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Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 04, 2016, 02:32 PM:
So after months and months in between, it was time for CineSea once again!
As usual, life was complicated. We were doubtful for a while we’d make Friday night at all, then it looked like we’d be arriving halfway through the feature, then everything suddenly lined up for arrival with 60 minutes to spare!
-but Murphy was riding with us that day: we had traffic on Staten Island and construction constriction on the Garden State Parkway. 6:45 arrived with us at the Atlantic City Expressway: still 30 miles out. We texted Doug and they held the feature for us!
-That’s what’s great about a small, friendly event like this: everybody matters!
Soon we arrived at the Ocean Holiday.
CineSea has given the Ocean Holiday Motor Inn a strange kind of fame. To the rest of the world it is just one of maybe a hundred beach hotels in one of maybe a dozen beach towns on the New Jersey shore, yet to the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the world that is into small gauge film pretty much worldwide it is a minor Mecca. I’m sure there are many other venues in many other towns CineSea would drop right into, but to us it’s become home.
We have a very good relationship with the Ocean Holiday: we come and go without causing mayhem (-there are actually other groups banned from ever staying there again!) and leave them a little income at the ends of the season when it becomes awfully thin. We’ve been there long enough that when we call for a reservation, the voice on the other end often says “Oh Hi! How are you?!”.
-and it's not unknown for the people who work at the hotel to drop in, browse through the stuff and kibbitz a little!
-so we got ourselves checked in and went downstairs to Friday night feature.
Often we arrive early enough I am able to join in the screen raising, but the screen was set up well before then.
This is built on Doug’s backdrop stand. For the purposes of these weekends he bought a foldable Matte screen roughly 10’ by 14’. It goes on the frame with about a zillion little bungies and at least 3 willing volunteers. It’s a close coordination operation: when I help I just let Doug conduct the band! It needs to be level and wrinkle free as possible.
As elected by a pretty wide majority, Friday Night Feature was Gary Sloan’s 16mm Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope in 16mm and ‘scope. Gary’s setup is two Bell and Howell 16mm machines, a mixer between them and powered speakers up by the screen. The picture was big, bright and sharp: and they probably heard the soundtrack in Cape May!
This was a Cinesea first, a 16mm Friday Night feature. The previous two have both been Super8 on Doug’s Xenon GS-1200.
While we are at it, May the 4th be with you!!! (…I like a good pun, but I love a bad one!)
The weekend of CineSea happens in strange timing: you anticipate it for months, yet it still sneaks up you. I actually had two projects I was working on to bring with me. Two quickly became just one when six months shrank to three. The one that was left is this model of a WW2 US Army amphibious jeep I have been building on and off for almost a decade. I know myself: if I had a deadline I would at least work on the thing. I proclaimed (mostly to myself) the goal of sailing this thing in the Ocean Holiday’s pool at CineSea this April. Yet night after night it came down to getting out the tools and working on it, or just threading up a film, or reading a book, or watching the tube and even though I made real progress on it, three months became none and it still wasn’t ready.
(Deadlines work best when you can get fired!)
So I would publicly like to thank the Management of the Ocean Holiday Motor Inn for validating my laziness!
”-Eh!...wouldn’t have happened anyway!”
-Next: Saturday morning and afternoon.
[ May 07, 2016, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]
Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 04, 2016, 02:39 PM:
Steve,
Off to a great start! I was impressed with how quickly the Ocean Holiday staff got the pool ready. If only it was warmer....
Doug
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 04, 2016, 02:50 PM:
Waw. Thanks for these first pictures !
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 04, 2016, 03:00 PM:
There still wasn't any water in the pool by the time we left!
(That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)
Posted by Joe Taffis (Member # 4) on May 04, 2016, 03:10 PM:
Carry on Steve! I hope to be there again in the Fall...
Posted by Rob Young. (Member # 131) on May 04, 2016, 03:14 PM:
Yes, more please! Would loved to have seen that Star Was print..
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 04, 2016, 03:15 PM:
-there will be a pause....
(I haven't actually written the next section yet!)
Please feel free to stop at the buffet and visit the gift shop!
Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on May 04, 2016, 04:25 PM:
Brilliant review so far Steve, we wait with baited breath!
Very well done Steve! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 04, 2016, 07:17 PM:
Saturday morning dawned (…as it does every day…I suppose!)
It also dawned kind of brisk. Cool weather is a CineSea tradition: with a couple of exceptions over the years. This time was certainly NOT one of the exceptions!
Another of our great traditions is breakfast. The Ocean Holiday doesn’t have a café, but a lot of hotels nearby do. Our Saturday favorite is breakfast at the Crusader: maybe two blocks up the beach. This is a good, honest breakfast: nothing too challenging before you’ve had that first, critical cup of coffee. The food is great, but part of it is the group’s walk over and back. It’s as if a bunch of middle-aged people were suddenly in high school again!
-Later, back at the Ocean Holiday…
Film talk and horse trading had already begun.
There was talk:
-and film:
-and talk (with film!):
-and MORE film: (probably some talk close by...)
First timer Evan Samaras visited Doug’s table:
YET, there was STILL more film!
This young guy, now a teenager, has been coming to CineSea since #6 when he was …just a kid, and despite being a child of the Digital Age, he’s content to join in:
Lunch is whatever people want to do: the rooms have kitchens and you can cook for yourself, there’s a good Pizzeria up on Pacific Avenue and I’ve done that, there are diners by the acre, but dinner is kind of an event.
NEXT: Dinner and a Show!
[ May 04, 2016, 08:20 PM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]
Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on May 04, 2016, 08:15 PM:
Brilliant Steve
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 05, 2016, 01:41 AM:
More, more, more, please.
Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on May 05, 2016, 03:12 AM:
Brilliant to see so much Super 8mm on offer there on those tables! What a fantastic array of goodies!
Posted by Joe Caruso (Member # 11) on May 05, 2016, 06:16 AM:
Both you and Claus are tops in photography - Shorty
Posted by Evan Samaras (Member # 5070) on May 05, 2016, 10:01 AM:
Great pictures! I didn't even notice you snap that picture of me!
Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on May 05, 2016, 11:54 AM:
Excellent :-)
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 05, 2016, 12:45 PM:
Saturday night Dinner is one of the high points of Cinesea, generally it’s a real restaurant (No cash register in the dining area!) and maybe too classy for us! This is a big deal because it’s NOT actually a film event. This is where we sit down as human beings and quite often talk about our lives other than films: our families, our jobs and what we do the rest of the day when we aren’t totin’ reels around.
Being a beach town, many of Wildwood's restaurants are seafood oriented. The décor runs from the subtly nautical to the downright piraty (ARRRRRRR!!!!), and a tank full of doomed lobsters isn’t a rare sight at all. This doesn’t mean if you want a steak or a salad you are out of luck, it’s just that when you are looking for a main course with tentacles, this is a place you really need to be!
One of CineSea’s favorites is the Boathouse. It is one of the first places you see when you come over the bridge from mainland New Jersey (Wildwood is an island.). It is seafood, steak and pasta. The back windows look out over a small harbor with private boats swinging at anchor.
Per the official count, we had 32 people out to Dinner. This is the chance we get to actually stick a number on how many people are joining in and it is growing!
The Boathouse staff themselves are probably saying “The Movie People are here from the Ocean Holiday again!”
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…
CineSea had returned to theatrical mode after a day as a film convention. Some tables were moved back, ”theater seating” installed (-we bring our camping chairs…greatly reduced posterior fatigue!) and the two xenons moved into position for the big screen.
We need a brief intermission so everybody can get back and get comfortable, so there is some pre-show film negotiation and just general talk.
This is Taras. He’s a cool guy! How cool? Well let’s say you were at a model airplane club and a fighter pilot showed up? He is that cool! Taras did what many of us dream about: he restored Wildwood’s Sea Theatre to operation after it had been dark for decades and still owns it. He’s still a film guy through and through, and enjoys thumbing through Lou Franchetti’s boxes of film for sale with the rest of us, and he spent most of the weekend at CineSea too.
I had a chance to talk to him about the Sea’s encounter with the really bad storm we had a few months back. He said the lobby took on some water, but they managed to dry it up without permanent damage. This was great news: as a 35mm only, single screen theater, the Sea is part of an endangered species, and it doesn’t need this kind of trouble.
Showtime Came: Doug introduced Shorty, he gave us a short introduction remembering John Black. John and Shorty co-founded CineSea in 2009. It’s important to remember John because good things don’t often happen by accident. We gather there today because somebody had a good idea and saw it through. Now it’s up to us to keep it going.
-so the show went on!
NEXT: Third Row, Right-Hand Seat
Posted by Michael Lattavo (Member # 4280) on May 05, 2016, 01:08 PM:
Great pics Steve, thanks for documenting!
Its been a heck of a week, any chance of another CineSea this weekend?
Already looking forward to October!
Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on May 05, 2016, 01:09 PM:
This is turning out to be a superb, detailed log of the event here Steve. It just gets better and better!
Very well done indeed. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 05, 2016, 01:18 PM:
Why did they put an ocean between Europe and the US ?
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 05, 2016, 01:47 PM:
-so they'd have lobsters in Wildwood, of course!
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 05, 2016, 01:53 PM:
That's a good reason
Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on May 05, 2016, 06:49 PM:
Incredibly great write up and pics Steve! So greatly appreciated by those of us who did not make it this time around.
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 05, 2016, 07:23 PM:
Thanks, Paul! Thanks also to Claus for all the times he's done this! It takes some effort!
The Heart of the Saturday Night Show is these two machines
-both Xenons: one Super-8, the other 16. How it works is they take turns on screen. The owners of the machines certainly bring their own films to show, but many others among us do too.
These are just a sampling of the films we saw that night. We had many hours on screen and there’s no way I can show them all!
Early on, we had an episode of the Mickey Mouse Club: a reminder of the long standing relationship between broadcast TV and 16mm film.
Later: two episodes of the 1946 Republic serial “The Crimson Ghost”.
Part of contributing a reel to this show is the chance to see one of your own films in a new way. At home I usually project on a screen roughly 5 feet by 9: not too tiny, but here I can see one of my own films on a screen much bigger than that projected with a xenon lamp with audio levels that might make my neighbors call the Police!
-this is no time for Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons: you need action, sound, maybe even a little mayhem!
I happen to have the 400 foot “Seven-Ups” digest. This provides what little story line needed to make an excuse to show what we all came for: the car chase!
-if there ever was an exact opposite of a Driver’s Ed. Film, here it is! We have driving on the sidewalk, getting airborne at intersections and firing shotguns out the window! Leaving the scene of an accident? Not at all: the accidents followed them wherever they went!
Where’s a COP when you need one? -that’s right!: he’s the one driving through the fruit stand!
(Do you think they stopped and paid the toll?)
-meanwhile we reduce two (now) vintage Pontiacs to absolute rubble and very nearly make Roy Scheider into just so much chop-meat!
-it was FUN!
Next: Saturday Night Continued
Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on May 05, 2016, 08:10 PM:
![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Posted by James N. Savage 3 (Member # 83) on May 05, 2016, 08:30 PM:
Wonderful work Steve! Thanks for filling in for Clause, who has been very faithful in the photo/documentation of Cinesea.
As always, I wish I could have been there (only been to two ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
).
I like that 7-Ups digest, but I only wish they would have left the car chase intact. To my recollection, the digest contains about 70 % of the chase. Still a decent digest though.
Looking forward to the next installment.
James.
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 05, 2016, 08:35 PM:
Very good job, Steve !
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 06, 2016, 10:12 AM:
Thanks!
-we're more than halfway there now.
Two, maybe three more to go...
Posted by Michael Lattavo (Member # 4280) on May 06, 2016, 11:44 AM:
My daughter can't wait until she's old enough to attend! In the meantime, she'll have to be content with souvenirs....
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 06, 2016, 11:49 AM:
It was great to meet you Mike!
CineSea is pretty family friendly and we plan to still be at it when your daughter is ready!
Saturday Night Continues…
Here’s something you won’t see in North America very often. Jason Smith brought a Japanese Godzilla reel with him and shared it with our show, and while we see Japanese monster movies all the time here, this one wasn’t dubbed!
-what a treat to see the lips matching the voices just once! (Had no idea what they were saying, of course…)
We had an Our Gang “The Pooch”, where Stymie rescues dogs from the dog catcher. It is the grimmest Our Gang I have ever seen: at the end we have a moment where it looks like the dog catcher has gassed Pete the Pup! (-turned out OK. No spoilers, though).
I am a fan of Our Gang, but no scholar: it’s the only one I’ve ever seen where we see one of the kids crying.
We also had a very nice print of the 1938 short "Queens of the Air”. This was meant to introduce movie audiences to singers they had only heard on radio. It’s an absolute classic: beautiful women singing great music in pristine black and white!
You can imagine it in some grand Art-Deco movie house, long before your day or mine. Of course there’s a Wal-Mart there now. That’s what we call “progress”!
We had passed the midpoint of the show and the crowd was starting to thin just a little, but the determined among us were still in our seats, resolved to be there for that last reel well after midnight.
NEXT: The Late, Late Show!
Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 06, 2016, 12:31 PM:
Steve,
Terrific! After you've wrapped up the screening chapter, I'll post the titles of the Super 8mm films we showed that night.
Doug
Posted by Bill Phelps (Member # 1431) on May 06, 2016, 12:39 PM:
Looks like a really great time! Nice job on the write up Steve....your a good writer.
Bill
[ May 22, 2016, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Bill Phelps ]
Posted by Claus Harding (Member # 702) on May 06, 2016, 04:46 PM:
Beautiful work, Steve, both in the writing and the pictures; it looks like we're growing slowly and steadily in attendance. At this rate, eventually we'll just rent the whole restaurant one day!
Big big THANK YOUs to everyone for the warm birthday wishes and kind thoughts on the card; it holds a place of pride on my desk as I write.
For now, I will enjoy the pictures and text and look forward to the fall show
Claus.
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 06, 2016, 05:26 PM:
Happy Birthday Claus! We missed you!
Midnight Came….and Went!
Do you remember college?
Do you remember when your body was young and resilient and staying up until 3:00 AM to watch Twilight Zone episodes when you had a final exam at 8:15 seemed entirely reasonable?
I remember college…my body seems to have forgotten it, though!
-but it was Saturday Night Show, I was there and I was prepared to go the distance!
(My 13 year old was sitting next to me…if we let him, he could sleep until November! -what does HE care?!)
The mind plays tricks that late! Dinner seemed like months ago and something about seeing this guy makes you think about breakfast!
Doug Meltzer is very good at editing soundtracks and syncing them up to silent footage, so good as a matter of fact he’s been doing it with 200 foot digests that were never expected to be talkies by the people that made them.
This time it was Gunga Din, and when he blew that trumpet we heard it loud and clear!
“Good LORD!, what’s Mickey Mouse doing up this late? Does MINNIE know he’s out?!”
Around this time the battery in my camera gasped its last: It was done. I wasn’t far behind!
The last reel of the night was Charlie Chaplin in ”The Immigrant”. As luck would have it, I own a Blackhawk print myself. Good thing too: every so often my eyes fell shut and for maybe 10 seconds at a time I saw it on the insides of my eyelids!
My internal monologue started to run off its rails: “… shouldn’t eat that much bacon…cholesterol!…eat that damned duck instead!...NO!!!,…RUN, DAFFY!!!”.
”The Immigrant” ended and I heard the tail slapping on the machine. In the haze of what should have been my second hour of sleep I heard Doug say “Well, I guess that’s all!...Good night!”. The audience muttered “….g’night” and wandered aimlessly towards the door. Most made it through on the first try.
First light hit the screen roughly 8PM that night. It was now 1:30AM of a whole new day, and if it wasn’t, I’m sure it was 1:30AM somewhere in the world!
-I am no longer a reliable source at this point!
(We MADE it!)
Outside, Wildwood was quiet: I guess nobody else had films to watch! Even WE had finally run out…
-until next time!
We made our weary way upstairs, fumbled with the room key in that frigid ocean air, and then slept the sleep of the….exhausted!
-but seriously, folks:
-don’t get me wrong here: This is not a competition and nobody faults you if you retire at a normal, human hour. It’s just for me this is something I only get to do twice a year and I was going to enjoy every minute of it!
Saturday at CineSea is a long day, all the way from the walk up the beach for breakfast until that last reel is ready to be rewound.
-That’s OK because it is also a good day. You and I have many shorter days we will find much more tiring.
NEXT: Now it’s time to say goodbye to all our company…
Posted by Douglas Meltzer (Member # 28) on May 06, 2016, 11:38 PM:
That was such a fun night. These are some of the Super 8 titles we showed on Saturday evening:
D.W. Griffith's 1909 short Those Awful Hats (Blackhawk)
Chuck Workman's Pieces of Silver (Derann) celebrating 100 years of cinema.
Trailers for The Black Cat (Basil Rathbone, not Karloff), Revenge of the Creature, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
400' digest of Jerry Lewis in The Errand Boy, a Piccolo print that I re-recorded into English.
A railroad film courtesy of Steve Klare.
Jason Smith showed a Godzilla short in Japanese with scenes from Godzilla's Revenge.
W.C. Fields' 1932 The Dentist (Blackhawk), one of the funniest shorts ever!
The Seven Ups digest (Ken Films) from the Klare Kollection.
Columbia's classic 200 footer The Giant Claw. The first real glimpse of the creature always gets a great reaction.
Gunga Din (Ken Films), a silent digest with sync audio added.
Pathe Laurel & Hardy Newsreel compilation, courtesy Shorty Caruso.
Grizzly (1976) horror film digest
I know I've forgotten a few....
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 07, 2016, 02:47 AM:
I love thhis thread. Although it makes us, the non American members of the forum, realize that, once again, we missed great moments.
[ May 07, 2016, 06:09 AM: Message edited by: Dominique De Bast ]
Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on May 07, 2016, 04:02 AM:
Totally agree with Dominque....thanks for posting the write up and those wonderful photos.
Posted by Jack Cleveland (Member # 4485) on May 07, 2016, 06:42 AM:
I did not make it to 1:30 or "The Immigrant". I left after ... can't remember! But I turned my light out at 1, so I did not miss much! It is sooo much fun to watch films with friends. Missing each of you a week later. Had to watch a print on my own last night. So much more fun with each of my Cinesea friends!
Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on May 07, 2016, 09:13 AM:
Now why would anyone NOT want to go to an event like this? Thank goodness for the BFCC in Ealing. Can I suggest that at the next event we all wear a name badge as I'm sure I've spoken to folk on this forum without even realising it as I've sold them films on my table. Makes it more interesting for newbies too. Thanks for the pictures. If only you weren't quite so far away.
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 07, 2016, 03:31 PM:
Sunday
The basic theme of Sunday is “pack up and go home”. Most of the dealing has been dealt, most of the showing has been shown. (-Yet there is always talk!)
-there is also breakfast.
If you’re a fan of breakfast, Wildwood is your kind of town! There are many fine places to have a wonderful start to your day. This is usually not a quiche and crepe kind of breakfast, more the kind of stuff a lumberjack would have: eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles! You wash it down with a robust cup of coffee or several and you’re ready to take axe in hand and head for the tall timber!
This time was a new place uptown called Samuels.
-yet another excellent choice!
I’d like you to meet Jason Smith.
I often kid around about someone getting the award for traveling furthest. For whatever it’s worth, Jason has it now and is likely to keep it a while too! He started out his journey to CineSea in Japan, where he teaches English. (Puts my four hour drive in a whole new perspective!).
For the most of us that live here in the eastern US, it’s tempting to think of this as a local event. In the days of sticking a 3 by 5 card on the bulletin board at the Supermarket it may have been exactly that, but these days everything is everywhere and even a couple of dozen people having a film weekend at a little hotel on the beach reaches all around the world!
So we thank Jason for joining in and hope we honored his long journey with a weekend that was all he’d hoped!
We thank everyone who came from near and far: this is about people and if came down to three guys and a projector it would be nothing!
For all of us it was the same: checkout by 11AM, keep all your stuff organized (SO MUCH STUFF!), and pack up the car.
- North on Ocean Avenue,
- West on Rio Grande,
- Garden State Parkway North or South, and back to day to day life.
-but FIRST we need that group photo!
-personally it’s looking like the Ocean Holiday’s pool will be good to go long before October..guess I’d better get back to that project! (or...Maybe when I retire!)
Claus Harding Photo from CineSea IX…because I LIKE it, that’s why!
NEXT: Come see for yourself!
(I’m done now, you’ll need to write this one for yourself!)
See you in October!
Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on May 07, 2016, 06:19 PM:
Jason, you did what probably many of us would be able to do !
Posted by Jason Smith (Member # 5055) on May 08, 2016, 11:53 PM:
Dominique, I`m glad that I made the trip to Cinesea from Japan. There are so few film gatherings like this going on these days. As a newbie to this hobby, it was great being able to meet people from this forum and spend the weekend watching 8mm and 16mm films.
Thank you everyone who was able to bring 8mm and 16mm films to sell. It was really great being able to meet collectors in person and preview the films before buying.
I know there were quite a few people who were unable to make it to Cinesea that I hope to catch at a future Cinesea.
I wanted to thank the organizers and everyone's contribution in making it a great Cinesea. It was my first Cinesea and definitely not my last.
Posted by Evan Samaras (Member # 5070) on May 09, 2016, 10:04 AM:
Great write-up Steve! Excellent composition on the photos as well! Here are a couple of low quality pictures taken from my phone:
Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on May 09, 2016, 02:02 PM:
Thanks Evan,
It was nice to meet you!
One way to appreciate this thing is to notice how many people come to it that aren't exactly film folk. If I count correctly, we run something like 4 wives/girlfriends and maybe a the same number of children.
They just enjoy hanging out with the people there and having the weekend away.
It can come in handy too. Last Christmas my wife decided to buy me a projection table. Not only did she know of such things because she saw them at the Ocean Holiday, she also had access to consultants so she could find a nice one! (Mission accomplished!)
I bring along a projector so I can look at prints up in my room: The Ocean Holiday is very accommodating for this. Not only is there a kitchen counter aligned with the refrigerator door with a handy outlet there too, but the refrigerators are a pretty passable white for screening!
(I'm glad the color of this print is much better in real life!)
NOTE: This is NOT the ultra-rare ELMO ST-800 Xenon I'm sure you've all never heard anything about. (My laptop was charging and I was too lazy to move it!)
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