For Cassandra “Sandie” Gerken, walking into the Clayton Theatre is like coming home. Her parents opened the Dagsboro landmark in 1949, when she was 2 years old. “This was our babysitter,” she said, sitting in the single-screen theater, which smells faintly of popcorn. “It was my first job.” And in the 1940s and 1950s, it was the center of her social life.
Not much has changed, except for the new seating and the drapery on the walls. “Oh,” she exclaimed, stepping into the narrow projection booth, “it looks exactly the same.” The two projectors are original, minus some new parts. Halfway through a movie, the projectionist must watch for the dots that tell him to switch from one projector to the other.
Clayton Theatre at Digital Crossroads
But those projectors could be a liability. Like many independent theaters, the Clayton Theatre relies on film, and that could present a problem as Hollywood increasingly pushes theater owners to go digital.
“It’s an issue facing us right now,” said Joanne Howe, who purchased the theater in 2000. The conversion to digital can cost up to $100,000 per theater, and there is no way of recouping that investment. It’s not like the theaters can charge more than their competitors for the same film.
Digital equipment is necessary to show 3D movies. “3D grosses are driving the box office,” said John Fithian, president and CEO of the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) in a March state-of-the-industry address. In 2010, he told the audience, 3D grosses constituted 21 percent of total receipts, double the number in 2009.
“We really have to make a decision,” Howe said. “Do we go digital or go back to showing just old films?” She doubts the business, which now offers first-run movies, could last by doing the latter.
Clayton Theatre
Excerpts of interview with Joanne Howe - Clayton Theatre owner
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If the theater went dark, it would be a “great loss” for the area,” said Teena Diehl of Laurel, who’s taken her children and grandchildren to weekend matinees. “Anytime a movie comes out, we check there first to see if they’re showing it.”
Howe, a Baltimore County native who’d lived in Ocean City, Md., since 1980, was also a fan before she became an owner. Howe and her husband, Ed, came to Dagsboro when he was developing a community here. In 2000, she was considering going into retail.
“I was looking for a business, but I never anticipated that the theater would come on the market,” she said. While surfing online late one night, she found the listing. The next day, she and her husband visited the theater. Howe felt a certain serendipity. Clayton was her father’s name, and Feb. 2, the date the theater opened, is her birthday.
The couple bought the Clayton. “It was crazy,” Howe said. “We had no idea what we were getting into.” They immediately fixed the marquee, which had not been fully lighted for about 20 years. They also installed new seats.
Related story: Learn more about the Clayton Theater's history here.
Howe, her mother and her husband rotate between selling tickets and manning the concession counter. “They go out of their way to make you feel at home,” Diehl said of the staff. Joann Joachimowski of Frankford agrees. “You see the same friendly faces from show to show to show—they’re all the same,” said Joachimowski, who has been going to the theater since she was a child. Her 14- and 16-year-old daughters memorized the phone number.
Theaters Feel Pressure to Go Digital
The Clayton Theatre has kept its old fashioned charm, but technology keeps marching on. The 35mm film prints cost studios thousands to produce and ship to theaters. With digital technology, the theaters get a key code to program the projector, explains Tiffany Derrickson, vice president of Atlantic Theaters, the holding company for Movies at Midway. The complex has digital equipment in three of its 14 theaters.
Not only is a digital product more cost-efficient for the studio, but also the picture is brighter, she says. There’s no risk of scratches or tears. Movies in 3D gave the technology a boost. Derrickson, however, is not pleased with recently released 3D movies. She says the effects aren’t as spectacular as they are in films like Avatar. Plus, some families now balk at paying the extra $3 per person for a 3D film. Movies at Midway gives customers the option of seeing a film in either 2D, which is standard, or 3D.
Yet not all digital movies these days are 3D. Some independent movies are coming out on digital. Indeed, independent film producers often choose a cost-efficient route that requires special technology. Since independent films are often distributed on DVD or Blu-ray, Barry Schlecker, coordinator of the Newark Film Festival, rents equipment for all three theaters at Cinema Center 3 in Newark, which hosts the festival. The Rehoboth Beach Film Society also rents equipment for its festival, held in seven theaters at Movies at Midway.
Meanwhile, the big chains—AMC, Regal and Cinemark—have aggressively pursued the conversion. Plans call for Regal to convert up to 90 percent of its projectors by the end of 2012. Theatre N, the independent theater in downtown Wilmington, has also gone digital.
But for most independent theater owners, the cost is unnerving. “We’re not planning right now on converting any more screens, because the cost is so great,” Derrickson said. She thinks there will be a place for film for some time.
Michael Finocchiaro, co-owner of Cinema Center 3, is less sure. “If I want to stay in business, I need to go digital—that’s what I’m hearing,” he said. “It’s coming.” He plans to gather more information at ShowEast 2011, a movie conference, in October.
To help with the cost, the National Association of Theatre Owners has agreed to technical standards and a virtual print fee model, a means to finance the digital conversion. Arts Alliance Media has a similar program. NATO’s program, however, requires installation by the end of 2012.
Howe has not yet decided what she’ll do, but the trend has her worried. “I feel,” she said, “that it’s go digital or go home.”
