INTRODUCTION
The year was 1977, Yes the year we all went back to the cinemas for StarWars. It was also the year I was introduced to the cinema industry.
I was a very keen amateur 8mm film maker during my teen years ,this lead me to my interest in motion picture projection. I was fortunate enough to land an assistance projectionists job at Pink Lake Drive In in June 1977 . This was a real experience the equipment was as old as the hills , I had never seen those large brass knife switches in real life before.
I was given practical experience along with a technical correspondence course and achieved a motion picture cinematograph operators permit the following year. I was then given relief work at the cinema which was then still operating five nights per week even though the crowds were diminishing. Television had came to Esperance in 1973 closely followed by colour television and videos were just around the corner and the other drive in was still operating 4 nights per week!
Starwars gave us the biggest crowds we had seen for quite some time and this brought about a slight recovery to the cinema for a while. The projection equipment was upgraded at Pink Lake in 1979 ,6000 foot reels and Strong xenon lamphouses replace the aging BTH Suprex arcs , which always battled to light the 90 foot screen even running at 150 amperes and Cine Fi radio sound was installed. This made speaker maintenance job easier and gave patrons better sound quality as they could tune into the movie sound with their car radio on a FM station.
Videos then came , high back bucket seats were now in most cars making it hard for kids in back seat to see.Patronage dropped off to a point where it was not viable.The owners decided to close it down and it was closed in 1983 but for a short time only, A Perth based drive in consortium was keen to reopen it , they purchased the xenon's and 6000' spools for the Twin City drive in at Kalgoorlie which they had also leased. Pink Lake was refitted with converted Ashcraft Corelite arcs and was reverted back to 2000' reels. I managed Pink Lake for the Perth company until 1985 . Patronage had been patchy and worst of all the damage repair bill from vandalism was eating into the weekly takings. Pink Lake being on the edge of town and near a school left it vulnerable to vandalism during the day. When Pink Lake closed in 1985 it was for the final time, it was later sold and is now a private residence.
Chris Baldwin and David Hayter had installed 35mm projection equipment in the local Shire hall (Esperance Civic Center) .They called it the Civic Cinema and were screening on weekends when the hall was not booked by other users.
The Owners of the Esperance Drive , which had been closed for some time decided to reopen for the summer of 1985 the Cinema was cleaned up and I was given the job of running it over the summer of 85 . The summer went quite well and the drive in remained open for nearly 12 months . In the end patronage slipped away and drive went to way of hundreds of others . It closed for the final time in 1986 and later sold. This was the end of the drive in era in Esperance an era that ran for 20 years entertaining hundreds and providing great entertainment in the town during the years when all we had was ABC radio and a record player.
Chris Baldwins partner, David Hayter decided to leave the Civic venture , Chris contacted me in 1995 to carry out some plant maintenance following that I began screening weekend sessions for him . It was great to be a part of the cinema industry once again.
The Civic Center setup was basic and simple using one Centrex projector and a small xenon , film was run from an Eprad Mutt on 20,000 foot spools , even with both drive ins closed the crowds were never very big , but the operation was a lot less costly to run and no one depended on it to make a living , it was a part time project which serviced a gap in the towns entertainment . Chris introduced Dolby surround sound in 1997 which improved the quality of the cinema . Ron Tutt a Cinema plant installer from Perth Came down to fit the new sound system.