Day 123

123/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

Today was the opening of the new theater on campus, the Pollock Theater. The class I'm a TA for happened to be the first class to ever get to use it, and our guest was Tom Pollock himself, so it was pretty cool.  

Just a few stats to get us started:
-300 seats
-Michael Douglas Lobby
-Best Surround Sound out of any theater in Santa Barbara (including commercial theaters)
-Home to both a 2K and a 4K projector (4x the quality of a HD TV!)
-Home of UCSB's first sound stage
-Part of a $101 million complex that includes the new home of the film department


Basically, we have the most technologically advanced movie theater in the Santa Barbara area on campus. We watched two clips during class, one from Up in the Air and one from Field of Dreams, and it was so crystal clear I almost cried. Because Tom Pollock (who donated what I can only imagine was a crap ton of money to get the theater built and his name on the outside) was our first guest, things were a little tense. In the end, the event went off without a hitch and was actually really fun.


As far as guests go, though, Tom wasn't the best I've ever seen. He was charming, insightful, and humble, but he wasn't very engaging. Or maybe I just wasn't very engaged. The most powerful thing, for me, was talking to one of my professors, Dr. Wolfe. Wolfe is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is a respected film historian, incredibly intelligent, and knows more about film than I will ever pretend to know. When he walked in, he walked right to the top row of the theater and sat in the middle seat. Part of my job that night was to make sure the front seats were filled before the back ones were occupied, so I went up to ask him if he wouldn't mind moving. When I asked him, he politely responded with, "You know, Aaron, my first meeting about this building was in 1994. It took me 16 years of work to make this place a reality. Would you mind if I sat back here and just kind of enjoyed things tonight?" Of course, I walked away feeling like a jerk for saying anything, but the whole time Pollock was talking, I couldn't stop thinking about how cool it must have been for Dr. Wolfe to see all his hard work pay off.