Welcome

One of the vintage Simplex "X-L" projectors
(now out-of-service) at the 
Weinberg Center for the Arts 
in Frederick, Maryland

Hello, everyone- and welcome to At The Matinee, a blog that is dedicated to interesting facts and information on classic/contemporary/cult film, television, music, technology, and history. 

As a student of film/video who has a keen interest in history, I am very knowledgeable in the field of classic film and film preservation.  I've had an interest in this at an early age, watching many classic features from public television, along with the “original” AMC (when it was known as American Movie Classics before the channel went belly-up in late 2002), and Turner Classic Movies.

We have witnessed many transformations in the field of cinema- from celluloid to digital, along with various home entertainment formats throughout the years.  Even though these technological breakthroughs are great contributions to cinema, nothing beats a good classic (whether it is an iconic, cult or contemporary feature).

Sadly, classic/contemporary cinema is under-appreciated and often ignored in the Frederick, Maryland area (where this blog originates from).  The multiplex theater here missed out on many opportunities to show revival screenings of classic features, and the “Crown Jewel” of the area, The Weinberg Center for the Performing Arts (which was a former movie palace- the Tivoli) has wound down their classic offerings in recent years.  Unfortunately, there are no classic film appreciation clubs (or organizations) in the area.

My inspiration for this blog came from an article that I wrote for the monthly publication, The Woodsboro Times.  A movie theater operated inside the Woodsboro Bank building from 1915 to 1953, when the rise of television broadcasting affected many single-screen theaters across the nation (A link to the article can be found here, at the bottom-half of page 15).  

Another inspiration for this blog came from when I was working as an intern for the City of Frederick and their public access channel. My final project there was to film an advertisement on the Weinberg Center's 2013-2014 season.  While my supervisor and I were doing field footage of the Weinberg, one of the fascinating aspects of this was filming the old, dusty projection booth (more on this in a future post).

I hope that this blog will not only inform, but enlighten people about interesting facts about motion pictures, audio recordings, television, and multimedia. Look out for a new entry twice-a-month, along with interesting daily entries (titled "Daily Matinee") from time to time.

I hope you will enjoy reading this blog, as much as I enjoy writing it.