Author Archives: mrdrivein

A rare view from the digital projection booth

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WPTV, the news leader in Palm Beach FL, showed a great report last night live from the projection booth of the Lake Worth Drive-In. Lake Worth has made the transition to digital projection, and it was the first time I’d seen what it looks like in there without the 35mm platters revolving.

This is one of the best drive-in news reports I’ve ever seen, but there are a couple of odd bits about it. The reporter quotes unknown “industry analysts” as saying that 90% of existing drive-ins haven’t converted yet, and the implication is that they’ll close as a result. I’d guess that as many as half of current drive-ins will convert this year, mainly because any drive-in that has survived this long is likely to continue.

The other odd thing is that we see Joshua Jordan, the guy in the Lake Worth projection room, say, “I think we’ll still go on for a couple of more years until we can’t go on no more.” That doesn’t make sense. The Lake Worth just shelled out an “estimated $70,000” to upgrade its equipment, which is now in place. The owners wouldn’t have done that unless they were planning to stay in business for the long haul. Let’s hope the Lake Worth finds a way to stay open for decades to come.

Mission Drive-In mural will soon be relit

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Restored Mission Drive-In mural

Click here for the full story and a 24-picture slideshow

As reported by KENS, San Antonio’s news leader, the restored mural at the abandoned Mission Drive-In Theatre recently passed its lighting test. The city expects to officially switch on the lights at the end of February.

As discussed earlier, San Antonio is restoring the old drive-in site to include a community library with space for more facilities, and it’s restoring the original solidly built theater screen/mural. Gary Edenburn, special projects manager for the San Antonio Development Office, said he expects to see outdoor movies there this summer.

Not only did the old drive-in have this beautiful mural, the mural’s figures were outlined in neon. For the 21st century, San Antonio officials chose to use LED lighting instead as a faux-neon for the same outlines. I’d be curious to see how that compares.

According to the story, “Locals are already flocking to the Mission Public Library that sits on the same property. (The adjacent) Mission San Jose is poised as a historic backdrop for those who gather in the library’s cozy sunlit reading nooks.” Ah, I love new libraries almost as much as new drive-ins.

I really wish KENS had included a piece of video to go with the story so I could have embedded it here, but their 24-picture slideshow of the mural and library are the next best thing. (There’s a year-old video that includes helicopter shots of the site, but that story is about local artists complaining that the old mural contained stereotypical images. The city agreed not to include those parts of the mural in the restoration, but KENS’s story continues with more complaining.) And if you want to read about Carload’s special relationship with the Mission, go read this earlier post.

Drive-in photo exhibit opening in Sioux City

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Drive-in screen photo by Michael Flecky, S.J.

photo by Michael Flecky, S.J.

“Sunset Drive-In,” an exhibition of 42 photos documenting the visual culture and architecture of drive-in movie theaters, opens Saturday at the Betty Strong Encounter Center in Sioux City IA. Admission is free, and the show runs through May 18.

The photographer is Michael Flecky, S.J., Professor of Photography in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at Creighton University. Flecky chose these photos from hundreds of images he has made over more than a quarter century. “Outdoor theaters are quickly becoming a thing of history and archaeology – unfortunately,” said the Council Bluffs native. “It’s a vanishing culture.” Sioux City’s last drive-in, the Highway 75, closed in 1988.

Flecky’s interest in drive-ins was sparked 27 years ago when he was photographing western Nebraska’s Sandhills with a large-format camera. He was attracted to the formal qualities of outdoor movie screens in the panoramic landscape, along with the shapes of grain silos and church steeples, recognizable from a distance on the rural horizon. The movie screens appeared like frames waiting for a picture, “a photographer’s dream,” he said.

Thanks to the Sioux City Journal for pointing out the opening of this exhibit. For more about Flecky and his drive-in photos, check out this August story in the Kearney (NE) Hub.