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"