VINCENT PARISELLA – 2024 VICTORIAN CINEMA PIONEERS OF THE YEAR
Vincent was born in Mondragone, Italy in 1953, which was also the year of his introduction to cinema by his father who was a projectionist and a jack of all trades, operating and maintaining two venues in their town – a hard top all year round, and during summer, an open-air cinema that also used to host live entertainment. For his first 6 years, the cinema and projection room were Vincent’s second home. His mum disliked being home alone so would take Vincent to the cinema regularly to be with his dad. Dad would heat up Vincent’s milk bottle in the back of the lamphouse. That’s probably why he still glows in the dark!
Vincent was always fascinated with cinema and religiously attended the local cinema on Saturdays and at times on Sundays until his late teens. Years later, at the age of 26 Vincent got married and was employed by Motorola as an electronics and telecommunication technician, but after a number of years he felt that he needed to move on to something else. Thus the hunt for a new job began, and luckily he came across an ad placed by Village Theatre Supplies looking for a cinema technician – requirements were electronics training, reading and writing Italian and German preferred. He ticked all the boxes and thus he applied with confidence. Within a few days he had an interview with the great Rod Hailey, chief engineer at Village Theatre Supplies. He got the job, and his journey began. The year was 1981.
Vincent was very fortunate to have had Rod Hailey as his boss, mentor and friend and he owes him a lot. He was teamed up with Robert McKenzie – again very lucky for him, as Robert was a very smart and talented technician. Eventually Vincent was let loose on his own to deal with service calls, with his first installation being Doncaster Twin in 1983. Soon afterwards, multiplexes started to be built all over the country – it was indeed hectic times for Vincent.
Over the years that followed Vincent was involved in many installations – too many to name them all – but some of the most memorable are: Village Cinema Centre Bourke Street Melbourne with the first THX certified cinemas (he was trained and certified as a THX technician), the Regent Ballarat Cinema 1 THX (plus Cinemas 2 and 3), Knox, Geelong, Crown, the Regent Theatre Melbourne… There were many more, including 2 months working in Bangkok. Then the digital roll out began, with its challenges in the early days – on the road again for weeks on end, travelling around Australia as well as New Zealand. Vincent also managed to do some projection shifts along the way at the Geelong Twin and the Geelong West Pix, Airport West, and Village Cinema Centre Bourke Street.
Vincent eventually left for Atlab, and then joined MGS Theatre Installations for some years, returning to Atlab/Edge Digital Technology for a while, before deciding to move on as a subcontractor, and he’s still going! – although now semi-retired with four grandchildren to regularly look after.
There was a lot of hard work, long hours and months on end away from home. He admits he could not have kept that up without the patience and support from his wife Teresa, always at home with their three children. And, of course, he has had the pleasure of working with many great people along the way…
