Jurassic Park

[Graham Ritchie]

Its been a bit of a weird week I first screened a reel of 35mm, which included the excellent trailer of JP "The Lost World", that had me thinking to watch the blu-ray later using the VP, which I did, that in turn made me think, mmm must watch the original Jurassic Park on 3D, which I did, mmm that got me thinking, I must find that book on the making, which I did, that in turn had me thinking I must listen to the brilliant soundtrack to JP The Lost World, which I did last night, I wonder....what's next

I must be old age thing, that I am all over the place, I should have watched Jurassic Park 3D first, then the JP Lost World, next not the other way round.

PS. On a side note, I remember when I was the treasurer on the home and and school committee when April and Steven were at school long ago. I had the idea of raising money through a movie evening. I contacted the owner of the Hollywood cinema, and we booked a private of the new release JP The Lost World. It was a gamble, as it did cost a lot of money to book a screening back then, never sure how many would turn up. On the night thankfully the numbers were good, as well as the eats and drinks the ladies on the committee supplied

The night was a total success, Steven told me later he and his side kicks were enjoying watching there young female teacher screaming at certain parts of the film, trust them.

Anyway I had to pay on the way out, but the chairman had not turned up to second the signature on the cheque. I was a bit ticked of about that, when his wife grabbed the cheque book of me, and told me with a smile "that I remember" that she has been falsely signing his signature for years and signed his name on it. It worked the cheque cleared . It was funny at our next committee meeting when he found out about it, the lady was a real character. a real nice down to earth person

On the night after paying for the hire we made $600 dollars

Ah! memories.



The CD.....

[Graham Ritchie]

PS.....This "Bits an Pieces" reel I put together a while back, includes the original JP trailer

[Douglas Meltzer]

Graham,

That's the start of a nice JP collection! I enjoyed the story of your movie screening.

[Graham Ritchie]

Thanks Doug

You might find this amusing taken at the hotel last year in England during a break in filming the new Jurassic film, where the cast were living during the Covid virus, note the comments by actress Laura Dern in the background regarding her scene in the original with Jeff Goldblum.

I understand that Universal has changed the release dates of the new Jurassic movie, to June 2022 from the initial June release this year which is a pity.

[Graham Ritchie]

On the Super8 side of things I only have the trailer of the original film, however on the 35mm well that's a different story When we ran JP3 at the cinema the film did not do as well as expected, I did make the time to watch the 35mm print, and thought that JP3 was very good.

Anyway here is a screen shot from the Super8 trailer, plus my tea-rex mug .

[Graham Ritchie]

And this is why folks you need to have a good sub-woofer in your sound system but most importantly.... good..... neighbours .

Note.... how she does it all in high heels, also note the line we need more teeth, that reminded me of a certain film where we need a bigger boat, remember that one?

[Graham Ritchie]

Well that's my Jurassic Park odyssey over, with a screening of Jurassic Park 3 and enjoyed every bit of it. Afterwards I was going through all our old cinema paperwork and there it was, the JP3 35mm print arrived on the 24-8-01 and departed back to Auckland on the 15-1-02. What surprised me was that its 20 years ago, what happened to those last 20 years?.

Anyway that's it for me, the JP odyssey although not in the right order, has now been completed well until next year.

A couple of screen shots from last night .

[Graham Ritchie]

Regarding what I mentioned about booking a cinema screening of "The Lost World" for the school and the young teacher amusing Steven and his side kicks with her reaction to certain parts of the film, well I came across this old 1997 class photo, the same year as the films release. The teacher was great with the kids and always had lots of energy and enthusiasm. She did come from a farming background, which I think added a lot to the experience of the great outdoors on camps. She not only had the kids well organized but the parent helpers that came along as well, I must add that without parents involvement, the camps back then would not have been possible.

Once your own wee ones move on to high school, then you do as well and others take over raising money etc.

[Graham Ritchie]

Funny thing after posting the above camp photo onto a Christchurch Facebook page yesterday. One of the kids in the photo, now all grown up, got back to me as to how much he enjoyed seeing the photo of those long ago times. This is I think is the real plus about the internet, is sharing this stuff, which in time would most likely might have got thrown out or lost.

[Lee Mannering]

Reely nice reading..what its all about. Only thing I can add is going to see JP way back when with two film making friends God bless them no longer here. The WB Cinema was packed and two people kept chatting behind us so the lass with us turned round and TOLD the people behind to be quiet as we couldn't hear the dinosaurs. Funny..

[Graham Ritchie]

Lee "What's its all about" is about how I got involved in organizing a fund raising event for the school with a screening of the JP "The Lost World". The way the primary and intermediate schools operate here, are I guess most likely different to some other countries. Although most are public funded like the one above, without the involvement of parents a lot of things requiring money like camps etc would not happen. Hence things like a "movie evening" , fairs, and the like that are organized by parents are a must for the school to buy even such things as computers. The government only pays for so much for running a school, a lot of kids would miss out on things, if it was not for the parents involvement, both with there time and fund raising.

I remember one such class camp my daughter was on came close to getting cancelled, simply because we could not get enough parents to find time to go along, we did in the end but it was a close call. In saying all that, its a lot of fun for the parents as well. The last time I got involved in any school trip was when Steven was in Intermediate on a ski trip to the mountains in a charter bus. The school had asked me if I could come along as I was the only one that had done a bit of skiing in the past. At the bottom the driver fitted chains on the rear axle for climb up. I really enjoyed that day out, the weather was perfect, all I had to do was get the kids sorted out, once that was done I left them on the beginner slope, then headed further up the mountain for a stunning afternoon on the slopes myself. Later we that is, the teacher and I, even found them all and rounded them up at the end of the day, as the kids were everywhere for the trip home.

One thing I was given by the principal and I still have it was the old B/H 16mm projector "the box one" trying, but can't remember the model number as its still up in the garage rafters, must get it down one day

PS Going of topic just slightly before I got involved in Super 8 I used to spend my winter weekends up in the Craigieburn Ski field back in the 1970s I took this long ago photo at the time. Once got caught out in whiteout conditions up there, that was interesting.