Sitting, Waiting, Wishing...

Ah, here we are at that joyous time of year when it's ok to put on sweatpants and say yes to thirds, possibly even fourths. Thank goodness the Pilgrims and Native Americans came together for a magical feast, and John Madden expanded our culinary palettes by introducing the masses to the turducken. I emphasize Native Americans, because as an Indian, the closest I came to having turkey on Thanksgiving while growing up was egg curry. They're both poultry, so that counts, right?

In between trying not to wreck while staring in awe at the Christmas decorations at the Cloverdale Hardee's (so awesome) and avoiding the Christmas music that's already started on WMAG 99.5 (Deliiiiilaaaaah), I thought it'd be great to share a top ten list of the best Thanksgiving movies. Because who doesn't love a good list? However, when I noticed that movies featuring Katie Holmes showed up not once (The Ice Storm) but twice (Pieces of April) and that Pauly Shore was included (Son-in-Law), I realized Hollywood has largely ignored the holiday. Ok, Pauly Shore movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. Please don't think any less of me.

Since the top movie list bombed, I decided to celebrate the true meaning of the holiday by listing what a/perture has to be thankful for. Probably a little more serious as you move up the list...

9/ HeadOn and ActivOn



8/ DVR
7/ Cheesy 80s movies (Can't Buy Me Love, The Karate Kid, etc., we wouldn't be here without you)
6/ Top 9 Lists (Because I couldn't think of a tenth thing)
5/ Comfy Seats



4/ A construction and design crew that appreciate project timelines
3/ Financial Supporters, Volunteers, and Others who've helped us get this thing off the ground (there are way too many to list individually, this would still be a pipe dream if it wasn't for all of you)
2/ People who care enough to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, email lists, and read this blog (how you kept up with all my nonsense posts, Lawren will never understand)
1/ Family (how you've kept up with all our nonsense period, we'll never understand)

Thanks again to everyone. We can't wait to be a part of downtown. Have a wicked good holiday, and drop tasty leftovers off at the theater.

They've shown this on both screens...

We looked at a calendar for the first time in six months today and noticed we're less than seven weeks away from the new year. What the summer months are to the multiplexes, early winter is for the art houses. Awards season starts building buzz around the movies that may not have made it out of the "opening in NY and LA" circuit quite yet. Needless to say, your curator is turning into a hot mess. She's had more meetings in the past two weeks than dollars Jon Gosslein has had to give back for his general douchebaggery - which for those of you hiding from the TMZ/People/Us Weekly likes is a lot. Speaking of the paparazzi, Lawren's press train is showing no signs of slowing down. The Triad Business Journal, skirt! Magazine, Winston-Salem Journal, WFDD, and local Rotary chapters are all on Lawren's radar, while the true voice of a/perture is getting Rodney Dangerfield'ed (no respect!). Maybe it's because I don't have business cards - no grudge here - or because I refuse to shave my sweet beard, both serving to lower my respectability. Maybe a Magnum, P.I. style 'stache would change that. I really need to stop dating myself with these horrible 80s references.

Here's what else I learned this weekend. Movie screens are basically a tarp, and the speakers that sit behind them are HUGE. Putting two and two together, you, the astute reader you are, have probably said to him/herself "Wait, did you put some screens up this weekend?". To which I politely respond, "Why yes we did. Would you like to see the process?". Soundtracked by what instantly became one of my favorite songs when Lawren decided to open a two screen theater, Twin Cinema.



I'm still waiting for my free case of beer, beer distributors.

Our Time is Running Out

You know, when I was asking for someone to make it rain, I was thinking more along the lines of Pacman Jones showering the Triad with dollar bills than the monsoons of my motherland. But what better way to beat the nastiness outside than to cozy up to your computer and see how things are coming along at a/perture. Fortunately the storm held off long enough for our chairs to be delivered without being soaked on Monday.

Am I the only one who was a little disappointed that the chairs arrived, not ready to be broken in, but with some assembly required? I guess it made it easier to carry in 109 boxes of pieces instead of 160+ chairs. BIG thanks to the guys that were able to clear out the truck in NASCAR pit crew like time.

As I've mentioned a few times before, this is the week all the front of house equipment was scheduled to come in - seats, speakers, screens, drapes, etc. It's actually starting to look like an art house in there.

As this thing keeps getting closer and closer to being a reality, we are made painfully aware of how much there is left to do. However, everyone we talk to tells us we're ahead of the game. How, I don't know, especially when we're still looking for a beer distributor. HOW COULD I LET THIS SLIP THIS FAR! Distributors, if you're reading this, contact me, and make sure to bring plenty of samples. I don't make any of the decisions, but bribery of the blogmaster can and will help your case((s) get sold - sweet pun score!).

Social marketing overload

If a picture really is worth a thousand words, then you're getting 7,000 and some change tonight. We had an LLC member get together on Thursday and met some cool people out at the Gallery hop on Friday.


I'm still a flickr slideshow novice, so some of what you saw in there includes cupcakes from Yummy Goodness Bake Shoppe (a future concession supplier), important people graffiti-ing up the theater, Lawren at the gallery hop with one of our new interns, and fresh from the press magnets. We also put up a new little vignette on the youtube channel.



The seats are coming in tomorrow! If you're bored and looking for something to do between the hours of 10 and 12 tomorrow morning, just hang out around the theater and wait for the giant FedEx truck to start blocking the street, grab the boxes as they're thrown out and take them on inside.

Flip this Office

I bet you're all excited to find out who won a free t-shirt. But I'm not going to tell you that yet. Various members of the family were called upon this past weekend to help paint your curator's office. About the only good that has come of this is that I don't have to do any of that kind of stuff at home anymore. Wait, I never did any of that stuff anyway. Here are a couple of pictures to show you our handi-work.

This picture was taken before she saw me paint, hence the happy expression.

As you probably recall, I love The Karate Kid, and my only experience learning how to wield a brush was watching Ralph Macchio paint the fence. It was working out OK until I crane-kicked a hole into the wall...just kidding! Anyway, at least the office is painted and hopefully our dining room can reclaim its status as least used room in the house.

So congratulations are in order to Maria Weir, who was selected by Nigel as the winner of an a/perture t-shirt among the many correct guessers for our trivia question (see post below). The setting was in fact George's Grecian Corner. Either there are a lot of Mr. Destiny fans out there, or people outsmarted me by typing "mr. destiny filming locations" into Google. For those of you that didn't win, fear not. a/perture will be out at the DADA First Friday Gallery Hop this November 7th with a table of t-shirts for sale. Stop by just to say "Hi" or "Your husband is soooo funny".

Don't Leave Home Without It - Especially the Shirt

So I had this Thursday as a planned vacation from my day job. As you might well imagine, I had visions in my head of sleeping late, maybe watching a lot of Eastbound and Down and Flight of the Conchords, and generally doing nothing. Our curator would have none of that. She had me up bright and early, meeting to discuss credit and debit card processing. Apparently one of the ways they pay for all those "pre-screened qualifying offers" that are sent to your house is to charge merchants a flat fee per swipe, on top of taking a percentage of each transaction total. I also learned that each company charges different rates, and American Express is the most expensive. So, unless there's a gigantic uproar from people after reading this, we'll probably start out not taking the Amex or Diner's Club. Telly Savalas is rolling over in his grave.

After attending that meeting, we went to pick up our first batch of t-shirts. That's right, you too can wear what the stars, or maybe just our immediate families, wear. We've initiated production with the unisex (stop snickering because I wrote sex) version for now. It's available in three colors - grass, teal, and silver. For you men, that's green, blue, and grey. One of our family members has graciously agreed to model it for our readers.

The left side is the front, and the right side shows the back

(No dogs were harmed in the taking of this picture, just humiliated)

Pretty snazzy, huh? Here's the first of what I hope will be many more giveaways here on the blog - a t-shirt. You have until Tuesday at midnight to send an email to info at aperturecinema dot com with the correct answer to the following question:

In what local eating establishment did they film a date between Larry Burrows and Ellen in the movie Mr. Destiny?

Hint: The establishment in question has red and white tablecloths. If we get multiple correct answers, Nigel our t-shirt model will randomly pick a winner. Good luck.

I see the white walls and I want to paint them black...

Two months ago (see post dated August 27th), you saw one of the studios in its infancy. Somewhere in between, it turned into this:


And today, our little baby's all growed up.

With all the progress being made, our first equipment vendor is scheduled to come in this Wednesday to work on the framing for the drapes and the screens. So this is the last you'll see of the pretty black paint. Unless you try to hide behind the drapes to sneak into another screening, but unless you're planning on spending a couple of nights, you'll be watching the same movie, so I'd advise against it. And to get rid of the carpet glue, those floors have had more chemicals poured on them than a high school science lab, so I'd steer clear of the M&Ms found on the ground. At least turn the five second rule into three seconds.

Seeing as we're in the business of showing movies, we thought it might be appropriate to document the process in some other format than the written word. Hence the world premiere of our new YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/cinemaaperture. (Author's note: I was told four minutes before I went on camera I was doing this, but thanks to the magic of our wonderful PR gal Sadie, I only managed that deer in headlight look for about 30 seconds, and made just one inappropriate crapper joke).

Movienomics

If absence truly does make the heart grow fonder, you guys must be extra fond of me now. More than likely you've moved on and are spending your time on the internet learning about the balloon boy sleeping in the attic or mourning the passing of wrestling legend Captain Lou Albino (RIP to the man who made wearing rubber bands in his beard acceptable). While I've been MIA - Paper Planes what? - for the past two weeks, we've closed out the LLC group, submitted countless Master License Agreements (MLAs) with the major film distributors, started working on assembling a staff, ordered some samples for t-shirts, had new neighbors move in, done a heck of a lot of construction, and got a new fish, Bubbles (no relation to MJ's chimp). I'll focus on the two that are probably most interesting to you guys, the MLAs and construction.

If I thought we were signing over our lives when we got the loan for a/perture, we just signed over our lives, Nigel the dog's, and our son's firstborn with all the paperwork for the MLAs. This is probably my best chance to go all Reading Rainbow and teach you some economics of the movie theater business. So obviously getting people in the door is a crucial aspect to any enterprise. However, in order for the studios to recoup their investments in blockbuster films and help subsidize some of their other films, they typically take 50% of the ticket sales to cover their costs. For some of the aforementioned blockbusters, that can be as high as 90%. That makes it hard to pay the rest of the bills without all the fun stuff like concessions and merchandise. So, if you take nothing else from all of this, remember this - sneaking Cookout milkshakes and convenience store candy in - bad (even though I've been guilty of both before), buying popcorn, candy, and two drinks even if you're by yourself - awesome.

On the progress front, we're pretty much walled out and are waiting to get painting. The seats are being delivered November 9th, along with the sound drapes and other "front of the house" stuff, and the projection equipment will be here after Thanksgiving. Since I unashamedly just begged you all to make frequent trips to the concession stand, here's a couple of pictures of the lobby to help get a sense of it.



A little messy, but no more than my old college dorm, right mom? Well, it feels good to be back, and hopefully I've shared enough to bring what little momentum I had alive again. Lawren and her team have been working on some exciting stuff, so hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be able to tell you about more cool things happening at a/perture.

I'll be back...

Cursed real world obligations! I promise that once we close the books for this quarter (at my day job), I'll be back with more regular updates. Should be this weekend. In the meantime, enjoy this picture.

...just like most of my posts.

Turn it up to eleven

Another week, another lack of posts. But this time I feel like I at least have a good reason. The family took what could be considered our last vacation for awhile as we get this theater up and running. Lawren treated me to a weekend in Austin, Texas chock full of 24 oz beers (everything's bigger in Texas!), great food, and even better live music at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Going back to the standardized tests of high school, the best analogy to describe our own personal passions would be the following - Lawren : Movies :: Jigar : Music. People of Winston, if you make a/perture a success, I promise to try and open up a music venue in downtown. If Lawren will let me.

In theater related news, things are coming along on schedule. We're working on getting the equipment installers here sooner than later and the rest of construction is smashingly on schedule. Lawren's even trying to hire some people - check out the website for more info. While in Austin, we walked by one of the inspirations for the theater, the Alamo Drafthouse, and were made aware how painfully awesome the place is by my Austinite cousins. We were also treated to a multitude of ideas for a/perture by my old college roommate. If I had time to write a novel, I'd list out all his suggestions here, but suffice it to say he's excited, and hopefully we can make the Short Circuit marathon he suggested work.

Another old school mate quickly put me back in my place after suggesting "You're the Best Around" was the ultimate movie song by offering up "Tiny Dancer" in Almost Famous as well as "Highway to the Danger Zone" in Top Gun. To round out my music to film analogy, here's the soundtrack of our weekend at the ACL Festival.

Avett Brothers - "Slight Figure of Speech"
Phoenix - "1901"
John Legend - "Redemption Song (Bob Marley Cover)"
Them Crooked Vultures - I don't know any song names, but a band with Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones can't be bad
Kings of Leon - "Revelry"
Airborne Toxic Event - "This Magic Moment (Drifters Cover)"
Citizen Cope - "Bullet and a Target"
Bon Iver - "Skinny Love"
The Scabs - "H.E.B."
Passion Pit - "Little Secrets"
Girl Talk - Everything, especially the "Time After Time -> Tiny Dancer -> Don't Stop Believin'" mashup
Pearl Jam - "Alive"