8mm Forum: Keeping the reel alive

This is topic Keeping the reel alive in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 01, 2014, 02:52 AM:

Hi Folks
Came across this advert,I'm hoping to be able to go.This is on in Woolton Liverpool,It's a fantastic small independent cinema,if anyone needs any more info you can ring the cinema.Tickets are £3.00 each from the cinema.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 03:07 AM:

If I am off work, I would like to attend that show Tommy. Two great films that are both out on Super 8mm, but sadly I do not have either. I am sure it will be a fabulous show!

[ October 01, 2014, 06:44 AM: Message edited by: Andrew Woodcock ]

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 01, 2014, 03:17 AM:

Hi Andrew
I've just spoken to them and they recommend to book the tickets online,

http://www.wooltonpicturehouse.com/

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 04:42 AM:

Thanks for the info Tommy [Wink]

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 01, 2014, 05:36 AM:

Is the show on film or video?

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 01, 2014, 05:48 AM:

Hi Maurice
I'm not sure,I will try to find out

Posted by Martin Jones (Member # 1163) on October 01, 2014, 06:56 AM:

The last line on this page is ominous as it does not mention the old machines at all.
http://www.wooltonpicturehouse.com/cinema-history/4545724273

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 07:02 AM:

You're probably right Martin, by the sounds of things it appears highly probable that it will be shown digitally sadly [Frown]

It will be nice if Tommy can confirm though one way or another.

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 01, 2014, 07:36 AM:

Sorry boys,I have just come off the phone to the cinema,it seems that it will be screened in digital.

These are the people putting the event on,interesting listening to the old projectionists

http://picturepalace.org/events/

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 01, 2014, 09:03 AM:

I am lucky to have the full length S8 Derann print of The Magic Box. It is a very good quality print, and is probably the most prized film in my collection.

http://8mmforum.film-tech.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000071

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 01, 2014, 10:56 AM:

Very sad that old projectionists will be present at a show which will be digitally projected. Count me out.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 11:24 AM:

Yes I agree Maurice. Seems pointless to me showing nostalgic film specifically cinema related as it was, if you are using modern up to date equipment to present it on sadly.

That is a rare one I believe on Super 8 Paul, My friend has a full length print of The Magic Box also, but he waited a very long time to find it I believe.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 01, 2014, 12:28 PM:

Yes I think that print is extremely rare Andrew. I never see it come up for sale, so I suspect that Derann only struck a handful of prints.
I love the film, it is so Victorian, and the shots of the old wood and brass projectors are wonderful. Best scene of course, is the one with Olivier as the astonished policeman seeing motion pictures for the first time, projected on a bed sheet.
Some people question how factual the film really is, and whether Friese-Greene really could lay claim to inventing cinematography.
My belief is that the Lumiere brothers in France invented cinema projection as we know it. Certainly Thomas Edison initially thought that hand cranked viewing machines (mutoscope parlours) was the way to go, and had no interest in developing projectors until he saw what the Lumiere's had achieved. Despite that, Edisons legacy in the USA, as displayed at his museum home in Fort Myers Florida, includes the invention of motion pictures.

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 01, 2014, 12:34 PM:

Whilst I agree that it's disappointing to project in digital,I for one wouldn't deny the old boys their 15 minutes.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 01, 2014, 12:53 PM:

It is a deceitful advertising.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 04:07 PM:

That may be a little strong to some Dominique in calling it deceitful, however I tend to agree with you in that whoever would be interested in watching these two nostalgic historic cinema masterpieces, would surely expect them to be projected on celluloid and certainly not digitally.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 01, 2014, 04:14 PM:

For us it's the message and the medium, for many people it's just the message.

It's the reason that what we do is mind boggling to so many people: it just seems to be layers of complexity and difficulty to wind up with the same result.

Do you really need to find a Victrola to listen to Enrico Caruso when you can find him on CD?

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 04:25 PM:

Deep, but very true Steve!

Posted by Simon McConway (Member # 219) on October 01, 2014, 05:20 PM:

As if vintage radio collectors would say "let's all gather around this DAB radio". I think not!

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 01, 2014, 05:29 PM:

-but you see I'm not really talking about us, just most everyone else.

I went to a Drive-In theater this summer that was digital, yet 35mm the last time I went there.

I still enjoyed the movie, yet would have preferred 35mm if that was a choice.

What I'm saying is that I may have been the only one there that night that knew or cared what put the picture on the screen.

Posted by Andrew Woodcock (Member # 3260) on October 01, 2014, 05:34 PM:

We are dying breed Steve, that's for sure!! Let's hope we all live a while longer yet, keep the faith Steve and Simon by the sound of it!

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 01, 2014, 05:55 PM:

Steve, you're right in a general speaking but what I see when film is concerned is that film events are almost always advertised with cinema related items (filmstock, projector...), not with digital projectors or even digital cameras. You don't see that so often with music (to come back to your example). If they were so proud of their digital and thought that film is a thing of the past, wouldn't they put digital on the light ?

Posted by John Hourigan (Member # 111) on October 01, 2014, 06:55 PM:

Agree Steve. It's like I've always said -- know how to tell a film collector out of a crowd? The film collector is the one watching the projector instead of the movie!

Posted by Clay Smith (Member # 4122) on October 01, 2014, 07:17 PM:

I would like to believe that there are kids scattered about the globe who will discover an old projector and film, tinker with it, light the thing up and discover "Wow".
Hope so anyway.

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 01, 2014, 07:26 PM:

I've noticed the film theme decoration around video presentation. AS a matter of fact old projectors are very popular decoration for "media rooms".

I shot this picture at a local store last week. I think it says it all:

What would digital décor look like anyway?

Little black boxes?
Silver circles with a hole in the middle?

Posted by Paul Mason (Member # 4015) on October 02, 2014, 03:17 AM:

Surely we should applaud anyone organising a cinema showing of two 50's classics in 2014? OK it would be nice if they were shown on film but digital projection is now the norm and both films can only stimulate interest in cinematography and cinemas to the next generation. No way does it hurt our hobby.

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 02, 2014, 03:39 AM:

That would be my view too Paul,King Canute is a lesson for us all.!!!

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 02, 2014, 05:56 AM:

I'm still holding by my take on it all expressed a couple of years ago that film collectors are the reel custodians of vintage films to be projected onto a screen large or small whereas you will increasingly see modern day commercial screens either playing a dvd, Blu-ray or storage method when screening older films. I've been in a few mainstream would be projection boxes and seen a disc machine rolling which for me is hopeless.

Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on October 02, 2014, 06:10 AM:

The digital age did have to come to cinema and I'm not against it, but I do think that this particular event had misleading advertising.

Posted by Mal Brake (Member # 14) on October 02, 2014, 06:52 AM:

Earlier this year I attended an open day at a 120 year old cinema in east Wales. It had recently been taken over by a group of enthusiasts after it faced certain closure. The team kept using 35mm until they had no alternative but to go digital. On the day, the 35mm projector was set up and running in the foyer for all to see. Questions were answered, explaining the virtues of real film and the sadness that it had to end was obvious. In the auditorium itself we watched 'The Smallest Show On Earth' and such was the atmosphere generated it didn't really matter that it was a digital presentation. We even had the ice-cream lady with her tray at mid point.

Posted by Paul Mason (Member # 4015) on October 02, 2014, 07:21 AM:

Well said Mal,
Ultimately projectors and projection boxes are only a means to an end for a cinema. There will still be a place for celluloid film projection in a few cinemas but the public will need to be educated and encouraged to support it in the same way as steam locomotives on heritage railways.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 02, 2014, 07:47 AM:

Thankfully there are a few hundred cinemas in the UK showing 35mm albeit 'home grown' with a few new shoots blossoming. [Big Grin]

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 02, 2014, 07:57 AM:

Maybe we should blame the projection booth!

Ever since they started using them the presence of the projector hasn't been a part of the cinema experience for most patrons, so why should they care what's going on behind the little window?

Of course we should be pleased it helped protect audiences from nitrate fires and kept the noise of the machine from intruding on the sound tracks....

-but I'll still blame the booth! (Why not?, it can't fight back!)

I think what we are seeing now could actually be an intermediate stage. There may come a day not too long from now when the screen will be entirely-self contained and cinema will be completely projector-less.

Come that day the difference between television and cinema will mostly be one of size.

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on October 02, 2014, 08:23 AM:

True.

I've lost the plot with commercial cinema to the point now where we have a film opening aka Northern Soul which I want to see but the disc release is only 3 days later! Confused I am...

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 02, 2014, 08:27 AM:

...or when I go and see a commercial I saw on TV earlier the same day.

The difference will be measured in Watts also: if I ran my TV at the decibel level they run in movie theaters the cops would be pounding on my door!

Posted by Tommy Woods (Member # 2437) on October 02, 2014, 09:25 AM:

In years to come people will be lamenting the loss of digital

Posted by Steve Klare (Member # 12) on October 02, 2014, 09:43 AM:

Something new will always be coming out.

The pace of obsolescence will become so quick people won't get sentimental about a technology like we are.

"That's SO three weeks ago!"

Posted by Nigel Higgins (Member # 4312) on October 02, 2014, 11:51 AM:

I dont know what it is but i just cant get away from believing that real film is the best ,its the experience putting the film onto the machine watching it on the screen and returning it to its box and then its place on the shelf ,the noise of the projector is all part of it too i know im not alone as theres others here that feel the same reel film it is for me and i wont except no substitute thats just my view .

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on October 02, 2014, 03:34 PM:

I don't think anyone here would disagree with Nigel.

Posted by David M. Ballew (Member # 1818) on October 02, 2014, 06:20 PM:

As to the question of whether the Lumière brothers can be solely credited as the inventors of film projection, and to the question of the provenance of Edison's work, let me add my thoughts:

I think Edison’s efforts were influenced more by the work of Charles Francis Jenkins and (especially) Thomas Armat than by the Lumières, whose work I nevertheless esteem highly.

It is interesting to note that Jenkins is credited with the first projection of a motion picture (in front of a private, invited audience) in June 1894. Some sources say that the Lumière brothers projected films publically for the first time on September 28, 1895, but it is known that Jenkins and Armat projected films publically at the Southern States Exposition, which opened in Atlanta on September 18th. The history books tell us, with tantalizing imprecision, that Jenkins and Armat ran their projector “in September 1895,” but if they were at the Exposition from day one, then they beat the Lumières to the punch by ten days.

Ten. Days.

That said, I think motion pictures and motion picture projection had several fathers, most working independently of one another but all very clever and industrious in their efforts. I'm sure we all salute them all, and honor their legacy.

Posted by Dominique De Bast (Member # 3798) on October 03, 2014, 12:36 AM:

David, there has been also a projection in Germany (in Berlin at the Wintergarten). There is a Geraman film about that : Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 03, 2014, 01:03 AM:

Hope you folk take the time to check out "Projection :85 Years of the Projection Booth in Movies" on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/76383856

I am not in it... but I can certainly still relate to some of the weirdness of what is shown.......still miss it [Frown]

Posted by Gary Crawford (Member # 67) on October 03, 2014, 06:55 AM:

Nigel is correct, I think. That's why so many film directors and archivists are pressing for the continuing availability of film stock and equipment. That is why many TV shows, shot on video, then turn around and run the digital show through a program that makes it look more like film.

Posted by Graham Ritchie (Member # 559) on October 03, 2014, 03:34 PM:

These days we still go out to watch the odd movie, but the cinema experience that used to be "special" has well and truly gone....they don't even play any music in the cinemas anymore, so you just sit and look at a plain boring screen before it starts.

I see little point in going out to watch any "classic films" projected on video...seems wrong to me as they should be projected on film. Watching them on video...well I can do just that at home.

Graham.

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