CineSea 28 in Pictures

[Steve Klare]

So, welcome to the post-game show for CineSea 28!

Last week a bunch of us gathered at the Shalimar Hotel in Wildwood for almost a week of film, food and fun. Reports are at least one of us was on-site as early as Monday and I set a personal arrival record of Wednesday myself. I’ve never arrived earlier than Thursday afternoon up until now. It goes to show how CineSea has grown over the years: the first time I ever attended? -Saturday, just before lunch!

These early days are kind of quiet: most of the people are still back home, along with their films and equipment. Wednesday night there was a very informal show with one 16mm machine and an improvised screen. Nothing big happened other than some arrivals and relaxation.

The weather for the weekend was mostly cloudy with periods of spectacular! Biking on the boardwalk was possible this time and some did it, too. It seems we were about a week too soon for the pool: it was about a foot shallow and a little bit green at the deep end. (-better luck next time!)

Something New for #28!
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Because of generosity combined with teamwork, CineSea now has a new screen. Mike had a really spectacular, big rollup screen and decided to donate it to CineSea. The problem is that Mike lives in Ohio, many hundred miles away from Wildwood and this fifteen-foot long thing is not exactly carry-on luggage according to any sane airline. No problem: Mike shipped it to Dave, then flew into Philadelphia and rented a van to get the screen where it was needed. Mike and Dave drove down to the Shalimar, then five pall-bearers carried the screen in box up a maze of stairs and sundecks and across several hundred feet of hotel frontage to that third-floor room. Once past all this, the screen went up in about 5 minutes. The last challenge was figuring out where this impressive obelisk will live between CineSeas and that was solved by a local Regular offering to store it at his home.

-but this is how CineSea works: no one person owns the great print and the really capable projector and the big screen and the wonderful audio system. Nobody is capable of doing all the work either: a lot of arrangements need to be made and the feature polling has to be done and a lot of miscellaneous items need to be brought and set up and posters made and snacks and drinks made and brought and hotel dates and dinner reservations secured and somebody has to write it all up after the fact. It's all the little details that make an event like this work out just right. It's years of experiences that even define what they are supposed to be.

Many people bring and do each of these things and between the bunch of them, do better than anybody could ever do on their own!

-like many things in life, the more you put into it, the more you get out. (Mike and Dave have certainly put in more than their share: Thanks!)
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NEXT: Thursday Night Theme!

[Janice Glesser]

What a beautiful screen and a wonderfully generous donation... Very impressive guys! I can't wait to hear about this past weekend Steve.

[Steve Klare]

It's a magnificent thing, Janice!

-easily the largest rolling screen I've ever seen. (9 by 12 feet)

It's pretty much the same size as our existing screen, but much more portable. There have been times over the years when we've needed to move the screen and it's an awkward maneuver.

This one can roll down into its cocoon, and after that a couple of cooperative volunteers can pick it up and move it much more easily.

[Dominique De Bast]

Very impressive guys! I can't wait to hear about this past weekend Steve.

Same for me 😀

[Osi Osgood]

Looooooove to have that in me own home!

[Lincoln Thorn]

I so hope to come visit someday and meet everyone in the hobby! My life schedule never seems to work out with CineSea.

[Steve Klare]

Thursday! (-and the Theme)

Thursday has become the first big day of CineSea. That morning you wake up in a mostly empty hotel and all day long people both new and familiar arrive and the elevator becomes full of interesting cargo: film, equipment, and stuff! (There come times when the stairs are your best choice!).

With Thursday, of course comes Thursday Night Theme. This is like Saturday Night Show, just with greater…focus (-pun intended!).

This Theme was a little bit special. It was “music” this time. Music and motion pictures have gone together from the beginning. What we call “silent movies” were rarely presented the way we might show an unstriped Blackhawk today: there was often an organist, pianist or a band in the theater too.

In many great Golden Era movies, of course there was a screenwriter, producer and director, but there was often a composer too. This makes me think of words like “Lerner and Loew”, “Rogers and Hammerstein”, “John Williams” and so many others. Because of this, a farmer’s family in Nebraska or a bunch of sailors mid-ocean on a battleship just might get the chance to see a Broadway Show and it made the World a little smaller.

I went into sound after collecting silent films for about twenty years. Dialog, effects and music revolutionized my enjoyment of film collecting, so this Theme was personally important to me. If someday the Theme is Phrenology or Patent Law, I will consider first showing up at Friday Breakfast. (-good luck finding films for those in any case!) For Music, I would ride my bike to Wildwood if I had to!

-So Showtime Approached and the Theater was taking shape:
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Doug’s HID converted GS (former) Xenon wasn’t alone very long. Soon it was joined by 16 and 35mm machines and a lot of sound equipment. By now, the new screen had received its surrounds and speakers.

Here’s a smattering of what we saw (-and heard!) at Thursday Night Theme! (selected scenes)
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The CineSea Fanfare: It lets the audience know they've arrived!

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Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra as seen from the "booth".

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The Nutcracker Suite from Fantasia

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Desi Arnaz and his Orchestra
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Laurel and Hardy's Musical Moments
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A sing-along from The Little Mermaid (...yeah: we did!)
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They're the Monkeys (Hey-Hey!)
(-we saw more of them later in the weekend.)
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Mickey Mouse conducts maybe the most dysfunctional orchestra
in music history (-he pointed a gun at Donald Duck!) in Symphony Hour!

So it went like this until almost midnight: all sorts of music from all sorts of eras. What's nice here is given a great theme like this, there are way too many films to show Thursday night, so there is spill-over into Saturday Night Show. In this way, the Theme kind of flavors the weekend.

NEXT: Friday and it's Features

[Graham Ritchie]

Brilliant Steve

[Steve Klare]

Thanks, Graham!

I'm hoping for a Thursday night of railroad films someday myself, but I'm guessing maybe that would work out better at the House one Thursday earlier!

I DID manage to get this one on screen:

Pacific 231

-but the total lack of music during the first 2.5 minutes made some in the crowd suspect I was a Theme Violator! It all worked out in the end because somebody in the room recognized this as a classic film and we talked about it the next day.

Yet, in all seriousness, Music is such a great theme I can't imagine it never happening again.

[Douglas Meltzer]

Music as a theme encompasses a pretty wide range, so we had many different types of films. Here's a few more:

On Super 8mm, we started with the 1934 Let's Sing with Popeye, followed by Beautiful Stranger from the second Austin Powers film.

Sunny Italy, a Mighty Mouse cartoon, is operatic. No dialogue, everything is sung.

In 35mm, we showed a print of Jerry Garcia performing a great version of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, from the 1995 film Smoke.

The Castle Films release of Benny Goodman In Concert

On 16mm: Korla Pandit's Adventures In Music, the first all-music show on television.





I had forgotten how well edited the MGM digest of Showboat was.

[Steve Klare]

A great theme it is!

I brought too many and still left a lot back on the shelves!

[Steve Klare]

Friday and its Features

Friday is the day to enjoy two feature films: the Matinee in the afternoon and the Friday Night Feature after dinner.

Matinee:

Lou got the honors of Friday Matinee with his 16mm print of Pinocchio. This was mid-afternoon and the sun was well above the horizon doing what it is supposed to do, so the blackout curtains made things right for a matinee.
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Here, Lou makes his introduction, and then the feature rolled.

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This was a treat for me: I’d never seen Disney’s Pinocchio before. Of course, like many people, I’ve seen clips of it on TV and excerpts on Super-8, but never the whole thing end to end. Full disclosure: I got so wrapped-up in watching it, that I got to the end and realized I’d not snapped a single screenshot! Thanks to Doug for providing these!

Friday Night Feature:

The Friday Night Feature was Kevin's 16mm LPP Scope print of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. It’s a great Zero to Hero story of an ordinary guy learning to stand up for himself. He is challenged to stay in a haunted house overnight, meanwhile half the town is placing bets on how long he will last there without running screaming into the night.

After Dinner Friday, we gathered back at CineSea to enjoy the show.
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Kevin makes his introduction. If you win any election, you should really make a speech: these are no different!
Sometimes it's about the movie, but often the individual print has a story all on its own.

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-and as is fitting for a Movie Hero, he got the girl at the end!

Now, there is no rule that says there can’t be a short either before or after the Features! The tail of the last feature reel slapping on the projector isn’t like last call at a tavern: people can stay and just talk, or even enjoy other films.

In this case it was the Donald Duck 1956 Trick or Treat. As is so typical of Donald, he misbehaves in some way and finds cartoon-karma! In this case he gives Huey, Dewey, and Louie fireworks for Halloween and in the end learns his Halloween-lesson from a Witch!
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What is it with ducks in cartoons?! I’ve encountered any number of ducks in lakes at parks and they seem basically harmless: little boats with webbed feet and bird heads! -not a mean bone in their little feathered bodies!

Then you get Donald and Daffy! -always a plot! -always a sly grin, wringing of hands and an evil laugh!

Who knows: maybe they had ducklinghood trauma as a result of their speech impediments, maybe they just grew up in rough ponds, but it usually comes down to mice or rabbits to make the world right again!

(I’ve also met real mice…how did they get to be the good guys?! You should'a seen what they did in our cupboard about 15 years ago!)

Next: Saturday

[Douglas Meltzer]

Was there cake? You bet there was!

Todd & Tammy have (thankfully) been bringing Friday Feature cakes to CineSea for years. We never order dessert after dinner on Fridays...we know better!

This was film collector Chip Ordway's first visit to CineSea. He brought a 35mm network print of

The Monkees, complete with the original commercials, which we ran after the feature. Following that was a 16mm print of The Beatles' 1966 concert at Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo, courtesy of Stu and Pauline Finkelstein.

[Steve Klare]

Saturday Dealer's Day (Reel #1 of 2)

Hey! It’s Saturday Morning, we’ve had a satisfying breakfast and are dressed casually and comfortably. (Many a CineSea Regular has a collection of film-themed T-shirts just for these weekends.)

It’s 10AM and the door is open: let’s go in!
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It’s kind of a multi-screen cinema show combined with film sales, combined with a live-action in-person Discussion Forum. What’s nice about it is the chance to interact with other film people: to experience what they like, to get to know them as people and just maybe learn something.

One for me is years ago I struggled with threading onto slot-less auto-thread reels when the leader flops down just before it reaches the take-up. Somewhere on the GOF, there is a post from me, basically asking “What kind of sadist designs a reel without a slot?!!”. Then one day at CineSea, I saw somebody put the leader into the reel, push one of its little capture-fingers inward and twirl the reel around a few times: problem solved! Would I have figured this out on my own eventually? Probably, but that moment took care of it then and there. (I was impressed!)
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Shorty’s Museum table thrives: one man’s tribute to the enjoyment of small gauge film!
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What's on offer is mostly film for sale, but often equipment too. I bought my own first 16mm machine at CineSea about 6 years ago. Here three nice Eiki machines are available.

I did nicely myself: three 16mm shorts. One was a Ray Harryhausen Hansel and Gretel, the second was the Disney cartoon Ben and Me. The third was a US Army film about electronic communications in military settings. (Can’t wait for the musical to come out!)

4PM came with the dinner break, but first the group picture was taken. If you are looking for it here, please hold on until the end: that’s where it’s always been and that’s where it shall stay! It’s kind of like a big stage-show: you need to have something wonderful for the closing number.

What kind of ending would it be if some guy with a clipboard came on stage and said “OK…well, that’s all we have…people are coming in to shampoo the rugs, so you should all leave now.”.

Next: Saturday Night Show (Reel #2 of 2)

[Douglas Meltzer]

It’s kind of a multi-screen cinema show...

So true! During the day projectors are constantly running.

I was tempted by this one:





Forum member Dave Ruth often comes to CineSea, however this time he brought his family. I wish I grabbed a picture of his youngsters laughing at cartoons.




Abbott & Costello will come into play later on Saturday evening.