How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By Katie Williams
Collegian Editor
August 29, 2007

What is your name and major? My name is Dave Amodei, and I’m a senior business management and management information systems major.

Can you describe what you did this summer? Well, I co-ran the Lawn Chair Drive in Northern Liberties. It’s a weekly 16mm outdoor film series, where people can sit on the grass and watch movies from a projector. It’s been running for 12 years, but this is only my third year working it.

Could anyone come to this event? Yes, it was a free event, open to anyone who wanted to come.

What’s the crowd usually like at the show? It varies. We get scenesters, older people that come every week and families. We get a lot of different types of people, but there’s always a lot of them.

Where do you get the movies you screen? The films come from junk sales, other people’s basements and the depths of the Internet. Some movies we own, and some of the non-obscure material we rent from studios – movies like Planet of the Apes. A lot of the movies we show are so obscure though, that either the person who owns the rights to them is dead, or the studio never bothered to renew the rights, so those we have to find somewhere.

How much do these movies cost? It depends, really. It’s my goal to own a copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for instance, but that is about $700 to rent or buy. But then there are other movies that are only $100. A Technicolor Cinescope print of Singing in the Rain, or of The Wizard of Oz, could be over $2,000, but you can also find it for $1 in someone’s basement if you look hard enough.

Do you have a favorite film in your collection? Yes, but it’s hard to say. I have so many favorites, all for different reasons. My favorite commercial is a Friskies cat food ad. My favorite movie is either Skatetown, USA or the Horror of Party Beach. We showed The Horror of Party Beach this year, it’s the first horror musical. Well, the first horror musical beach party film, I should say. Some of the monsters have ping-pong ball eyes.

Skatetown, USA stars Scott Baio and Patrick Swayze and is about the drama that takes place when skate gangs decide to battle. It is what it is.

Do you do anything else besides show movies at these events? This summer we had an 8-Bitts show before we screened War Games. They’re a musical act that re-works old video game noises into instruments. That was pretty awesome.

williamsk1@lasalle.edu