The West Coast
My apologies for such a long time between Updates. The last third of the trip became hectic and demanding. The fact is it takes an hour or more to gather the material and set up one of these Updates, and in the final two weeks of the trip I just didn't have an hour to spare.
After the cluster of theaters in Southern California, ending at Industry City, I spent two days "off the road" with friends at Topanga Canyon. Not exactly time off though. I published Update #31, finished writing up the postcards, and spent many hours online researching and attempting contact with the theaters on the rest of the west coast, plus Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. I found that theaters were suddenly few and far between in the rest of California and Oregon. I did shoot at several in Central California, but several others turned out to be closed or completely gone by the time I got there. I found a wonderful old theater, Red's, in essentially original condition, at Crescent City, in the extreme northwest corner of California. I added two more moving up the east coast of Oregon. Later in the week I'll put up another Update with theaters from the remaining four states and some wrap-up details about the trip itself.
Here's a thumbnails page of the theaters north of LA up to the Washington border.
272
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$17,292
pledged of $8,800 goal
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Funding period
Mar 27, 2012 -
Apr 26, 2012
(30 days)
- First created · 2 backed
- Carl Weese 302 friends
- Website: carlweese.com
Pledge $10 or more
63 backers
A handwritten thank-you note mailed from the road, on a custom postcard with a picture from one of the project theaters.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $25 or more
59 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, plus two 5x7 color photos showing two of the most interesting theaters from this road trip.
Estimated delivery: Aug 2012Pledge $50 or more
38 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, plus a set of six 5x7" color photos showing some of the coolest theaters visited on the trip.
Estimated delivery: Aug 2012Pledge $75 or more
2 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, plus an American Drive-in Theater project 12-month calendar with color pictures from 12 of the theaters on the road trip.
Estimated delivery: Sep 2012Pledge $100 or more
40 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, the custom drive-in calendar, plus one archival exhibition quality 8x10 print from the project, and a fun souvenir from one of the theaters. (popcorn fork, refrigerator magnet? Won't know till I get there).
Estimated delivery: Sep 2012Pledge $175 or more
21 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, the custom drive-in calendar, plus one archival exhibition quality 11x14 print from the project, and a fun souvenir from one of the theaters.
Estimated delivery: Aug 2012Pledge $250 or more
0 backers
Special Reward: Are you a drive-in theater owner in the regions I’ll be traveling? You'll get an 11x14 print (color or monochrome) of your theater, the custom calendar, plus I'll do documentation of your theater in color and provide you with files you can use to update and enhance your theater’s web site.
Estimated delivery: Aug 2012Pledge $350 or more
8 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, the custom drive-in calendar, and a portfolio of six 11x14 archival exhibition quality prints from the road trip.
Estimated delivery: Sep 2012Pledge $375 or more
3 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, the drive-ins calendar, plus one contact-size monochrome archival print from a theater on the trip, on heavy cotton paper, scanned from a panoramic 7x17 inch negative, and one 11x14 inch print scanned from an 8x10 negative.
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $800 or more
0 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, and a portfolio of six 15x20 archival exhibition quality prints from the road trip.
Estimated delivery: Nov 2012Pledge $800 or more
0 backers
Special reward: are you a photography enthusiast and live in the region I’ll be traveling? You’ll get the portfolio of six 11x14s from theaters on the trip, plus meet me on the road and take a private photography workshop on view camera technique, digital capture, or both.
Estimated delivery: Sep 2012Pledge $1,300 or more
0 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, and a 22x28 inch monochrome archival exhibition print from a theater on the trip, on heavy cotton paper, scanned from an 8x10 inch negative.
Estimated delivery: Nov 2012Pledge $1,300 or more
0 backers
A handwritten thank you note postcard, plus a 16x40 inch monochrome archival print from a theater on the trip, on heavy cotton paper, scanned from a 7x17 inch negative.
Estimated delivery: Sep 2012Pledge $2,000 or more
0 backers Limited (10 of 10 left)
The handwritten thank you postcard, and one hand-made platinum/palladium contact print from one of the 8x10" photographs, and one from the 7x17" photographs, each in an edition limited to ten prints and two artist's proofs. Signed and numbered by the artist.
Estimated delivery: Nov 2012
Comments
Creator Carl Weese on July 2, 2012
Bill, regional differences seem to be the effect of demographics. Where property values are high, a drive-in theater can't occupy 15 acres of commercially zoned land. A climate that allows the theater to be open year-round helps tremendously by raising potential cash flow. But the deep south has almost no theaters except in Florida, possibly because the heat and mosquitoes make much of the year uncomfortable. Relatively modest property values coupled to a location convenient to resort or vacation areas is a huge plus. This had a predictable side effect in that it cut down on the amount of extra-curricular or "off topic" photography I got to do on the trip. Aside from the shortage of free time, I don't like to photograph in touristy areas. The kind of small towns and byways that I do like to photograph are almost never home to a drive-in theater. Basically, nobody still running a DI theater wants to stop, so venues that have enough cash flow to make the move to digital are doing so, while many small theaters with seasonal or weekend-only showings just can't come up with the money, or are looking at literally not living long enough to pay it off.
On white balance, I shoot Raw captures and WB is always the first issue I address when working on a file, before touching any of the other controls in Adobe Camera Raw. In fact, if you go to the blog The Online Photographer and search within the site on my name and "white balance" you'll find a two or three part article on the subject I published there a couple years back.
Creator William Collinson on July 2, 2012
Carl, do you see any regional trends in the drive-in theaters? By this I mean do some regions seem to be more successful than others? Do theater owners in some areas seem more keen to invest in the digital transition than others? What percentage of the drive-ins so far, if any, have made the transition to digital projection?
On a photographic note, I notice in your thumbnails that you have a lot of consistency in sky color and the overall color temperature of the images. I appreciate that you don't over correct for the daylight shift in your images, as I find myself too often introducing more warmth in my own photos than was actually present in midday photos. Do you have any specific color management workflow with your digital images or is this just the result of applying a consistent white balance setting in your capture?
It looks like your journey so far has been an epic adventure and a photographically successful one by any measure. Looking forward to more updates as your schedule allows.
Safe Travels,
Bill C., Austin TX
Creator Neil Partridge on July 2, 2012
No need to apologise..... it sounds like you've been working your socks off. The postcard arrived in the UK last week... a lovely thing to have... thanks so much for the blog posts/updates/photos... can't wait to see the finished product.