Seven Moments of Ross

Text CC 2012 by MJ Vilardi, Creative Commons – 
May be shared with attribution 

3. The Projector 

by MJ Vilardi 

       Ross and I became business partners. Our new enterprise was called (after much negotiation) Oversight Productions. I had some reservations about that name, since we would be asking clients to trust us with complex projects and large sums of money – do you really want the word "oversight" floating around like a nagging omen? But Ross said it was in the OTHER sense of the word, so...

            We didn't have much money for capital investments, so we bought a couple of beat up ARRI film cameras from a cantankerous but lovable retired filmmaker, Skip, who let us buy them on the installment plan; I think he just liked having a couple of novices to talk to every Saturday when we showed up with the cash. He doled out sage cinematography advice while quaffing the martinis that his doting wife, Jeannie, supplied him with. We didn't know exactly what was ailing Skip, but he had thin plastic piping running to and from various parts of his body, and his strap-on glasses were fitted with bulging lenses, like crystal balls. One of them was ruby red.

            Parked in their "Sunset Boulevard-ish" garage was a perfectly preserved early '60's red Cadillac convertible. Quite stunning. Skip said it was a gift for Jeannie, and that they had used it to film the very first music video, featuring Jack Jones singing "Got a Lot of Living To Do." 

"He's driving and singing. The car's full of pretty girls, real lookers. They go through the underpass. When they come out the other side, heh, the girls are all in bikinis. Jeannie! Bring me another one!"

            Thanks to my TV station salary and contributions from Ross' Mom, we soon had our cameras. Now we needed equipment to edit our masterpieces. We headed up to New York looking for a deal on Moviola editing machines. We met sound engineering legend and part-time porn producer Walter Sear, president of Sear Sound, located on the mezzanine of the (then run-down) Paramount Hotel. Walter was also a Moog synthesizer pioneer, and worked on classics like the Oscar winning film "Midnight Cowboy." He also scored such forgotten lusty classics as "Disco Beaver from Outer Space." Like Skip, Walter was a raconteur, and talked a mad streak. He showed us scenes from his latest slasher pic, "Blood Sisters," while all around us machines were transferring pornos from film onto the exciting new medium, videotape. (See "Boogie Nights" for more on this historic transition; it will also give you a sense of how gloriously sleazy the place was). We asked about slasher actress and sometime director, Doris Wishman, who we really wanted to meet. Utter contempt took over Walter's face.

            "When you see Doris Wishman you tell her she can KISS MY ASS – really kiss it. I want tongue!" And he was off and running with the sins of Miss Wishman. We reminded Walter about the Moviolas (it was getting late) and he led us to a cavernous industrial loft filled with hundreds of the machines of every imaginable configuration and vintage. We packed two of them into my Izuzu Trooper and drove through pouring rain back to DC, laughing all the way.

            The next vital piece of equipment we needed was a projector we could use to screen dailies and have screenings for our friends. I had imagined something small, like the film projectors we'd used in grade school. But a few days later Ross called to say he found one, and could I help move it into his place. He was breathless. And when I trotted down to get a gander I was speechless. Except to say, "What the fuck?" about a dozen times. There, on the sidewalk at the foot of the stairs up to his front door, was an elaborate hunk of black Steel-age machinery whose scale would not have attracted undue notice at Stonehenge. 

            It was a vintage Simplex Movie House Projector, the kind of behemoth they bring in on a crane and build the theater around. And, they display 35mm release prints – a film stock TWICE as wide as the 16mm we were equipped to shoot. But, all that aside, we faced a near-impossible task: getting it up those stairs and inside. Junior, son of Sam, came out to help, but, strapping young lad though he was, we still didn't have the power to lift the beast from step to step. But Junior pulled some boards out of the basement and we used them as skids. With ropes and grunts, shoves and pushes, we made like Egyptians and raised Pharaoh's stone. Once inside of course it had to go all the way back to the kitchen, so, despite an attempt to use towels as buffers, the hardwood floors took a real beating. 

            But once it was set up, the Simplex looked right at home. Those row houses are narrow but DEEP, so we had almost a forty foot throw. We put up a white bed sheet, threaded up a tattered old trailer, and BOOM! We blew a fuse. But we got the voltage thing figured out and soon we had our own movie house! Black & white faces of Ancient Hollywood flickered at the far end of the living room. Despite the slight whiff of electrical smoldering, we racked up an old Technicolor western, and proudly showed Sam and Junior. Junior thought it was cool, and ran off to get his girlfriend. Sam studied the machine as though it had just risen from hell, and left muttering about crazy white something-or-others... 

            Later that week Sam's wife woke up to a loud CRACK. Some part of a ceiling support beam was complaining, giving fair warning that the load on this old house was just too great. Trouble in paradise. Cracks in the old wood grew longer. Threats were made and ignored. Ross was on notice to get himself and his Iron Devil out soon, before the whole place collapsed.