May 20, 2013

Better sights, sounds at upgraded 411 Drive-In Theater

By SCOTT WRIGHT


LEESBURG — Highway 411 Drive-In owners Rex Johnson and his mother, Sara, figure the major difference customers will notice during their Memorial Day weekend visit is the brighter, clearer picture and the vastly improved sound.

That's because little else has changed since Rex's father, Emory Johnson, first opened for business in 1953.
Until now, that is.

“It's a lot different,” Rex Johnson said of the drive-in's new digital video and audio computers. “We've put the old 35 millimeter system to rest. Those were state-of-the-art when we reopened in 2001.”

Johnson said the new picture and sound are amazing, even to someone like him who is used to seeing bits and pieces of films over his shoulder—and between concession stand customers—pretty much all the time.

“I've always thought 35 millimeter produces a high-quality picture, and it does, but this far surpasses it,” he said. “The first time I saw it I was blown away.”

The 4,000-watt bulb in the old system has been replaced by a 4,500-watt bulb. Johnson said the new, high-definition picture, composed of thousands of pixels in every frame, means the extra beams of light are multiplied many times over.

“I asked the technician who set up the system if the new bulb and HD images make the movie twice as bright, and he said, 'No, it's about four times as bright',” Johnson said. “And he said the image has about four times the resolution of 1080p high-def.”

Johnson said the new systems cost around $75,000 each, but over time will save movie studios millions because they no longer have to produce thousands of copies of four- and five-reel feature films at $300 per reel.

“Think of the thousands of prints a studio would have to make for a summer movie that was opening on, say, 5,000 screens across the country,” he said. “Now, their expense has gone to nothing, compared to that.”

Now, films are delivered on hard drives packaged inside bubble wrap. Johnson hopes the switch will save him money in the long run, too. He said the studios are encouraging theaters to make the switch to digital by offering a financial reimbursement structure to help cover the cost of the new computers.

“The catch is that we have to join a Library Management System that is more of an advantage for large multiplex theaters than for us, since we only have two screens,” Johnson said. “But it's also hooked to the Internet and a studio monitoring system that helps us troubleshoot any problems that might pop up during a showing. It's kind of like tech support.”

The new system is a vast advance over the early days of drive-in movies. Rex's dad, Emory Johnson, a decorated World War II pilot, had been in the theater business with his father, Glover Johnson, before the war and opened his own theater in downtown Centre after returning from Europe in 1945.

When the drive-in craze really took off in the early 1950s, Emory Johnson purchased an apple orchard on Highway 411 west of Centre, erected a 40 ft. by 60 ft. projection screen and chopped down enough apple trees to make room for 230 cars.

At the height of the outdoor film fad, there were over 5,000 drive-ins across America. But the 1980s spelled the beginning of the end, with the advent of VCRs in the home and movie rental stores in every shopping center. Emory Johnson closed down the 411 Drive-In in 1983.

Eighteen years later, the family decided to reopen. On July 6, 2001, the night sky lit up with the flickering images of new films “The Fast and the Furious” and “Jurassic Park 3”. Other than a refurbished screen, a new projector and a fresh coat of paint on the concession stand, little else besides the names of the films on the marquee out front had changed in 30 years.

“When we prepared for the reopening … there was not a single crack in the concrete at the concession stand,” Sara Johnson once reminisced to the Gadsden Times. “Things were still in very good shape.”

Twelve years after reopening, the fate of the third-generation family business rests firmly in Rex's hands. (Emory passed away in 2004.)

Screen No. 2 went up in 2008 with parking for 400 more cars. Upgrades also included a new projection room and beneath it a concession stand with a massive, restaurant-style kitchen—better for preparing popcorn, handmade cheeseburgers and Emory dogs (complete with a special sauce still made from an old family recipe) for all those extra customers.

Now, faced with competition from another round of new technology—particularly streaming movies and TV shows on the Internet—the Johnsons decided to significantly upgrade and enhance the movie-going experience for their customers.

And why not? Glover Johnson's grandson doesn’t plan on allowing the family business to fade to black on his watch.

“I foresee we'll keep doing this for a long time,” Rex Johnson said. “It's a good family environment, it's relaxed. People enjoy letting down the tailgate, doing their own thing. And there's nowhere else to see two first-run movies with the family for fifteen dollars a car.”