Interview with Jeff Knoll

Jeff Knoll, who operates Film.ca Cinemas, an independent theatre in Oakville, talks about his life long love of film and filmmaking. He also talks about the high and lows of running the business over the years, as well as the trials and tribulations of trying to keep it open during the pandemic.

Watch: https://youtu.be/fanSfeOT8eE

Unedited Transcript.

Jim Allan: Welcome, Jeff Knoll.

Jeff Knoll: Thank you.

Jim Allan: Now, how many times a day do people mispronounce your last name?

Jeff Knoll: Well, it's usually they mispronounce it. I'm Knolls. But that's usually one of those two, and frequently.

Jim Allan: So I like to prepare for these interviews a little bit. And I have to admit, I got a little nervous, because there's at least two Jeff Knolls, right? There's the longtime regional counselor, very serious politician. Then there's the fun-loving cinema owner. Are you a full-time counselor, and a full-time cinema owner? I mean, I'm not good at math. Can you be both? Can you be both?

Jeff Knoll: Well, I guess I'm probably more of a full-time counselor and a part-time cinema operator. I'm very lucky and blessed to have a great team around me at the business. So I'm able to continue my business pursuits while also being an effective regional counselor. At least I think I'm effective. I hope I'm effective.

Jim Allan: I mean, I've seen you there. So I mean, in anticipation of this interview, of course, I had to go to the theater. And now I didn't see you in person there. No. So you had people. But you had a couple of videos running prior to the-

Jeff Knoll: My presence is always very much known at the theater.

Normally, there's one video with you in it. And this time, there was two videos. I was furiously taking notes while I was watching a movie. So OK, so we're recording this two days after the Academy Awards. So I almost threw out all my questions because of what happened at the Academy Awards. I mean, I was in bed on Twitter. And everyone's going, oh my god, what's going on?

Jeff Knoll: Which was too bad, because it was a pretty good show, especially in the absence of a real Oscars event for two years. It was a pretty good show. And to have that happen, it really distracted from some of the other performances.

And the winners. The movies that won.

Jeff Knoll: Yeah, I mean, and that's sad. I mean, there was a really touching moment at the end between Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli that I think, for many people, that should probably be the punctuation at the end of this wonderful show. But unfortunately, it's going to be this terrible altercation between these two Hollywood legends.

Jim Allan: Makes it memorable. You'll never forget it.

Jeff Knoll: You'll never forget where you were on the night of the 94th Academy Awards.

Jim Allan: I was in bed.

Jeff Knoll:  Not sure I was.

Jim Allan: I will never forget being in bed and on Twitter.

So something happened to you when you were 13. I've done some research.

Jeff Knoll: Oh dear.

Jim Allan: Something happened to you when you were 13. You got a job in a cinema.

Jeff Knoll: Yes.

Jim Allan: What did you do?

Jeff Knoll: Well, it's an interesting story because I had been hanging around a local movie theater, I guess as a mascot for a while. Was always fascinated with the movies. And actually, I should back up oust a little bit before. Before that happened, I was actually already into audio visual things and helped in the AV squad at school. And, but I started this little, I guess, movie theater of my own. I would borrow a 60 millimeter projector from the local branch of the Windsor Public Library. Borrow us a movie, set it up at a local community center that I was able to borrow and show films to the neighborhood kids. I think it was a quarter a piece and I'd pop popcorn and I got an orange pop loner machine from McDonald's. And I was the richest kid in school, but I was also rapidly becoming quite infatuated with the exhibition business. And shortly after that, after somebody finally figured out that I was breaking copyright rules, I started hanging out at the Center Theater in Windsor, which was this beautiful old single screen theater with a balcony. And I got to know all the staff. And like I said, I was kind of the mascot. And I recall one day I was there, I think it was a Saturday afternoon and the manager was short staffed and said, how old are you? And I said, I'm 13. And he said, oh, you're 14. I said, no, I'm 13. He said, oh, so you're 14. I'm still not understanding what he's doing. He says, okay, here's the deal. You're 14 and you're here all the time anyway. Why don't I pay you for being here and you actually help me out because I don't have enough staff to operate the matinee today. And basically I've not looked back since that day.

Jim Allan: So when you were 13, did you ever think that you'd be, I don't know, 30 years old and owning a theater someday?

Jeff Knoll: I kind of had my mindset on that at that point. I knew that's what I wanted to do. I loved it. I had a couple passions at the time. One was working in the theater business. Other was making movies. And I was already actively engaged doing that with my little friends in the neighborhood with an old wind up eight millimeter camera that my father had rescued from one of his friends and politics, believe it or not. I was already into politics. I used to go door to door and hung around campaign offices when the time was right and was already involved in mostly federal politics at that time.

Jim Allan: Did you read Marvel or DC?

Jeff Knoll: Actually, neither. I was a sci-fi guy. I was reading Arthur C. Clarke. It was and is my favorite author. Childhood is End was one of my favorite books. The original, his original short stories like The Sentinel, which eventually became 2001. So those were my favorite books.

Jim Allan: So this whole Marvel revolution in the theaters means nothing to you then?

Jeff Knoll: Oh, it means a lot to me because that's frankly it's- That's where the bread is better done. Those tent pole movies are really what makes our business successful. We need those big films peppered in throughout the year in order to keep the lights on and the rent paid.

Jim Allan: So when I was a kid, I read DC, but I collected Marvel comics as a teen, as an investment. So I wouldn't read the Marvel.

Jeff Knoll: Wish I had done that.

Jim Allan: I would put them in plastic, but I have like three Black Panther number ones.

Jeff Knoll: Oh my goodness. And then I go, how much is that worth?

Jim Allan: And it's like, they're about $250 each. So I'm gonna retire. I'm gonna sell my three Black Panther copies.

Jeff Knoll: Well, I had the model of the chariot from Lost in Space. remember that TV show.

Jim Allan: Yes, of course.

Jeff Knoll: And I had managed to acquire this toy of the chariot. And I saw recently, I don't have it anymore. I saw recently they were selling on eBay for five or $600 and I was kicking myself for selling that at some garage sale at some point for probably two bucks.

Jim Allan: So, favorite movie of all time?

Jeff Knoll: Oh, that's a great question. I have two actually. One is, one's probably edges out the other, but one is most definitely It's a Wonderful Life. And the second is Contact, Carl Sagan's Contact.

Jim Allan: Okay, I've seen one of those.

Jeff Knoll: Which one?

Jim Allan: Well, it's a Wonderful Life, of course, so Frank Capra. So I was kind of, people are like into punk music, punk rock and stuff. I'm Frank Capra, then Spielberg and sort of the, but I do miss just adult movies, not adult movies. I mean adult movies.

Jeff Knoll: We don't play those kind of movies, Jim.

Jim Allan: But it's like the 70s, like a Jack Nicholson movie or something. So I kind of, I wish there was more of that. So you loved film and movies, but you didn't go to film school. So was that ever an issue? Was that ever?

Jeff Knoll: I kind of did. I took, I majored in political science and communication studies. And communication studies is sort of the academic side of film and television. So I focused largely on sort of broadcast act and kind of the business behind film and television. We spent a fair amount of time in studio, in our labs, but it wasn't technically film school. It was communication studies. I think film school at that time was more a vocational pursuit. I wanted to go to film school, but there wasn't anything really available where I was at the time. But I got a good, I got a good rounded education. I produced some student films while I was there in some of the film classes, but not really the kind of intensive education that the young folks get at Sheridan or Ryerson now when they're in the film program there.

Jim Allan: So you were living a relatively normal life. And then in 1999, I believe, you bought a second run theatre in Burlington. 98.

Jeff Knoll: Actually, 98 we actually took over what used to be the Plaza Theatre in Oakville. It had been closed years before by Canadian Odeon. When Canadian Odeon was acquired by Cineplex, they had, at that time, during that period, they had this twin screen theatre behind what was until a few years ago, the Shoppers Drug Mart at Curren Spears, right next door to where our current location is. And the Shoppers Drug Mart had taken over a good part of the theatre and turned it into storage space. I had wanted to get back into the business. I had taken my kids and some of their friends to see Flubber, actually, Robin Williams Flubber, at the New Silver City at the time, in Mississauga across the street from Oakville, up there in Dundas, and was alarmed at the fact that in 19, was that 87? I think it was 87 or 88 dollars. I spent over $140 to take my kids, two of their friends, and my wife, Michelle, to see this movie. And I just thought at the time, like how can a regular family be able to do this? This isn't what the film industry really is supposed to be. It's supposed to be accessible and pedestrian. And so I set out, I said, I'm gonna get back into this business at that point. I had been working at Queens Park at the time and was really kind of tired of being an assistant. And so decided, you know, I'm going to maybe get back into film exhibition full-time, looked for the theatre, found this little location in Oakville, and was actually still living in Etobicoke at the time, but working for a local MPP in Oakville. And we raised some money and renovated the theatre and turned it back into a theatre. And got it open on August 25th, 1998.

Jim Allan: Okay, so this is Oakville?

Jeff Knoll: This is Oakville.

Jim Allan: Okay, so some of my Googling is inaccurate.

Jeff Knoll: Your Googler might be broken.

Jim Allan: Well, I'm gonna have to get a new Google then.

Jeff Knoll: But the 1999 theatre was Burlington. We actually at one point had three locations. So we took over another Cineplex in Burlington. It was the little, it was a sixplex on Brandt Street. And it was one of Garth Drabinsky’s original theatres when he started Cineplex way before he was Cineplex. Oh yeah, back when he was Cineplex and Garth and Nat Taylor, you know, put together this little company and opened up some of these really tiny theatres. So that we picked up that one in 99. And then later in 99, we also picked up Theatre in Mississauga, the Central Parkway cinemas.

Jim Allan: So then in 2012, 2013, they were no longer gonna allow you to run 35 millimeter prints. You closed the Burlington theatre. Then you were forced with a huge expense to renovate really the Oakville theatre and turn it all into digital. So that was sort of a fork in the road for you, I guess.

Jeff Knoll: Well, it was a fork in the road for us and it was a dark time for independent theatres. I mean, just as a slight bit of background, independent movie theatres are few and far between now. It's become a very difficult industry to work mostly because of the way that films are distributed across North America. Big Chains seem to have the monopoly and even more so in Canada because we only have one now, but we used to only have two and they generally split up the film. So being an independent meant you had to have a niche or you're playing second run or you were lucky enough to be in a smaller community that was distant from a larger one where you could play first run films. So it's difficult to be an independent at all. When the industry makes such a wholesale change as converting from traditional film to digital, there was a huge capital cost that went along with that because all of the projectors had to be changed out, the sound processors had to be changed out, all of that investment that we had in the projection booth with five screens in Oakville and six in Burlington, we basically faced extinction just like a lot of independent theatres failed at that time. So we chose to close Burlington because they were very small auditoriums and it was very difficult to justify a hundred thousand dollars per auditorium, not that we had a hundred thousand dollars or $600,000 sitting around to convert Burlington, but to convert that theatre would have been way more than what it could have generated in revenue. So the lease was ending, we chose to end it at the end of 2012. In 2013, we struggled through with Oakville.

With the expectation, we probably had two years before the change was gonna happen. The studios pretty much changed their trajectory because almost every major theatre was either, they completed their transformation or they were close to doing that. So they moved their date up. So we were actually at a point in 2013 where we weren't able to play some of the biggest films of the year. Like one of the biggest movies of the year that year was Despicable Me. It was a huge animated success, but it was only available digitally. We couldn't get a 35 millimeter print. And so we were missing playing some of the key tent pole films that year and it was really starting to hurt. It was October of 2013 that I decided that was it and packing it in. And this is quite a fascinating story and there's an intersection between my favorite movie and this story and I'll tell you in just a moment. But I decided I was gonna just pack it in and focus on my political things. I had had a great run in the exhibition business, but there's just no way we could, first of all, we didn't have, Oakville was gonna be well over a million dollars to do the conversion because of the size of the auditoriums and a number of other issues. But it was gonna be a very big expenditure plus making up for the losses that we had incurred up to that point because it became very difficult even to get people into the theaters when you didn't have a fully digital complex. We had one digital projector we didn't be able to scrape together the money for, but we still needed four more. And so we said, that's it, we're just going to, we're gonna close it down. And I remember sending a letter out to our big mailing list and to my friends and family and said, we're going to do this the right way. We're giving all of our staff notice. This is, so this is notice to our staff. This is our notice to our customers. At the end of, I think I gave it to two weeks. At the end of two weeks, we're going to close the door. So we've really appreciate the business. We hope to see, yeah, we were just gonna walk away from it and wind it up and move on because again, it was very difficult and we wouldn't be the first and certainly wouldn't have been the last to do that because again, it was this big challenge with this huge capital cost. And it was, it's just, it's hard to borrow money and it's expensive and all sorts of things. And so this letter went out and I said, like if there's, and this is where the connection for it's a wonderful life. The letter that I sent out was themed after it's a wonderful life.

And I sort of made the comparison between George Bailey contemplating his life and said like, if there's a Sam Wayne right out there, we'd love to hear from you now or forever hold your peace. And I sort of did that tongue in cheek. I wasn't expecting any white nights to come rolling in with a great big check or a big investment. But what happened the next morning, I remember sending a letter out, I hit send on my email program. I watched a TV show or two, went to bed, woke up the next morning, ready to start this process of winding things up. And when I woke up, my email box was just full. I scrolled through pages and pages and pages of emails and oddly enough, money. People had been sending me money. They just like voluntarily started sending funds and said, you have to survive. You have to keep the business going. This is what I can afford. I can give you $50. I can give you $25, $10, $100, $2,000, $1,000. And it was incredible. And I didn't, I mean, I was speechless and I knew that it was a very nice gesture and it was very welcome, but it was not really what we needed to survive because a couple thousand dollars wasn't going to save the day. But the thought was just, I was overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude and everything else. So I sent another email and I said, gee, this is great. Thank you so much. It really makes me feel great about the time we've invested in the community, but it didn't stop. And 48 hours later, there's $50,000 sitting in PayPal. And I was like, is there a way I can make this work? And then I got a few more emails and I think three individuals contacted me and said, I'm applying for the job, I'm paraphrasing, but I'm applying for the job of being your Sam Rainwright, your Sam Rainwright. Can I come by and see you? And so I sat down with three individuals that had a fair amount of money available to them or had little investment groups behind them. And sure enough, one of them. Three separate people.

Three separate people, not connected. One didn't really want to go through with it because I think at the end of the day, they thought maybe it was a little bit too risky because at that point, it's not charity. Now it's a serious investment. And then it was down to two people. And then one fellow, David Jenkins, just had such enthusiasm for the business. He was a customer, he had very similar viewpoints to mine and had this kind of attitude and this kid-like attitude about our business. And so I linked up with him and he had this little investor group come together and they shored us up. And between the capital that we raised from the community and the capital that our Sam Rainwright came forward with, we were able to buy the equipment we needed and carry on in our business. It was not easy because we still had a lot of revenue to catch up on because of that terrible 2013 year, but we did. And we were able to put the equipment in. We got new seats. We renovated the lobby. We put in some more offerings in the snack bar. We added pizza. And we've made the experience much better. We rebranded. We got away from the old Encore brand and moved to our corporate name, which was always film.ca cinemas. And so we said, hey, let's embrace the new eWorld. And so we actually turned our corporate name and our URL into our company name. And that's where we landed. And that's where we are today.

Jim Allan: So I'm going to inject a little levity into the proceedings here before getting dark again.

Jeff Knoll: Oh dear.

Jim Allan: So true or false. I have three true or false questions for you. True or false, the Jeffy verse is a real thing.

Jeff Knoll: In my own mind, maybe, but yeah, okay.

Jim Allan: I had to explain that joke to my wife when we went to a movie the other day. And for those listening, you're going to have to go to more movies to figure that joke out.

Jeff Knoll: Due credit goes to one of our managers who's a film student, a graduate film student. And we challenge, we hire a lot of people in film. And we said, because we have this virtual video campaign that we've been doing for years. And I won't spoil it so that people can use their Googlers and figure out what the heck we're talking about. But he came up with this really fun little script and that's where that came from.

Jim Allan: Because of just leaks on the internet. I knew what the joke was. But of course, there's nothing worse than having to explain a joke to, well, you see, there's this thing that happens in a movie that neither of us have seen and that I know because, and meanwhile we're missing key dialogue, of course.

So true or false, the Batman is too long.

Jeff Knoll: Very true. Three hours long.

Jim Allan: Yeah, that's way too long. People need to learn how to edit. We need a, Jeff, we need a bathroom break in the middle.

Jeff Knoll: Certainly we need. Well, it's interesting. In most European theaters, there is a intermission. We just got away from that in North America. We were just joking with that the other day at the theater that maybe we should be the leaders and reinstate intermissions in movies because they all seem to be getting so long.

Jim Allan: So true or false, pandemics are not long enough.

Jeff Knoll: False.

Jim Allan: I told you it was gonna get dark.

That is pretty dark. So during the worst of the pandemic, I remember walking past local businesses and thinking about how difficult it must be for them. I mean, I felt sorry for myself, but I also felt sorry for every business that had rent to pay and probably had to lay off employees. And I walked, yours, your business included. And at one point you were closed for eight consecutive months, right? So what was that like for you? I mean, it's not an easy. Well, it was. Another challenge.

Jeff Knoll: It was another challenge. And I've only identified the one, the digital challenge. We've had challenges in the past around getting access to films. We had a fight about that in 2000. And so we're used to the adversity that comes with being a rebel in an industry that is traditionally very corporate and very well-healed. And so the pandemic presented this new challenge to us. We closed voluntarily before we were ordered closed because we knew that in the public interest, this was not a movie theater, particularly in light of the lack of information. A movie theater is probably not the place to be in the early days of a pandemic. So we closed, I think 48 or 24 hours before the province said you must close. But it was terrifying because we rent our property. And even if we didn't rent it, we'd likely have a mortgage. We rent our property and the rent bill is almost $60,000 a month. And if you're down even a couple of days, you're starting to really, your cash flows really started to suffer at that point. So it was really quite a panic. Everybody was originally in those early days saying, oh, it's 30 days. It's a circuit breaker reset. We're gonna get people. And I don't think I believed that, but I hoped for it. And as we closed down, I kept on as many of the staff that I could. The staff that had families to support, we kept on. And fortunately the government supported us through their wage subsidy program. So we got a lot of little behind the scenes work done.

But I also deployed the staff to do some community services as well. So we collected personal protective equipment, PPE at the theater, for example. We worked with some local physicians and we collected PPE and stored it there. And we had a couple of days where medical professionals that needed it lined up and they were big lined up out the door on to experience. It was both exciting, but terrifying. And they got their PPE. We had a volunteer food bank, book bank, toy bank on our front porch where you didn't have to come into the building. And if you needed food, because you couldn't shop or you had financial challenges, you can come and get food. You know, if you're getting bored and you wanted a book, there was a book exchange and we had videos, DVDs, we had toys, puzzles, all sorts of things on our front porch that we monitored and we made sure everything was safe. And so we did things like that to keep ourselves busy and to support our community during that time we were closed. And 30 days stretched out to 60 days and to 90 days and to 120 days. And things got pretty rough there for a while. But we kept our spirits up and we kept looking towards that light in the future, that light at the end of the tunnel that we would hopefully not take us somewhere, but deliver us back to a solvent environment again.

Jim Allan: And people at home, they discovered the joys of Amazon having products delivered directly to your house. And of course, viewing habits changed even more than it had already changed. The studios held off their big movies as long as they could. But eventually they started to put their first run movies on streaming services. That must've driven you nuts.

Jeff Knoll: At the time, when it was happening, I understood it. So I mean, studios are businesses too. And you know, actors have to be paid and directors have to be paid and all those people behind the scenes that, you know, don't make millions of dollars, they need to be paid. And so that industry needed to continue to be solvent as well. And we understood that. So the idea of streaming movies while we were, while the theaters were closed and there was, you know, at various points in time, particularly in those early days, every movie theater in North America was closed. In fact, most theaters around the planet were closed. So there was no outlet for films other than through digital means. And so I understood the studios wanting to put films onto digital platforms. It made sense. And I think it was a way to keep people entertained as well during a very difficult time. They needed that outlet for entertainment.

What happened was is that, you know, the studios really liked digital streaming and they were discovering that it was a very lucrative exercise, particularly when they owned and operated their own streaming service. It wasn't as if they were cutting a deal with Netflix and sharing the revenue. You know, Disney had, you know, fairly recently launched Disney Plus and they discovered that if they put their films directly on their own platform, they keep a hundred cents on the dollar instead of splitting it with a distributor and splitting it with an exhibitor. As we opened, we had a brief period, as you recall, and our pandemic sojourn, so to speak, where we were able to open for a while. And we were immediately faced with the fact that films that we accounted on, the studios had either decided to release them only to streaming or to do what's known in the industry as day and dating, which means that you release them simultaneously. And that was and is a very scary proposition for us because we've always, in our industry, relied on having that window, that period of time before digital delivery or DVD delivery or whichever format to basically have exclusivity or exclusive rights over that film. In the world of film, the producers pay their bills. This is sort of the way it works.

They pay their bills through the theatrical release. They pay for the cost of some through theatrical release and they make the profit off of the ancillary licensing or the ancillary release, whether it be, as I said, DVD streaming, broadcast, airlines, whichever venue they're using. But for many, many years, every challenge that came to movie theaters, whether it was television, then it was color television, then it was pay-per-view or not pay-per-view, but movie channels, then it was pay-per-view, then it was DVD and beta and VHS and then eventually streaming, all these streaming channels. Every challenge that came along, theaters were always doomed in the eyes of the economists and those that watched the industry. But we always survived. But this is the first time when the studios have said, but we really, really like keeping 100 cents on the dollar. And so we had, for example, this past March break, which Disney usually gets us a film over March break for the kids to see. And usually it's sometimes coincides with American or state March breaks and often with ours, but usually during the Canadian March break or the Ontario March break, we have one really good kids film to play and it's invariably from Disney. Well, this year they went direct to video with Going Red, which was the latest Pixar offering and ironically shot on the backdrop of Toronto. It was animated, but it was all set in Toronto. And they exclusively released that to video after we'd been promoting it, it had been on all our screens, we had posters up, we were ready to play it and they made the decision to pull it. So for us that broke our hearts and really hurt our bank account. And it's really indicative of where we are and there's an industry right now.

Jim Allan: So Jeff, this is a safe space, right? At your lowest point, did you consider getting your own Netflix account?

Jeff Knoll: Well, I have a Netflix account. I am a movie fan. I have a Netflix account. I'm a Disney zealot. I have a Disney plus account, but again, I use it the way they should be used and that's to augment the experience at the theater, not to replace it.

Jim Allan: So in January of this year, you had your own Jerry Maguire moment where you published an open letter to the community was in a local paper as well. Tell me about it. You felt from that, you were beyond frustrated. This is again, in the waning days, we all know the pandemic's over, but okay, it's not. It's not over. It's, but you were beyond frustrated.

Jeff Knoll: Well, I was beyond frustrated because I, for full disclosure, I mean, in addition to being a cinema operator, you mentioned earlier, I'm also a regional counselor, which makes me a member of the board of health. And I am totally on side with the public health precautions that we've taken. I've never complained about the health precautions that we've taken. I've been supportive of the public health professionals and their advice and have done everything I've been told to do. I got my vaccinations when I was supposed to, and I've been wearing my mask religiously and I promote that and defend it with great, with great support, with great energy. But what I saw is decisions being made that weren't being made on a scientific basis, particularly as it applies to business. In December, we were open. We had been allowed to open earlier that fall and business was a little slow. Well, no, honestly, it was devastatingly slow, but we had this one bright, shining hope in December and that was the release of Spider-Man.

Jim Allan: Right.

Jeff Knoll: So we opened up Spider-Man and literally the day after we opened it, the province comes out with this new order that theaters can remain open, but they can't serve food or beverage.

Jim Allan: And to a movie theater, that's essentially. That's how you make your money.

Jeff Knoll: Well, it's one of the ways we make money and it's an important piece. And it's, you know, you can't take one out and still have the other, doesn't work. You need really great films to bring people to buy food and you need food to bring people to the theater. And so we were basically told you can operate, but you can't sell food and you can't consume food or beverage in the theater. So you can't even allow your customers to bring in their own food. So now we're put in this position where we have to fight with our customers because they're sneaking in food. They don't understand the rules. They think we're making the rules and we're packing theaters. We're selling out shows. And it was like, for us, it was that light at the end of the tunnel. I'd been waiting for that bright shining star in the hill that we were waiting for. And it got stolen from us literally the day after. And it was done with like literally no scientific basis at all, because there had been up to that point. And I believe still to this day, there's not been a case of COVID connected to a movie theater anywhere, anywhere on the planet. And that's predominantly because of the way you sit in theaters, the way that we have very high ceilings and very high velocity air exchange in theaters.

Jim Allan: You actually quote a German study.

Jeff Knoll: Yeah. There was a German study that actually tested these theories and it held true. I mean, and not to mention the fact that we as an industry have been very vigilant about maintaining cleanliness standards way beyond what most businesses do in terms of sanitizing seats, using aerosolized disinfectants and such in order to not just talk about it, but to actually do something about it, to do what it takes to deal with the contact issues and such. So for them to turn around and say, for the province to turn around and say, yeah, you can operate, but yeah, you can't sell. It's sort of like saying to the Maple Leafs, you can play hockey, but you can't use sticks. I mean, that's essentially where we were. And that's where the letter came from. It was very frustrating, because we really expected that we were gonna be able to start to rebuild after the devastation of the pandemic occurred. And it was just taken away from us. And so, we had the Christmas season to make a lot of money, which is one of the key seasons of the year for us. We live for Christmas, March break and summer.

Those were our biggest periods. So we summer, we'd already lost half a summer and even the half a summer that we were allowed to operate last year was only okay. And because we were able to open late July and into August, there wasn't a lot released. Plus we were fighting with the studios about getting films. The fall, when we were allowed to reopen, there's no real business in the fall. We had James Bond, which was great, but we were really banking on that Christmas. So when they took it away from us, that's when the frustration hit across the board, across Ontario and other jurisdictions where they did the same thing. And so that's when that we really started to hammer back and say, listen, like we've been here for you. We support what you're trying to do. We will take reductions in capacity. We will do whatever you want us to do, but please do not take away our ability to generate revenue because we are essentially subsidizing every ticket that walks in the door if we can't sell food. And sure enough, they made the change, but it was made kind of late. And so late January, we were able to turn the popcorn machine back on. Well, I really admire like in the letter too, your transparency in the sense that for every $10 of tickets sold, and then you broke down what I get to keep, what I have to give to the government, what we have to give back to the movie studios, which is a chunk. A big chunk, especially that film, especially Spider-Man. Yeah, so it's different film to film. So they know it's a big giant hit and they wanna make their money back.

Jim Allan: I mean, are you hopeful for the future of in-person cinema in general?

Jeff Knoll: The jury's out. I mean, I think that the audiences are willing to come back and we've seen that. When we have great films, the audience has come back. The real issue is gonna be around the studios and how the studios are going to continue to control films, control the flow of films. We need family films. Like we're opening Sonic this coming Thursday. And if you're watching this in repeat, it's April 1st, 12th, 2022 we're talking about or March 31st, 2022. But that's really the first big family film that we've been able to play. And the pent-up demand for that family film is huge. Like we're booking birthday parties and we're getting all kinds of interest in pre-sales and tickets. But it can't be the exception. It needs to be the rule. We need to have more family films and we need to have more adultish films, not adult films. Not adult films, but adultish films. The films for the 35, 40 plus crowd, we need those. And we need, of course the tent poles are always available to us because that's where they make the bread and butter. But without getting back to a sense of normality or a normal releasing pattern, we could be in trouble as can the whole industry. And we're pushing back as hard as we can to try to do that. Now we're trying to find pivots. We're trying to pivot our business to find new ways to generate revenue and to excite people about different offerings. But that's a hard slog.

Jim Allan: You know what I miss though? I mean, I went to a movie the other day. I think I told you, but it's the trailers. And it's those surprise trailers. So, and one was Elvis. I thought, oh, and that's Tom Hanks. So this is gonna be good. That's like, it's probably gonna be good.

Jeff Knoll: Yeah, Tom Hanks usually equals good. Yeah. And then the other one is it's a movie that the studios have held back, which is Top Gun.

Jim Allan: Yes. Right?

And there's all these in the trailers that you're going, there it is, it's Top Gun. First time I've seen any of it. And there's all these in jokes referencing back to the first movie. Again, I have to explain it to my wife what the jokes are. They're playing volleyball shirtless on the street. It's on the beach. It's hilarious. You don't get it. Okay.

So are you looking forward to a summer of Top Gun?

Jeff Knoll: Well, I mean, this is one of these tent pole movies and a movie like Top Gun is the movie you have to see on a big screen. Cause the, you know, the aerial acrobatics, Tom Cruise with his shirt on, all those sorts of things, you know, you have to see on the big screen. Maybe I could do without Tom Cruise. Anyway, the, yeah, those are the tent pole films. So yes, we, but one film is not gonna make our summer. You need us, you need a series, you need basically a film every week that opens just like over the Christmas holidays that has some kind of, you know, mass appeal. And particularly during the summer, you need, you need family-based films. Now Disney just on the day of the Oscars confirmed that Light Year, which is the new animated backstory about Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. Apparently it is coming to theaters. We felt that it, you know, as has become the Pixar curse, that Pixar was going to release it like they did with Luca and they did with Going Red. We thought they were gonna end up turning around and releasing that direct to video, but sure enough they've confirmed it's gonna be in theaters in June. So that's very good. So I won't say quite that I'm, I'm fully convinced we are on the men's jet, but there's some good signs. There's life in the, there's life in the carcass yet. And so that's kind of a gross analogy, but it's-

Jim Allan: A little grim.

Jeff Knoll: Yeah, a little grim, but it's been a grim period for us, but it's, but it is entertaining. The, you know, I think that there's the poss, there's the very good possibility and there are some glimmers of hope, you know, that we can return. You know, again, we've survived as a business since the days of the depression. And you know, when every other business failed, you know, the one business that stayed alive during that whole depression period were movie theaters. You know, when the war came out, movie theaters became, you know, World War II happened. Movie theaters were the places people got their news and they raised money for the war effort. When TV came out, you know, theaters were doomed. And sure enough, people were still running back to the theaters. When all the digital transfer, the digital delivery of films came out, not only did people still go to movie theaters, but more movie, more money was generated for the film industry to produce bigger and better and more films. And so there's always been this, you know, risk and recovery wave that we've seen historically for almost a hundred years now. And so I think if there's people of goodwill in our industry that recognize that history has important lessons to learn from, then they will support the exhibition industry and continue to release films in the traditional theatrical, you know, early window going forward.

Jim Allan: Well, I'm rooting for you.

Jeff Knoll: Thank you.

Jim Allan: Thanks for your time, Trafic. Thanks for coming by.

Jeff Knoll:  It's been a pleasure. It's been great to talk to you and thanks for the invitation.