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 DJ: My name is DJ Palladinos and I am the director of Magic Lantern. I’ve been doing that the last 15 years. I’m not the founder of it, but I took it over the second year that it was in operation.How has MLF grown over the years? What changes have you noticed most?DJ: Well, you know, it’s grown and it’s shrunk and it’s grown again. Okay, so at the very beginning – fifteen years ago – people went to movies a lot more than they do now. So there was always a lot of attendees and we did a lot of things that were fun and a lot of things that were unusual. If we tried to do anything that was too unusual, people didn’t come. But usually, it was well-attended because we very picked good movies; it wasn’t just me, I helped pick those. But then in 2008 and 2009, when the economy tanked? We did terribly. And the way we responded was that we would have nights where there would be eight (? 1:20 mark) people in the theater, and people didn’t come. It was a difference because I think kids didn’t have much money to spend and Magic Lantern costs four dollars. Not that many really great movies were being made in those years because the studios were so financially strapped, so what we did was we tried a number of very experimental things. We had rock musicians come in and do live performances with projector things behind them. We had three concerts of rock musicians, we had different things, and they weren’t very good. I mean they were good concerts, but nobody ever came. And then, steadily in the last say six or seven years, attendance has been rising, rising, rising. So it’s not back to what it was before, but we ranked this year - I don’t think we’re doing so much events, we’re mostly trying to get people to come to the theater, come to the movies – so...I don’t think it hasn’t changed a lot. It has a good mix of blockbuster movies and experimental movies, and whenever we can get directors to come we’ve done that. I would do that now if someone came.How was MLF founded? Was it through the school? DJ: It began in the Film Studies department, and it was students that started it. There were two people, Kristy Julen and Chris Zoecki (? 3:01 mark), who were students in the department and they wanted to do something that they called a “cinema society.” They wanted to do Friday night show movies that people could come to that they didn’t have to write a paper about because they were Film Studies. And the first one that they did, the first movie they did – and they called it Magic Lantern because that's what the name of this theater was. When I was a kid I came out here to see movies when I was young and it was called the Magic Lantern Theater. And then the University bought it and renamed it Isla Vista Theater. And the first show that they did was Tron and The Big Lebowski, and Jeff Bridges came to the show. So they started with a gigantic bang and they had a lot of people come and they tried a lot of other movies. But they both graduated the following year so there wasn’t anybody to step forward to do it. My brother, who is the advisor in that department, asked me if I wanted to take it over for a short time while they found another student to do it. And I said, “Yeah, whatever, I’ll do it.” And I loved it. I would’ve been mad if anybody did come up. But also, in that time period, it was very casual at first but now I’m a full-time employee. So that part has grown.Does the name Attias ring a bell to you?DJ: David Attias. Yeah, yeah. So David Attias was a student here – his father is a movie director, he was a director in the Sopranos. He tragically had some sort of – he was schizophrenic or something, I don’t know what the real term was – he did not take his drugs and he got into a car and drove into a bunch of students and killed maybe three or four of them. He hit quite a few of them, maybe a dozen. And, as a result of that, when MLF was being started, the university took an interest in the cultural life of Isla Vista. So when we were looking for money, the university was more than happy to help fund us because our real goal was to give people something else to do besides drink. And to help build culture – that’s really the secret goal of Magic Lantern. To jumpstart culture in Isla Vista (something said here 5:46 mark). Very tragic. What has been your movie or event so far?DJ: Oh, that’s a good question...I think my favorite movie was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. We showed that film and we had the man who wrote the novel, David Chbosky, and he also directed the film and wrote the film. He came and people were beyond themselves, he came and he talked and they were very excited about that. He signed people’s books until 2 in the morning, there was a gigantic line here and everything about him worked really well.Other than that, I hosted one evening with the guys who directed Swiss Army Man, and they were also friends of my son, so they came out and we had this really great evening of really avant-garde film-making and the directors were there, the place was full, and they all came home to my house and they slept on the floor. It was really great.We’ve had a lot of great things happen here. You want to know what the best-selling film was? You’ll never guess. Oh, wait, now I can’t think of the name of it...I’m blanking on the name. ...The Notebook! When we filled that theater, its 525 seats, there were 700 people in line. It was a terrible movie. But people loved it. Where do you see the program in four years?DJ: I probably won’t be here much longer in four years, maybe five at the most because I’m getting old, and I’m interested in what will happen after that. We’ve started to talk to people because we don’t have anyone to replace me at this point, but I would like to see it stay the way it is. It’s a very good mix of trying to do experimental things, trying to do events – like every year we do the Lord of the Rings marathon – and this year I’m going to do a Harry Potter marathon which is like 24 hours of going to the movies...And...have more directors, that’s what I would like. Have more actors come to see the movies. What makes programs such as MLF important to the specific community of a college town?DJ: I hope so, I think so. I think its something else they can do besides….you know, Magic Lantern is part of an organization, IV Arts. IV Arts includes IV Live, Word Magazine, and then there’s a couple of other things like (Nuestra Voz? 9:30) that are related. We’ve given birth to other little groups of people like there was a young guy who wanted to just show real culty movies and we helped him get in and we gave him a little bit of money. So we’ve got little organizations going and we’re very glad. How many people show up Friday vs Monday night?DJ: I would guess...Monday is usually ? of what Friday is. If Friday was 200 people, maybe 150 would show up on Monday. Before performances. We usually reach around 200 which is really good compared to other colleges. In the old days, in the beginning, we only had Friday nights but then we added Monday nights. In those days, we would get – Friday nights – 7:00 show would be the biggest show, and then Monday night would equal that show, almost to the number. If 221 people showed up, 219 would show up to the other. But now it’s much more. ................
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