Thousands of people enjoy the magic of the movies in multiplexes and cinemas across the country every day.

Sitting there in the dark, clutching their popcorn and hooked to the silver screen, the audience want to be taken on a roller coaster ride away from their nine-to-five lives and into a whole new world of wonder.

Ninety minutes later they leave, feeling either elated or disappointed, to continue with their evening's entertainment.

But for many people there is much more to the movies than two hours of escapism.

Hours of preparation need to go into making sure each paying customer can come in, see the film they want to see, eat the popcorn of their choice, drink their favourite fizzy drink, and leave with the minimum amount of disruption.

And the bigger the cinema the more backstage chores that need to be done.

It will hardly cross the minds of people sat in a Saturday matinee that at Bradford's new 13 screen Odeon multiplex, at Thornbury, the biggest in the country, 45 staff are working behind the scenes to make sure the show goes on.

The cinema's chief technician Nikki Cross, 29, is the person who makes sure that the films are in focus and the projectors are in perfect working order.

Film fan Nikki, said: "I started doing this job after seeing an advert looking for projectionists on a cinema screen about 11 years ago. I was intrigued by what goes on behind the scenes.

"I love films, it's part and parcel of my life, but unfortunately I don't get much time to watch them anymore. I'm too busy putting them on for the audiences.

"At a big cinema like this by the time you've put the last film on you have to rush back to the first projector to change that. You don't get much time to stop and watch.

"You have to like your own company if you're a technician because you are left on your own quite a lot with the projectors - and they're not great conversationalists.

"Being a film projector is a pretty thankless task, no one remembers when the film runs smoothly but they certainly remember when it goes wrong!"

Part of Nikki's job is splicing the movie reels together when they are delivered from the film studio.

She said: "When a normal length film arrives it is not all in one piece. It's usually about six reels long, each reel is about 7,000 feet long and has 20 to 25 minutes of film on it.

"They all have to be joined together so they play as one seamless movie.

"We have to check every part of the real for tears and then feed it on to the spool.

"I really don't think people know a tenth of what goes on behind the scenes to put a picture on.

"When I have customers come back and look at the projectors they are amazed by how big they are. Most people just expect to see a video recorder and think we just stick a tape in. But it's not like that at all."

Away from the dimly-lit corridors that house the projectors, other cinema staff also have their own areas of expertise.

Senior assistant manager, Shaun Doorbar, said: "I don't think people realise the amount of work that goes on backstage at cinemas.

"A lot of my friends think I've got an excellent job where I get to watch movies all day - but it's not true. There are far too many things to organise.

"There's deciding what films we're going to show, and which one to drop, marketing films, talking to film distributors, making sure we've got enough popping corn and oil in to make the popcorn - the list is endless.

"We're already planing towards what we're going to be doing next year in the school holidays - it takes a lot of planning to run a successful cinema.

"When you think that we get more than 3,500 people coming through the doors every day - that's a lot of people to cater for."

Twenty-five year-old Amanda Mulqueen, is one of the front line staff who meet and greet the customer as they come through the cinema doors.

She said: "It can get really hectic when it's busy and there's queues going out the doors. You've just to make sure you keep smiling and make enough popcorn!

"I'm not really a big film fan to be honest. My favourite film's Braveheart - not because I fancy Mel Gibson but because it's a really emotional film. Honest!"