Watch this great short about Colorado Drive-Ins

I just realized that I haven’t shared this great short film with you. It’s called Projector: The Last Outdoor Cinemas of Colorado, and it looks like a labor of love for director Mike Liguori and his Thousand Foot Pictures.

Liguori hopes to expand the short into a feature-length documentary, which would be a great thing, of course. For the latest information, you can sign up for his email list or check his Facebook page.

Projector was filmed in 2010, before the digital conversion crisis reached its peak. Although it doesn’t point it out, the short interviews the two owners of the two unrelated Colorado theaters named Star Drive-In, one in Monte Vista and one in Montrose. Keep watching for glimpses of the playground still available in Monte Vista, the abandoned Frontier sign near Center CO, and the neon signs of the 88 of Commerce City. Check it out!

Second-oldest drive-in tries Facebook fundraising

Saco Drive-In marqueeThe Sun Chronicle of Westbrooke ME ran a lengthy article about the Saco Drive-In’s struggle to find money for its digital conversion project. According to the Chronicle, the Saco opened in 1939 and is the second-oldest drive-in still in operation. Its operator, Ry Russell, has turned to the Saco’s Facebook fans to raise the money required for the changeover.

Russell said the lack of a digital projector already hurt the Saco in 2012 when film copies of blockbuster movies were scarce.

Here’s a nice touch for the fundraiser: “As part of the Facebook fundraiser, Russell has asked customers and fans of the drive-in to send in stories and photos about what makes the drive-in special to them, which will be put together into an e-book and given to people who make donations toward the new projector.” I look forward to seeing a copy of that!

Tower Drive-In aiming for a half-price upgrade

Thanks to a nice article in the Abilene (TX) Reporter-News, we now know that the Tower Drive-In of nearby Rule has begun a Kickstarter fundraiser to pay for its digital conversion. Be sure to watch the nice little video they made to support the project. It really makes you feel like you’ve visited the Tower, and it’s embedded just to the right of these words.

What makes this conversion fundraiser a little different is that Tower owner Deon Gordon says she has a quote on a used digital projector for less than $39,000. That makes it about half the price of most drive-in digital conversion projects.

It’s a good long article with a long conversation with Gordon. I learned, for example, why drive-ins seem to be staying away from 3D. “There is a requirement from the studios for you to charge a premium and they get the premium,” Gordon said. “I charge six dollars for both movies and if I had to put a $3 premium on it, then any week or two-week period where I’ve got a 3D movie I’d price a lot of my customers out of being able to come.”

According to the article, Gordon already advertises on nearby radio stations to pull in patrons from a wide area, since the Tower is the only movie theater for 50 miles. I hope that means that a lot of civic-minded, forward-thinking north Texas residents will realize that they all need to chip in to keep their nearby source of entertainment alive. We’ll see!