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Yesterday my grandson and I drove over to the west side of Florida to check out Chip Gelmini’s home cinema near Brooksville. Chip lives in a gated community atop a hill, and after the frenetic pace of life in Orlando, Chip’s residential area seemed very peaceful, quiet, and laid back.
Chip greeted us when we entered his driveway, and immediately took us into his main cinema (he has others in the house!) where he has set up two Elmo GS1200’S, projecting on to an 8ft wide Cinemascope screen. The screen is acoustically transparent so that Chip is able to put his main front speakers vertically centered, and hidden, behind the matt white screen.
The two Elmo’s are mounted with Chip’s own design ‘Tower’ arrangement, where the feed and take up spools are mounted away from the projector on separate shafts, the take up shaft being motor powered through a slipping clutch. This totally removes all torque loads from the projector motors, enabling Chip to use very large reel sizes when he needs to. He has also mounted a 35mm Kelmar film cleaning/lubricating system into the feed path of the film.
Chip gave us a demonstration of his ‘change over’ apparatus which is designed to provide a seamless professional on screen transition between reel changes on the two Elmo’s, and also his Panasonic digital projector, at the push of a button.
The cinema’s sound system is powered though a Marantz AVS amplifier, which is a really high end piece of equipment, probably capable of destroying his house! And it shows. My grandson and I were amazed at the cinema like quality of the sound system. Chip ran a super 8 scope reel from Matrix and the depth and clarity of the sound, which seemed to be coming in all directions, was really superb. Just impossible to believe it was all coming from that tiny S8 stripe.
Clearly Chip has achieved his goal of providing a professional level cinema experience in his home. He has a small circle of friends in his community who enjoy regular shows at his cinema. One of the highlights was his recent showing of Titanic, the starting of which was precisely timed so that the ship went down on the screen at exactly the same time as it actually happened. Now that’s what you call showmanship!
Like most home cinema enthusiasts Chip is always busy trying to improve his cinema. He is now in the process of setting up an outdoor cinema for regular evening shows during Florida’s idyllic cool weather seasons. Can’t beat that!
Chip greeted us when we entered his driveway, and immediately took us into his main cinema (he has others in the house!) where he has set up two Elmo GS1200’S, projecting on to an 8ft wide Cinemascope screen. The screen is acoustically transparent so that Chip is able to put his main front speakers vertically centered, and hidden, behind the matt white screen.
The two Elmo’s are mounted with Chip’s own design ‘Tower’ arrangement, where the feed and take up spools are mounted away from the projector on separate shafts, the take up shaft being motor powered through a slipping clutch. This totally removes all torque loads from the projector motors, enabling Chip to use very large reel sizes when he needs to. He has also mounted a 35mm Kelmar film cleaning/lubricating system into the feed path of the film.
Chip gave us a demonstration of his ‘change over’ apparatus which is designed to provide a seamless professional on screen transition between reel changes on the two Elmo’s, and also his Panasonic digital projector, at the push of a button.
The cinema’s sound system is powered though a Marantz AVS amplifier, which is a really high end piece of equipment, probably capable of destroying his house! And it shows. My grandson and I were amazed at the cinema like quality of the sound system. Chip ran a super 8 scope reel from Matrix and the depth and clarity of the sound, which seemed to be coming in all directions, was really superb. Just impossible to believe it was all coming from that tiny S8 stripe.
Clearly Chip has achieved his goal of providing a professional level cinema experience in his home. He has a small circle of friends in his community who enjoy regular shows at his cinema. One of the highlights was his recent showing of Titanic, the starting of which was precisely timed so that the ship went down on the screen at exactly the same time as it actually happened. Now that’s what you call showmanship!
Like most home cinema enthusiasts Chip is always busy trying to improve his cinema. He is now in the process of setting up an outdoor cinema for regular evening shows during Florida’s idyllic cool weather seasons. Can’t beat that!
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