Automation (Mick Corfield)

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

Citation

The Projection Project, “Automation (Mick Corfield),” Cinema Projectionist, accessed April 20, 2024, https://projectionproject.warwick.ac.uk/items/show/406.

Output Formats