Videos

The Work We Do: Frank Zagarino, Movies in the Moonlight

I’m Frank Zagarino, the owner of Movies in the Moonlight. 

I lived in Los Angeles for 22 years and I did feature films there and I always loved going to movies. Anytime in high school that I had a date, they were going to a movie. That was it. As a kid I just loved watching movies. I love making movies. I did stunts for years. I did about 30 films as an actor.

So now that I’m a little bit older, I moved out here with my kids and I wanted to start this business.

When we first started the business, all those were blow-ups. So they had a big generator and made a lot of noise. I build all my screens on frames and we’re the only people that do that. I’ve learned how to make them better. I physically pack out all the cars myself and make sure everything is in the car. It’s crazy busy for four or five months. Now coming into the winter, it’s more replacing equipment and working on equipment.

So if you have a kid’s birthday party you don’t have the sound running like a kid’s bouncy house the whole time.

Now, we do a movie. I literally drive a little Scion. I can show up with all the poles that go together to make the frame and everything and do 1,000 people from a little box car.

We have a lot of clientele now. Riverhead Parks, Westhampton, I do the Long Beach Film Festival. We do rooftops in Manhattan. We do Montauk. Anything you could imagine. We do boxing fights, sporting events, so it’s been great. This is going on our 10th year. In the summer, sometimes we’ll have nine movies out in one night.

We do some inside, too, because we don’t have the blowers and they’re on frames. A lot of people don’t even think we can show movies inside.

My favorite part is probably watching the kids love it.

But you know, I just love movies and to be outside doing kids’ houses and stuff. They just love it. Seeing the kids enjoy it is probably my best benefit.

“The Work We Do” is a News-Review multimedia project profiling workers around Riverhead Town. It is made possible by Peconic Landing in Greenport. See more photos on Instagram @riverheadnewsreview