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Author
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Topic: CineSea 17 in Pictures
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 06, 2018 03:25 PM
Good Afternoon Film Fans! I’m Claus Harding.
Well, OK,… I’m really not. Claus couldn’t come to CineSea this time so I’m kind of a substitute-Claus. He has been doing these photo essays ever since the first CineSea almost nine years ago. I enjoy them so much that I take up the banner when Claus can’t. (I do prefer him doing them on a steady basis: it’s actually a lot of work!)
So we wish Claus well, thank him for creating and keeping a great tradition and hope to see him take his rightful place again in October!
Our chief photographer is Mike Lattavo, with assorted shots from others. My job here is to just slather the words in between!
Our goal is a chapter per day for maybe a week. I haven’t written it all yet so your guess is as good as mine if we make it or not! They should be out about 8PM Eastern every night this week.
People who attended are welcome to post their own pictures and tell their own stories. All I ask is that you not get ahead of me and derail something I have already written but was going to post in 15 minutes!
Setting the Stage
Not very long ago, the idea of any kind of small gauge film collector’s convention here in the US was kind of a pipe-dream. Of course there were thriving conventions in the UK, as there still are, but those were still the times of organizations like Derann and the UK had and still has a pretty large base of film collectors a lot more geographically concentrated than here in North America.
There was quite a bit of discussion here about pulling together some kind of gathering. I thought it was a great idea, but short of reviving Blackhawk and getting them to sponsor it I didn’t see it ever happening. I’m an Engineer: I suffer from a disorder called “excessive practicality”. I’m the kind of guy who will tell you that you can’t afford your dream house, the Maserati you just bought has an oil leak, the Blonde you’re dating has dark roots and there’s just no way you can gather a scattering of a couple of dozen people from about ten states in one place and not lose your shirt covering expenses! Conference space in hotels costs thousands: you try to divide that cost among maybe two dozen people and they will run away in droves!
So it’s basically my role in life to use logic, facts and math to spoil other people’s fun! (Why yes, I am married…why do you ask?)
“–Can’t be done!”
“–No way!”
-but
John Black and Shorty Caruso had an idea. All up and down the Jersey shore there are beach towns. These are seasonal: in the peak of summer you can’t see the sand because of all the people on it, but in the depths of winter the streets would seem a lot busier if there were tumbleweeds. The hotels in these places are pretty desperate for income in the first and last weekends they are open, and just maybe would be interested in couple of dozen basically harmless people with films and projectors.
The Ocean Holiday has been our home twice a year since CineSea II in the spring of 2010. We get the meeting room free as our reward for showing up very early and then very late in the season, renting otherwise vacant rooms and causing them no grief while we are there. We’ve heard of groups actually being banned from the Ocean Holiday (-making ten foot dives off the terrace into the six foot deep pool!), but CineSea will never be among them. We like them, and I’d say it’s mutual!
The facilities are…spartan! The floor is concrete and there are roll-up doors on one end. This is called the “Hospitality Room” and on season it’s filled with arcade games and sunburned teenagers that need to stay off the beach for a while (plus the pallid ones that haven’t ever been there …). At both ends of the season it is our space, and by applying a little Cinema Magic we make it the place to be if you are a film collector on those weekends!
This is generally what we find when we get there:
-empty tables and nothing but the sound of the ocean breezes as a sound track.
To our own credit, we do a lot with it!
Next:….TGIF!!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 07, 2018 06:58 PM
Friday
CineSea is not what most would call a “local event”. We have one attendee who comes from Rio Grande, New Jersey: 5 miles away. Other than him we come from further and further away: from more distant ports in New Jersey and other Northeastern states and all the way from places like Ohio, Florida, Illinois, Texas, California, Iceland and Japan! There is a surprisingly large contingent from Ohio, but then again this is the state that gave us Steve Osborne, Cinevent and the Ohio Film Collector Exchange! (I must visit this place someday…)
I gripe my travel: often I’m feeling a little road-worn by the time I get to the Ocean Holiday, but even if I have to battle my way across Brooklyn and Staten Island (I get passed by people on BIKES sometimes!), I have nothing to complain about next to these brave souls!
Here’s what it’s like to join in:
A few weeks before, you call the Ocean Holiday and make your room reservation. After a few times the person on the other end often knows you by name! –and why shouldn’t they? The front desk told me every last room they’d rented this weekend was to our people!
The last couple of days before there is this feeling of anticipation: you are now going to literally take your show on the road and you need to think of everything you’re going to need all the way from projection lamps to toothpaste. (I’ve had a packing list for years…). It’s a big deal: if you get there with everything needed except some funky projector power cord from the 1960s (or some life saving medication…) then you are in Deep!
Maybe a week before I begin to ponder what films I want to bring for Saturday Night Show and depending on the chaos in my “system” I start to look for them (I had a fugitive this time!) .
In the days and hours before, texts and E-mails start to surface: “Do you still have..?”, “Can you bring…?”, “When are you…?”, “I’m on my way…!” and finally that moment comes: you are literally in the driver’s seat and you twist that key. Once again, it is ON! (-and please make sure your car will make it! I installed a new engine belt for this reason.)
There’s a small, yet growing contingent that arrives on Thursday. This is a day just to enjoy Wildwood and hang out and relax. On Friday things really start to come together.
Kind of an unofficially-official and fairly new event is Friday’s Breakfast at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House in Cape May.
Wildwood has its own Uncle Bill’s which is often closed when we’d need it, but Cape May isn’t as seasonal and theirs is open 52 weeks a year. (It’s only 5 miles away).
There’s an important detail in this picture that you actually can’t see: notice how many projectors and films. –exactly none! CineSea has a strong social side to it and a lot of that is simply breaking bread with the other people and getting to know each other. Sure: we talk about the good stuff a lot, but a lot of the good stuff isn’t even film!
Later on back at the Ocean Holiday
For most of us, Friday is moving day, none moreso than the Franchettis! Lou and Lou Junior bring something like 3-8 foot table loads of 16 and 8mm film! I would not be at all surprised if the majority of my Blackhawk Laurel and Hardies came from their table over the years.
-suffice it to say we are always happy to see them arrive!
Friday is the usual setup day. There is the big screen to set up, and folks that sell films get quite a workout hauling boxes and piles of cans to fill the tables up. This year was a little special because we finally broke the 35mm barrier at the Ocean Holiday. CineSea actually has some 35mm history. A couple of times we’ve been to the Sea Theater: the last time we saw “Blazing Saddles” shown from a 35mm platter system. This time, for the first time, it was on our home screen.
Here Dave Baker and Terry Bange are waking up their Devry 35mm machine after the long drive from Ohio:
We Super-8mm should fans take note: in the big world of Motion Pictures zoom lenses aren’t as common as we might hope they are. As much as we love zooms there is nothing like a prime lens for sharpness and brightness! When you go fixed focal length our old friend Mathematics makes an entrance. There is this formula that relates focal length of lenses and aperture size and throw length and screen size and getting the picture right on the screen lives and dies by this math. Here Jason Smith and Doug Meltzer are setting up the throw length: the thing that’s easiest to change.
-and of course the safety of the operators and machine, and the steadiness of the picture demand projecting from a steady surface.
-and they don’t get much steadier than this one!
Setup proceeded as planned: machines of other gauges gathered around the Big One and we had a premier reel of Doug Meltzer’s digest print of The Abominable Dr. Phibes just to get in that proper Vincent Price mindset. (I hear he was actually a nice guy in real life: that’s kind of a relief!. We all have those post-high school nightmares, but in mine he’s my English Teacher!).
The afternoon sun started to get low in the sky and soon we were ready for Friday’s main event!
Next: House of Wax: our Friday Night Feature!
[ May 23, 2018, 11:37 AM: Message edited by: Steve Klare ]
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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Steve Klare
Film Guy
Posts: 7016
From: Long Island, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted May 08, 2018 07:01 PM
House of Wax!
These last couple of years we’ve added a real event to Friday: Friday Night Feature. Saturday Night Show is wonderful: just short after short until you can barely keep your eyes open, but what about features?
Traditionally, these have been either 16mm or 8mm. This time was very different: CineSea broke the 35mm barrier at Ocean Holiday! Dave Baker & Terry Bange of The Ohio Film Collector Exchange brought their portable 35mm projection setup and showed a theatrical print of “House of Wax” in 3D!
Dave Baker took a few moments to introduce the feature and the setup:
Gary Sloane brought a nice 16mm compilation of old-time theatrical daysets. I love this kind of stuff!
Although I DID go out to the lobby later on: they had no idea what I was talking about! All they had were extra towels and tiny bottles of shampoo! ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
-It’s a good thing we have that table of snacks and drinks in the hospitality room.
The feature was 3D, and by show time those gathered were well-prepared!
For some reason only known to the folks at Apple (or purely by accident…), the I-Phone takes spectacular screen shots. –yet not this time! Who knows? -maybe somewhere out there in the Universe of Apps there is one that can interpret the 3D film image back into a 2D still, but to date I’m still figuring out how to type into the idiotic thing!
-so this time you’ll need to take my word for it! The 3D was great! Someone commented that every so often a character came into the foreground of a scene and for half a second they thought some real person had stepped in front of the screen!
This was single machine presentation of multiple reels, so there were several short intermissions for reel changes. In the spirit of what we all love doing, this was hands-on film presentation: at this moment I count six hands, as a matter of fact!
Now, Horror isn’t usually my genre. Let’s be honest: I went to Junior High with 14 year olds who had eyepatches, criminal records and knife scars! Isn’t that enough horror for one life? Don’t get me wrong: I respect differences of taste. I’ll give you any odds when one of my films goes on the big screen Saturday Night somebody is thinking “ANOTHER train film?! At least let there be somebody interesting on the train this time!” –and I’m OK with that!
That much being said I really enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed the story, the film and the presentation too!
”Vincent” Speaks!
(They say every man has his…“Price”!)
In the darkest hearts of men unimaginable evil prevails, and its manifestations lurk within foulest corridors under the blackness of night. Of these places men dare not speak except in hushed, foreboding tones, yet in their most candid moments they confess such terrifying abodes do exist. This knowledge brings no consolation to their troubled hearts and it haunts them through fearful days and restless nights.
I know of one such place, yet faint to bear it witness:
BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!
(Hey! Don't blame me! I'm just trying to get in the spirit of this thing!)
Next: Saturday, the best day of the week!
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All I ask is a wide screen and a projector to light her by...
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