On the outside looking in

​I had cultivated my love and appreciation for film in Tokyo, back in the day when going to the movies was a more special and potentially life affecting experience.
Screen viewing time then was probably no more than ten percent of what it is these days. Video was only just being developed, our TV before we left Australia was a tiny black and white screen - so to watch a film was a rare and powerful experience - one of my favourite things.

So when I returned to Australia and needed to get part time work while at Art School, it dawned on me that working as a cinema usher would be an ideal job. When I presented myself at the three main cinema chains on George St., Sydney, I was curtly turned away by the front of house matrons. I didn’t know it then but being an usher or usherette was a coveted position and almost always filled by referral from an insider. Walking in off the street and asking for a spot was next to impossible. Disappointed, I applied for other jobs. Bookshops, preferably second hand, were the second choice. Then art supply shops and game centres, pool halls. Nothing manifested.

Then, in what can only be described as a moment of pure, guided by the light, inspiration that came one afternoon when I was with my brother and girlfriend in a wonderful second hand bookshop on George St., called Gould’s, I spontaneously marched into Hoyts, the largest of the chains and presented myself at the front counter. I can’t remember my exact words to the lady but I mentioned job and usher and before I could finish, she asked ‘Are you here for the interview?’

‘Yes!’, I replied.
‘Wait here a moment, please, I will let the manager, Mr. Cesaro, know that you are here.’

She came out a few minutes later from the back office and asked me to head down past the counters to the glass doors. There I was greeted by an efficient seeming gentleman in a suit who invited me in through the security doors to the back office area.

He then proceeded to interview me. I told him about art school and how I had grown up in Tokyo. Amazingly, he was very curious about Japan and asked me all sorts of questions about it and my time there, how the cinemas run, etc. I used my best storytelling skills and before long, I knew I had a captivated audience. Plus, he was a genuinely warm fellow (from an Italian immigrant family) and we connected well. I was thrilled when he then offered me the job! I started that weekend, beginning with the Friday and Saturday night shifts (the least popular as they were so busy).
Eventually, I added some weeknight shifts and even some weekend days shifts. My duties began with dressing up in the scarlet red blazer, white shirt and bow tie, with black slacks and leather shoes. Then, I would get my assigned flashlight from my locker, my essential weekly time schedule, folded four times and slipped into the top left jacket pocket. It included the start and finish times of each of the seven cinemas, over two floors with detail timings of preview and ad durations before actual showing and gap times between final credit rolls and next session.

On Saturdays and Sunday evenings, all seats were reserved and many of the cinemas were completely sold out. This meant every patron or group had to be met at the doors and lead to their exact seats. The largest cinemas, three, five and seven, held over a thousand people each. So there were as many as thirty ushers and usherettes on the floors on these nights. As the films were about to end, the large double doors would be opened and floods of patrons would flood out. I remember standing there, nodding and smiling, watching all the faces in a kind of movie scene itself. Sometimes, it would continue for ten minutes. It was mesmerising. Waiting in line, often round the corner and down the stairs, would be the group for the next session.

My other duties included, emptying the ticket stub boxes into large plastic bags and taking them to the inner offices, changing the posters on the inside and outside display cases, manning the foyer in a concierge/security guard way and finally, every Thursday evening using the five metre long special gripping pole to arrange the chunky forty centimetre black plastic letters on the marquee outside.

At two and a half years it was the longest I have ever stayed in any job. Best part was, of course, that all movies were free! Not just at Hoyts because they had reciprocal deals with the other cinema chains - so I could go to any movie, anywhere in Sydney (with a plus one) for nothing - as often as I wished. And, as you may imagine, it was often.