The Cavalier daily :: Tuesday, February 20, 1973 :: University of Virginia Library

His love for films began
three years ago when he got a
job as projectionist for the
Film Watchers Club and the
University Union Film Series.
Now, Henry almost
singlehandedly runs the
University Union Film Series
and deserves much of the
credit for turning it into the
huge success that it has been
this year.

"My parents were upset
that I had been involved in the
student strike in 1969 and I
had to get a job. I started
showing films for the Film
Watchers Club and I was soon
showing 20 hours of films a
week."

Henry has very definite
ideas about the way to run a
film series and when offered
the opportunity of
coordinating the Union's
series with Paul Diaz he took
the job with the understanding
that it would be run their way.

"The reason that the
Union's film series lost money
last year was because of lack of
planning. This year we have
become penny watchers, but if
we judge the pulse of the
University correctly, people
like our films."

As any business man knows,
you have to spend money to
make money. This, and hours
of planning, seem to be the key
to the success of this year's
Union film series.

"We first decided that we
wouldn't book any bad films
or cheap films that would still
make money. We were willing
to spend the extra couple
hundred dollars to get a good
film that students would come
to see."

"People last year didn't
worry about a $10 loss at the
door for showing a film. What
they didn't realize is if they
show 70 films a year, as we are
doing now, that's a $700 loss.
And they didn't realize that if
they made a profit at the door
it didn't automatically mean a
gross profit."

As part of the change of
image the Union had a film
poster printed for the first
time. But the biggest change
for the Union's image was the
quality of the films they
booked for the first semester.
Spending more money for
better films but the Union in a
perilous position if the idea
didn't catch with the student
body.

"We really put our necks on
the line," Henry says, "and we
were really scared when we lost
about $700 for the first two
films this year. We had visions
of being crucified in front of
the Rotunda."

Crossbooking

But the risky booking paid
off when the students realized
the quality films they were
being offered for $.75 and the
word spread.

While there are currently
five groups running film series
at the University and there are
films for film buffs almost
every night of the week, this
presents tremendous problems
for booking the films and
avoiding crossbookings with
other groups.

Crossbooking can really be
a problem, considering the fact
that Henry plans to book
$10,000 worth of films in June
for the semester beginning next
September.

"You feel that: 'If I do all
my work right then everything
will turn out all right,'" Henry
explains, "and then someone
comes in and crossbooks you
after you've already ordered
your films. The wild card
groups are especially bad, the
groups that only show two or
three films a year and end up
crossbooking you. They throw

Burrus:

$700 Scare

a wrench in the machinery all
across the board."

However, there is an
element of excitement when
Henry gets together with his
co-chairman Paul to plan
booking. This year the films
were divided between what
Henry calls the "director films
on Sundays and the
entertainment films on
Thursdays."

The idea is to get the "hot"
films booked first, the films
that have just passed the one
year time lag from public
release to re-release in 16mm
to groups like the Union's film
series.

From there, Henry's love
for films causes these to be
explosive sessions as he toys
with all kinds of ideas for
booking films.

His ideas run the gamut, as
he suggested: "We thought
about getting My Fair Lady
just to see what kind of
response we would get. We also
threw out the idea of booking
a really hard core porn film,
but in the end we decided to
stick with what type films we
knew had been successful and
rejected these ideas."

"I really love the director
films," Henry quips, "and Paul
has to be a sounding board or a
sort of governor to keep me
from booking marathon Fellini
flicks."

'Tango'

Henry can't resist his
amusing anecdotes and
personal ideas about films.
Reflecting on the paranoia of
the man in the projection
booth, he says:

"Projectionists become
hyper-sensitive about not
having anything go wrong with
their changeovers. But the
tension of doing it well all the
time gets to you, like the time
I was concentrating on the
changeover and loaded a reel
from a different film on the
projector and didn't realize it
until I saw it on the screen."

Side tracking again, Henry
goes on: "Films are coming
closer and closer to being
released in 16mm at the same
time as they are being released
for the public theaters in
35mm. We might be able to get
Brando's Last Tango in Paris as
early as Spring of next year.

Taking his views on films in
general, he describes them this
way:

"For me, film is more than
art because it is too versatile.
We can't define film as art in
the traditional sense, such as
painting, because it is a moving
medium. Maybe when
traditional art is defined to
encompass movement such as

(Continued on page 6)