8mm Forum: Film is not dead in yet in UK Cinemas.

This is topic Film is not dead in yet in UK Cinemas. in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on December 07, 2017, 08:07 AM:

Digital as we know and all other things digital is now the norm in most UK Cinemas but not all.

There is a more frequent demand for 35mm prints to be screened in some " Art House" sites.

So not all cinemas were foolish enough to dump all of their 35mm projectors and equipment.

Due to ever growing requests demand from members and customers some films are being screened in 35mm where a copy is available.

This implies that somewhere in the UK there is a film storage facility and that not all 35mm copies have been chucked out or destroyed. I suspect that The British Film Institute may be one such place.

However in some sites none of the staff know how to operate the film projectors.

It appears that some former professional certificate holding projectionists are being called in to operate the projectors and/or train some of the staff how to do so.

Well we did warn them but most never listened but some did.

I expect I shall be getting a phone call any day soon to come out of my semi-retirement if this trend continues.

[Big Grin]

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on December 07, 2017, 11:03 AM:

Doesn't the National Film Theatre on the South Bank have an extensive 35mm film collection? For the Cinema Theatre celebrations, they showed an early Hitchcock film from their own sources earlier in the year. And does the restoration/archive at Berkhamsted loan films out? And some collectors would no doubt offer their own prints if approached. The problem with all this seems to be that it's the same one offs remaining that will suffer wear and tear without the facilities for new replacements. We must enjoy them while we can.

Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on December 07, 2017, 12:48 PM:

Dave that's some good points you raise there.
I know for a fact that BFI do still hire out prints from their
limited 35mm film archives to cinemas.

I was not aware of the NFTs collection and don't know as yet about Berkhamsted,s archive.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on December 08, 2017, 03:52 AM:

The NFT is part of the BFI and now officially called the BFI Southbank, though strangely the auditoria are called NFT1,2 & 3.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on January 03, 2018, 06:29 AM:

Being involved in a community cinema that occasionally shows 35mm, I can confirm that the BFI does hire out 35mm features and shorts (and some 16mm prints) from its enormous vaults at Berkhamstead. It's an advantage to be a cinema with two projectors, because some prints are not available to cinemas that would need to cut off the leaders and join up the reels to use on a long play system.

Much of the 35mm that's not available from the BFI seems to be held by Park Circus, who offer rights to a lot of 'archive' material that you would associate with other distributors, so I wouldn't be surprised if even modern 35mm prints go to them fairly soon after release. I think Curzon/Artificial Eye might still have 35mm prints of past releases.

Posted by Dave Groves (Member # 4685) on January 03, 2018, 07:53 AM:

How long before someone sets up a one stop shop for print hire. However, without new prints to replace old ones it's a matter of time before the folk who like viewing 35mm prints will also be noting the increasing wear and tear on display. I do just wonder how many cinemas would have converted if 35mm prints had continued to be made available at he same time. I reckon a good many 'Moms and Pops' theatres in the States would still be in business.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on January 03, 2018, 08:26 AM:

I'm not sure of the current situation in the USA, but there was - and might still be - an ongoing thread on the 35mm Forum that invited people to log sightings of new films on 35mm, and it was surprising how many were still appearing. Although distributors probably wouldn't have wanted to openly 'advertise' 35mm availibilty, there was a sense that some were taking a 'if you can't beat them, join them' approach, thinking they might as well produce a few prints to hire to 35mm only cinemas.

I doubt if wear and tear will be a major issue, now that 35mm use is relatively rare and cinemas offering screenings will tend to be places that are enthusiastic about film. When you see signs of wear on older prints, I think there's a pretty good chance that this will have happened in the pre-digital era.

Posted by Adrian Morgan (Member # 4827) on January 03, 2018, 08:45 AM:

David I can confirm film is still being shown as I am writing this as I am showing "In A Lonely Place" in 35mm at the Plymouth Art centre in Devon.This print comes from Park Circus and is in pristine condition as new, near as possible.No damages no splices and clean as a whistle.Yes we do show 35mm along side the digital the last 35mm we ran was Dunkirk last year so film is not dead yet.

Posted by Adrian Winchester (Member # 248) on January 03, 2018, 02:03 PM:

Adrian - is 'In a Lonely Place' the 1950 film? It probably is but I ask because IMDB shows a 2016 film with the same title.

Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on January 03, 2018, 05:42 PM:

Adrian I am glad to read you work in one of those sites still showing 35mm film.

As for wear and tear of prints. Well a lot of that depends on the skills of the projectionists.

Unskilled projectionists can cause more harm to a print in one or two runs of a film.

I know this from decades of experience as a cinema film projectionist.

Posted by Adrian Morgan (Member # 4827) on January 04, 2018, 04:20 PM:

Adrian this is the 1950 film with Humphry Bogart a very good film, not the one from 2016.
Yes David print damage is often very common no thanks to the last person who showed and quite literally broke down the print afterwards.Still its nice to show 35mm whenever I can.

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