ABOUT

Meet the Team

Kelsey Araghi

Kelsey is a third year Theater major and Digital Humanities minor. She was very drawn to this class because of the opportunity to learn about the historic Los Angeles and strengthen her drafting skills. Contributing to this project gave her the chance to get hands-on experience with exploratory research and make conclusions on a subject that has not yet been examined.

Xinran Fang

Xinran is a third year Computer Science major. She was eager to join this class due to the unique opportunity it offered to learn about modeling and LA theaters. She’s a huge fan of musicals, and loves learning about the structures, plans, and history of the LA theaters. She enjoyed analyzing the stage and organ rooms’ complex structures.

Advaith Gowrishetty

Advaith is a third year Computer Science major. He was excited for this class to learn 3D modelling as well as explore historic theatres in LA. He enjoys musicals and exploring the intersections of different fields with CS. He loved digging through the theatre organ rabbit hole for this project.

Austin Law

Austin is a third year Computer Science major. He was interested in this class due to the 3D modeling aspect, as it was a novel field of study he wanted to learn more about. He also enjoyed learning about the historical aspect of the theatre study, and was exposed to many new perspectives of theatre and the history of LA.

Sela Serafin

Sela is a Senior majoring in Communication with a minor in Digital Humanities. Having worked as an entertainment marketing strategist in LA, Sela was eager to join this class and further learn about the intersection between entertainment and technology. Participating in this project allowed her to discover the unique ways in which theater organs impacted cinema and inspired her to think more deeply about how it may inform modern technologies impacting viewer experience. If she was an organ, she would be an Allen Organ.

Resources

In an attempt to get further insight into the status of the Tower organ, we reached out to Bill Counter, author of https://losangelestheatres.blogspot.com/ and Los Angeles theaters expert. We went to Bill with the hopes that he could share any additional information about the organ that we could use to help explain the three drawings we had from the UCLA regents special collections. He came back with photos of the lift mechanism, organ chambers, and two additional contacts.

Through Bill, we reached out to Mark Herman, organ enthusiast http://www.markhermanproductions.com/. Mark shared with us information about the organ in the Tower. We were able to learn more about the specific model, and about what eventually happened to it. He also gave us the opportunity to see a console similar to the one in the Tower, unfortunately we did not have the means to take him up on that offer.

To get our hands on a Wurlitzer console, we reached out to the California Theatre which has the same model. We also reached out to UCLA’s Royce Hall which holds a different organ console. Unfortunately due to time constraints we were unable to see either in person. After touring the Tower Theatre (now an Apple Store) we determined that the old organ chambers were sealed off and inaccessible to the public.

Timeline

Winter Quarter 2023

Week 5 (02/05 – 02/11)

Final tech project / in class lesson
Introduction to group members

Week 6 (02/12 – 02/18)

Discussing research questions / area of focus
Deciding on the theatre to reconstruct
Discussing initial project ideas

Week 7 (02/19 – 02/25)

Research on understanding the Theatre Organ
Research on understanding the Tower Theatre
Research on the Wurlitzer Console

Week 8 (02/26 – 03/04)

Reach out to California Theatre
Contact Bill and Mark
Discussing how to present our research

Week 9 (03/05 – 03/11)

Building final 3D Models of the rooms and the organ console
Building final website
Writing out research

Week 10 (03/12 – 03/18)

Preparing for the presentation
Presentation to Professor Caldwell and the class