It takes a minute.

Monique Lillard: All right, we're recording i'm monique lillard and I am The interviewer for a series of interviews being done by the University of Idaho library.

As part of an oral History project remembering the video rental store in downtown Moscow that was called Howard Hughes and then became called the Main Street video co op.

It is June 29 I believe Jun 29th 2021 and so we're going to get started so have you signed the waiver and the release.

Russell Meeuf: I have.

Monique Lillard: Great it would you state your name and also state what describe what you teach at the University of Idaho.

Russell Meeuf: So i'm Dr Russell made and I am a professor in the school of journalism and mass media at the University of Idaho and the director of our film and TV Program.

So I teach classes on film history on popular culture, media studies issues of diversity, so basically anything having to do with the movies and popular culture.

Monique Lillard: that's interesting do you teach people how to do movies produce them performing them is that what that it doesn't include that.

Russell Meeuf: it's both right so most of our students that are majors are training to be film and video professionals, so there, so the way we have classes in technical video production screen writing producing that kind of stuff.

And so my I teach some of the entry level classes on that where we're focusing on using cameras edit basic editing practices that kind of stuff.

And then the film history classes are general film history classes, but are kind of geared towards producer, so that they can understand the history of filmmaking as a way to help them become more innovative as creative producers.

Monique Lillard: That is wonderful I didn't know we even had those classes so.

I have more free time now, maybe someday i'll sign up for what that sounds wonderful.

So let's start by talking about the video store how and when did you first find out about the video rental store and.

Where was it located and if you could just talk generally about that.

Russell Meeuf: yeah so I moved to Moscow in 2010.

It to my partner and I took jobs at the University, and so I think I probably was I found out about the star fairly early on, obviously with the time it was it was just down the street from the kenworthy.

The independent movie theater in town and it was pretty remarkable to see an independent video rental stores still operating, by the year 2010 obviously there had been a.

A reckoning in the film industry in terms of how people got their movies, and this was in the middle of that moment, where I think at that time you could still get your DVDs by mail through netflix, but it was pretty widely getting into the streaming.

streaming business at that time, and so that obviously had a huge impact on video rental stores, and so the fact that our small town had a video rental store was pretty impressive, in that it had a pretty.

Robust clientele or have committed committed folks, and so I learned about it almost immediately, I was pretty impressed that we had one, and so I got my membership and headed down there and to check things out.

Monique Lillard: And what you think of the store, but what struck you about the store.

Russell Meeuf: yeah I mean honestly in 2010 it was still a bit of a throwback right, it was like a nostalgic experience that I hadn't had in a long while, so when I lived in.

was doing my graduate work in eugene Oregon.

There may have been a few kind of small places that were still operating, but nothing like a you know you know by that time it was there weren't really many blockbusters left, and so it reminded me a lot of my childhood.

As you know, being able to go in there and it was a great space to write like so and I think that's one of the nice things about the independent stores right, so you go to the blockbusters.

And you know, is it was a chain, and it was designed to be even if the space was different to look very similar from blockbuster to blockbuster didn't have a lot of personality at a blockbuster.

It was just meant to be this kind of experience that we'd go to, whereas the good independent.

Video rental stores always had a lot more character, a lot more charm right they you know, the more invested in the static where you had everything kind of jammed in along the shelves, rather than having everything kind of clean neat and organized.

It was supposed to kind of produce this feeling of just like being surrounded by movies, and having all of these different options available to you and organized by genre and period and so that you could kind of.

explore is built more like kind of like a like an archive than a store in many ways, yes.

Monique Lillard: Yes, did you think it was a good collection.

Russell Meeuf: It was a pretty good collection yeah so while, at the University, I wrote a number of books right that required me to you know I check out DVDs to grab screen grabs for.

For the publications and stuff and I was pretty impressed with the the historical selection that they had there in terms of if I needed kind of an obscure film from the 1960s, they would probably have it, so it was it was a pretty decent collection.

In terms of those stories, I mean there's you know.

there's certainly stores around the country that had larger and more robust collections I can't remember the name but there's one in portland kind of a very famous one that I don't think still operates in portland.

That was just like a true archive of of film and video, but their their their collection was pretty pretty solid, especially for the Community that it serves right.

Monique Lillard: there's one still operating in Seattle called scarecrow.

Okay, I believe it's Seattle, and there are two of us doing these interviews and it was the other person who interviewed the people, the woman whose brands that and I.

i've heard of the one in portland and I don't know if it's running or not right, the second I can't come up with the with the name of it so yeah okay all right.

So you would go to the store for work reasons.

yeah did you go for your own personal entertainment as well.

Russell Meeuf: yeah no, it was it's Nice because the video rental store is as much about like finding the movie as it is a social experience.

That you know when you when you go to the video rental store it's not just about like one person, one customer showing up and kind of all I need this movie do you have this movie.

it's often about that experience of a group of people, whether it's you know you're in high school and with your friends.

Going on a date and you need to pick out your movie I going with your family about going there and coming up with options negotiating well, they have this well, they have this they don't have this, but I have this.

And kind of working out with each other, like well, what is it that we want to rent and so I would bring my children.

When when we moved to Moscow to go down there and just be like Okay, you can look around here's the children sections here's the Star Wars section here's this.

Look around find you know find three options and see what you can, and we can decide between those and so yeah, so I would go and for personal reasons as well, so still try to.

Try to keep that alive, especially in those days, especially when we first moved, you know netflix was streaming Amazon streaming hadn't really was just kind of getting going.

There, and so, if you did want something that wasn't on Amazon or wasn't you know or wasn't on one of these services, and that was a lot of stuff at that time you could still go there to try to find different releases for that.

Monique Lillard: Sure, well, I remember, they had the whole Disney section.

You know, which is now I think kind of hard to get so yeah yeah.

What was your favorite section of the store.

um.

Russell Meeuf: That is a good question, I mean obviously the the new releases was a kind of an actually a great place to go to actually keep up to date on what was released when it was released and think about like what kind of those offering Jim.

And it's actually kind of hard to come by today right when you think about like.

The ways that we've kind of bifurcated all of the streaming services right that there's the Amazon releases and the netflix releases and there's these HBO releases over here, and this and that.

They have one space where you could just kind of stand and have on the wall, like all the different releases, regardless of what the production company was just organized by the fact that they were new.

Which is what's kind of Nice right was a way to really kind of engage and get a fuller sense of.

What kind of the spectrum of releases looked like in that particular moment right is it heavy on superhero movies, is it heavy on these kind of dramas.

And that kind of stuff and then of course the staff picks right it's always that's that's the other nice part about the video rental stores, is that they keep a staff of of cinephiles.

whose job it is to watch a lot of movies, and to make recommendations and so sometimes they'll have something up there they're like Oh, I want to check this out.

Monique Lillard: yeah that's that's I can certainly see with your emphasis on popular culture how having that just little capsule of what, at least to these executives think the popular culture is right now yeah it's very interesting very interesting so.

Did you follow the process of the store going from private ownership, a group of people into the cooperatives did did that really enter your consciousness much or.

Russell Meeuf: Oh yeah I mean, I think that was a big transition for the store and I think it was.

A really innovative idea to attempts to keep the the collection.

Make it still available to people and to try to you know, an interesting new business model, especially, as you know, it becomes harder and harder to operate such doors to try to make it more of.

A collective within the Community, I think it was a really innovative attempt, and yet there was, I was you know really hopeful that they could make it work for longer than they did, but obviously technology is against them right.

Monique Lillard: yeah yeah.

yeah yeah just I know i'm going to ask you what you think made the store closed in one, second, but just on the Co operative pros and cons anything that could have been done better or differently or a tweak from your point of view, and you know and no blame.

No blame assigned here yeah.

Russell Meeuf: I mean I yeah I think they did a pretty darn good job I mean, I think, obviously the hard part is the sticker shock of the membership fees right that it has to you have to be committed to X number of Rentals in order to make that work so it's asking people ahead of time to be like okay.

i'm going to commit to using this store at least 20 times over the next year, whereas.

outside of that membership model if it's just like yeah pop in you know you could you can do it obviously the popping was still available, but I think the.

Monique Lillard: numbers will say, but still.

Russell Meeuf: It wasn't but, but like that I think it was more foundational for their business to get more people to be members.

And I think that's a that's a harder sell, especially when I think for marketing purposes right like.

You think about the streaming services their designs to try to get get you on these kind of small monthly payments right and so it'd be like you know, even though it would add up to that it's it's it's it was, I think it was a harder sell.

Monique Lillard: Right well actually.

And I was just when I was asking that other question I should have disclosed, I was on the original board of the co op and I sort of was part of that, and so I didn't you know and.

But we wanted a $200 buy in.

But then we realized, there were lots of people in town, who, for one reason or another couldn't just cough up 200 bucks and drop it like that, especially as you say you know you don't even know what you're buying exactly and how long are you going to use it.

And so we broke it into smaller pieces and the smaller smallest amount, you could pay was $25 and then you were supposed to pay it, I think it was quarterly so that over two years, you would have bought in.

But of course people didn't keep coming and that's where the streaming and other sources pull people away, and then they never paid it and then that meant that the owners never got completely paid off, because that membership money wasn't to buy movies, it was to pay off the owners.

And that was where it got awkward in a way, if we just said 200 bucks.

would actually the story probably still be running if we could have found enough people to put in there 200 bucks so then we started having.

deals, you know if you'll buy in then one that was important to us, anyway, was you don't have to pay as much.

As for late fees and I don't know but it started getting very complicated all these various deals that were being offered but it just wasn't quite enough to make people do it, so I think that was the rub That was the problem if we done it weirdly if we done it.

And we didn't even know, but if we done it five years earlier, we might have been able to make it work, you know, but it wasn't even in our consciousness five years earlier, so you know these things happen as they happen.

So do you think you've made a comment about technology, what do you think ultimately did in the store.

Russell Meeuf: yeah I mean you can't compete with streaming right, I think, both in terms of the convenience of not having you talk about late fees right like.

My children are going to grow up in a world where they don't.

understand what a DVD late fee.

Is or a vhs what what's a late fee, I mean even netflix's original mail by DVD model was organized to get around that right, there is no way.

You keep it as long as you want you send it back as long when you're when you're done.

And so the convenience of that just being able to be able to say, like okay i'm going to rent this movie on Amazon click done, and then I think there's also a technological reasons to write.

For streaming you don't have to worry about a scratched disk right and everybody's had that experience, where you go you pick out your DVD and you happen to get one that you know that was scratched up and it doesn't work with your player and everything and so.

You don't have to worry about that, and especially as the technology and Internet speeds have taken off right like.

There was a moment where I think people were still really invested in DVDs and BLU rays, in particular, because of the high quality of the image right that you, you weren't going to get that same capabilities on streaming but that technology is very quickly caught up.

And so I think it's just in terms of the convenience of that distribution model it's it's hard to compete with I mean it's hard for movie theaters to compete with, let alone video rental stores right.

Monique Lillard: Right I you know I am I remember, for a long time, I guess, we didn't have and i'm not sure it was wi fi I don't know how we got our signal, but.

you'd get if you stream to get I think they called it, the circle of hell, where everything freezes and then there's that little circle and what's really funny is this, you were just talking to me, there was a little less.

second and last night I was watching netflix and then it did that thing it does, where the audio goes on and the video just freezes and.

Our roku you always have to unplug it and plug it so yeah i'm still fighting this technology, but I absolutely remember getting those DVDs and they'd be scratched and we finally bought a grinder that would fix it at home.

was partially our own DVDs but.

yeah you know I I view these tapes as I think they're going to live on in posterity so I figure all these practical details can be put put out for history and in terms of this this oral History project so.

that's why I mentioned that but.

Russell Meeuf: And that's just DVDs right there, I mean right.

Maybe getting vhs tape stuck in your machine and some of those technical.

Monique Lillard: Debt oh I melted in your car.

yeah have to rewind be kind rewind and yeah.

Russell Meeuf: it's yeah.

Monique Lillard: it's I don't know that either.

Russell Meeuf: yeah there's a lot of infrastructure involved in that model of making something physical and bringing it home and while while streaming is you know.

has its own quirks right and it's it's working pretty quickly to resolve those.

Monique Lillard: Yes, it certainly is now.

And I asked this question right now and again in June 2021 as it seems like almost every day there's a new streaming service and things keep breaking off from other streaming services, do you think in retrospect.

The video store was cheaper for people who wanted to just see whatever movie they wanted to see where do you think the price break is.

Russell Meeuf: I would say, probably, I mean depends on how much you how many people i'm not sure what percentage of the population really has.

netflix Amazon hulu Disney HBO like has all of those things together, but the price point for the video store, especially at the membership that $200 was probably cheaper in the long run.

than maintaining a bunch of active streaming services throughout the year and then it's certainly centralized your your spot but it's also the the the the physicality of having to go downtown right.

Monique Lillard: Right um.

Russell Meeuf: and obviously during the pandemic that was something that would have been a major problem.

yeah anyway right to have that kind of physical space where it's built around people interacting and kind of looking at the different different options there, so I mean I think financially I don't think it was I don't think it was necessarily just about the cost of it.

If you were really invested in wanting to have that experience but yeah I mean, I think the streaming services is gonna be it's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out right and that it was.

Really appealing when it was you know netflix and then hulu and maybe you could add Amazon to the mix, but as we start seeing more and more players, with more and more subscriptions it looks a lot like cable TV did in the 90s.

Where you're just adding on different channels and adding on different channels, but those channels are quite pricey right, if you think about like you know Disney as a channel that you're adding on to right your your smart TV.

But.

But yeah it'll be interesting to see if we move them back towards a moment of consolidation, where instead of having all these different subscription plans, you can have them all integrated together into one again.

Monique Lillard: Right, that will be interesting, you know because they're the games that were supposed to play around it, oh i'm intending to play I haven't played him very much, yes, but I want to see Hamilton it's on Disney.

I don't really like giving money to Disney.

And so i'm going to pick a month and i'm going to join Disney maybe for free even.

See Hamilton see a few of those movies, and then cancel it.

But that means I have to write it on my calendar and i'll probably put it on an electronic calendar and have written down calendar, and it will be a stressor because God forbid, I should give Disney 20 bucks or whatever.

Russell Meeuf: It is.

Monique Lillard: yeah the and you're just on the on the video store, just to be clear, so the 200 bucks was just sort of to be an owner.

Then you'd still buy your movies and you'd still pay late fees, although they were reduced, but it was a one time purchase for $200 I just I just want to make it clear for anybody who's listening, I know you know, but just all right.

Do you remember when you heard that the video store was closing and can you describe your emotions.

Russell Meeuf: I don't remember when I heard, but if i'm being honest I think my My initial reaction was i'm surprised, they made it as long.

Monique Lillard: Okay, I gotcha.

Russell Meeuf: that it was a good efforts.

And that, like for a video store to have made it that long into the end of the 20 teens was impressive and then I think it's like a lot of people there was kind of the wonder like what's going to happen to the collection right.

Yes, where's that gonna go and how we're going to how's how's that going to be handled in terms of just the infrastructure of it all, and the so but yeah but don't remember fairy remember exactly when I found out.

Monique Lillard: And do you know what happened to the collection, I will be glad to tell you in a second but i'm just interested if you, as a member of the Community, even know what happened.

Russell Meeuf: i've only heard I don't know the full story of everything that happened, the collection, I mean I was involved in conversations with Librarians at the University, who are wondering.

diversity should just scoop up the entire collection for posterity and just call it good Winston assuming did not happen.

Monique Lillard: Last I don't know if the university.

Russell Meeuf: took got like took a pass at some of the collection, or not, I know that kenworthy had.

Most if not all of it for a long time, so I remember going down, you could shop for some of the DVDs as they're trying to do what they're trying to do with the collection, but I don't remember that I don't know that I know what happened to the extent of everything.

Monique Lillard: By well I think you've got the gist of it, you know a lot of people at various stages had approached.

All the local libraries Washington State University University of Idaho Moscow public I think up to spokane you know all around.

And no library wanted to say, oh yeah by the whole thing or even by a big chunk because the problem is storage, you know, on top of our people going to use it, are they still going to have the machines and all of that.

And so that was what Maybe I should back up just very quickly.

The store the building needed to be vacated because the building was being sold and so everything was moved into the kenworthy and the.

All the titles were donated to the kenworthy and then the kenworthy was the one trying to decide what are we going to do, and they kept the criterion collection and I heard they kept the French movies.

And I don't know what else again my co interviewer is the one who interviewed Jamie Hill, who was the person, mainly in charge, you might know her.

But then they decided to do a sale genre genre genre and it was in the middle of the pandemic and it was done on online somehow and I missed some of it i'm all still on that about some titles I didn't.

buy.

Monique Lillard: And then there was another problem, which was people had movies out, especially with the shutdown and a lot of people had gotten quite a stack.

And of course we didn't know how long this.

epidemic and the shutdown and all the stuff we're gonna last so they had to be turned in and that's why there wasn't a big fanfare saying the stores closing, because that would have been a tacit keep your things nobody's ever going to care and and that wasn't desired so.

It was sold off.

genre genre but more or less piecemeal and I think within certain subcultures there was some excitement and away got this one and I got that one and then others in the Community were kind of oh man I didn't even know they were for sale, you know and so finally.

They are primarily in our Community and in houses, right here, somewhere, but of course nobody quite knows where anything is so that that's, I think, where i'd say things are yeah.

um.

So let's see here.

What do you think.

got lost by Moscow by having that store close, if anything, maybe time just went on, but I leave it to you too.

Russell Meeuf: Well, I mean, I think it certainly loses the experience right that.

You know, like the question of our people still going to get movies right people are still going to get movies, is still going to get TV shows there's still massive kind of infrastructure and investment, this is kind of a shift away from that.

But they are losing that really kind of unique experience, particularly it was actually kind of just a short window when you think about the larger history of cinema.

in which this was a way in which people engaged with the film industry in a way in which people got their got their content.

And it was a uniquely social experience right when you, especially if you think about like like even movie theaters are our social but they're organized around this assumption that you had some point in time, you sit down you shut up and you, you get your content.

Whereas the experience of navigating that video rental store was this really kind of really unique way of like creating a space that's organized around movies and industry and talking about stars and talking about.

stuff that you like and stuff that you don't like and interacting with the employees.

And so I think that that social experience around the you know around popular culture around the film industry in the TV industry.

is something that's that's last right it's no longer a place where you go and you meet people and see people and as inevitably happens right you go in you're very.

Rarely there and it's like.

By yourself right you're there, and like you know you run into so, and so, and you run into this other person and talk about what they're what they're up to what they're checking out, and so I think that kind of active social space is what we're missing in the Community.

Monique Lillard: Do you think people will be able to get all those movies, or are some of them last because they're not profitable enough to stream or yeah or whatever, or can deems politically incorrect or whatever, what do you think of that.

Russell Meeuf: yeah I mean some of those titles will probably I mean they won't be lost lost in the sense that they will never be available or around.

But they might not be as publicly available as they were right they might be available only to researchers, you have the infrastructure to kind of look them up and find them.

Some of them will be archived in other places, but yeah it's certainly a myth that the streaming streaming will provide access to everything it provides it access to a lot of stuff and it often feels overwhelming the amount of.

Monique Lillard: stuff.

Russell Meeuf: You have to choose from from stream but it's really only a small percentage of total available.

films and TV shows that are out there and it varies from country to country as well right if you travel just even thinking about the differences between what's available on netflix in the US versus the UK vs Australia.

vs wherever and so um so yeah I mean, I think, in some ways a lot of those titles will get lost now part of the reason why we don't notice that as much as the part of the reason that they get lost as if there's not high demand.

Right not right huge community of people saying I really need to have access to this Japanese samurai movie made in 1963.

and

But right but that kind of means that we're then conforming to this kind of capitalist logic that the only things that we should have access to are the ones that are going to be profitable and that people are sought after are seeking out.

And so yeah we we we are losing in that right, this is not the streaming is not a replacement for an archive of pictures yeah.

Monique Lillard: it's interesting I mean it's one of the glories of netflix is, and I only really subscribe to netflix that's my only one.

it's been it's more than enough the series from all around the world, you know and i'm learning lacma learning i'm hearing languages i'm seeing places i'm never going to go visit.

On the other hand, I was just recently thinking they're all about more or less the same type of person right it's usually a young person there's usually a lot of violence, a fair amount of sex clearly of the same.

popular culture, you know persuasion there's almost always a gay person there's often a trans person there's often and.

There are a variety of races and that's all excellent, but I am aware, they are very similar all these different series really it's funny to me how they I don't see much of a very different group and i'm not sure I see it in American shows either, but do you have thoughts on that or.

Russell Meeuf: yeah I mean I think netflix is a really interesting example of the ways that.

exhibition is impacting content and we didn't necessarily happen before right like there.

You know, as part of getting people to subscribe to the service netflix needs to not just have a bunch of titles.

is created its own kind of in house brand about what kinds of netflix originals that produces particularly around TV, it does some movies and does you know pretty well with that, but I think it's bread and butter is producing those netflix TV shows.

yeah and there is a kind of a style right and the much the same way that like MGM had a style and you know universal had a style netflix has a style, but the difference is that MGM and universal were.

That style wasn't connected to exhibition I mean it was in the sense that, though they were they were the major studios were always part of larger conglomerates that included the movie theater chains right.

And anyways the studios existed to provide content for the movie theaters which provided, which was that kind of the financial backbone of the industry.

And those companies works together, but it wasn't the sense that, like in a different at a different theater right, you would be getting different content in the same way that with.

This new form of streaming exhibition we're seeing more of kind of the ways that the movies, are distributed being tied explicitly to the content right like you want this kind of movie you want this service.

versus you know the kenworthy theater if you look at the history of the can where the theater the movies, that it shows isn't tied to you know the the the the theater right itself or isn't tied to.

You know that that form of exhibition, whereas with netflix we're seeing a lot more of that connection that how you distribute something is going to impact the content of what is distributed.

Monique Lillard: yeah yeah We hear a lot about the netflix algorithm.

And you know i'm using a word that i've heard and that I don't understand the full content of I get the gist of what an algorithm is but is this even true, and is it is it.

Are they feeding me things for me, I never do their little say yeah I like it say I don't like it because I just don't want to give them any extra information I figured they already know way too much about me.

But I they feeding movies, just to me, are they feeding it more along just a capitalist model of this is what people want to see, do you know or.

Russell Meeuf: You know that's not an area of my expertise, but as far as I know, the netflix algorithms do tends to be individualized depending on the data that they have about you or that that's it yeah I mean obviously they're going to suggest to you netflix shows if they can write.

original versus the stuff that they have to license out but, but it does tends to be individualized as much as they have individual information about you, but the algorithms are also proprietary so I don't know that anybody.

Other than netflix.

Actually, knows exactly the kind of the nuance in nature of those, but they do are supposed to be somewhat individualized so they're feeding us suggestions, based on your viewing pattern.

Monique Lillard: right and it even says that, because you watch this in this maybe you'd like this and that and sometimes I think.

Since i've seen that also I don't think they go together at all, but.

yeah anyway anyway that's that's that's interesting that the business of it is fascinating.

let's see, in fact, let me just ask you and i'll ask you a general question because you're the Professor I realized I started to answer the question I thought he is the expert all right, looking at the 20th century right.

Can you take us through how entertainment film movies that type of entertainment has been delivered from what is, what are we gonna start the 19 teens, I guess, I mean you can go back to the 1890s if you want to go for it but.

Russell Meeuf: I mean that question is kind of at the heart of like even the birth of cinema right, so we largely in film history talk about like two main innovators and filmmaking in the 1890s Thomas Edison who is actually kind of.

Promoting the work of one of his key technicians wk l Dickson the lumiere brothers and one of the key differences in this early stage is that Edison has a.

his vision for film at the very beginning, is a people device right a kinetic scope.

I actually got to see a kinetic scope at the the Margaret herrick library in beverly hills, which is the Academy of motion picture arts and sciences kind of research library and actually had.

an actual kinescope there's pretty cool.

But it was you know it's going to be like a thing you put a coin in and you look into a little box and you see your short movie right so it's this kind of.

One person one thing he imagined just installing them at you know carnivals I put it, an.

Island you just you'd put up these are you have a whole parlor you'd have a building that would be lined with these Kaleidoscope machines and people individuals would go in and put their money in.

The lumiere brothers who were really not I mean they owned a series of like factories that produced like photographic equipment and that kind of stuff.

But they weren't really invested in thinking about film as an industry, but they kind of innovated the what we would think of is kind of a central you know.

foundation of film exhibition, which is that it doesn't make sense to show one film to one person when you can show one film too many people and so their initial invention this in a monograph function, both as a camera.

And as a projector so they can send it out to different places, and you can project it on the screen and this obviously became very easily that the model, and in that early period in that from like the inventions in the 1890s through kind of the early 19 teens film exhibition was really.

chaotic and itinerant right, it was large you'd be at carnivals and be at side shows.

Some people, you know this was starting around 1905 we start seeing like nickelodeon's right where people are just taking the storefront.

hanging a sheet putting in some chairs boom, we got ourselves a little tiny movie theater you pay a nickel you go and you can sit as long as you want.

But it was not super organized and it was you know it was kind of the Wild West in terms of different companies trying to produce content and different companies trying to profit off exhibition.

And so that largely changes in the 19 teens when the industry starts to get bigger and in the early days of film, because it was a tended to be very URBAN.

Because its clientele tended to be working women and immigrants right, it was a popular.

You know, leisure time activity for people in big cities and particularly people who didn't have means in big cities.

So there was a kind of a connotation around films, as you know, a form of entertainment that was for poor people that was for working class people.

That it wasn't necessarily a reputable place for decent people to go so as the industry builds the.

The big innovation for them is right is to create spaces that make people feel like this is a really middle class form of leisure.

and often not just middle class, but for the middle classes to kind of aspire to be who want to aspire to something bigger for themselves.

And so, this starts the picture Palace era where we start seeing major investments in huge infrastructure in movie theaters the giant theaters that in big cities that can see thousands of people giant screens.

Huge innovations, I mean this is, I mean much of the technical innovations around the invention of air conditioning.

happens for movie theaters right right in order to create a space in the hot summer is for people to come in that's why we still think of the summer, as a.

Major release period for motion pictures is because people go in the in the summertime when it's hot you go to escape, which I will probably do later today.

Monique Lillard: I was gonna say for the record it's very hot today, yes.

Russell Meeuf: And so, so we see these huge investments in these picture palaces and this becomes a dominant model really through the 1920s and into the 1930s.

In the 1930s, the architecture changes, a little bit they start kind of scaling down a little bit more, but that period was about being big but being ostentatious about.

selling the fantasy of motion pictures as escapism so you'd see very like exotic themed movie theaters like the Egyptian theater down in Boise.

which is designed to make people feel like they're being transported into another world and so yeah I could talk at length, but the picture here it's really, really super.

Monique Lillard: i'm from the La area I grew up right grumman's Chinese the Egyptian down there so far i'd forgotten, there was an Egyptian and Boise so.

yeah even the kenworthy is it was a grand place you know.

Russell Meeuf: Those days are designed.

To make you feel like you're being transported elsewhere and to make you feel like this is, this is a respectable form of entertainment it's no longer this kind of like make shift itinerant kind of thing like you put in a nickel and you can go sit with a bunch of people you're.

Right, this is, for the good right.

Monique Lillard: So that's the other kind of movie right yeah they're trying they're trying to make it seem like this is, this is the respectable, this is for middle class people.

Russell Meeuf: Even though their clientele is still a lot of working class people a lot of working class women a lot of immigrants that kind of stuff but they want to promote it and expand it out.

And it works right i'm primarily because they don't really have a ton of competition in terms of leisure activities through the 20s and 30s.

You know movie movie going in America in that time period was kind of off the charts I think the the peak year for movie going, if I remember correctly, was like 1948 right just before we start saying.

And at that point in time, about a quarter of the entire US population went to the movie theaters once a week.

Monique Lillard: quarter of the entire population but.

Russell Meeuf: once a week and we thought about moving going differently, we move, we talked about in film history of this, but this transition where i'm at that time people went to the movies.

They didn't like say like hey there's a movie I wanted to see it's like oh it's Friday i'm going to the movies, and whatever is playing playing.

It was often a much more highly developed program right where you'd go and you'd be short films there might be a little live entertainment.

The radio city music hall rockets are started as part of this this moment where you go and you watch the rockets do a show that'd be a short film maybe a newsreel and then you get your feature film right the ones that is the longer film that's featured for that.

period and there wasn't a lot of competition, and it was big business and.

It definitely you know it, there was a slight hiccup when they had to transfer make the conversion to sound, because the early theaters were not built for acoustics necessarily and we're not built for it so it's a huge investment in sound.

But throughout that period, it was yeah That was the That was the dominant form, and it was highly successful.

And really installed movies, as kind of a core part of US popular culture that it was not just this kind of likely your time activity, but something that we can kind of foundational to the national identity.

That changes after World War Two for a variety of reasons, TV being the biggest one right that there's suddenly a form of competition and.

The movie industry has this long history of being very reactionary in the early phases when they face competition.

And just being like, no, no, nothing can change before they realized that actually those innovations are going to be better for them, maybe in terms of their bottom line later on.

They felt that way with TV right that this was like at this upstart thing that they didn't want anything to do with, and it was going to kind of ruin their ruin their.

Their their business, and it certainly cut dramatically into movie going at that time, because then people suddenly could stay at home.

But then eventually the movie industry figured out that like Oh well, let's just produce TV content to and.

and become highly integrated with the television industry and and we're sitting on this giant backlog collection of old movies, that we can't show in theaters anymore that that just sit in a warehouse.

let's give them that sell on the TV right, and they can put old movies on TV and right, so it worked out, obviously, in the long run for that, but TV cuts into the movie going experience.

suburbanization right and that the the picture Palace experiences that is kind of designed around the urban experience right.

there's a city Center with giant theater when the population disperses then that model doesn't work as well, particularly as we get into the 60s and 70s and we start seeing kind of urban decay in decline.

In certain areas that people start thinking about those movie theaters differently, and it takes a while for the exhibition industry to catch up.

With the population distribution right to start building multiplexes and kind of mall theaters and that kind of stuff.

Really don't start coming until like the 80s and 90s, and so there's kind of that gap period where the industry is kind of catching up a little bit.

With that, I mean that's where drive in movie theaters come from is like, how do we, how do we bring the theaters to the people in the space with a minimal technological investment get a field and a wall.

Right like and so so that there's that tension in there and then TV obviously booms in that period as well, and then the 80s and 90s, we see this kind of.

Massive kind of dispersion of diverse content, at the same time that the industry really starts conglomeration on the movie side we start seeing.

Much more investment yet and big multiplexes organized around like the the blockbuster era right this idea that.

Instead of making more movies we're going to make fewer bigger budget movies, that are going to be tentpole franchise movies, that are going to kind of sustained the whole industry.

And then we start seeing the proliferation of cable TV as well in the 80s and 90s as well we start seeing more kinds of smaller scale productions move over to TV versus in film and we get this kind of complicated distribution and that's the era in which the.

The kind of the the movie theater rent or the the the DVD vhs rental market starts to thrive right.

right we start seeing the technology emerging, which, of course, that the industry was vastly against vhs technology at the beginning, because they didn't realize it was going to be huge for them.

And they thought like Oh well, we're not going to we don't want anything to do with vhs we don't want because people are just going to steal our stuff.

But then, once they embrace it and they realized that people will pay both to rent vhs and then to purchase vhs.

It very quickly dwarfs the amount of money they're making a theatrical extra exhibition you know throughout that period 80s 90s 2000s over 20 teams, the amount of money that the industry makes off of DVD sales.

Was maybe like four or five times bigger the amount that they're making off of theatrical exhibition.

For renting to theaters so in many ways the theater industry existed as a way to continue to advertise DVDs.

right that, like you want to have a big release you wanted to have you want to get the press around a big big kind of theatrical release you make money off of it clearly lots of money.

But the real money off of something like Tom cruise's days of thunder was not from getting people to watch it in the movie but to sell that vhs copy that people could watch in their home theater at home.

And so that became this kind of new model and then obviously now streaming is changing all of that as well, or at least adding a new dimension to it right it's.

it's added new players like netflix and Amazon, who are now not just distributing and performing a kind of an exhibition service but providing content new studios making new stuff which.

happened in the 80s and 90s, but through television mostly right you see the rise of HBO making their own content, but for their TV cable TV service there's a lot of parallels between the rise of cable TV and what we're seeing the streaming right.

Monique Lillard: That is so fascinating I just a few observations your first description of Edison and that can that a scope and the box that people just look in weirdly we've come back to it, I mean.

Between headphones and everybody's on their own, and some of these screens are donkey donkey donkey.

that people are watching these huge beautiful movies on something like this, you know and it's so funny to me.

And in terms of the nickelodeon's and this ya know doing something.

Russell Meeuf: What do you need.

yeah i'm being bothered by child so.

Monique Lillard: We can pause it if you want, or we don't have that much longer to go show it to whatever you.

Russell Meeuf: Like, what do you need.

i'm not quite sure what's going on, but we can keep.

Monique Lillard: Okay, all right we'll talk for a while and don't don't don't worry about it, but I don't know if you knew about the micro movie House here in town yeah.

It was before your time, maybe i'm not sure.

Russell Meeuf: I heard about it yeah it was the same thing, it was really just this small room is large, there are living rooms that are about the same at least as I recollect that it's obviously been.

Monique Lillard: years, but it was that same thing, it was this little but it had a lot of the fields that kenworthy has now.

It was for grownups it wasn't necessarily box blockbusters it was for people who kind of really enjoyed movies, and it was fun that's all and there's one other thing oh.

i'm talking about the 1930s and 40s and the big movie palaces I remember my mother always would say go to the show she wouldn't say go to the movies she'd say go to the show, but even when I was yeah even through college.

It was not the end of the world to go in, in the middle of a movie.

And then you'd wait.

Until it started again, and so there was this sort of flow in and out and sometimes they were double features.

And it went on and on, I personally always hated going in in the middle of a movie but I knew lots of people who just go in, and I think the air conditioning was part of it, but.

I don't care about air conditioning either particularly sucks at me today, I might read those words but we'll see, but I just I just think that that's fascinating I was looking for one thing, oh yeah the the recording of TV things your children will never know.

yeah there was there were all those jokes you're a little young for it to do you know how to program a vcr right, it was I actually mastered it to my surprise i'm not usually so great at that kind of thing but it's so many eras, you know the beta versus.

yeah chess and there was some sort of a disc that people use they said that was the best quality they thought.

laser disc laser disc there it is.

There it is.

Russell Meeuf: yeah yeah we we had a beta we had a beta machine, when I was growing up, very briefly, we watched indiana Jones and the temple of doom on beta at our House.

And then quickly transitioned over to vhs yeah and then there was that moment in the early 90s when laser discs came out right, so they were like DVDs, but they were big the quality was quite quite good, right to the size of a record, but their DVD.

And you know a lot of schools invested heavily in laser discs so a lot of like.

educational facilities or.

We will have laserdisc players and i'm pretty wide laser disc collection, I went to graduate.

School at the University of Oregon and we had a laser just couldn't couldn't you could rent rent out a laserdisc but obviously got quickly replaced with DVD which was much smaller and more convenient.

But yeah there is this kind of these moments, where we weren't sure which technology was going to take off.

So vhs D, I mean I know tons of people who, at their house would have all of these kind of pirated vhs player this.

Monique Lillard: Massive.

Russell Meeuf: fan of movies, that they had recorded off the TV and just have to fast forward through the ads right.

But then you have we can watch a movie that way right then oh I forgot the ending or oh shoot.

Monique Lillard: ran out before yeah I remember all that.

very, very well.

And so what do we lose and what do we gain in all of this is it, I mean that's a huge question but.

yeah yeah.

Russell Meeuf: I mean that's a good question, I mean part of it is we don't want to be too.

We don't want to be overly in the style joke about our personal experiences with a large multi media conglomerate just meant something meaningful to us at a moment.

And now it's changing Well, I do think that there are differences in that we don't want to be.

We don't want to go overboard and just be like Oh well, this was a beautiful mode because everyone's always been doing that right like Oh well, the movies were better a decade ago.

They experienced was better a decade ago, this was better a decade ago and that's all that kind of like waxing nostalgic has always kind of been part of how we process change around culture in popular culture and stuff.

So we don't want to be too nostalgic about it, but we do want to think about the ways that it impacts.

How we participate in popular culture, you talk about like you know, going back to that Kaleidoscope model where it's now one person, one screen or it's like one screen and maybe four or five people in your in your family.

And we do want to think about kind of the the social aspects of popular culture consumption.

Both in terms of the transition away from theater going as a social activity towards more kind of individualized consumption of television and yet now towards this kind of streaming revolution, where its people kind of tucked away.

Monique Lillard: watching things.

Russell Meeuf: on their own.

You know that's that's not necessarily bad, but we should think about how that impacts, the kind of connections that we make with other people and the kind of experiences.

That it provides for us and thinking about yeah all of those types of things and is, this is a model that doesn't allow for that same type of kind of socialization.

You know my you know my when my kids do movie nights right it's just you know they still have arguments about what they're going to watch but it's not the same necessarily as like.

Looking at getting the newspaper, to see the listings and what's playing in the theater going down to the blockbuster going down to the you know, an independent movie kind of rental place to to try to pick something out.

And there was a ritualized aspect of it to you know my my dad watches a ton of movies, he was always preferred to go to kind of the independent rental stores, we when we were growing up down in Boise.

And so that was it was like once a week, you know you'd go and the the one we went to they had everyone had all these different systems.

They would have the empty cases on the wall, with a little tag underneath.

And so the cases state puts that people weren't messing with the cases in the cases didn't you know didn't have to worry about that.

But if it was available, you could pick off the little tag and take it up to the front and then they give you the disc the disc separately.

And we could go and be like all right, you can each pick two tags right and go pull them off and take them in and everything and there was a it was a ritualistic aspect of that and I think new rituals will certainly.

evolve and emerge, but we should keep an eye on the ways that it changes yeah changes, how we engage with not just movies, but with people yes.

Monique Lillard: Yes, I think it's interesting how, when I think of great moments in movies, that I saw in the theater I often will comment on the audience reaction, you know, and the whole room wet.

You know that type of thing and, of course, being in a room of people all with the reaction adds to one's reaction it's it's fascinating I wonder if they even.

They probably don't, but I wonder if they take that into account when they're making the movie even you know this is going to be the gas moment i'm sure they use that phrase, but.

Russell Meeuf: yeah right and that's yeah you know so when I was growing up in Boise we go to the Egyptian theater downtown because I could ride my bike there and watch movies and stuff so I saw Jurassic Park there like.

Over and over and over again yeah and it's actually just telling my kids about since it's the fourth of July holiday is coming up in a couple of days, I saw the the will Smith action blockbuster Independence Day, which is not necessarily like.

A Cinematic achievement but.

A fun blockbuster film and sitting watching it on like the fourth of July weekend and everybody just.

cheering and like.

yeah I just like clapping and hooting and hollering and just kind of the how rowdy people were when they were experiencing it for the first time.

And so yeah you lose some of that when you don't have those have those moments, and then yeah the social aspects of picking things out, then I was also just thinking about you know i'm I grew up watching a lot of movies, and now the film scholar, and I remember to part of.

Part of our ritual was always you know I would get up early the next morning and then rewatch the movie again after we'd watched it The night before while.

Eating my breakfast but because you had to get that you might not get another chance to see it right, like you.

got kicked out, it was do later, you have to like you got to get get another viewing in before you do that, and I wonder how much of like my my ability to remember, films and study films is like.

Early on, I got in the habit of not just like watching films, but like re watching and looking at the details, and not just kind of thinking about the story, but kind of like studying them.

Because there was a structure built in, and my kids don't they don't do that right, because the movies aren't going anywhere if they want to rewatch.

You know, whatever they just watched it's it's always available to them anywhere there's not infrastructure involved so there's not this pressure to like i've got i've got this thing and i've got to consume it as much as possible, for I send it back so.

Monique Lillard: there's there's some interesting aspects of memory to that because you know you watch it before you go to sleep so it's been in your head when you sleep and then you wake up and you kind of study it clear headed.

not surprised not wondering what's going to happen in the morning, I suspect that etched it for much more firmly into your memory, which actually reminds me.

What about those wonderful special features that were part of most DVDs and where do we find that I love that I love, I mean sometimes it was dumb.

And I rarely had the patience to watch the whole movie with the directors comments, because they weren't good enough usually but wow there was some great moments sometimes some history was thrown in what do you think how do we get that.

Russell Meeuf: I mean, in some ways, we have even more of it than we ever have those just moved on to YouTube right.

And so there's whole sites and the whole like.

You know it's a whole sub industry, providing content about media content right.

So um so yeah I mean the director's commentary is certainly, I think, a thing that we don't necessarily have as much anymore.

But that was that was also never my favorite part anyway, I don't want to watch it with them talking and stuff but we probably have more of that type of behind the scenes feature at deleted scenes kind of stuff that's available on YouTube than we did, even on DVDs.

And it's got a whole kind of cottage industry about you know I mean and part of this is as a teacher, too, I like showing some of that kind of stuff you know when I teach about cgi there's a whole world of.

YouTube videos that show what productions look like before they add the cgi and it's like somebody on a green screen talking to like a puppet or something and it's.

very dramatic on screen once they add the dinosaur and this, and this, and this but, like in real life is just like this, or there's a great compilation of.

tape takes from the marvel movies were like it's like characters who you know, there are doing the first part of a stunt, but like without that magic of editing without the cgi they just look super dorky do.

Monique Lillard: You love to see that what do you put into YouTube to get it, what do you put behind the scenes, or what.

Russell Meeuf: behind the scenes on YouTube you'll get a whole bunch of different stuff yeah I mean there's there's a ton of that stuff out there.

And that's the that's The other thing that's certainly changed streaming is that we have we are consuming so much more visual culture and so much more film right in the sense of.

Things that are you know recorded, you know moving pictures on cameras via YouTube and social media and tick tock and this and that.

And so we get a lot more of that and, in some ways, like my students that's that's primarily what they consume they don't watch a ton of movies or TV shows as much as they watch a lot of like really short snippets on YouTube.

Which is again a kind of a throwback to that early period and film when things were very short spectacle like here's a quick thing for you to consume versus something that requires a bit of kind of in depth, you know exploration.

Monique Lillard: that's that's fascinating you know my ritual now is we watch something on netflix and then, if it's a series I wait till the series is over, because you cannot trust people not to spoil things for you, and then I look it up on Wikipedia.

And that's my little ritual, and then I follow the links and if if there's something true i'll go look up either the history, or what does this place really look like, or what are they talking about and I enjoy it I guess that that must be the scholar and me.

I want to know what's what's true what's not let's get a little more information, but I guess we all come up with our rituals to sort of ground the stuff that's fascinating that's really interesting.

What should I ask what else should I have asked you what else is there to say.

Russell Meeuf: The basis, I mean, I think.

i'm glad you guys are doing this project that seems like a really cool idea and i'm glad that university will have these kind of archives and you know, we should be in touch about what you all want to do with these.

materials and that there's probably a number of researchers around the country who would be really interested in oral histories interested in if did the university end up getting some of like the paperwork right like the like the the books and the the yeah the infrastructure.

Monique Lillard: Some, and in fact i'm still tracking some of that down.

i've given my emails but i'm effect we're talking, today, you know I want to be careful, I did not get a release from everybody who was emailing with me and so maybe we'll hold them up for 30 or 50 years even.

I don't think there's anything embarrassing in them, I wouldn't have sent them on if I did, but I, you know I don't know how the library wants to handle that.

i'm going to try to get at least the incorporation papers and those types of things, one woman kept a scrapbook of newspaper articles and while I guess that would be available in online art archives it's sort of fun to have the actual newspaper.

A lot of stuff is lost, you know.

In doing these interviews.

Quite a few well several anyway, four or five people have started to cry talk about the nostalgia, but just remembering going in there as children themselves with their parents or with their own children.

and

One person in particular was saying he loved to have some of the memorabilia something that said either Howard Hughes video or mainstream video clip and I don't know where that is, I think it probably got discarded, you know, there was a lot of rushing around especially.

You know it closed only in March of 2020 wasn't that long ago, but a lot of us have had distorted feelings about time because I think the pandemic with it sort of.

Everything seems weird and so it's hard to know.

So, and I don't know exactly what they're going to do that's not really my department, I was just supposed to interview it's Robert parrot at the University of Idaho library is the one who's in charge and.

He seems like a wonderful man I just started to get to know him but i've been wondering to what are they going to do they might turn.

This into a podcast but the base materials, I, as I say it, but the way i'm doing it, and they are.

You see this and there's a fancy camera they've given me, and all this stuff their intention is to keep it for a long time way past least my lifetime so yeah i'll tell them to get in touch with you if, when they're thinking about it.

If you're interested.

Russell Meeuf: yeah.

see what they're gonna do with all.

Monique Lillard: Right anybody else we do you think we should be talking to because it was kenton who suggested would speak to you so.

Russell Meeuf: Okay um no I mean, I think.

I mean yeah I mean I mean you know there's a number of people in the Community who frequented it and stuff but.

Yes, I don't know if there's anybody else.

Monique Lillard: right but it's not you okay.

Russell Meeuf: Next.

Monique Lillard: Okay okay Thank you so much for your time on this warm day and, if you think of anything else you wish you'd said call me up.

we're trying to wrap this up in about the next 10 days, but I, even if I have to return the fancy University of Idaho stuff we could still do a zoom and don't hesitate to add, in a few things that come to your mind okay.

Thank you, thank you very much for your time and i'll go ahead and just close it right now, then, and thank you.

Russell Meeuf: All right, good to see you.

Monique Lillard: good to see you bye bye.