.
Of all those years ripping the tickets and keeping the one side, as an usher we had 2 hour blocks per area. When movies were all playing, I would draw a lot while standing, and had managers always yelling at me, but the 6pm - 8pm time could get pretty hectic. For busy times, we split the ticket taking booth to two and each side of the lobby, so you were only ripping for 11 theaters, but if each screen were to sell out, that was still around 2500 seats. Food court was in the lobby, so if someone got their seat first, then would have to go out, get their snacks, and come back in with the ripped ticket in hand. Plenty people realized that when it was super busy, they could take an older ticket and flash it up and walk right in. You did start learning what groups would try this and attempt to stop them. It could be quite stressful at that time for only 5.15 an hour.

I once was going so fast getting everyone in, I ripped this guys ticket in half by accident, not on the part that was suppose to rip.
He looked like he had been shot by me. His girlfriend is like, he saves all this tickets......
I felt so bad, because I understood.
 
PoopaPapaPalps said:
I used to keep my ticket stubs for every film, almost 15 years, until I had to give it up. The stack was almost 2 inches thick and I would enjoy going back through them from the beginning from time to time, trying to figure out the faded stubs and what they said. I had to stop when they switched to digital projections and the stubs were like paper tickets. The shape (along with the prices) changed as they progressed and the kind of paper... it just didn't feel right anymore.

Boy, I miss film projection. I miss the sound that loading and switching reels added. I think the last film projection I remember seeing before the change was Phantom Menace.
Click to expand...
I have gone through mine a ton of times.
Just checked on youtube, and this is the projector my theater had....22 of them. I always wanted to learn projection, but you had to be a manager first, and things just never worked out for that to happen for me. I did have some projectionist show me how to thread the film and let me do it a few times at least.
One of our theaters needed a new screen once, (I don't even remember why)....well, I keep the old one for quite some time but finally had to get rid of it. Never did anything with it other than bragging rights that I owned a movie theater screen.
It was one of the smaller sized screens, but folded up, that thing still weighed a ton.

 
The only time I ever got a chance to working with a projector was in grade school, when the teacher would wheel out the cart and assign the kids to set it up. I always got excited when she was calling out names, and was always crushed when it wasn't me. There's just something about it, the physical interaction with the thing. Threading the film, loading it, and if it was an especially long film, we'd take out the slightly larger projector that held two reels, and watching the corner of the screen for the number to switch to the second reel.
 
PoopaPapaPalps said:
The only time I ever got a chance to working with a projector was in grade school, when the teacher would wheel out the cart and assign the kids to set it up. I always got excited when she was calling out names, and was always crushed when it wasn't me. There's just something about it, the physical interaction with the thing. Threading the film, loading it, and if it was an especially long film, we'd take out the slightly larger projector that held two reels, and watching the corner of the screen for the number to switch to the second reel.
Click to expand...
I have never seen one that switches reels while playing (unless I'm just misunderstanding it). Ours, the projectionist would have to build them and wind it all back up to one giant reel, and then it sat like this on the side and then after going through the projector, wind back up on another plater.
Each had 3 just incase.
There were also tripods they could use when it was a super popular movie that everyone had to come and see. It could start on one projector, go down through the sprockets on the tripods, and through another projector and then wind up on that one. So for the theater renting one film copy, they were making the money off 2 screens...BUT, if something did go wrong, and it very much could and did at times, they had to give out free tickets to 2 theaters worth of people.
 
JediMichael said:
I have never seen one that switches reels while playing (unless I'm just misunderstanding it). Ours, the projectionist would have to build them and wind it all back up to one giant reel, and then it sat like this on the side and then after going through the projector, wind back up on another plater.
Each had 3 just incase.
There were also tripods they could use when it was a super popular movie that everyone had to come and see. It could start on one projector, go down through the sprockets on the tripods, and through another projector and then wind up on that one. So for the theater renting one film copy, they were making the money off 2 screens...BUT, if something did go wrong, and it very much could and did at times, they had to give out free tickets to 2 theaters worth of people.
Click to expand...

Oh, boy, I've never seen anything that large. This was those tiny film projectors. I'm probably describing it wrong (I was just a kid then). As I remember it, it didn't switch reels more than just ran the other loaded reel that was like on the same projector. If I recall, it was this knob that you just turned when it was time so it would play the other reel. Fancy enough for a know-nothing kid then, but nothing like what you were around.
 
PoopaPapaPalps said:
Oh, boy, I've never seen anything that large. This was those tiny film projectors. I'm probably describing it wrong (I was just a kid then). As I remember it, it didn't switch reels more than just ran the other loaded reel that was like on the same projector. If I recall, it was this knob that you just turned when it was time so it would play the other reel. Fancy enough for a know-nothing kid then, but nothing like what you were around.
Click to expand...
Something more like this, right?
They did use those when I was in school. Manly elementary school. I'm not even sure what I was thinking of.
Teachers were the only ones allowed to touch it.

7926269210_487132e7be_b.jpg
 
I kept my Star Wars special edition stubs, ESB commemorative ticket, free Luke figure from ROTJ special edition, I kinda stopped in 1999 for some reason.
 
I have a stash from when I first started paying for movies myself..
Evil Dead Friday 13th in 3D
Gremlins Capricorn One to name a few.
Back then most were just Carni style card stubs but being a nerd I would write what the movie was and who I saw it with. The multiplex saw the birth for us anyways as printed ticket stubs with the movie printed on it. Jurrassic Park even came with a Cap UCI cinema long gone now...
I can literally see a paper trail of my old girlfriends of the times right up to Childsplay 2 my future wife and The Fugitive a heavily pregnant wife..
I slowed down with the kids but have the SW LOTR and Potter movies...


Good times
 
I have all of the movie stubs of movies that I watched with my late wife. 21 years of movie going, collected in a tin box. Some day I will put them into a binder. Me and my "life-partner" have probably collected a handful of movie stubs over the last eight years. Not that she is not into movies, but going to a cinema somehow got complicated over the last few years. I do miss movie going from time to time.
 
Special movies, YES. The first movie you ever took your kids too, A MUST! STuff like that.

I like when IMAX gives out cards as well. Great for memories, even when the film was not-so-gud.
 
I don't think you could do this anymore today without incident, but when I was a kid, whenever my father would visit, often times he'd take me and my sister to the movies, and sometimes when we were wanting to see something he didn't particularly want to waste his time on; he'd just leave us at the theater and my sister and I would just hop screens. One showing would end and we'd just go the the next showing of something else. We could spend much of the day doing just that. Great times.
 
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