This could give me for our podcast. What up? I'm Jizzo. That is John Magic, and we are back. Apparently we're I mean not to toot our own horn, but we we are sort of like the talk of the town right now. And the reason why I say that is because I was DJing a club and this random person came up to me and was like, I love your podcast. I was like, well, I don't know who you are, but I appreciate it. And then something happened to you at the gym, right Yeah. I saw some dude at the gym.
I wasn't sure, like I didn't know him, and he came up to me and he was like, hey, man, I've been enjoyed the podcast. All the things that you guys have been talking about with Fresno. It like takes me back. So man, we appreciate everybody tuning in to us, and we're gonna keep this rolling with more guests. Yeah, and we got another special one today. He's become a good friend. But he we kind of met him through where he works at Ladies and Gentlemen. He's the
general manager of Maya Cinema, Fresno sixteen. Andy Bolanos, did I say that your last name, right, that's right, yeah, Bolanos. Okay, all right, so let's just go ahead and dive into it. We usually like to get people familiar with our guests at first. But you actually are not from Fresno. Yeah, that's usually our first question is are you from the valley? Yeah? No, I'm not from Fresno. I originally
grew up in La San Fernando Valley to be more specific. So I didn't move out here to like twenty fourteen, fifteen and the childhood I mean, oh to what old were how old were you around that age when you moved out here? I was probably like what twenty five, twenty four and what year was this because this was like just I would say, like twenty fourteen, like right when the theater was opening up. Okay, you know I moved down here in two thousand two, No, no, two thousand and
three, I think, And it was because of the job. Did was that you? Reason? Is moving to Fresno for a job? Was the reason you came down here? Yeah? So originally I started off in Maya Cinema's Bakersfield. So they had a cinema over there, so I started working there. So like I said originally from La. My wife at the time was pregnant, so you know, I was back and forth visiting her on weekends, just in Bakersfield, and she was telling me they're opening this new
theater. Because I had theater experience, so I went over there and kind of applied on a Friday, and they told me like, hey, you know, do you want to be part of the crew. It starts on Tuesday. They were just opening up. This is the Bakersfield one. This is a Bakersfield Maya. Yeah, so they were just opening up. They
had no experience or nothing like that. But before going into that, like I started in the theater industry in LA when I was growing up in LA, I won't start working for a movie theater there doing like just those regular like kid jobs. Yeah. Yeah, so let's start there. Is that when you first got into the movie theater industry, was it? Were you like one of those ticket ripper guys or like, how does that? So? At first, you know, like I said, from the San Fernando
Valley, So there was a movie theater. I don't know if you guys remember it used to be called Pacific Theater. So it doesn't really exist no more. But it's Pacific Theater. So I was just a movie going here. I was a young kid. It was in the galley of the mall, so it was a cool place to go check out, you know, hang out. And then some of my friends started working there, so then I tried to get in there, you know. So we got in there.
Yeah, And I started off just level ground. I was doing box office concessions, greeter cleaning theaters, so I started from the very bottom, so just doing all that experience. So when you get a job like that, it's one of those things where they if you're a first hire, they say these are you're gonna do all of it, like the bottom right,
Yeah, yeah, you kind of just do whatever they think. Like there was no system, I would think back then, it was just kind of like, all right, let me put them over here, see what he could do. Let me put them over there, see what he could do. Can someone requests I just want to do concessions, They would you could request it, but they're not gonna care, you know, put you back there and make you do it regardless, So I might as well just do. I mean, those areas that I didn't like, but I had to
do it. You know. So now, was this a situation where you just like eventually moved your way up in the movie theater industry or like how did that work? Yeah? So at first, like I was ground level, like I was saying, you know, like just different experiences and I think, you know, we'll get to that later. But that kind of
moved me into the person I am today. I dealt with a lot of bad management or bad coworkers and just experience everything, man, like you know, like we said, you know, this could give me far Like back in the day, bro, we were figuring we could give out things to our friends, let people sneak in, you know, and do that kind of stuff. But then as I grew more into that career, I was like, you know what I want to do more, like I want to
experience more. So the next step for me on that was going into the projection film the booth. And back then it was thirty five millimeter, so you used to say, this is like the real, the real, right, yeah, real, the real film. You used to have to splice it. It would come in parts. What, yeah, you need trailers, you need like things like that. So when I first asked, I asked, hey, can I do that, and they took me up and I saw the room. I said, there mine, get me out of
here. Like it looked too much. I didn't know. It's like a running car hoping because there's there's belts a lot of instruments that go into the projectors that it was very scary to like intimidate, I'm gonna be in charge of this, like anyway, like get me out of here real quick. You you know, we talked about real to real because when I was in radio college, we learned that where you could edit actual tape using razors and then tape to tape the edit is that so you guys were learning that So
I didn't know that. I didn't I thought it came edited already with the pre trailers and all that stuff. Yes, So did you have to do that when you would put trailers back to back too as well? I kind of splice them together be smaller trailers, so it'll be a small pack of film, huh. And you would have to unwrap it and it comes labeled. They'll come like I remember, like Harry Potter, you know, and this and that and then and it comes with a little thing that they call
trash. So it's a countdown that goes from ten to one. Yeah, and that one you know you have to cut it. Yeah, and then at the end of it, it's the same thing ten to one. You know, you have to cut that and slice the next pieces together. So you know how what we so in radio we use tape? Was it using the same It was called like masking tape. It was called yeah, masking tape, and it was it looks like a regular piece of scotch tape, but it was a lot thicker. And of course it's like proof to like
you know, not rip and not do things like that. So it will be very very long to like put a movie together. So she is that something that you have to like catch or it's already like pre done before it's rolling, Like like say you had like a longer movie and it's like two things of film? Is that something? Like? How how does that work? So let me give you an examples, because I remember like Grindhouse Avatar
being one of the longest movies. Spider Man, it'll come in nine pieces, so I'll say this is piece one, this is peace two, this is piece three, and piece them together. So yeah, you have to piece them together out the box and sometimes they'll come backwards and sometimes they'll come forward, so we needed a table to like fix it and make sure they're all forward. So this is kind of where I learned, like all that, and like you guys all say in your industry, I learned by making
mistakes, like I put movies backwards, I put the sound. I was just like, it was not no teaching, like you kind of just had to learn on the job. Learn on the job. The guy before you that was been working there for years is teaching you. So let me tell you something about that. That's funny. So the first day that I got into the projection, the guy was showing me, you know, he was showing me a full like how it's called threading, so how do you put
it through the film? And he was like, hey man, you know what, there's nothing against you, but I'm gonna go down. Isn't quit? Whoa yeah? And I was like, well, all right, you know, I didn't know nothing, so I'm like, all right, go ahead. This is a guy that was teaching me. He was training me. So he's like, I'm gonna quit. And I was like, all right, all right, you know, I don't know what to say, so he left and quit. The manager came back and he's like, hey,
so do you know how to do this? And I was like he literally showed me like maybe one or two or three. You know, yeah, I don't know what I'm doing. So he's just like, all right, I'll do these next two and then you do the ones after that. So take your time because now that you see the start times, it's just digital starts. They just start on their own. But back then, the
start times mean we have to start it. So the movie starts at ten where they're starting at manually, man t I have to make sure the film is ready and ready to go. So he kind of gave me like a forty minute head start, right, So then I was like, all right, cool, So I go to the start like a couple of movies that he did. Cool, no problem, you know this, and that I
start mine like the projector's not rolling, it's not going. I don't know what's happening films for on the ground, bro, I think everything that you can think of, I started the wrong movies. So back in the day, like if you guys remember, they used to be like cigarette marks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what was that? So that lets you know that the real is changing. So when is real to real? Yeah, you have to be there watching the film and watch that spotlight unless you know
you got ten seconds. So once you see it, yeah, I'm starting the next machine with the next piece, So time it. You gotta time it to you don't know what's happening. Yeah, Also I thought it was I thought it was all taped together to make one thing both, so it is taped together so one time. Most movies are taped together. But there's other movies that you can't cut because if you cut that film, that's the
only film they have to make another movie. So like, for instance, we had Scarface Gone with the Wind that we had to do real to real because it's not allowed to be cut. Or if it's like a one time premiere or like a premiere that's not cut yet, you'll put it on the real to reel. So that's how I was working. So you have to be trained like you would do it with the practice tape, like I was telling you guys before a countdown, and you will flip it and if you
see a number, you did it wrong. So the movie should just continue to just continue like you don't know it was there back in the day, that's what. That was a sign that that real was changing. So it was going to the next rend real quick. If you watch the fight Club, the movie fight Club, there's a scene where Brad Pitt's character, you know, how they talk to the camera that movie where he explains that exact thing that burd Mark. So if you guys watch Fight Club, you'll see
a scene what you were just talking about. Yeah. So even now, when you see old school movies and you kind of see like the lines and like it list kind of grimy, it's because that it got transferred over. It got transferred over. People's fingerprints dust in there. Like you have to have a real clean because when they remake that movie using that same film, it's going to reflect on there. So that's why old school movies you see
that stuff on there. That's a good point. So I want to talk about because I know before you you told me about I don't know if it's the same theater, but you would deal with like premieres and stuff. Right. Where was that at? Yeah, so I was going back into going working for Pacific Theater. So this is an interesting story. So we got bought out by what was called ArcLight Cinemas. You know the dome in La
right. Yeah, when ArcLight came out when you know this theater, it was the High Sex Super Nice Theater at the time, so everyone wanted to go to arc Light. Literally it was top seven in the world. Wow. So they got bought out the Pacific Theater because I worked at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, So it got bought out by arc Light. This isn't Sherman Oaks. This kind of saying like Clovis and maybe like you know, going down to Selma or something, you know, so it's a little bit of
distance. So they got bought out. And we had probably like sixty seventy employees and they only ended up keeping ten. And I was one of those ten. Like I don't know why, maybe because they knew I knew how to by that time, I was good that what I was doing, so I knew what I was doing, so they kept me and like, yeah, you know you're doing the booth. Cool, you could do the booth
again. And that was with management staff. Maybe they kept one manager a few and I don't even know how they evaluated us, but you know they kept ten. Why the cut of the employees numbers. Why from seventy to ten. I think, to be honest, they had a certain standard they were looking for. Because when I went to Hollywood, so like I said, it was purchasing Sherman Oaks, I had to go to the La Arc Light to train, and it was just a different atmosphere. Like for us
it was chill, easy going college you know, high school kids. You go over there, it was grown ups a little bit more dull, more serious. So I don't know that's what they were looking at, but I stopped. I stopped messing around. Like when I was doing projection, I was taking that serious because you're doing that for people coming in. You know, you can't have a movie look bad, yeah, and all that because that's on you. And they're checking it after two So after you run it,
they would check it to see if it was scratched. So if it was scratched, they were not you would get in trouble. So there was a lot of accountability being up there. So that's I don't know why they make that change, but that's what it was. So we ended up going to La to train at the Arc line. Back to Giso's question about the premiere. Yeah, so you had premiere like that, So that's where I
was getting to So was there. So that's where I got my film school really because right there they made you go to the actual film school in Los Angeles because you couldn't get into the booth unless you reunion. So there was a lot of older guys there that they didn't really like like like me or allow me in because they had their group. You know, was this guy. But anyways, you know, it was kind of part of the deal. But we did a lot of the Transformers, Spider Man, I remember
me, Shila Above, Sylvester Stallone, Toby Maguire. So, like you were saying, in the dome, if you remember on Sunset, that dome fit a thousand people, so so people, that's where all the premiers used to be, so we used to run. I used to run that dome. So that was the first time I saw digital. So there was digital, but there was also film. So the digital will be running, but the film was running like five minutes behind that. In case that failed,
the film is still there. So that was the first time I got introduced to like digital. But that's where I met a lot of celebrities, A lot of red carpet and I got to know them and got to see how they act, you know, Britney Spears and just to Timplate they were dating back then during that time. Yeah, so we had to bring them in the underground parking through the elevator, just a lot of people. So on a premiere not like that when you have like all these industry people and actors
and stuff like that, like what are you doing that day? Are you just operating like a normal day? Is it like different? And they tell you like don't talk to nobody or that's the thing. I used to get nervous because I was like, oh damn, this theater is full, and like if I mess up, like man, this is going to be embarrassing. But then I started learning like it's the same process whether there's a thousand people in there or two people in there. Yeah. But I was just
mind my business. I'm just in the booth doing my thing. I'm not even at the red carpet. I'm just doing my stuff. And then you know, Sylvester Stallone will come up, you know, Toby Maguire would come up and just come talk to me. They want to see the film that I was just gonna yeah, I was gonna say that because sometimes I've seen footage of these actors wanting to see the the process. The process. Yeah, and I think, like what you were saying, digital was new at
that time, right, so I think maybe that's another thing. They wanted to see the new technology. Oh okay, that's fair. How old were you at this point? I think at this point I was like twenty one. Oh man, twenty you were a youngster, That's what I'm saying. The people that were working that stuff were forty thirty, so they were kind of upset that I was running that, but it was just in preparation for me to go back to the other cinema and do what I had to do
over there. But yeah, they would come shake my hand and kind of ask me questions, and I was just like I was just used to, like, you know, treating them regular. You know, you don't know, there's a capito, I think I was telling you. And he was just real quick, like very nice, but like, hey, let me get to where I need to go to and let me do my thing and cool man, and too bad there is no sore during that time. Yeah, man, that's man. The pictures you would have had, and you
don't even think about it. Like as I work and they took they did tell you that, like, hey, you know, don't bother them this, But I didn't even think about it because I remember I was in the elevator one time with the game Rapper and he was just talking to me, and he was just like this and that, you know, and he's like I want a picture or something. I'm like, oh no, man, I'm like, I just don't want to bother you. Just go ahead about
your day, Like, do you you know that's fair. I was asking about his age because you know, Gizo went to college specifically to intern here. You know, I went to school specifically to be in radio. You're already twenty one. You've been working in the movie theater industry for a few years now. Were you when did it click to you that you wanted to this was going to be your career or was this just a job to you that, Oh, when I find my career, I'm gonna move on.
I get turned into a career. Yeah. I guess it kind of just came with like having fun at the job, you know, I experience, Yeah, for sure, Yeah, I could probably go somewhere else and get paid something else. But it was about the experience and what I was the joy I had from like putting that film and pressing play and knowing that, man, you know what, I'm controlling this whole ties. So you're like starting the entertainment for people. You know what I'm saying, You're the host
of venue. Speaking of which, let's fast forward to Maya Cinemas. How did that gig start for you? Because you started at Maya before you came to Fresno, right, Yeah, so I started there, Like I said, you know, once I left the Arc Live Cinemas, I actually worked for Dish Network for two years. Okay, wait, why did you leave Arc Light? So I left arc Light because of the Dish Network experience.
So once I went back, So once after that training in Hollywood in La I went back to the opening of Sherman Oaks, and it was just a different, different atmosphere. Like I was mentioning, it wasn't the same vibe. It was like so serious, it was so like it wasn't fun anymore. So that's why it was like you just like that's the biggest reason why
I'm here is Yeah. I was like it's not fun no more. Most of my friends that I had left, and like I said, I did go to the film school, so I didn't know I had that knowledge, and I just felt like I wasn't receiving the respect that I should. So most of my friends went to Dish Network. So then I was like, well, let me go do that. Go doing be an installer over there.
And I was doing and I was doing that. But then, like I said, my wife at the time got pregnant in two thousand and nine and she moved to Bakersfilm and she knew I had that theater experience, like, hey, they're opening this theater, you should come work over here, you know. And at that point I was just visiting her every weekend. So I went on the weekend. I went on a Friday for the interview, and it's the funniest interview I had because I remember, they didn't have
no experience, they didn't have nobody that knew like projection. So I told him I knew that and what I was certified, because at that point I had certification. And they're like, also, you know how to do this? Can you show me? And I was like, yeah, I can show you. So I go there, do about three or four of the projectors, and like the guy we have right now, it tasts like thirty minutes to do one, like can you start on Tuesday? And I was like, oh, dang, okay, I guess so I just stayed.
I never went back to my family and being from the Hispanic community, like it was hard on my mom, grandma A course, yeah home, yeah, yeah, I thought you were just gone for the weekend. Yeah, I gotta baby on the way, like I gotta do what I gotta do. So I found that joy again. To explain back on that, I found that joy again because it was new. Everybody was fresh. I was. I was experienced at that time. So let me see how I can
contribute to this cinema. You know. So was this around the same time about the or where was the theater that you was telling me that it was like an old hospital or what were you saying about that? Oh yeah, that was the one that was the one in Bakersfield. Okay, So tell this story all right. So I was telling you about this story that apparently before that theater got construction and constructed in Baker's Field. I guess it was
an old hospital or something like that. So we had these ghost hunters that were like kept asking us and they were doing podcasts too, I think at that time. But they wanted to do like an overnight video or do something like that, and we were like, okay, go ahead, you know, do it. So they left the camera up overnight in the theater in one of the theaters. I guess they had like a radar or something that told them where where's the most like spirits at So we're going to position it
right here. So we're like, all right, so we just left it overnight and then I'll never forget. We seen the footage, and I seen the footage of like a little spirit. I would say it was a little girl. So they took a picture of it and they like zoomed into it and all that, so I would say it was a little girl standing right there, and just like you just see the shadow like moving around, you know, and then you just you're like the camera fell over, and this
is overnight. This is like at four am. It's some paralanormal activity, normal activity. And I used to be scared, man, because in the booth you're by yourself. Yeah, oh yeah, it's dark looking. Yeah yeah. I started feeling shadows shot. I'm like, no, man, I'm trying to be up here by myself. But that was one of the scary experiences I had right there. What was your position when they hired you and Biggers Field, I was a booth Okay, so doing just booth,
this booth supervisor. But since I knew how to clean and how to do everything else, it was like that was different about Maya than my experience over there. It used to be you got hired for concession, you got hired for box office, you got hired to clean, and that's your position. That's what you're gonna do. There was no cross training, and I'm like,
that's weird because where I'm from, you do everything. So when I would do the booth and I would have such a break because once you start all the movies, now you have to wait for the first movie you start to be over to do it again. So I'll go downstairs, I'll go clean or whatever. And that's how I kind of got into management because they seemed like, ain't nobody had to tell me what to do, Like I would just go do it, like it was just on me, Like you
didn't have to come tell me to come help. I'm gonna go do it. So okay, So when Campus Point gets started in Fresno and Maya's launched, were you were you? Did you come down here to help open this one up? Yeah? So I was in Bakersfield and they had asked two of us, which I think you remember, Josh, Yeah, so our old general manager. So it was me and him. We were running Bakersfield at that point, but we were still just like managers, but we were running it. We knew, like, man, you know, we got
this. So they had offered us, like, hey, you know, you guys want to go over there. They're going to open this theater. And we're like, yeah, we'll go over there. And my kids were just about to enter school at that time, so I gotta make a decision to like, see what I'm gonna do because my kids are going to go to school, so you let me go to Fresno. And then they kind of delayed it because it's like, you know what, we can't lose both of you guys. But I still came over here. You know, when
it was under construction everything, I was here. We were putting stuff together where we're doing all that, So I had to stay back a little bit when they're first open. So I wasn't here for the grand opening or nothing like that, but okay, I was coming and going still. Okay, So and then obviously you've been here ever since. Yeah, then ever since I was here. But in between that time too, like the old CEO of Mayas Cinemas knew how much experience I had, so he sent me to
certification classes as well. So with the projectors we have now, he's like, man, instead of paying these people five thousand dollars to come every time, I'm gonna just send you and like you learned it. So with they're called Christy projectors, so I learned how to like take them apart, put them back together. The bulb changes all that stuff, so people don't know, like there's actual bulb in there that you have to change out, you know, So when you see the movie it is dark in here. The
movies is not good lighting. That's probably because the bulb is going out. Oh yeah, there's some times, you mean when the screen is like dim, when yeah, it's dem or you'll see a little flicker. You'll see some that's because the bowl is running out of his lifespan. I've seen that before, so everything is like digital now right, Yeah, it's digital, but there's still it still has a light bulb even when it was filmed.
Still still a light bulb back there, and then back back in the day, it used to be a light like I actually it used to be a flame. Flame. Oh wow, it used to be lit. So now it's a light bulb and that normally gives you about like four thousand hours, so it's just depending how much it runs in there. Okay, what did it take convincing to your family, your wife, the kids like to move
to Fresno. Did it take some convincing or No? It was easy because at that time my son had well he still kind of has it, but not as much. It was rhematory arthritis. So he was a young kid at that point, probably like four or five. So he was going to the children's hospital for treatment. Oh yeah, So when that came along, I was like a children's Yeah, I was like I might as well.
I mean, he's having these treatments and stuff like that, and we're just growing into our own me and my wife at that point, so we're like, yeah, there's a good opportunity and why not you know, they just lined up, So it was just easy, all right. So my cinemas it's you know, it's not regal, it's not amc is it just like owned by one person or how does that? Is it privately owned? And that's what's that's what's funny that people don't know is Maya's independently owned. So
that's what's different with other cinemas. You know that they're a big brand and they get a lot of more support than we do. So sometimes when we talk about like, hey, are you getting this bucket? Are you getting this like you no, Like the big fishes get that and maybe we get the leftovers because they see us as like maybe not valuable as others. But yeah, it's it was bought out by His name is Montezuma A Sparza and
he was actually the producer of Selena Okay. So his thing was just remembering growing up as a kid trying to go to movie theaters with his family and then how expensive it was and how you know, there wasn't one close to him. So his goal is to look at the market and see where he thinks is like lower income, and let me build something there where low income families could come and have a good price and not be over expensive. You know. I do feel like you guys are pricing is different than like the
bigger the bigger guys. So I think that's cool. So how many Mayas are there and when where are they at? There should be I think there's five or six. So we have Fresno, Vegas, Field, Selena's de Leno, Vegas, and Pittsburgh, California. Okay, so that's that's the total of my cinemas. Yeah, that's the total. So I've been to So I've been to everyone after I've opened everyone. So I've been there, I've trained everybody. I've helped them with the booths when it was booth,
when it was digital. I've been I mean, I think you see me. I've been in Selena's before when things happened. So just because I was certified, I was able to go over there and help them put the projectors together and make sure everything's working fine. When you know, when Maya's cinemas first open here in Fresno, of course, the bigger you know regal amc at the time, you know, all these big ones at that time.
I remember when Maya opened, I thought it was this is like you thought it was up there with the big boys, right, well, yeah, and also I felt the difference. There was such a difference of just the look. It was sleeker and you guys even the concessions. You guys had something special with the concessions. I think I remember at the time. Of
course, everyone's trying to catch up now. Yeah, well, I know you guys were like, you guys did your own drinks first, I think, right, Like I don't remember Regal, you'd have to ask can I get a refill? But you guys can have your own. I remember that I used to in the old theater where we had to pour the drink. Yeah, but we decided to like do it the opposite, let the people get their drinks. And like you said, like we did our research and
you know, we're not lower on accident. You know, I have to go to other theaters and like check them out with there and kind of priced lower for us. And then not just because I worked for Maya, because I worked for other theaters. But that's what I noticed about them, as they really care about the community. Yeah, they're at and we have to represent because there's nobody backing us up. We're just independently owned. So well, that's what I like about you guys, is you guys really embrace like
the community. You do a lot of stuff with like Fresno State. You've done a lot of stuff with us, You've done like owned events. You guys collaborate with a lot of community, I mean with a lot of like businesses in the community. Uh. And then you also know like culture, you do things like you know, the popcorn there's like the top of the O and the limit that you could put on your popcorn, and you know
you got the hot Cheetos and you can put cheese on it. Like these are cultural things that people like out here that you guys like offer that I thought was like really cool that some of these corporate places wouldn't know to do that, you know. And you brought up kind of like how we all connected was you started working with the radio station with us over here with movie
premieres, us giving away passes. You gave us our very own balcony where our listeners can you know, win tickets to sit with the balcony radio station area, and we kind of became friends that way and network and one highlight I remember from this partnership that we started was my cinemas. You guys let us film a segment where we got to do the pre show where you know, where people watch and they tell you to be quiet, turn off your
cell phone, that whole thing. So I was actually one of the you know, actors in this way with some of the B ninety five DJs. Remember that. I think my part was like making noise with the straw. Yeah, like that. I didn't think it was I thought it was cool. Number one. I thought it was cool, but I thought that's what it was. You don't know how many text messages I got people saying, you know, just mean they took pictures of it and would send it to me. So I was like, oh man, and that was really cool
to be a part of. So back to what you were saying about just embracing the community. You let us local DJs be in the on the big screen. Also, we had him on our podcast, but Jordan from A Hero Alliance, Oh yeah, you were kind of like one of the first to like really kind of help him get started with bringing some of the movie characters to the theater. Right. Yeah. So that's that's what I think is different because it wasn't like a corporate decision to like do any of that.
It was kind of more always my train of thought, like man, how can I make this theater better? What can I do? Yeah, So connecting with the community and a lot of it was like I don't expect nothing in return, you know, like let's just do it. Let's do this, because you never know who that person is, you know, when I'm met you guys, I don't really know who you guys are, but
I don't care. Let's do it, you know. Yeah. Not so Yeah, with Jordan, with herolines, he was just somebody who would come to the premieres and was like, hey, man, I got this costume and it looks legit, Like can I come out and like do this? You know? I was like, yeah, that'd be cool. So he started coming out and people would ask him like, yoh, man, can't do his birthday party, can't do this. So he's a real good guy. Man. He'll always give us credit where credit is due. Yeah.
So now he has his own company, as you know, tons of superheroes, and he always would tell me like, man, thanks, you know, because he helped me out with that partnership. Yeah, he shouted you out on the podcast too. He was like when I it was not that much like you gave me the opportunity. I'm like, yeah all the time, man, I'm not charging him, he's not charging me. It was just a respecting you know, like, well, how can I help you?
And of course you're coming in you're seeing the Star Wars stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so hell yeah, everybody's gonna let's make a premiere party, you know. Yeah, that's what was cool about it. Like, you know, when the Avengers are playing, you would go to the movie theaters and there's like Spider Man Captain America. You could take photos with him doing meet and greet. So I thought that was really dope to add
that to it. And even props, like when you guys would have the Star Wars you would have even like Star Wars props out there, which I thought was like really cool. So you did. You definitely get like a big experience at Maya. Do you guys still have the biggest like like screen still yeah, the NPX screen. We have the biggest screen on the North of North America. Oh wow, that's the NPX on the you know,
the one, the bigger one. So yeah, they they practiced on that because it was like at that time, like we couldn't really get recliners. We can do this, so it's like what else can we do? What else can we maximize? What can we do different? You know, And that goes back to where you're saying, like whether it's the hot cheeto popcorn or the top of tea or you know, like let's get somebody an experience because we don't have the recliners, so we don't have this, so let's
do that. You know, we could do other things. How does it work when you know I always see every Monday, I always see like the box office support and how much money these movies made. How does that work with like the studios getting a percentage and you guys getting a percentage or do
they get all of it? Or how does that? That's good that you asked that because we get a lot of questions and we get a lot of stuff from from guests, you know, and sometimes they'll say, like all the movies out, like it didn't even last two weeks, like how come we go not playing it? And where I'm like, we ain't playing it
because you're not supporting it. It goes based on that, so yeah, there's a lot of contracts and things behind the scenes that people don't know, Like like you're asking about the big screen, Like right now we're showing doing right, and they're contracted to be in there for the first four weeks. So even if something else comes out that we think is bigger, we can't give them that screen because they want that screen because it has the most money,
you know, So yeah, we might keep. It's different, So it's every so every movie is different. Every how you guys play and how long you play. Yeah, it depends how well it's doing. So if it's doing well and people are supporting it, we're gonna keep having it because
the studios are getting that money. But if the studios are seeing that nothing's happening, then let me get that out of here and let me put this because yeah, like you said, we're maybe keeping and I don't know exact numbers, but I'm just give you an example, maybe a quarter to fifty
cents to a dollar. Wow, that's why the concessions is when like this is that, well, yeah, that's what we have to make the money, Like, we don't don't keep the money from the ticket sales, so you guys make most of your money or a bigger percentage of your money with
the concessions. Then yeah, with the concession cells. Because like we said, there's a lot of contracts, there's a lot of negotiations, and sometimes studios that have the big movies like you know, Star Wars or like all the Disney stuff, right Disney stuff, sometimes they have a movie that's not that great and they'll tell you, well, I want that in the big theater, and if you don't play it in the big theater, you're not
gonna get this like a better movie. So sometimes it's like, ye, is that someone's job to negotiate that, or we have somebody that's called the booker, Like I'm pretty sure you guys have something like that that like you know, they book like you would have somebody that booked the artists and stuff we have. They booked the movies. So they work out the contract like, yeah, all right, we'll show it for this much, but how much can we get and how much of it we have to give you?
Does it make sense for us? And that's why sometimes we show a lot of independent movies too that are that really do well because they might not charge something because they just want to show their content. You know, they might want to just show their mo movies. So it all depends on every contract is different. As long as people are supporting though, people will come out sometimes I see. I mean not only you guys, but I've even heard
of other theaters show like the old movies. Yeah, that's becoming like real trendy. Yeah how does that work? Who's getting who's booking that? Or is someone is the studio getting paid for those showings? So those movies are still owned by somebody. So yeah, sometimes we'll do like real school movies or you know, flies back whatever I think. Yeah, I went like they brought back Star Wars Return of the Jedi, Like I went to go see that, and I know they just announced that all eight Spider Man movies
are coming back to theaters, so someone's gonna eat from that. Yeah, they're seeing that. Like you know, maybe you didn't get a chance to see this movie the first time it was out, or maybe you side of the child. Now you have kids, maybe you guys want to experience together or you want to see it again on the big screen. But yeah, definitely somebody's getting a chunk of that, So it's up to them. All right, I want to get to this part of the episode which we all
went through. You know, you remember the back in the days when movie premieres would the big ones, just the lines. I man, I remember standing in lines for movies to buy a ticket and just the masses of people trying to catch this sold out, big premiere. And then we get twenty twenty, you know, the pandemic. Tell what was going on in the industry when that whole shutdown happened. Yeah, So with COVID, I mean that was very hard, Like we thought maybe we wouldn't come back from that.
You know, a lot of things change, a lot of people mindset, change of oh I've been doing this for that long, I didn't know, you know. So it was definitely tough. Like when you first reopened, we could only open like twenty five percent, so sometimes it'd be like scatter seats or you can't sit dis close next to somebody else. So that was definitely an effect. But to go back to your question, I remember we used to do premieres too, and there will be so many lines outside.
But the reason for that change was actually prior to COVID, was they just wanted to go with the sign seating, So the sign seating was their mindset of like controlling, Oh now we can know. So sometimes when there's a theater and there was no sign seating, you could walk in there and you might not know who's supposed to be there who's not. So it was more controlling of like, all right, we have twenty tickets sold, they're
sitting in these twenty spots. So the other ten people that are sending randomly, let's get them out because they didn't pay for their ticket. I think, as a customer, I have mixed feelings about that, because I felt that a sign seating allows people to fucking show up late to movies, and
that like pisces me off a lot. I'm even I'm always like hitt up Andy, like complaining, like the motherfucker's coming late because your seat is there, so you know before it's like get there early, get the seat you want, and everyone's sitting down before the movie starts. But if you're running late, you're like, oh, I don't need to get there. You know, I can miss the previews on my seat is good to go. I can show up whenever, and people do that shit. So once again
just goes back to people suck. But that's the part that like kind of ruin it for me. And you know, there was something fun about everybody hanging out outside getting excited for the movie. But you know, I understand like cleaning up, you know, all the big lines outside. But back to what Magic was saying about the pandemic, how has that like changed the industry as a whole. I mean, we hear about it or less people going to movie theaters. Is it slowly coming back from the pandemic? What's
going on there? I think at this point it slowly has came back. Definitely. The first couple of years it was super slow. And then what really affected that was like streaming and things going straight to Yah direct, you know. But even through there, we're doing the palcorn pickup thing, Yeah, palcorn to people, and even that was popping because people just wanted a taste of the outside world. Yeah, exactly. Or it was like a
cool movie and actually to have powk for the theater. Yeah. But yeah, eventually, it's been coming back slowly, but I think people still have a mindset that that got them stuck into, like I'd rather just be at home or just I'm not gonna go waste money. No more, Like you know, people started really changing their thoughts on just a lot of things, not just the theater industry. But I've seen it now for sure. Come back when when the big movies are Marvel, oh yeah, nature, you
know, that's always like a great experience. And I still like the movie theater experience I go all the time. I still like, you know, seeing it on the big screen for the first time, and the sound and the people when they know how to act right. How How because I think you've told me about this before, But how does like leaks get prevented? Right because you get a movie a few days before it's supposed to come out, right, isn't Don't they do something to prevent, like, say,
you from leaking it or something. Okay, so what's funny about that is let me tell you so, Like I was telling you guys back in the day, when I used to piece the movies together, we used to actually had to screen it first to make sure the pieces are right. Okay, because I play a movie, I'm like that we did not make sense. It was like that we did that movie. You all put it together the right the way you're supposed to be. We messed up. We messed up,
you know, we messed up. So dang. So back then, there used to be a watermark, so if it used to get leaked, they could track it to what theater that came from. So so now what they're doing is, yeah, they want you to test out the movie, but they're only giving you permission because it has an encrypto key that only lets you play fifteen minutes of the movie. So what they're saying, once that fifteen minute clears up, it's gonna run fine, you know, but there's
different things as it's being downloaded. We had this issue with Coco. I remember it was busy movie, and as it transfers and you're doing different things, it's just like downloading music, it might get corrupted, something happened, and the movie's playing in the froze. So we had to deal with that. So we try to do employee screenings to as an incentive, you know, like we want you guys to watch it first, because you already know,
people walking up movie theater. I can't believe John Magic died, you know, yeah, ruining everything. Yeah, Like if you're walking out of theater, I don't want you to be discussing it. Yeah, so they ruined it for the for the employees, and then also when they ask the employees, you know, hey, did you watch this movie, Like what do you think about it? We're able to give that insight, but we
make sure there's no cell phones. Even now, we have big screenings with Sony's and stuff, and they collect people's phone They have security in there. Wow, And yeah, there's a big punishment that you're doing that. But I mean, lately, I haven't seen no real leaks unless it's been like the studios involved and they send it to overseas and somebody over there leaked it. But I haven't seen that too much. You know, you remember back
in the day, that'll be the person selling the bootlegs out there. Yeah, yeah, someone cam Quarder. Yeah, I don't really see that. We don't really see that no more. Now. Well, it seems to be the thing that people are leaking now is the merch and you actually brought us some. The one that was really popping off was the worm from the Dune too. Yeah, the popcorn bucket where you put your hand, Yeah,
questionable hole. I do feel like that's become another avenue and kind of a cool thing that movie theaters are starting to do that maybe gets people back into movie theaters because even like all the for the Aerostour with the Taylor Swift, those cups were going crazy and I know you guys had some of those. So do you see a shift of like this is kind of the next new thing of getting like these cool popcorn buckets or these cool drink cups to
kind of entice people to come back. Yeah, not just that, but like TikTok has been a lot of change, Like sometimes they know things before I know, because I know you asked me about that doom bucket and you've seen my corporate people and they're like, no, that's just a made up thing, And then a couple of yars later, I guess you're right that is coming up. Yeah, I know, like with Barbarenheimer or like they
put them together. Yeah they put them. Oh yeah, yeah, barbaron Heimer, that's what they're calling it, like hey, let's go support this, or like the Minions, I don't know, you remember that trend where they're coming dressed as many Yeah, didn't they do that. So it's just like or like different things like oh, we're gonna go salute or do Yeah.
So I think social media is making it big for people to go get the incentives out of movie theater or show up like you're right, like the Barbenheimer thing, like everyone wanted to dress in pink and go to the movies during that time and support because if you go based on the numbers, so what people don't know to is we have to run reports, right, we run reports of like previous years, what is this movie tracking? Who is it attracting? So we go based on that. Oppenheimer didn't have good numbers,
like we didn't expect it to do that. But because of that social media push, Wow, like people are gonna come out just to come out, you know, because everyone's doing it. My kids they just wanted to go see a movie because of how bad it was. How bad it really is, yeah, you know and it was actually not as bad as I expected. But yeah, just social media push and just people word of mouth and just like you said, they see these products a lot of stuff people
already calling like remember the screen buckets were very popular. Here are you guys gonna have that? Like I want to get it. So I think just to re experience that as bringing back definitely the excitement. Yeah, that's it's definitely been a cool added thing. Speaking of TikTok and these buckets, the one you gifted Jizo on myself is the slimer popcorn bucket Ghostbusters from the Ghostbusters
movie that's coming out. And the reason why this was viral that I saw on TikTok was there was a guy that made a TikTok and said, this is what they were at, this is what movie theaters was advertising that you're gonna get the popcorn bucket, and it was this slimer, you know, detailed popcorn bucket. And then when people saw the actual one after they ordered it, it's it's a basic, you know, oh you know bucket. So it it kind of got viral because people were, yeah, so can
you tell me about this this whole slimer Yeah. So it was just like, I don't know, they put out an image that I don't know if they didn't see what it was actually like, or maybe they did get that picture because you kind of could see like you can go on the website and kind of see like all these are the promotional items we have coming out. So maybe somebody jumped the gun and posted something, and yeah, there was a lot of backlash. People pre ordered it based on that picture and once
they got it they were upset of how it looked. But on that negativeness, it made people want him. We already have people calling like, you guys got the bucket, but not the picture. It's not the mess of what it was advertised. So it's it's so social media. It's that's what it is like regardless, as long as it's becoming popular either way positive or
negative, it's gonna be popular. And the slimmer bucket is now becoming popular because of the negativity it's getting and now people are wanting the bad slimmer bucket and Jizo and I have one, so we might put this up on you. They never know. That's how that's how, that's how it be. Sometimes because they can't get something that is so minute, people will resell it or redoce stuff. So, yeah, you do you want? I was gonna say, do you have any do you want to do some funsy questions,
like some quick fun questions. Well, earlier you talked about I think you answered this already, but I was going to ask when the movie starts and you're watching, there's always that one employee that comes in there and oh, a good question. That looks around and in my head I think they're counting, so but I don't know. I'm asking you, what's the official What does that employee doing going in there? Yeah, so looking around? So the main thing the employee is doing when it goes in there. They
have to make sure there's something on the screen. So this is going way, but no one's in the booth. It's on schedule, so it's off scheduled. So their thing is to tell me, like, hey, it's two thirty, this mon's supposed to start. A two thirty is two forty. There's nothing on the screen, because I don't want you to come out and tell me, hey it's two fifty. We're twenty minutes. The movie
hasn't started. So that's their job is to report like hey, you know, or everything looks good, or you know, it's hot in here. We need some ac So they're kind of just checking out the atmosphere and making
sure everything's rightsphere. And then like you've had this experience before where they're supposed to check in min movie or somewhere else later because we know, you know, there's gonna be kids, somebody be screaming, but when they walk in, it happens to be that everybody'll be quiet exactly because they know they're walking
in. But we just want to make sure that, you know, we extruct them to like look to the guests, see if anybody's trying to wave them down, maybe like questions, you ask a question, or this person is being too loud or say something, because we don't want people to come out after And then it was a big you know And that's another piece of the you know inside thing is that people come out after the movie all the time and I want their money back. Uh, I want my money back.
This was terrible, Like somebody was in there kicking my seat and blah blah blah, And I'm like, then, why don't you come out and tell me? I don't know what's going on in there, Like, well, I didn't want to miss my movie, but you want to be kicked in the back of your seat. So I tell them, Like the best way I tell them, it's like that's not going to a restaurant and you know, eating your meal and then complaining about it afterwards, complaining about your
meal where you're eating it. But yeah, that's basically their job is just make sure everything's running good. Is a sound too low, is it too high weather? So that way if you do come out and make something like, hey, you know, we did have so many checking and we didn't get nothing reported back. But oh I always thought they were counting, and then they made sure how many tickets were sold and how many people were in
there that I thought that was the only reason. What's funny too, is that I know, and I've been there, like going to movies out of experience, that when people bring outside pooon, they start hiding it because they think people are there to check that, Like, it's not that, So you guys don't care about that now, it's not that? Was my next one is do you so you guys know people are bringing into I see this again back to TikTok. I see all these theater hacks and how to do
this and how do that. I can't speak for other theaters, And like we said, you know, but we're honestly checking that you ain't bringing no weapons, and we're checking your bag is to make sure safety, you know, and we're seeing a bag of skittles or something like I got to freak out we're not going to freak out. Obviously, we don't want it because it's taking money away from the concession. That's the main reason. So we
don't want that. But you know, I see it, and I'm not going to be like, hey, you can't have that bag of cheetos are you know? So with that being said, what's the wildest thing? Food wise? You saw someone bring in the wildest thing? You know? But food wise is just like alcohol. But you said you said brought someone brought a whole ass pizza. Yeah, the whole pizza, a whole just like leftover stuff. You know. I had somebody actually bring like tamalis, like
in a tough aware or something. It's like, what the hell they got their thing over here? But yeah, I mean I've seen I've seen them. I've seen a lot of things they bring in and like I said, we could stop it, and as obvious we'll stopping you know, like, hey, we'll hold that for you. You can't bring it in. But
if you're sneaking stuff in and all that, I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying we're not going over the top crazy like oh man, you got that your band or whatever, unless you're in there drinking in the theater and we see you because right now we don't have alcohol, so you're not supposed to be drinking in there. But you know, is this a myth or is there what is it called where it's a camera that can see Yeah, where you could see the crowd? Is there a camera looking at the crowd?
No? And that's funny because I had other people that go to the Telarity theater and told me that they've seen a camera in there, and I was like, to my knowledge, you have to have people's consent or like you have to let them know, Hey, you know this is your reactions are gonna be recorded or whatever. You have to let people know. So we do not have cameras or anything like that, you know, set up
like that. That's kind of crazy because if we didn't, like going back to the crazy stories, I mean, we would have caught a lot of stuff earlier than we did. Yeah. Another one, back to the food thing. What happens to the leftover food at the end of the night. Good question. Yeah, So most of the left or food we have might be like hot dogs, because everything else like hot dog, I mean,
nachos is kind of made on the go. Yeah, popcorn. So the popcorn when we do, we bag it up and we kind of wait for people like they want refoles and if not, like maybe an employee takes you home or I had the funniest employee I had had chickens, so he was feeling his popcorn. But then the hot dogs that are left over, we just had to count it and waste it out for inventory purposes. But we'll give it to the staff that whoever is there go ahead and eat it.
But we do have to make sure it's good at that point, because you know, it could be older expiring. But there's nothing big that we do that we have to like, oh man, like I know, like Little Caesars or somewhere else. They might have pizzas and ten pizzas. What are we gonna do with it? You? Yeah, but we don't have things like that that we could just you know, give up besides the hotdogs. So now I never did this, but I know people that did when I
was younger. Sneaking in Is that still a thing? Do people still try to sneak in and well with the assigned seatings a little harder now? Right? Yeah? Does that still happen? Do you catch Yeah, that's still that still happens definitely. Like during the day, we have a lot of young kids. They just try to be sneaky, and it's kind of like
we already know. Just like we said, we have counsel, Like we know that there's no ticket seals, and the person that's checking, they'll be like, oh, there's ten people in here, but on my board they're saying there's none. So that's what that's what we'll know. Like somebody does pay for a theater and then try to like theater hop but then went to the sign seeing somebody will say, hey, somebody's in my seat. So
now we have to go validate whose ticket? Who has the ticket? But what if there's room, Like do they get away with it if there's like a lot of room is there? If there's room? Well, most of the times we have to validate, you know, like are they actually here
or whose ticket is it? Because they'll lie you know, oh no, what I mean by sneak because the system that you know, my friends, what you heard about, it would be a side door, you know how there's different exits exits, so you don't you don't enter from the front. You just enter where nobody checks you. So that's what if someone just happens to walk in there. I mean, yeah, I'm sure it happens. There's so many things that we could control, you know, and there's just
some things that we're not going to catch. But yeah, I mean we'll we'll notice that like a theater, you know, trash and stuff and like wait, nobody was even here. Yeah, so I mean, yeah, it's happen like anywhere else. You know, you can't like police it all. We tried to like just question people or the like suspicious all we see, like you know, things going on. Well we'll get to it. But I mean, yeah, there's ways, there's always around different things,
you know. Lastly, any big movies that are coming out, I know the one that I'm looking for too is the Deadpool and wove Ring. What else is big this is coming out this year? Well, most of the movies that were supposed to come out got pushed too because Strike. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, so there's a lot of dates that I'm not even confirmed. So yeah, I was looking forward to, like did Pull and Ring just a lot of different ones that the dates. So that's another thing
that takes effect too. You know there's a strike and things are getting changed, and that's what people don't know too, because they want to buy advanced tickets. But we're actually don't get our show on into like a week or two prior because of some confirmations they might be coming out. They might not push, Yeah, they're pushing. The charges are different, so we might not get it at wrong. But now I'm looking forward to, like even
ghostposters coming out, you know, I'm looking for it. Just to each his own, you know whatever, you is there some moays I don't like in some ways you like, and there's some always we brought back, Like you know, our Parameter that just got a lot of theaters, a lot of awards, We'll bring it back. So it just kind of varies different ways. But are you watching all these movies that come to my Are you personally watching them? Definitely not? And that's what's funny because now you get
that too. Yeah, I asked Andy. You know, the fact that he's been in the movie theater business this long. This dude doesn't like anything. He doesn't watch anything. I'll be like, oh do you watch that, and be like, Nah, the most I'll get out of him, you'll be like it was cool, Like that's the most I'll ever say, like it's cool, Like damn, do you like any movie? It's funny
because you asked me that question. So to be honest with you, just I don't even know when I'm at the when people ask me all the time, like almost playing at the theater, what's good or was this or was that? I don't know, like once I couldn't even tell you. Check in and check out five movies that are playing right now. You know when you guys are different with music. You guys know what's going on. I know when I'm looking at the reporting and I'm seeing and I'm planning for the
next months. Now, I know, all right, this movie, that movie, let me see it, like I said, tracking and how's it gonna do. But other than that, I don't watch movies on doing that unless as my kids wanting to watch it because a lot of the time they were going without me because I was always at work. So I never seen like Black Panther or this that because by the time I want to watch it,
we've already seen it. We don't want to watch Well, man, you always take care of us, and I know you know we take care of you as much as we can as well too, and we appreciate the friendship and continued success with all your endeavors. Yeah, it was educational today. I had fun some things we didn't know about it and so we appreciated. You want to plug any thing you want to tell the listeners. You
know where Maya is exactly or Instagram? Yeah, Maya We're located at Campus Point right across the street from Saint mart Center, so right on Sean Chestnut. So yeah, I know. The only thing I want to say is, you know, my biggest thing is working with the community and not expecting nothing in return. I always reach out to people like, Hey, what can I help you with with what you got going on? Do you need tickets? Do you need like anything for me to help. So that's my
biggest thing. If there's something going on with the community, I love to be a part of it and just have my other because I feel that connects to people and they'll see us there like, oh, Maya, what's that Let's go check it out. So that's the only thing you know, and that people want to follow me on Instagram is that end up promotions and I promote everything on there that we're doing at the theater, whether it's you know, jump houses or your Guys Show or anything. I love to promote and
just work with people in the community is the biggest thing for me. It is. Yeah, I appreciate you being our guest today. Yeah, thank you guys.