Alan Strack
Alan Strack
Alan’s grandparents owned and operated several movie theatres throughout their lives, including one of the
nation’s first drive-ins which first began showing movies in 1952.
Family holidays were spent visiting his grandparents in Oneonta, NY a small town upstate. They owned two
movie theatres there so almost every night Alan was at the movies, sometimes going twice a day.
Alan’s film fascination began with collecting movie posters from his grandparents’ theatres. Soon, a simple
collection developed into more than just a hobby. Alan’s bedroom became a shrine to all kinds of films, with
everything from John Carpenter’s, The THING, to James Cameron’s Aliens. He was captivated by the power
of a movie poster to draw you in and set the stage and tone for the movie. This was all done in a simple,
backlit 27 by 41 frame outside the entrance to the theatre. The poster, along with the preview which summarized
the movie in two minutes or less, became the first points of connection for the moviegoer.
A movie, at the simplest level, is created by a beam of light passing through cellulose to form an image on
the giant screen.
As an adult, Alan began looking for a way to combine his graphic design background as an art director into
the artistic use of film. When his grandparents’ theatres closed, he inherited an extensive catalog of movie
trailers which had been destined for the trash. Many years, and layers of dust later, Alan conceived a concept
of how a series of small images could combine into a larger, abstract visual.