“They claim that the digital conversion has a lot to do with piracy. It is a lot different, don’t get me wrong – the picture is crisper, it’s sharper – but as far as the piracy goes, piracy mostly happens when people are taking video of the film off the screen,” he said. “And I can tell you, from my own private investigation, that the film piracy doesn’t start here; it doesn’t start that much in our own country. It starts in China, it starts in Russia.”
The conversion, though, isn’t just a nuisance or a shot in the gut for 35mm aficionados. For small cinemas and drive-ins everywhere, it could very well be the death knell.
Barry Horowitz has been running the Drive-In, he said, for 50 years, and is a co-owner of the Hyde Park-Drive In as well as the Overlook Drive-In. The Hyde Park Drive-In was originally his wife’s father’s business, started in 1949.
He’s completely on board with the digital upgrade. “I think the projectors are great, so long as we get the business to pay for them,” said Horowitz. “They’re a hundred percent better than it was before with 35mm. The picture’s better, the sound quality is higher. We threw our old projectors into the dump.” He is, however, in tune with the harsh economic reality of such upgrades, and the fact that there really isn’t much a choice in the matter. “You buy,” said Horowitz of the projectors, “or you’re out of business.”
And it’s not an easy buy to make. Horowitz said that each projector cost about $80,000 to acquire and install. A financial hit like that has the potential to – and most likely will – force a swath of small family-owned drive-ins to close up shop. It’s an unfair, unwelcome situation for the remaining drive-ins, of which there are now fewer than 400 in the US. But the reality is simple: Business has no time for nostalgia.
It won’t just be drive-ins affected by the move, either. While regular cinemas tend to be on more stable financial ground than drive-in theaters, because they can stay open year-round and can show a variety of movies instead of a weekly rotation of double features, they will be replacing anywhere from four to dozens of cameras. Smaller theaters that don’t have the cash for a fleet of new projectors will be caught up in the digital storm, too.
As it turns out, 2013 stands to be a cataclysmic year for the cinema business. “It’s going to affect theaters and drive-ins everywhere,” said Horowitz.
But the buy has been made, the films have been rolling and the specter of the costly update is behind the Hyde Park Drive-In. The focus, once again, is on providing an enjoyable experience for those who don’t want to be cooped up in a dark theater.
Friends Robert Reinhardt, 11, and Chris Ieva, 11, are two of those people. It’s too dark to see the football that they’re chucking back and forth, but they’re playing catch anyway – at least trying to, just like they have for the past half-hour. “I come here all the time, I love it here,” said Reinhardt. “You can run around and do stuff.” He notes excitedly that he even got poison ivy from playing too close to the screen once.
It’s Ieva’s first time. “It’s really cool. I’m excited,” he said.
Smith may not be in love with the new projectors, but he loves everything else about the experience. He said that it’s the best place to take the family, to take friends, to take a date for the evening; that the air is fresh, the night is cool, the food is fried and delicious and that it, frankly, is the best deal in town at two movies for $9. “Really, it’s the only way to watch a movie,” Smith said.
Hyde Park Drive-In, 4114 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park; all week, 8 p.m., $9/adults, $5/kids 6-11, free/kids 5-; https://hydeparkdrivein.com.
