About Bill Hill
Biography
I was born and raised in the heart of the Rock River Valley, outside of Rock Falls, Illinois, where my film history begins. Nothing formal; my film experience was Saturday matinees; westerns, war movies, science fiction, comedies; a double feature every week at the Sterling Theatre, across the river in Sterling, Illinois. There would also be newsreels and usually 5 cartoons along with the feature. My brothers and I would sometimes sit through the show twice. This is where my older brother pointed out the reel changes to me. He somehow knew when the reel would change!
My principal, Vince Brazzi, at East Coloma Township elementary school, who lived next door to us, would order a 16mm movie around Christmas time each year, and invite us over to watch it. "Distant Drums" and "Horatio Hornblower" are a few of the titles I remember. Of course when we showed it for the rest of the school, I would want to, and usually did, run the projector.
Being self-employed in Santa Fe in 1975, my best friend told me of an opening at the Movies Twin in DeVargas Mall for a projectionist. I secured the job from owner, Ralph Lindell, and soon quit all other work in favor of projecting even though it paid less. Once I saw that 35mm film being pulled through the Ballantyne Pro 35 projector at 24 frames per second, I was hooked. The platter system was an early Drive-in Theatre Mfg. Co., air driven platter. Servicing these screens was a sound technician named Ross Krantz. I would make sure I was around whenever he was there to service the theatres, as he was (and still is) a wealth of information. We started a relationship that lasts right up to today. Ross and I work together at Telluride Film Festival, Mountain Film, Taos Picture Show, and the Santa Fe Film Festival, as well as various other odd jobs during the year. Lindell eventually sold out to Commonwealth Theatres, with whom I worked for another year, but they took away my creative responsibilities where "show" was involved, and I was very frustrated. So, I bought a small 16mm art house in Santa Fe and named it City Lights Cinema. Back in a corner of the theatre, I found a pair of Super Simplex 35mm projectors, Simplex SH 1000 sound heads, and Peerless Magnarc lamphouses. Ross came and installed these beauties in my projection booth and the rest is history. City Lights was the only 35mm house in town outside of Commonwealth, and was a very successful art house in Santa Fe from 1978 through 1986, when I sold it.
City Lights was so successful that it prompted me to have another screen and in 1982, I re-opened Santa Fe's very first movie theatre, the El Paseo, built in 1912, but which had been turned into a discotheque in the early 70's. Being a discotheque, the sloped floor had been leveled into a dance floor. Therefore, an eclectic seating arrangement had to be improvised. Along with regular theatre seating, there were couches, tables & chairs, and a "banco" carpeted mezzanine. There was also a café in the lobby. Original "Pueblo Deco" décor restoration included giant murals in the auditorium. One wall was of plains Indians on horseback while the other wall sported a pueblo Indian scene. Again with Ross's help, we installed a state of the art sound system. A brand new Dolby CP50 with a subwoofer card! We had JBL speakers behind a 40-foot screen, and surrounds. El Paseo was voted "Best movie theatre in Santa Fe" every year of its existence. Landlord disputes caused an unfortunate early demise to the El Paseo. One half block from Santa Fe's plaza on San Francisco Street, it is now a retail store.
Hill Top Productions was formed in 1985, originally to book live acts into the El Paseo Theatre and Café. A young former projectionist at El Paseo, Matt Powell, had started work for Cannon Pictures in Hollywood, and after selling City Lights Cinema, I moved to Los Angeles and, with Matt's help, also worked in the sound department at Cannon Studios. There, I learned much about the production end of making movies.
Family obligations took me back to Santa Fe, but through the help of Michael Altman, I met Frank Thorsteins of Thor Productions, who had just retired from CBS, and had moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Frank and I pooled our resources and between us covered the interlock projection demand from production companies in Arizona and New Mexico. Thus, Hill Top Productions was reborn. Frank eventually retired from his retirement work and Joe Jannsen, of Phoenix, and I bought him out.
Film Festival work began in 1985 at the Telluride Film Festival where I still take a "working vacation" as "Booth Chief" at their new Galaxy Theatre. After a stint at the Hawaii International Film Festival, I began working for Sundance Film Festival in 1991, where I created and managed the Film Revision Department, standardizing the different film transport systems into one which worked the best for our situation which happened to be and still is, 13,000 foot reels. In 1997, Hill Top was asked to hire and manage projectionists and film revisers for the festival. We now have a top-notch team from around the country totaling more than 370 years experience between us.
Hill Top Productions works closely at Sundance with technical director, Chapin Cutler and his crew from Boston Light & Sound, Russell Allen and his Dolby crew from Los Angeles, and the DLP crew from Atlanta, Georgia.
Hill Top Productions also contracts all film and tech work for CineVegas Film Festival (the world's most dangerous film festival) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Savannah Film Festival in Georgia,
Bill is also Technical Director and provides Revision and projection crews for the Bermuda International Film Festival, Miami International Film Festival, Michael Moore's Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan, The Dominican Republic Global Film Festival and is Festival Technical Representative at the Roy Thomson Hall for the Toronto International Film Festival.
Bill also created and manages the Revision Department for the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and created and manages the Revision Department and provides a projection crew and a video engineer for the Dubai International Film Festival in The United Arab Emirates.
Hill Top Productions also provides rentals, sales, and services of 16mm and 35mm projectors and related staging equipment. Besides numerous indoor and outdoor temporary booth setups over the past 20 years, Hill Top Productions has done permanent installations for The Screen at the College of Santa Fe and the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico.