DP70 Head Serial # 806 - History Questions

[Henry Atkinson]

Some background:
I'm a projectionist here at WPI, and at present, we have 3 DP70 heads. I'm currently trying to document the history of our machines, and have come across some discrepancies I'm hoping the wealth of knowledge here may have some insight into. The serial numbers we have, as I was told, and as in70mm.com records, are numbers 803, 806, and 873, however, I have started to come upon some information that raises questions as to the accuracy of that with regard to 803. Further, our internal records conflict with the history of 806 I've been able to find elsewhere.

The history of our machines as I understand it:
Head serial number 873 is in our booth, and assembled as our 1st projector. It is on a pedestal with serial number 59-103, which aligns what in70mm notes. This projector was donated by National Amusements in 1989. The head with a mystery serial number is presently installed on our 2nd machine. The history with it, as we understand, is that it was donated to us by National Amusements at the same time as 873, and when our 2nd projector suffered a sheared driveshaft in 2014. At this point, head 806 was sourced from the James Bond theater in Chicago for spares. We have internal documentation claiming that a head swap of our 2nd machine occurred in 2014 (though at this point, unless the serial plates were swapped without damaging the rivets, that seems highly unlikely). The head presently on the 2nd machine has rivets for a serial plate, but no serial plate. This machine, I had been told, has head 803 on it, though I cannot find any reference to 803 anywhere in our documentation, or on the head presently installed on the 2nd projector. Further, in70mm records that a DP70 with head serial number 803 is also present at Bahía Blanca in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The only other serial number I can find mention of in our documentation is 808. We have a manual with "EL4000 Serial 808" penciled very lightly onto the cover. Obviously this manual could have come from anywhere, however, it begs the question: is our mystery head actually 808 and not 803, and that number was misread off of the manual? The database on in70mm.com does not list an 808 anywhere, and I fully believe it is more likely that we made a clerical error at some point than it is that this is the only 0800-series DP70 serial number duplication on record.

Mark Guldbrandsen gave the following history of head 806 to in70mm.com in 2016: "Actually 806 has a way more colored history than just being bought by James Bond. It went from BL&S to Sam Chavez in CA., to Paul Mundt in El Cerrito CA (They shared the same shop there) to Myself in St. Charles, Illinois via Paul Mundt and then several years later to James Bond. 806 has a blue plexi door, only one I;ve seen like this and it was used at the Cinema Borealis Outdoor Screening in Grant Park Chicago to run Days Of Heaven and 2001 A Space Odyssey."

We have this light blue-windowed door in storage as well, and I'm assuming we got it when we got 806 in 2014. I'm inclined to believe this history, however it raises further questions about what head is presently on our 2nd machine, and whether or not the head was actually swapped in 2014 (I at this point don't believe that it was given the serial plate situation).

The Questions Raised:
I'm interested to hear insight as to the 803, 808, or something else situation, as well as if anyone here knows more about the history of 806 so that we can piece together a better timeline of where it was between 1989 and 2014. Further, if anyone has more information about the DP70s operated at National Amusements in Worcester MA, that would be fantastic, as it would likely answer the question of what our mystery head is.

Some relevant photos:

Serial806.jpgSerial plate 806, in storage, mostly dismantled

Serial873.jpg
Serial plate 873, installed on our 1st projector in the booth (note "Holland" which, of our three heads is only present on this one)

in70mm-Borealis-Booth.jpg
in70mm-Borealis.jpg
If 806 was in fact used for the Borealis outdoor screening, here it is running that. (James Bond via in70mm.com)

Edit: Fixing some formatting errors, editor did some wacky hyperlink stuff + embedded images

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Yes, that's 806. I was the one that ran the shows those three nights. For Ran, which played on Friday night, we used a 35mm XL with a high speed movement. Also note that 806 was originally installed in a down town Boston Road Show theater, the name I can not remember. So it's now made it full circle, which is pretty cool...

[Henry Atkinson]

Thanks so much for the info! Borealis sounds like it was a pretty wild setup. I'm assuming James Bond just had it in storage between Borealis and when it was sold in 2014? Regardless, it definitely has a pretty wild story. I was aware that 806's original installation was in Boston, so its definitely been around, and being back in MA, its not too far from where it started its life.

[Kyle Mikolajczyk]

Yeah Henry the head was swapped in 2014, the head projectionist at the time told me about it and showed me photos of the head swap. It was pretty wild, used some L-16's to hoist the head off and on. I'll ask her for some photos to share. As for where the heads came from from National Amusements, the DP70s were installed at the Showcase Cinema that was in downtown Worcester (I believe that was the location). They were closing the theater I believe and decided to donate the DP70s as a tax write off. The proof of "purchase" from National Amusements (which still own's Showcase Cinemas) is somewhere in the projection booth, I have seen it). in70mm.com is doing a page on Worcester at some point, so if you want for that I believe he has already been doing most of the research for what you want. The projectors have seen some amazing films back in the day, Professor Moriarty at WPI (who recently left) would tell me about the movies he saw on those projectors back when the old cinema existed.

[Henry Atkinson]

I'd seen the mention of the head swap (and a note that it was photographed by "Dan," no info beyond that) in the booth maintenance log, as well as the mention of L-16s. I couldn't find the photos everywhere, and after seeing the serial plates, I assumed it just hadn't actually happened. I'd love to see the photos if you're able to get them. While you're at it, could you ask if they swapped the serial plates?

As for the National Amusements situation, thats pretty neat. I've seen the donation document, unfortunately there are no serial numbers listed in it. I knew Moriarty was around for a lot of our film stuff, though I didn't know he was that involved! I'd love to get in contact with in70mm.com if any documentation or insight we have would be useful to their Worcester page.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Thanks so much for the info! Borealis sounds like it was a pretty wild setup. I'm assuming James Bond just had it in storage between Borealis and when it was sold in 2014? Regardless, it definitely has a pretty wild story. I was aware that 806's original installation was in Boston, so its definitely been around, and being back in MA, its not too far from where it started its life.

I wouldn't call it wild, it actually went really well with no glitches at all... well the street lights were annoying and Jim tried to deal with those. It rained for a part of 2001... people sat in the rain and watched it anyway. We had high rise apartments about 300 to 400 yards north of us that we were rattling the windows in (unknowingly) with the ten Servo Drive subwoofers, and people living in the apartments came down and complained. I've been thinking about where 806 came from and I believe it may have been the Mayflower Theater, which in itself has an interesting history. It ran movies, then Porn, sort of paralleling the life span of Todds Cinestage Theater in Chicago. Full set of pictures in the Warehouse. BTW, the High Speed XL we used Friday night put out one heck of an incredible image as compared to a regular XL. Super bright and extremely steady.

[Henry Atkinson]

I wouldn't call it wild, it actually went really well with no glitches at all... well the street lights were annoying and Jim tried to deal with those. It rained for a part of 2001... people sat in the rain and watched it anyway. We had high rise apartments about 300 to 400 yards north of us that we were rattling the windows in (unknowingly) with the ten Servo Drive subwoofers, and people living in the apartments came down and complained. I've been thinking about where 806 came from and I believe it may have been the Mayflower Theater, which in itself has an interesting history. It ran movies, then Porn, sort of paralleling the life span of Todds Cinestage Theater in Chicago. Full set of pictures in the Warehouse. BTW, the High Speed XL we used Friday night put out one heck of an incredible image as compared to a regular XL. Super bright and extremely steady.

I didn't mean to imply glitches by wild, just that it sounds like a lot of fun. Just got a chance to look through all the pics at the warehouse, and it looks pretty impressive. We do digital movies outdoors over here not infrequently, and have of late been trying to get one of our carbon arc Simplex Regulars going to run 35mm previews at those events to (we almost had it run this April, it was working fine during some test runs, but it was so cold the night of the movie that the projector was too stiff and the old worn-out driveshaft coupler was slipping as the oil in the head went thick). I hadn't known about the history of the Mayflower Theater, but it does seem like that's where 806 came from initially. Pretty cool to know. If 806 (or the mystery head with the 806 serial plate, at this point I'm even more confused since there seems now to be evidence of the head swap) hadn't been picked over for parts over the last ~decade I'd be a lot more interesting in bodging something together for outdoor showings with it, but at present all thats really left in it is the vertical shaft...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I didn't mean to imply glitches by wild, just that it sounds like a lot of fun. Just got a chance to look through all the pics at the warehouse, and it looks pretty impressive. I hadn't known about the history of the Mayflower Theater, but it does seem like that's where 806 came from initially. Pretty cool to know. If 806 (or the mystery head with the 806 serial plate, at this point I'm even more confused since there seems now to be evidence of the head swap) hadn't been picked over for parts over the last ~decade I'd be a lot more interesting in bodging something together for outdoor showings with it, but at present all thats really left in it is the vertical shaft...

Back when Charlie Wolk and LaVezzi were both still making film parts... and I was working at Claco Equipment in Salt Lake City, we refurbished a lot of DP-70's for two different customers. Plus there were about 20 that were already living in plexes that I had to maintain. Parts were getting difficult to procure, or just rediculousy expensive. So we had Wolk make gate runners, bands, and pad rollers. LaVezzi made us 35mm only VKF sprockets. None of these machines ran 70mm at these locations. Since most locations ran 12 to 14 hours a day, I also switched all the DP-70's over to running LaVezzi synthetic oil so we only had to change oil and clean the filter twice a year. All projectors got BACP reverse scan analog readers. One site that was a 12 Plex had direct drive variable speed motors that would auto-jog to the thread position. We did that after one booth monkey decided to force open the gate while a projector was running.

So, which State had the most DP-70's? Wyoming at 25...

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Yeah Henry the head was swapped in 2014, the head projectionist at the time told me about it and showed me photos of the head swap. It was pretty wild, used some L-16's to hoist the head off and on.

No need for hoists to swap DP-70 heads! Just remove everything off the head... motor, lens mount, rear door, and both sound reproducers. You only need four strong guys. Same for the upper and lower base. Believe it or not, it even says this in the assembly part of the DP-70 manual. There are 70mm heads that you do need a hoist for because the heads are smaller and there isn't room for four people around them. Those include the VIC-10, and the Bauer U-2, possibly some others I'm not familiar with. I moved a 2000 pound Imax clone projector and platter system out of a booth into an adjoining storage room once by myself using only 1 ton machinery moving skates and a small hydraulic jack. It was actually pretty easy to move on those skates. Same for the platter, although it required six skates.

[Sam Chavez]

The analog readers were a collaboration between Claco, BACP, and USL. I originally did one reader prototype on an AA head and took it to Showest. Mostly as a promotional item, thinking people would appreciate the effort on this classic projector. Thought at most, I'd sell a handful. Ended up making and selling over 250. A lot were for FP5/56 series which used the same soundhead parts as DP70.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Here are a few images from the DP-70 rebuilds...

[Henry Atkinson]

I've figured a few more things out, and wanted to ask a few follow-up questions about 806. From what I understand presently, the heads were swapped in 2014, and the head that was removed was 806. I unfortunately only have 1 picture of our 2nd projector pre-swap, and it very clearly does not have the reinforcement plate over the shutter that the current head has. Further, the paint wear around the lower edge of the head where the door meets it matches what 806 presently looks like in storage. Further, I have a photo from 2012 where the light blue tinted door window is pretty clearly visible. I also am now aware that we ran a handful of 70mm showings prior to 2014 (one as early as 1997), and our 2 swap kits have the serial plates for 873 and 806. All signs point to us having had 806 since 1988...

Which raises the question, where did 806 go after Borealis? We have letters stating that 2 DP70s were donated to us in 1988 by National Amusements in Worcester MA, and it feels a bit weird to me that they would acquire 806 and then immediately donate it to us. What is even more perplexing here is that I know that our replacement head from 2014 (the one without the serial number) came from James Bond in Chicago... which is where 806 was. The timelines don't line up though.

Can anyone say for certain where 806 went after Borealis? And if anyone was around James Bond in 2014, do you remember selling a head to WPI, and if so, any chance you documented the serial number somewhere?

pres-806.png
Presumably 806, lack of reinforcement plate over shutter which our current head has, 2012

806-blue.png
Blue tinted door visible on the left, 2012

mystery-head.png
Mystery head, note reinforcement plate on top of shutter. If relevant, door is tinted a medium green.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

It either went to Essaness, whom had a large rental place in town... They also made the change overs there... Or it went to the Loft James was living in. You could also still contact him at Full Aperture Systems and see if he remembers the route it followed for it to end up at your place. He should remember where it landed after Borealis if nothing else.

[John Eickhof]

man...that lensholder makes the integrated anamorphic look like a small camera viewfinder lens!! Its sad that Randy never set up for 70mm! he had a few screens worthy of it!

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I think he ran one or two 70mm prints John. He mentioned running something, but I have long forgotten what it was.