Automation (Mick Corfield)
Is part of Mick Corfield Interview (incomplete)
Mick Corfield interviewed by Richard Wallace
Projectionist and BECTU representative Mick Corfield describes is experiences of automated projection systems on the work of projectionists.
I think it was 1992, we had a Greta Ward automation system put in, which was done on pulse tape and it was a pin board basically with a clock as well that’d tick down and start the shows. So it would start, stop, it would open and close the tabs, the tabs being the curtains, bring the house lights down, bring the footlights down. And of course with automation you lost your presentation, most of your presentation, because what you did, you’d put pulse tape on it and it read the pulse tape. So you’d pin the board for what you wanted it to do: house lights down, tabs open, tabs shut if you wanted to but a lot of people stopped doing that. And then basically put a pulse at the end of the film, as soon as we saw any black, black cast come up at the end of the film we’d pulse it to bring the houselights up to half, then to full and then shut the programme down. So of course if you’ve got four... well you’d have two people on. When you got your Greta Ward automation in there was no need for that because that did it all, so then all of a sudden I was off ill and then came back and found out that two jobs had gone and the only way I could keep mine was if I would be a relief projectionist and be then for be rented out to other cinemas when people were on holiday and things like that. You could see that projectionists’ jobs were being lost through technology.
Title
Automation (Mick Corfield)
Subject
automation
job losses
Description
Projectionist and BECTU representative Mick Corfield describes is experiences of automated projection systems on the work of projectionists.
Creator
The Projection Project
Source
Interview with Mick Corfield
Publisher
The University of Warwick
Date
08/12/2015
Contributor
Richard Wallace
Mick Corfield
Relation
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/6934
Format
.mp3
Language
English
Type
Sound recording
interview extract
Coverage
1992-
Interviewer
Richard Wallace
Interviewee
Mick Corfield
Date of Interview
03/08/2015
Location
Coventry
Transcription
I think it was 1992, we had a Greta Ward automation system put in, which was done on pulse tape and it was a pin board basically with a clock as well that’d tick down and start the shows. So it would start, stop, it would open and close the tabs, the tabs being the curtains, bring the house lights down, bring the footlights down. And of course with automation you lost your presentation, most of your presentation, because what you did, you’d put pulse tape on it and it read the pulse tape. So you’d pin the board for what you wanted it to do: house lights down, tabs open, tabs shut if you wanted to but a lot of people stopped doing that. And then basically put a pulse at the end of the film, as soon as we saw any black, black cast come up at the end of the film we’d pulse it to bring the houselights up to half, then to full and then shut the programme down. So of course if you’ve got four... well you’d have two people on. When you got your Greta Ward automation in there was no need for that because that did it all, so then all of a sudden I was off ill and then came back and found out that two jobs had gone and the only way I could keep mine was if I would be a relief projectionist and be then for be rented out to other cinemas when people were on holiday and things like that. You could see that projectionists’ jobs were being lost through technology.
Original Format
One-to-one interview
Duration
00:01:09
Bit Rate/Frequency
320kbps
Cinema
Reel Cinema, 12 Hagley Road West, Birmingham