CineSea 22 in Pictures!

[Steve Klare]

So, Spring has arrived once again: time to swap the snowblower and the lawnmower, time to pump up bike tires and put parkas back up in the attic, time to take down the last Christmas decorations (You know who you are!!) and YES: it’s time for CineSea again!

This is of course the second CineSea of the Covid Era (Third, if you count the one that was canceled exactly one year ago.) Just like everybody else in these odd times, we are adapting: figuring out what we can do and how we can do it: loosening up when and where it’s appropriate. The good news is we have started to have more meals together again.

Friday morning brought breakfast at Uncle Bill’s Pancake House:
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Now, it may surprise some new folk how fully-formed CineSea seems when they arrive on Friday, but that’s not by accident. A decent-sized crowd has already been there at least one day. The screen has already been put up, and untold carloads of gear and film have taken the elevator upstairs. It takes a lot of planning, work and cooperation and even a little love to make something like this happen.
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CineSea matures a little from event to event. That first time at the Bolero in 2009 we didn’t even gather to watch films together and dinner out was just a spur of the moment thing. Years later, we have two single screen shows and as of #21, we added a third. We have an internet poll to pick out the Friday Night Feature, but this usually comes with feelings of regret: so many of the choices are really great films and deserve their time on screen too! We now have Friday Afternoon Matinee for the first runner-up, and for CineSea 22 it was The Goonies in 16mm ‘scope.
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[Steve Klare]

After the Matinee was over with, we had a dinner break. This time the group went out to Alfe’s: one of our favorites.
Friday Night Feature was Ed Gower’s 16mm print of King Kong (1933). This is a Roadshow print: 110 Minutes as opposed to the usual 100 Minute feature.

Ed got up and introduced his print:
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A number of times in the past few years, we’ve had a real classic like this. Unfortunately for people of our time, these are movies we might always see on television. How nice it is to experience them at least once as they were meant to be: on a large screen in front of an audience!

We now have a Fanfare: “CineSea Feature Presentation”.
-As much as possible for somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with it, I actually felt a little proud!
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-and with that introduction: on with the feature!
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After the feature, we had a very nice compilation reel of Wizard of Oz 16mm promos including some deleted footage. After that, I encountered an old friend of mine! This is Buster Keaton in the 16mm Twilight Zone episode: Once Upon a Time. I’ll have to say, I’ve never seen anything with Mr. Keaton in it I didn’t really enjoy. That’s why I’m always pleased to keep on looking! This is one of the things that film collecting has done for me: otherwise I may never even have heard of him!
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-and it was a great night!

Yet please remember, we are just warming up!
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You can always tell when Springtime arrives in Wildwood when they assemble the palm trees!
-Claus Harding

[Joe Caruso]

Excellent Steve...on behalf of everyone, my compliments on another fantastic time. John Black who laid the foundation of this with me, would be so elated... Thank you all, especially Doug and Lou for keeping the reels turning...Cheers, Shorty

[Chip Gelmini]

I don't see the pictures after the dinner break announcement

[Douglas Meltzer]

Chip,

I believe that issue has been taken care of. Please let me know if it's otherwise.


Steve,

What a great start! The really special thing about Ed's King Kong print is that he inserted (via digital transfer to film) Peter Jackson's re-creation of the lost spider sequence. That sequence (featuring a number of creatures) was made to look as if it was done back in 1933. We were all amazed to see it!

[Chip Gelmini]

Yes Doug I now see all the pictures thank you

[Steve Klare]

Saturday (The part with sunlight…)

Saturday breakfast is kind of special at CineSea. The vast majority of the crowd is already there and It’s the first event of the weekend’s biggest day.

Wildwood is a town of hotels and restaurants, much more than average. The problem we run into is that at the extreme ends of the season we are there, many of them are closed. One we can usually count on is Marvis Diner.
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This is in a style very common there: Doo Wop. Wildwood has very strong ties with the 1950s. Chubby Checker first performed The Twist there, and the town very much grew up in the era when Mom and Dad first put their kids in an immense station wagon and vacationed on the Jersey Shore.. To this day even new buildings often have a definite 1950s look to them, and if you ever want to see a parade of 1950s cars, this is the place! The Marvis is much the same: chrome, Formica and pastel colors!

-meanwhile, back at the Ranch

CineSea is now open, let’s go in! (Did you bring your mask?)
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A lot of the day is drifting from screen to screen, renewing old acquaintances and seeing what’s showing and what it’s showing on and who’s showing it.
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Now of course there are films for sale! I’ve first met some of my most treasured prints standing in front of these tables. As a matter of fact that Blackhawk Charlie Chaplin in the lower left (The Rink) and its next door neighbor (Easy Street) both came home with me!
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This is Shorty’s table: one Man’s museum and testament to his love of small gauge film as well as the people who feel the same way.
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CineSea is a family friendly event. Several of us have brought our children and never regretted it. As a matter of fact, 9 years ago it was my son standing at those same rewinds. One thing for sure: if there is only one in her generation that gets that a “film” is not the same as a “video”, this young lady will BE that one!
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Now, I talk a lot here about the Big Shows: Friday Matinee, Friday Night Feature and Saturday Night Show. Truth be told, something is always showing! There are small screen screenings going on all the time, even with the room lights up. It’s kind of a chorus of sound tracks and several screens bright at once. I would not be the least bit surprised if sometime during our many years at the Ocean Holiday, one beam crossed another!

This machine is actually a little famous! It’s Doug Meltzer’s GS-1200 Xenon, or at least it was! It’s still Doug’s machine, but Xenon gave way to HID these last few weeks, and CineSea 22 was its post-surgical debut!
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I had thought about doing Saturday all in one shot here, but then again, it’s a long day, all the way from 8:30 AM in the lobby to head to breakfast until after midnight if you decide to be a straggler at Saturday Night Show. To me, that’s THE event, so I’m going to let it stand on its own!

[Graham Ritchie]

Excellent Steve, glad you are back up and running with your convention

One thing, how did Doug HID conversion "look" on screen, compared to using a Xenon lamp?

Thanks for the write up and photos

[Steve Klare]

Hi Graham,

I was very interested in how the HID conversion worked out, so I watched closely at first. It was good enough that after a minute or two I forgot all about it!

It pays to remember that this machine is in a pretty competitive place. Three other machines are sharing the same screen: two 16mm and a 35mm, all Xenons.

For all that, it still held its own.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Graham,

I was ecstatic over Alan Gouger's HID conversion work. I feel the new bulb gave more output than what I was used to with the Xenon. The coverage was perfectly uniform and Alan was able to replace the Xenon power supply underneath the projector with a new, smaller unit for the HID. A number of people commented on how bright the picture was and occasionally mistook what I screened on Saturday with what was shown on the other projectors.
It was also nice to be close to the projector and not feel the heat from the Xenon bulb!

[Graham Ritchie]

Thanks Steve and Doug

I had been wondering about HID conversions for a while

[Joachim Schmidt]

Thank you for sharing! Events like this are wonderful, a great opportunity to meet and talk and enjoy the hobby. Hopefully this will be possible to do in autumn in Germany again.

[William Ferry]

Heartbroken because I just moved to upstate New York last month! Glad to see a great time was had by all, however. 😀 Sighing over all the boxes of films for sale, especially Blackhawk!

[Steve Klare]

Don't give up, Bill!

It's downright amazing the distances people travel to get to CineSea! During more normal times we regularly have people from places like Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Texas and Minnesota. We had someone from Iceland twice: first time he was local anyway, second time he came just for CineSea. Our champion is and is likely to remain Jason Smith, who joined us from Japan every time for years until Covid-19 said differently.

(There's something very special about Ohio when it comes to film collecting: there have been a number of these weekends we've had as many Ohioans as New Jerseyites!)

We hope that in less infectious times we will be seeing you too!

[Michael O’Regan]

Fantastic, as always. One day...