1. The Cage.
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If you want to work in the movie (theater) biz, you start at the concession stand - also known as the Cage. At Star Cinema in Fitchburg, the lobby-wide concession stand has 12 different stations where customers can fuel up for their odyssey in sitting. According to assistant manager Cory Betz, 22, buying habits tend to break down by age: kids go for candy, big people like popcorn and soda. <

"Popcorn and soda are the bread and butter of this place," he explains. <

The most popular way to order these staples is in the form of the Star Pack - a large tub of popcorn and two large drinks for $11.25. How large is large? Try 170 ounces of popcorn, plus free refills. And yes, people really do come back for seconds. <

At Star, the kernels are popped with butter-flavored salt, but most customers still opt for lashings of "butter flavoring," dispensed in timed squirts from a little spigot. <

"It's not actually butter," Betz clarifies, for those who have been kidding themselves. <

According the package, not-butter is actually: "Partially hydrogenated soybean oil, TBHQ and citric acid to preserve freshness. Artificially flavored, artificially colored with beta-carotene. Dimethyl-polysiloxane, an anti-foam agent, added." <

Chemical concoctions aside, you won't see much experimentation on the concession menu; pretzel bites are about as radical as it gets. After a number of requests, Star did start offering coffee, but then no one ordered it. <

"Our Council Bluffs, Iowa, location got hot dogs," Betz offers, his tone making it clear that the jury is still out on this one. <

2. Rippers and takers.
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After a few months on the concession stand, an employee who demonstrates money-handling skills can move up to selling tickets. The challenges of this job go beyond making change. The person who sells your ticket is also looking out for underage buyers trying to sneak into R-rated films, as well as for suspicious bulges in pockets and purses. <

Some moviegoers make it easy, walking in with a grocery bag full of candy and canned soda, or talking loudly with their 10-year-old friends about seeing "The Matrix." Other scofflaws are craftier. <

"You'll be cleaning a theater and you'll see a big bucket of KFC, and you'll think, 'How did they get that in here?'" says Star employee Carrie Grummer, 19. Others have found the detritus of super-sized McDonald's meals, cans of beer and soda, etc., etc. Smugglers always leave evidence. <

"It can be summertime and everybody's in shorts and stuff, and we'll still find bottles of wine," says Star's general manager, Jim Kachel. "People are creative." <

Perhaps the most annoying part of working the box office is that people show up with no idea what they want to see, and proceed to ask questions about each of the movies playing (while lines grow and grow behind them). Even stranger are the people who call and ask for a list of movies and running times. <

"Basically the only way you can get this number is by calling the movie information line," Betz says, puzzled. <

As for the ripper, if you've ever wondered how they direct traffic for so many different movies ("that'll be on your left") without a second thought, it's because there's a tiny number on the part of the ticket they tear off. Star has 14 screens - one to seven in one direction, and eight to 14 in the other. <

3. Moving pictures.
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There is no such thing as a projection booth at a modern movie theater. Those died along with the reel-to-reel projectors, back at the dawn of the multiplex. Instead, behind a locked door at the far end of the theater and up a staircase, you will find one tremendously long corridor notched with glass squares. In front of each window are several massive pieces of machinery - silver "platters" from which films unspool, and the boxy blue Xenolite Xenon Illuminator projectors, 14 in all. Walk the length of this hallway and you will see a flicker of "Troy" and a flash of "Van Helsing" - a face here and a sunset there - as if you were on a train in which every window looks out onto a different world. <

Keeping all of these films in motion is one projectionist. On the day of our visit, it's Eric Givens, one of Star's two full-time projectionists. With 10 years of experience under his belt, it only takes Eric a few minutes to thread a film. When it's ready to go, he presses one "start" button, then another. The first turns on the motor and the lamp; the second opens a metal plate that allows light to shine through the film, and turns on the sound. And that's it, which is why it's possible to have one projectionist run 14 theaters for an entire day. <

"Usually the manager schedules it so there aren't more than four movies starting at the same time," says Givens, who, like everyone on staff, carries a pocket-size cheat sheet listing the start and stop times for all the movies playing that week. <

In the old days, a projectionist would have needed to watch through the window for the tiny marks in the upper right hand corner of the screen that indicate a 20-minute reel is nearly over. The first mark is a warning, followed about 5 seconds later by a second mark, cueing the projectionist to turn on the second projector, which would already be loaded with the next reel of the film. While that reel plays, the projectionist rewinds the previous reel and loads the next, and so on - most feature-length films have between five and seven reels. <

With the new equipment, all the reels are spliced (taped) together and then loaded in one continuous mass onto kitchen-table-sized silver platters. The film feeds into the projector as it plays, then re-winds back onto a second platter. If the film should happen to break, the whole apparatus stops automatically, allowing the projectionist to make a quick splice and start the whole thing up again. Because film moves at 32 frames per second, a few lost frames will be imperceptible to audiences. <

The projectionist waits to be sure that the sound is working and the picture is centered on the screen, then moves on to the next movie. Which is why, if the sound or picture gets screwy 20 minutes in, the projectionist is unlikely to know until someone takes the bold step of getting out of their seat, walking to the lobby, and complaining. (Why it generally takes people so long to do this remains a mystery.) <

If movie theaters ever make the switch to digital projection, the last few projectionists will either be out of a job, or reduced to doing repairs. The only things slowing down that transition, according to Givens and Betz, are concerns about piracy, and the fact that it would be really expensive to replace all that equipment. <

4. The House of Ushers.
Once a movie has been rolling for a while, you may notice ushers walking down either aisle, like silent flight attendants who don't offer you a drink. They are there to check the temperature in the theater, and make sure the sound and picture are on track. They are also looking for people who have their feet up on the seats, or are blabbing away and ruining the movie for everyone else. <

Unfortunately, many obnoxious people are not as dumb as they sound, and tend to clam up when they see theater personnel on the prowl. Which is why the ushers often stand out of sight for a few minutes, listening for inappropriate sounds (e.g. anything other than laughter or the occasional sniffle or gasp). First you get a warning, then you get the boot. So put a sock in it already. <

Speaking of self-control, most staff members at Star were unable to confirm or deny rumors that some people have, to borrow a phrase from Pauline Kael, lost it at the movies. (See also early Alanis Morissette lyrics.) Usher P.J. Schleinz, however, took a break from "minting" (also known as the handing out of free mints as people leave the theater) to give a firsthand account of hearing a couple about three rows behind him testing the limits of reclining seats, as it were. Schleinz was off-duty at the time, but got up to notify a manager, which quickly cooled the young lovers' ardor. <

After the last people vacate the theater after a matinee of "Shrek 2," Schleinz proceeds to sweep the aisles, picking up large left-behind items along the way. (Cleanup takes up much of the 30 to 45 minutes between screenings.) The most disgusting things Schleinz has ever found are dirty diapers and cups of tobacco spit. Co-workers claim to have picked up the occasional undergarment, but the lost-and-found contains mostly cell phones. <

Of course, one way to avoid listening to the people behind you perpetuate their DNA, eat fried chicken, hock up wads of chew or take cell phone calls is to sit in the very back of the theater, but you'll have to get there early. In these days of stadium seating and spine-jangling sound, the last row is the first to go. <