Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Correspondence with David Guss regarding theater-historical project...

Professor Guss,
I recently read a news story in that mentioned you and the historical study you engaged in with your undergraduates regarding local movie theaters. I wanted to get in contact with you to see if you'd exchange a few emails with me since I've been searching for research, studies, and other academic forays into the world of Movie Theaters. I'd like to find out more about your work and maybe ask for some leads to further pursuits.
To give you a little background about myself, I am a recent graduate of Stanford and would like to become a film exhibitor. I'm interested in all the ways I can go about building a theater and how it will best fit into a community. I'm currently working at Google (which explains the email address) in the product support division of AdSense (one our advertising products). I'd love to give you more information on my background on thoughts if you're interested, but I wanted to first make sure you’d have time, etc to chat with me :)
I appreciate your taking the time to entertain my interest and read my note. I look forward to hearing back from you, and appreciate any information you can give me about your research, and findings. I wish you the best of luck on this and any other work you're involved in.
Sincerely,
Ben Trevino


Dear Ben,
Thanks for your note. The best place to start in relation to the multiyear project I undertook in documenting the history of Somerville's 14 movie theatres is my website: LostTheatres.org. It will give you a good sense of the orientation and what we were trying to accomplish. Beyond that, certainly feel free to ask me any questsions you might have. Cinema Treasures is also an excellent site for researching older theatres. I don't know where you are located but the idea of opening/reviving/restoring a neighborhood theatre is an excellent one. Many in this and other areas are doing extremely well as they have either become non-profits and/or multi-use sites doing a lot more than simply showing films.
good luck,
David Guss