In a warehouse, just off Doss Road, right behind the Upper Elementary School, sits the headquarters of one of the most successful recent business ventures in Salem. Everything Cinema is made up of three to four crews of two to three individuals who drive around the United States throughout the year, installing hundreds of professional-quality film screens. Right out of Dent County.
Everything Cinema is the brainchild of Scott Hubbard, who grew up in Montgomery City, moved to Georgia for a while, and eventually came back to the area to be close to family. His father works in St. James and his wife is from Salem. He started working in the film industry as a projectionist 20 years ago after paying his dues in a Georgia movie theatre he worked at in high school. When asked if he ever slipped any additional shots into a reel, he laughs and says seriously, "That's illegal."
He got so into the film business that he decided to branch out and see if he could do it himself. “I started out selling popcorn and changing the marquee sign, and I have just continuously stayed with it, really,” says Hubbard. “For the whole time. My little cousin who lives in Jeff City, when I first needed a second person, he came to work with me, and then we grew from two people to five people and so on and so forth.”
Hubbard grew more and more interested in the technical side of things. He wanted to know what made everything tick. Sound systems, projectors… he read every manual he could get his hands on. His enthusiasm was contagious, and eventually he made the acquaintance of some of the heavy hitters in film equipment production, which eventually took him all over the world doing what he loves.
“I built theaters in Spain and Sweden and France and Japan,” says Hubbard. “So I started getting into, meeting with and knowing all these people that were making these technological advancements in new buildings, in new theatres. And, you know, I wasn't involved in every single one of them, but certainly in the last 15-plus years, I have really gotten to know a lot of the key people at different companies that are making and have made lots of advancements over all this time.”
With the ever-increasing advancement of technology Hubbard has seen, like DTS, and Dolby 5.1 Surround, to newer advancements like 3D-enabled screens, the company has been very busy lately and continues to grow.
Director of Operations A.J. Schafer gave a presentation recently to some of the employees, the ones who weren't out on the road, showing just how much they make and the benefits that they have as workers. They get twice the average pay in Salem, with profit sharing benefits for all employees.
“We’re the quickest growing company in our field,” said Schafer. “And a household name in the cinema industry.”
The company has an ever-growing fleet of 10 vehicles, 11 trailers, two facilities and 25-plus employees.
Michael Pike, who manages the warehouse, helps get the screens ready to ship. Everything Cinema also provides a job to disabled individuals from the Adult Center, who help them sort their leftover hardware, saving the company from having to buy expensive replacements for equipment they already have.
Pike shared a story illustrating how important safety is to the company. These speakers in movie theaters hanging above people's heads,” said Pike, a 17-year veteran of the armed forces whose been with the company for about a year. “If one of those speakers comes down, which one did four or five months ago – it wasn't one of our installs, it was one of our competitors, and they installed it with the stuff that came from the speaker factory. They didn't put a safety cable on it. So we were already ahead of these guys, and we took it one step further and made it to where, if that speaker comes down, that means the entire wall – or whatever that speaker was attached to – is coming down as well.”
"We adhere pretty closely to these guys, this is our safety protocol," says Schafer as he plops down a huge three-ring, overstuffed binder. “That's one of the big elements of what we do, we have all the equipment that we need so that we don't have to cut corners, so that we can do it in the safest possible way. We're known for our safety."
Jake Schafer, one of the supervisors who travels around the country with a three-person crew, enjoys the job.
"I love working here,” says Jake Schafer. “It's fun. I get to travel. You're seeing different parts of the country all the time, a different place every day. And the work's actually really entertaining, I would say. You're in a growing industry. There's stuff all the time changing. It's different, you don't hear of people building theaters very often, you know? It's just a different type of company, and that's why I enjoy it. It's just something different to do, and something to get out of Salem for a while.
"Each of us has a crew, and we have our own truck and trailer. Ethan Curley will go to Mobile, Alabama, and I'll go to Boston, and then John will be in California, and then we'll just rotate around the country."
When a crew arrives a a theater, they check in with the manager, then get to work after the last showing, usually putting in their main hours from midnight to 8 o'clock in the morning.
"Then it's back to the hotel to sleep until 11:30 a.m. or whenever they kick you out," says Jake. "Then you're driving 10 to 12 hours to the next spot."
He says that the truck is always full with any supplies they'd need for a cross-country trip. A video can be seen on YouTube of the crew in action. They have such high-quality standards that a major screen production agency, Harkness Screens, approached Everything Cinema to create an instructional video about how to properly install their product, as many installers were damaging their screens through no fault of the company.
The instructional video Everything Cinema made for Harkness Screens:
“Because we were the most successful at installing their equipment without causing it damage,” said Hubbard. “They came to us.”
The business has grown in size considerably from the owner's single van that he started with, to the size that it is now, and continuing to grow faster and faster as cinemas continue to innovate and find new ways to bring in business in an industry threatened by Internet streaming and Netflix. But Everything Cinema isn’t worried. They’re confident that people will always appreciate a trip to the cinema – for the experience, whether it be a teenager’s nervous first date or a couple’s 50th wedding anniversary. Hubbard and Schafer both feel that the business will continue to be profitable for a long time, as the cinema industry continues to innovate and add new ways to experience film.
And they'll need Everything Cinema there to install these upgrades, as they come.
“We make all this stuff over in the Industrial Park, and then take it all over the country,” says Hubbard, showing off a custom pulley used for the screens. “And hopefully, one day, all over the world.”
