Dragonfly Films

CHASING PSYCHO (chapter 3)

2011-05-27T15:18:00.002-03:00

Today, Friday, May 27th 2011 at 7:30pm (GMT -08:00), the American Cinematheque will show Psycho at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles... and I won´t be there. :(

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FACTS ABOUT PROJECTION (1975)

2011-05-16T19:51:00.001-03:00

16mm FILM FOR SALE

2011-05-11T13:57:00.000-03:00

UP FOR SALE is this film:

SPECS

NAME: Eurokai
YEAR: Unknown
FORMAT: 16mm
LENGTH: 400ft/120mts.
RUNNING TIME: 17 min.

BASE: Estar
SOUND: Mono (Mag)
LANGUAGE SPOKEN: N/A
SUBTITLES: N/A
CONDITION OF FILM: Very good. Little or no scratching. Slight color fade.

Price: USD 20,00+shipping and hadling

*I would be willing to trade it for another title.

Dragonfly_films is a member of eBay (USA), Todocolección.com (Spain), Mercadolibre.com (Latin America). For transparency´s sake I will publish this film in the buyer´s choice of auction site. Interested parties, email me or leave a comment on this post.

16mm FILM FOR SALE

2011-05-11T13:56:00.000-03:00

UP FOR SALE is this film:

SPECS

NAME: F850 Eurokai / Siemens
YEAR: Unknown
FORMAT: Super8
LENGTH: 400ft/120mts.
RUNNING TIME: 17 min.

BASE: Estar
SOUND: Mono (Mag)
LANGUAGE SPOKEN: N/A
SUBTITLES: N/A
CONDITION OF FILM: Very good. Little or no scratching. Slight color fade.

Price: USD 20,00+shipping and hadling

*I would be willing to trade it for another title.

CHASING PSYCHO (chapter 1)

2011-05-10T15:48:00.001-03:00

As some of you know, as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Release of Alfred Hitchcock´s Psycho, the negatives were restored and new prints were issued in 35mm. Also a Blu-Ray edition was marketed on October 19, 2010, but for "home-enjoyment".

Fresh out of youtube, a clip of how the original mono mix from the film was separated to create a new 5.1 mix for the rerelease. (Let us not get into the ethics of film preservation here, shall we?)

It has been a dream of mine to watch Psycho in the big screen ever since I was 15 years old, and I got a peek of it in Universal´s: "Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies". Ever since then, the film has been eluding me. Twenty years and counting.

Four years ago, my dream had to be reformulated with the appearence of this dreadful digital technology. Now I not only had to catch it in the big screen, but I also had to watch it projected in 35mm.

This will be a series of posts about how the film pops-up here and there and I won´t be around to watch it.

U.S. AIR FORCE 16mm MOTION PICTURE PROJECTOR OPERATION, CARE AND MAINTENANCE (1961)

2011-05-06T19:56:00.003-03:00

2011-04-30T17:56:00.001-03:00

Commercial for "For the Love of Film: the Film Preservation Blogathon" hosted by Ferdy on Films and the Self-Styled Siren on Febraury 14-21, 2010.

Cinematreasures.org

2011-04-28T13:32:00.002-03:00

Discover. Preserve. Protect.

Launched in December 2000, Cinema Treasures is a website devoted to movie theater preservation and awareness. Using the Internet, Cinema Treasures unites movie theater owners and enthusiasts in a common cause to save the last remaining movie palaces across the US and the world.

Full disclosure: they are a bit anal when it comes to form. The Editing Policy is a bit on the demanding site, although harmless. Highly recommended site.

This is my own adition. The Cine Gaumont.

THE RCA 16mm SOUND PROJECTOR (1958)

2011-04-26T19:54:00.001-03:00

Memory & Imagination: New Pathways to the Library of Congress

2011-04-25T18:13:00.001-03:00

Excerpt from the film produced by Michael Lawrence Films and Krainin Productions.

RESTORATION (DATE April 23rd, 2011)

2011-04-24T12:15:00.000-03:00

It is finally here. It took almost 2 months to fly from NZ to Argie, but it was worth the wait.

The FPS gauge

Its new home

Together at last

KALEE 12

2011-04-21T13:08:00.002-03:00

RESTORATION DATE (March 29th, 2011)

2011-04-21T11:38:00.001-03:00

Trying to piece together this Reyes Soundhead from odd bits and pieces is not an easy process. As you can see, not all pieces come from the same sources, and hence, not all fit the way they should.

Funny detail about the assembly: the soundhead door has a nook tailor cut for the pipe that carries the solar cell wires, in the upper right corner of the glass window.

Conclusions: the pipe is in the right place, but of the incorrect length. There has to be more than one size of it, despite what the experts say.

That hand belongs to the person who stole that plate from a working booth (in the background). He knew that I was after one, and, without much consideration for his personal well being, he "got" me one. My debt of gratitude to this fellon and friend! ;)

DISCONTINUED PROCESSES: VistaVision

2011-04-20T15:29:00.005-03:00

VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954.

VistaVision was Paramount´s response to 20th Century Fox´s Cinemascope, which in turn was devised with the intention of stealing some of the crowds that were drawn to the few Cinerama theatres available in the world. It seemed that widescreen features were the answer to Hollywood´s prayers to try and lure audiences back into the theatres and away from the new technological threat: the TV set.

The soul of the VistaVision process was 35mm film, but travelling horizontally in the gate (instead of vertically) at eight sprocket holes per frame (instead of 4), giving a negative image area nearly three times bigger than the standard negative aperture.

The process included new wider angle lenses to give greater scope on the big screens and PERSPECT-A STEREOPHONIC SOUND. This type of sound was comprised of a single photographic sound track located in the standard position so that they will reproduce on any standard optical sound head in any projector the world over. What made it PERSPECT-A, was the use of frequencies below 30Hz as modulated control signals that assigned a certain sound source -one of the speakers located throughout the audiorium- to different parts of the soundtrack.

One of the design breathroughs of the PERSPECT-A system was that the sound control units had an automatic return to monaural sound in case of trouble. Today that is mainstream with all digital 35mm sound formats.

"All release prints will have a single photographic sound track that will play on every standard sound reproducer the world over. Paramount does not contemplate the release of any pictures with either a separate or four-track magnetic film. Further, Paramount does not contemplate releasing any prints having the Fox-Eastman narrow sprocket holes."

"PESPECT-A SOUND will expand music to multiple loudspeakers and control the direction of the sound source when and as it is required for dramatic effectiveness. Paramount suggests this type of sound for those exhibitors who desire multi-horn reproduction and who wish to fill the theater with sound. The present experience indicates that stereophonic sound is of questionable value in the smaller theaters. It may add to the effectiveness in large theaters with very large screens. The decision as to its use rests with the exhibitor. In selecting Perspect-a-Sound for VistaVision pictures, Paramount is moving toward standardization. It is our hope that we can gain complete compatibility with M.G.M., Warners and others."

The VistaVision process did not introduce any modifications to the everyday 35mm exhibition print. It was merely a capture process to preserve the optical sharpness and contrast of the original negatives to produce better quality prints. It was processed by Technicolor and optically reduced directly from the negative to the Technicolor matrix which in turn was used to stamp out the release print by the imbibition process.

This gave a wider aspect ratio of 1.5:1 versus the conventional 1.37:1 Academy ratio, and a much larger image area. In order to satisfy all theaters with all screen sizes, VistaVision films were shot in such a way that they could be shown in one of three recommended aspect ratios: 1.66:1, 1.85:1 and 2.00:1.

Loren L. Ryder, chief engineer at Paramount, expressed four general reasons why he thought Paramount's VistaVision would be the forerunner of widescreen projection in most theaters:

VistaVision could be shown at widescreen aspect ratios between 1.66 to 2.00:1.
VistaVision could be (and most often was) further printed down to standard vertical 35mm reels keeping its 1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio, which meant exhibitors did not need to purchase additional projection equipment, unlike CinemaScope.
VistaVision did not cut down the number of seats in any theater (such as Cinerama and CinemaScope).
VistaVision allowed patrons to see more and therefore gain more enjoyment out of a feature.

After months of trade screenings, Paramount introduced VistaVision to the public at Radio City Music Hall on October 14, 1954, with their first film shot in the process, "White Christmas".

"White Christmas", "Strategic Air Command", "To Catch a Thief" and "The Battle of the River Plate" had very limited (two or three) prints struck in the 8-perf VistaVision format in which they were shot. Although the clarity of these 8-perf prints was striking, they were used only for premiere or preview engagements between 1954 and 1956 and required special projection equipment. This exhibition process was impractical because for the footage to travel through a projector at the normal 24 frames per second, the film had to roll at 3 feet per second, double the speed of 35 mm film and causing many technical and mechanical problems. Aside from these prints all other VistaVision films were shown in the conventional 4-perf format, as planned.

Alfred Hitchcock used VistaVision for many of his films in the 1950s. However, by the late 1950s with the introduction of finer-grained color stocks and the disadvantage of shooting twice as much negative stock, VistaVision became obsolete. Paramount dropped the format after only seven years, although for another forty years the format was used for high resolution special effects sequences. Less expensive anamorphic systems such as Panavision and the more expensive 70 mm format became standard during the later 1950s and 1960s.

List of all Films Shot in VistaVision

Sources:
Wikipedia
Widescreenmuseum.com

THE EVOLUTION OF DOLBY FILM SOUND

2011-04-19T21:17:00.003-03:00

Going to the movies today is more exciting and involving than ever before, thanks in large part to a continuing effort to improve film sound undertaken by Dolby Laboratories in the early 1970s. Indeed, the history of cinema sound over the past two decades closely mirrors the history of Dolby film sound technologies.

Optical soundtracks

The photographic, or “optical,” soundtrack was the first method of putting sound on film. Today it remains the standard, in both analog and digital forms. The classic analog optical soundtrack consists of an opaque area adjacent to the picture containing narrow, clear tracks that vary in width according to variations in the sound. As the film is played, a beam of light from an exciter lamp or LED in the projector’s soundhead shines through the moving tracks. Variations in the width of the clear tracks cause a varying amount of light to fall on a solar cell, which converts the light to a similarly varying electrical signal. That signal is amplified and ultimately converted to sound by loudspeakers in the auditorium.

Economy, simplicity, and durability are among the advantages that have contributed to optical sound’s universal acceptance. The soundtrack is printed photographically on the film at the same time as the picture and can last just as long, which— with care—can be a long time indeed. And the optical soundhead within the projector is itself economical and easily maintained.

Success gets in the way of progress

Motion pictures with sound were first shown to significant numbers of moviegoers in the late 1920s. Within a few years, many thousands of theatres were equipped to show “talking pictures” with optical soundtracks.
This phenomenally rapid acceptance of a new, sophisticated technology was not without drawbacks, however. Equipment was installed in cinemas so rapidly that there was no time to take advantage of the improvements that occurred almost daily. A good example is loudspeaker design. The first cinema loudspeakers had very poor high-frequency response. Speakers with superior response became available within just a few years, but there was no time to retrofit the original systems with new units.

Engineers were too busy equipping other cinemas with their first sound installations. This caused a dilemma for soundtrack recordists. Should the tracks be recorded to take advantage of the improved speakers, or should they be prepared to sound best on the many older installations already in place? Given that it was impractical to release two versions of a given title, the only alternative was to tailor soundtracks to the older speakers. The result was to ignore the improved high frequency response of the newer, better units.

To forestall compatibility problems, in the late 1930s a de facto standardization set in, the cinema playback response that today is called the “Academy” characteristic. Cinema owners knew what to expect from
the films, and therefore what equipment to install. Directors and sound recordists knew what to expect from cinema sound systems, and thus what kind of soundtracks to prepare. The result was a system of sound recording and playback that made it possible for just about any film to sound acceptable in any cinema in the world. The problem was that the system lacked the flexibility to incorporate improvements beyond the limitations that existed in the 1930s.

Magnetic striping and multichannel sound

In the early 1950s, as the film industry sought to woo viewers away from their fascinating new television sets, a new method of putting sound on film was introduced. After the picture was printed, narrow stripes of
iron oxide material (similar to the coating on magnetic recording tape) were applied to the release print. The sound was then recorded on the magnetic stripes in real time. In the cinema, magnetic prints would be played back on projectors equipped with magnetic heads similar to those on a tape recorder, mounted in a special soundhead assembly called a “penthouse.”

Magnetic sound was a significant step forward, and at its best provided much-improved fidelity over the conventional optical soundtrack. It also enabled the first multichannel sound reproduction, dubbed “stereophonic sound,” ever heard by the public. The voice of an actor appearing to the left, center, or right of the picture could be heard coming from speakers located at the left, center, or right of the new wide screens also being introduced at this time. Music took on a new dimension of realism, and special sound effects could emanate from the rear or sides of the cinema. The two main magnetic systems adopted were the four-track 35 mm CinemaScope system, introduced with The Robe, and the six-track 70 mm Todd-AO, first used for Oklahoma!

Magnetic falls into disuse

Magnetic sound was widely adopted in the 1950s. By the 1970s, however, when the film industry experienced an overall decline, the expense of magnetic release prints, their comparatively short life compared to optical prints, and the high cost of maintaining the playback equipment led to a massive reduction in the number of magnetic releases and cinemas capable of playing them. Magnetic sound came to be reserved for only a handful of first-run engagements of “big” releases each year. By the mid-1970s, then, movie-goers were again hearing low-fidelity, mono optical releases most of the time, with only an occasional multitrack stereo magnetic release. Ironically, just as the industry was reverting to mono optical, more and more moviegoers were enjoying better sound at home over superior hi-fi stereo systems.

Dolby gets involved

By the late 1980s, the situation that prevailed in the mid-1970s had completely changed. Thanks to new technology and a turnaround in the financial decline of the industry, almost all major titles by that time were being released with wide-range multichannel stereo soundtracks, as is the case today. The breakthrough was the development by Dolby Laboratories of a highly practical 35 mm stereo optical release print format originally identified as Dolby Stereo. In the space allotted to the conventional mono optical soundtrack are two soundtracks that not only carry left and right information as in home stereo sound, but are also encoded with a third center screen channel and—most notably—a fourth surround channel for ambient sound and special effects.

This format not only enabled stereo sound from optical soundtracks, but higher-quality sound as well. Various techniques were applied to the soundtrack during both recording and playback to improve fidelity.
Foremost among these was Dolby A-type noise reduction to lower the hissing and popping associated with optical soundtracks, and loudspeaker equalization to adjust the cinema sound system to a standard
response curve.

As a result, stereo optical prints could be reproduced in cinemas installing Dolby cinema processors with far wider frequency response and much lower distortion than conventional soundtracks. In fact, the Dolby optical format led to a new worldwide playback standard (ISO 2969) for wide-range stereo prints.
An important advantage of the Dolby optical format was that the soundtracks were printed simultaneously with the picture, just like mono prints. Thus four-channel stereo optical release prints cost no more to make than mono prints, and far less than magnetic prints. In addition, conversion to stereo optical proved relatively simple, and once the equipment was installed, very little maintenance was required. The result was multichannel capability equaling that of four-track magnetic 35 mm (which soon became obsolete), with consistently higher fidelity, greater reliability, and far lower cost.

The next step: Dolby SR

In 1986, Dolby Laboratories introduced a new professional recording process called Dolby SR (spectral recording). Like Dolby noise reduction, it was a mirror-image, encode-decode system used both when a soundtrack is recorded and when it is played back. It provided more than twice the noise reduction of Dolby A-type, and, moreover, permitted loud sounds with wider frequency response and lower distortion.
The 35mm optical soundtracks treated with Dolby SR instead of Dolby A-type not only sounded superb in cinemas equipped with new SR processors, but also played back satisfactorily in all cinemas. This led to the situation today, whereby the analog soundtracks on virtually all prints are Dolby SR tracks.

The digital age begins

The next film sound development from Dolby Laboratories was Dolby Digital, introduced in 1992. Dolby Digital puts a six-channel digital optical soundtrack in addition to a four-channel SR analog track on 35 mm prints. This format is yet another significant step forward in film sound, providing independent left, center, right, left surround, and right surround channels, plus a sixth channel for bass effects. In addition to its six-channel capability, Dolby Digital provides extraordinary dynamic capability, wide frequency range, low distortion, and relative immunity to wear. Its combination of high quality, reliability, and practicality has been proved in cinemas around the world, and today it is the most popular digital format, with the most releases, and the most cinemas worldwide equipped to play them. As with previous Dolby developments, Dolby Digital did not make existing cinema installations obsolete. Prints can play conventionally in any cinema, while the digital track can be reproduced in cinemas with Dolby Digital soundtrack readers and decoders.

Dolby Digital Surround EX

The newest Dolby format, Dolby Digital Surround EX, was introduced in 1999, and adds a third surround channel to the Dolby Digital format. Enabling improved realism, more precise sound placement, and exciting
special effects, the third channel is reproduced by rear-wall surround speakers, while the left and right surround channels are reproduced by speakers on the side walls. As with all other Dolby soundtrack improvements, Dolby Digital Surround EX is backwards-compatible, with prints playable in all Dolby Digital cinemas, whether or not equipped to decode the additional surround track. To find films that use the new format and cinemas in your area equipped to play it, visit www.dolby.com/movies.

Making films sound better

Film soundtracks encoded with Dolby technologies, and the equipment for playing them, are only links in a chain that extends from the original location, through the dubbing theatre, to the processing laboratory, and
finally into the cinema. Developments like Dolby SR and Dolby Digital ensure that the soundtrack itself remains one of the strongest links. But the extreme fidelity of the latest Dolby formats can reveal the quality of each step in the recording, mixing, and dubbing processes, and this has necessitated new approaches to soundtrack production. Admittedly, the results can vary—the final reproduced soundtrack can be no better than the elements it comprises—but Dolby film sound at its best means not only better sound quality, but sound in the theatre that consistently realizes the director’s original intentions.

While Dolby Laboratories’ involvement with film sound first achieved wide recognition with the spectacular audio effects of such films as Star Wars, it has long since come to mean more than just special or dramatic effects. The objective is high-quality sound reproduction overall— from the dialogue and the score to the sound design and effects. Dolby technology is a means, not an end. It can be likened to an artist’s palette that provides the director with a full range of colors, where before there were but a few. Above all, Dolby formats have been developed to enhance that very special experience of going to the movies.

MoMA´s Nitrate Facility

2011-04-18T15:34:00.003-03:00

"AMERICAN PICKERS" Season 2 Episode 4: Smooth Operators

2011-04-18T14:11:00.000-03:00

In my recent visit to the States, I came accross this episode of what to me was an unknown series: American Pickers. This particular episode (#4 from season 2) features the two presenters running into a woman (Michelle) who is sitting on a warehouse full of projection equipment.

Source of picture: coolandcollected.com

The equipment used to belong to her father, who passed away on 2010. His name was Bill Goff. Michelle has contacted the guys over at Cinema Treasures where she placed an Ad and left her contact information, in case anyone is interested.

FACTS ABOUT PROJECTION (1950)

2011-04-16T19:50:00.002-03:00

FILM IDENTIFIED (IN RECORD TIME): "Первый день мира"

2011-04-12T23:57:00.001-03:00

The stills shown in the previous post belong to the soviet film "Первый день мира" from 1959. Huge debt of gratitude to the scholars at Slavcin-L, who identified it. In the western world, the film seems to have been released under two titles: "The Day the War Ended" and "The First Day of Peace" which is the correct translation of the title. It was released on the 28th of January, 1961 in New York City, hence, some sites show it as a 1961 film.

You can find all information for the film, including cast and crew, opening dates and stills in the following links:

In Russian and in English.

HELP IDENTIFYING SOVIET 35mm FILM

2011-04-12T12:27:00.001-03:00

Here´s all the information I have of one 1,500ft long (approx) reel of film that I have recently purchased.

It is a #3 reel from a feature.
Black and white.
Dialogues are in Russian.
(Subtitled in Spanish)
Triacetate base.
Mono sound.
Stock seems to be Gevaert from Belgium, copied from Kodak stock (date code: 2 triangles, most likely 1941).
Label on the can reads Sovexportfilm, with no markings on it except for a "3" that I assume belongs to the reel # and a "Исп" which I assume is short for Испанский (Spanish), which leads me to believe that it was subtitled in the USSR.

"Vivíamos en la misma calle en Leningrado"
(We used to live on the same street in Leningrad)

"Pero en la guerra me persuadí..."
(But during the war, I was persuaded that...)

"A su salud, Mayor."
(To your health, Major)

Any and all help will be greatly apreciated.
.

75 Abandoned Theaters From Around The USA

2011-04-11T13:09:00.001-03:00

Compiled by Matt Stopera for Buzzfeed.com

(Click on title to access the entire story)

THE RIVIERA HISTORIC THEATRE

2011-04-11T11:43:00.001-03:00

Located at 67 Webster Street, North Tonawanda, (NY 14120 - (716)692-2413), it has been "Entertaining Our Community For Generations."

Billed as the "Showplace of the Tonawandas", the Riviera Theatre was built during the year 1926, by the Yellen Family. The architects Leon H. Lempart and Son drew the plans, which were patterned after the Italian Renaissance. The interior artwork was painted at the Rochester Studio of Willard M. Lusk, by Ferdinand Kebely.

The Wurlitzer Organ to be installed in the new Theatre, Opus 1524 was shipped from the Wurlitzer Factory on November 19, 1926. Listed as a Model 235 Special, the organ differed from a standard 3 manual 11 rank Model 235, by substituting an Oboe Horn rank of pipes from the standard Salicional pipes usually found on this model. Other differences included the omission of the standard remote Piano, and a 5 H.P. blower instead of the 7-1/2 H.P. The console was painted and decorated to harmonize with the Theatre’s interior, by Wurlitzer’s Band Organ Artist.

Opening night, Thursday, December 30, 1926 of the New RIVERA (as it was spelled then) was a ‘gala event’ in the Tonawandas. Advance reservations for opening night cost $1.00. Present on this special evening, were the Mayors of both Tonawandas. From the stage, Mayor James P. Mackenzie of North Tonawanda, praised the President of the Ownership Corporation of the Theatre, Henry Henshel, and the Theatre’s Manager, James J. Kelly. Messages of Congratulation of the Grand Opening were received from Governor Alfred E. Smith, and famous movie producer Cecil B. Demille.

Featured on the screen, were the movies "Upstage" starring Norma Shearer, "The Mona Lisa", in Technicolor, a short comedy, and the newsreel. Organist Fred Meyer accompanied the films and soloed at the Mighty Wurlitzer. The stage featured vaudeville and musical events, as well.

During the depression years, the theatre became a Shea’s Theatre, and the name was changed from "New Rivera" to "Shea’s Riviera". The organ was extensively used for the first seven years, and featured organists Al Bollington, "Dusty" Rhodes, Jack Ward and Art Melgier.

In the early 1930’s use of the organ was discontinued as a regular program feature, and heard thereafter only on special occasions. Time and lack of maintenance took its toll on the instrument. When Mr. Carlton Finch and his father Harry obtained an OK from the theatre’s management to restore the organ in 1944, only part of the great manual would play.

There followed months of hard labor, cleaning magnets, removing fallen plaster from organ pipes, replacing missing and damaged pipes, and cleaning of electrical contacts. On "D" day 1944 the organ was in good enough shape for organist Carlton to celebrate the event by giving the first public concert at the Riviera in at least 10 years.

Although the Finchs continued restoration and maintenance on the organ, the public did not hear the organ again until the Riviera’s management introduced "teenage dance parties’ on the Theatre’s stage with dance music supplied by Carlton at the Mighty Wurlitzer. The dance parties did not last for long, and upon their departure in the early 1950’s, the organ again became silent, except for weekly "off hour" practice sessions by Carlton.

It was not heard again until March 18, 1962, when the Niagara Frontier Theatre Organ Enthusiasts sponsored a concert featuring Carlton on the Mighty Wurlitzer. The theatre organ club thereafter held one or two annual concerts at the Riviera, usually on Sunday morning right up to regular matinee show time. The theatre admission was charged at the box office for these concerts, which also entitled the members to stay and see the regular show.

On July 3, 1964, the Riviera Wurlitzer was spotlighted in a special concert, with artist Jack Ward at the console. The concert started at midnight and was one of a series that was held on the Niagara Frontier in 1964.

The theatre organ club continued to sponsor one or two "Sunday Morning" concerts per year for the next few years.

During this time the Riviera became part of the Dipson Theatre chain, and with this change, brought a manager whom himself was an organ enthusiast. Carlton and Harry Finch, who kept the organ alive and active since 1944, requested the club’s help to do a more extensive restoration. William Hatzenbuhler, acknowledged organ builder and technician in this area, along with club volunteers adopted the restoration project. Manager, Frank Guzzetta, assured fullest cooperation.

June 26, 1967 saw a drastic departure from the usual "Sunday Morning" club organ concerts at the "Riv". For this concert, the theatre was rented on a weekday evening, a name artist from out-of-town was hired to play, and the Riviera’s doors were opened to the public for the event. The club was barely able to meet expenses-plus, but this concert set the pattern for the many successful monthly concerts, as we know them today. By 1969 these public concerts were heard at the Riviera 12 to 14 times yearly, with frequent use of the organ for special events as well.

During this time the organ itself saw improvements, as well as expansion. The dormant elevator was repaired and once again the console rose in splendor from its pit. Various instruments, and pipes within the organ began to sound forth. A sheet of board found blocking the sound from the pipe loft was removed; why it was place there, and by whom, remained a mystery.

Approximately June 15, 1970 the Riviera changed from a Dipson Theatre, and was sold to MDA Associates. The theatre operated under MDA until April 5, 1971 when the theatre closed suddenly. The future of the Riviera was overcast; it went up for auction on August 12, 1971, when it was reacquired by Smith Properties (owned by Max Yellen). The Riviera remained closed for a year, until it was acquired by MACDOP Enterprises and reopened April 27, 1972 with North Tonawanda’s mayor present for the opening.

During the one-year closure of the Theatre, however, the monthly organ concerts continued as usual, the theatre being opened for one night a month. Work on the organ also continued. The Wurlitzer organ from the Kensington Theatre in Buffalo was donated to the Riviera Theatre project in 1970, and although that organ had been badly damaged by flood and vandalism, many of the parts of this organ were eventually incorporated into the "Riv" organ. The club purchased a brand new set of Post Horn pipes for the organ, which were playing by the autumn of 1971. New modern electrical relays and switches were purchased by the club to compliment the old existing equipment. This would allow planned expansion of the organ’s original 11 ranks of pipes.

To help finance the Riviera’s secure future, the club made an offer to purchase the Wurlitzer for a substantial amount, along with a provision to have the instrument remain in the theatre. This offer was eventually accepted, the N.F.T.O.S. now owned the organ and at least could assure its future.

The club enhanced the theatre itself with the purchase of a huge crystal chandelier that formerly graced the Genesee Theatre in Buffalo. Installed in the Riviera’s main dome in January 1974, the chandelier measured 10 feet in diameter, 14 feet high, contained 15,000 French crystals and had 3 circuits of 35 bulbs each. A smaller chandelier that came from the Park Lane Restaurant of Buffalo was installed in the Riviera’s outer lobby at the same time. Also, added to the stage equipment was a scenic backdrop donated from the Bradford (PA) Theatre. A very historic grand piano was also acquired from the same theatre at the same time. This piano was to be used for stage presentations. It should be noted that this instrument is separate from the other piano already connected to the organ.

Meanwhile, the enlargement and restoration of the Wurlitzer by club members continued. As mentioned, a player piano was acquired and converted to play remotely, from the organ’s console. Additional organ parts and pipes were donated to the Riviera project from Buffalo’s Century Theatre and installed by the work crew. The console itself received a facelift all of the artwork and paint was professionally done by an artist. The stop tablets were rearranged, and many new one were added. Most of this work was done in 1974. By 1975 the organ had grown to 16 ranks of pipes.

The theatre ran a full-length silent 1920’s movie, "Wings" for a 10-day period with organ accompaniment by Art Melgier in February of 1973. Two commercial recordings were made on the "Riv’s" Wurlitzer by artist Frank Olsen by 1975. On December 15, 1976 the 50th anniversary of the Theatre’s first opening was celebrated in concert by artist Frank Olsen.

The Riviera Theatre was placed on the Register of Historic Landmarks by the U.S. Department of the Interior – April 22, 1980 – but the future of the building was somewhat in doubt. A "Save the Riviera" benefit concert was held in June of 1981.

The theatre was then acquired in early 1982 by SALED Properties, with the provision that the Wurlitzer Organ be a part of the sale of the building. The organ club responded, in the interest of keeping the theatre alive, and sold the organ back to the new owners. The Riviera also became the headquarters for a chain known as Key Theatres under this new ownership. In August of 1986, two of the Key Theatre in this area introduced live comedy on stage, on Saturday nights before the regular movie. The Riviera had the added feature of providing an organ interlude, featuring theatre organist Eddie Baker, prior to the stage comedy presentations. This special is quite popular among the patron right up to the present time. (Note: this was written in 1989, the theatre does not present comedy on Saturday evenings any longer).

The Mighty Wurlitzer has grown to 20 ranks of pipes in the meantime, and work on the instrument continues constantly. Unseen refinements are being accomplished, in off-hours, by the diligent work crew. The work on a pipe organ continues constantly, with no end in sight these instrument need constant attention and tuning. The only reward for those that constantly toil with these "beasts" is "that monthly concert, when the organ sings back its praises"

Early in 1988, the Riviera was once again put up for sale, along with its Mighty Wurlitzer. The organ club (Niagara Frontier Theatre Organ Society) decided an attempt should be made to purchase the theatre, by the club itself, and on August 12, 1988 a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ was reached with the owners. In the next few months a fund raising drive was undertaken in the Tonawandas and Western New York. Even the City of North Tonawanda itself attracted widespread interest and help. On February 14, 1989 the Niagara Frontier Theatre Organ Society (N.F.T.O.S.) closed the deal to purchase the Riviera and its Wurlitzer. Every effort of the club, city and Western New York is geared towards the goal of preserving the Riviera and its heritage, and to turn this fine theatre into a "Performing Arts Center of the Tonawanda".

The Riviera’s Mighty Wurlitzer has provided more entertainment consistently in its original setting than most other theatre organs, nationwide. Many top name artists, in this country, have performed here in hundreds of concerts over the past 35 years. The Riviera’s organ has even been acclaimed internationally by artist appearances from Europe, Australia, Britain and South America. Several popular organists played their ‘first’ public concert at the Riviera Theatre. The organ has been televised on several occasions, and several commercial recordings have been made on it. Indeed the Riviera organ is well known here and abroad.

The 80 year history of the Riviera Theatre has indeed been very interesting and frightful on a couple of occasions. Fortunately, the wrecking ball was evaded, as was the fate of over 30 other theatres in Western New York. The Riviera and the Shea’s Buffalo are the only standing examples of the movie palaces and their original "Mighty Pipe Organs" in an area which once boasted over 40 theatres with organs. Riviera Theatre and Organ Preservation Society – that many more successful chapters of the Riviera’s history will be written in years to come, and that this heritage may be shared for many future generations.

In 1999 RTOPS replaced the old Wurlitzer pneumatic relay with an Artisan solid-state relay. The theatre has been the product of extensive restoration and renovation since 1991. This work has been carried out by many dedicated volunteers who donate many hours of their time.

------------------------------
For most shows at the Riviera you can hear one of our Staff Organists providing pre-show music for your enjoyment.

Nightshift: Projectionist Joe Detor

2011-04-11T03:17:00.000-03:00

Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008, 6:12 AM Updated: Thursday, July 17, 2008, 11:38 AM

By Ngoc Huynh, The Post-Standard

Joe Detor, 79, is the projectionist at the Palace Theatre in Syracuse.

RESUME

"I've been a projectionist since 1945. I worked at the Globe on Kirkpatrick, Acme on Butternut and Cameo on Geddes. I've worked at The Palace since 1960."

FORMER OWNER FRANCES DiBELLA

"I got along with her really good."

BACK IN THE DAY

"Them days, movies were 25 cents. We used to go all the time. You had no TV, and you didn't have anything else to do."

MY FIRST JOB

"I started when I was 16 years old. The boss, who also owned the theater, said, 'We need some help,' and that's how I got the job."

MULTIPLE HANDS

"I've always worked part-time at the theater. I retired from Crouse-Hinds, part of Cooper Industries. I worked there for 43 years until I retired in'91."

BEST ONE YET

"My favorite movie of all time is 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' We played it at The Palace for about 13 weeks."

FIVE MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS

"Gone With the Wind"
"Doctor Zhivago"
"The Sound of Music"
"My Fair Lady"
"Ben-Hur"

PERSONAL

"I'm single."

"I live in East Syracuse."

"I served in the Army in Korea for 13 months."

"I like baseball. I'm a Yankee fan. I'm going to New York City next month to see the Yankees play the Royals."

THE MANY FACES OF PSYCHO

2011-04-10T00:27:00.032-03:00

Spain - Original Engagement

Germany - Original Engagement

USA - 1965 Rerelease

USA - 1968 Rerelease

France - Original Engagement

Italy - Original Engagement

FILM IDENTIFIED

2011-04-10T00:04:00.002-03:00

I wish to thank everyone for their help. Everyone that left a comment on the post or emailed back. The film is indeed "The Shoes of the Fisherman" from 1968, and all fragments belong to the same film. My admiration goes to all those who guessed Oskar Werner, Sir Laurence Olivier and David Janssen correctly. My excitement in finally locating the title led to painstakingly capturing each frame of the samples I had from the DVD. Enjoy.

ORIGINAL POST: "HELP IDENTIFYING FILM" from July 13th, 2008.

The pictures that follow show frames from several 70mm fragments that I have located recently. I don´t know if they belong to the same reel of a film or not. Sadly no head or tails, that is why I seek help identifying the name of the feature.

I have reason to believe that the following 2 fragments do not belong to the same film as the precious ones. I suspect that the man sitting on the left in the first example, and the one standing on the right in the second one, is none other than Anthony Quinn.

Any help will be greatly apreciated.

Where did all the projectionists go?

2011-04-08T12:27:00.003-03:00

Philippe Noiret in ‘Cinema Paradiso’

A quiet revolution is going on behind your back at the cinema. Old-style projectors are making way for spanking new hard drives. But is this a good or a bad thing? David Jenkins clambers over the back row to find out.

Buster Keaton in ‘Sherlock Jr’

Think of a film projectionist, and what comes to mind? Is it an image of a dumpy, bearded bloke in an old waistcoat and beret? Does he share a grubby attic space with tatty old film posters? Does he wind a battered 35mm print on to a spool and monitor his work through a shaft of light which cuts through the dust of the auditorium? Think of Philippe Noiret in ‘Cinema Paradiso’, Buster Keaton in ‘Sherlock Jr’, or Robert Prosky in ‘Last Action Hero’… Well, in reality, the image you should have in mind is of a giant USB stick.

Why? Because projectionists as we imagine them are on the verge of extinction. This is down to big changes in the world of exhibition: hulking hard drives – to which films are sent digitally – are being installed in cinemas, while tactile, scratchy, buzzing celluloid film prints are being tossed on the scrapheap.

We spoke to a spokesperson for Odeon who explains that the chain is in the middle of replacing 35mm projectors at all its 110 sites across the country with digital projectors. At the Cineworld chain, a projectionist tells us that the switch-over is just as rapid. Phil Clapp of the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association explains the difference: ‘While a 35mm projector is a mechanical device with moving parts, a digital projector – aside from the lamp – is very much a piece of IT. Projectionists who have been able to strip down and reassemble a 35mm projector with their eyes closed are suddenly being presented with a box and an on-off switch.’

The roots of the digital takeover can be traced back to 2005, when 240 digital projectors were given to UK cinemas on the back of the UK Film Council’s Digital Screen Network initiative. The hope was that on the back of that initial flurry, the training wheels could come off and cinemas would embrace the digital revolution. They didn’t. The momentum of change was slow. Now, though, the digital boom has finally happened, partly fuelled by the spiralling number of 3D titles, which can’t be projected on old equipment.

David Hancock of industry website Screen Digest illustrates the speed of change. ‘In 2009 there were 650 digital screens in the UK. By 2010, there were 1,400, with 1,080 of them enabled for 3D. In 2010, 416 films were released wholly or partly on digital prints in the UK, which is 80 per cent of all releases. This is by far the highest number in the world. It compares to 20 per cent in France and 35 per cent in the Netherlands.’

This means that gone are the days when a tired old print starts to show up scratches and other signs of wear and tear. Audiences will barely notice the difference: every film will look like new. The real effect on film-going may be more long-term as cinemas take advantage of cheaper technology to offer a more flexible, varied programme or find it difficult to show certain films, mostly archive titles, which have not been transferred to digital.

It’s easy to romanticise the end of 35mm projection. According to Clapp, a lot of veteran projectionists have taken this revolution as a cue to retire. Celluloid purists remain, but hard economics is their biggest stumbling block. Digitisation calls for fewer people in the projection box, so cinemas can switch to digital and reduce their overheads. Yet Clapp is still optimistic that a role exists for projectionists in a post-35mm world.

Robert Prosky in ‘Last Action Hero’

‘We still need people to make sure films are projected correctly, at the right time and on the right screen. But they will take on other roles. Digital allows cinemas to host one-off events like screenings of live opera or theatre, and these events have their own demands on staff.’

Sam Clements is a young projectionist at the Ritzy Cinema in Brixton who, by necessity, has recently begun dividing his time between projecting and working for the cinema’s marketing team. He is observing from the inside as the craft of 35mm projection fades away. ‘I learned how to lace and maintain a 35mm projector on the job over about ten weeks,’ he says. ‘Now, because we’re getting fewer and fewer prints through the door, the chance to pass on this knowledge is disappearing.’

Others, such as Peter Howden, projectionist and programmer for the Rio in Dalston, take a less nostalgic view. ‘I don’t think 35mm projection was ever an art. It’s more a routine job with an opportunity to produce an okay presentation standard. There’s no personal signature and only the occasional bell and whistle. The same, I think, applies to digital presentation.’

Of course, making a film and seeing it projected in 35mm is sometimes a creative consideration. As recently as 2009, Quentin Tarantino asked that ‘Inglourious Basterds’ only be projected from ‘real’ prints. ‘That was a tough one,’ says Clements. ‘It’s about three hours long, so that’s nine reels. I think that’s the point where the fun gets sucked out of it. And the prints are heavy: moving it from one screen to another was never a one-man job.’

That said, Clements worries that cinemas will lose sight of their heritage. ‘From working at the Ritzy I’ve had the chance to make up some amazing old films. Recently I had original prints of Tarkovsky’s “Mirror” and “Stalker”. They had frames missing where something may have gone wrong during playback, or a projectionist had nabbed a still for their collection. For me, it’s amazing to hold the print and think that it was being screened before I was born. These films have their own history, and that’s something you can never replicate with digital.’

The rise of digital may mean that cinemas can offer a more varied programme without having to worry about the costs of calling in prints when a film may only have a limited audience or run. And with no need for a big projection booth, the space needed to build a cinema will shrink. Edward Fletcher of film distribution company Soda Pictures speculates on the future. ‘I predict that in the next few years there will be an increase in smaller, high street cinemas that will show a good mix of mainstream and indie films.’

But don’t expect to bump into many staff, adds Fletcher. ‘In place of the projectionist, you could have one person in a business park in Stevenage sat in front of a bank of screens. That person could programme their entire group of cinemas by doing some drag-and-drops on a laptop.’

So, the next time you’re in a cinema, take a look over your shoulder at that small window and bright column of light shining out of it. If you see someone in there, give them a wave. They may not be around for much longer.

SOURCE: TimeOut London

FACTS ABOUT FILM (1948)

2011-04-06T19:49:00.001-03:00

How Do They Do That - British Film Institute National Archive

2011-04-06T00:53:00.000-03:00

How Psycho changed cinema

2011-04-06T00:51:00.001-03:00

By Stephen Robb for BBC News

It's 50 years since Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was unleashed on a soon-to-be-terrified world. Even if you've never seen the film you've probably been exposed to its extensive influence.

Alfred Hitchcock had made his name as the "master of suspense" with brilliant, glossy thrillers like Rear Window and North by Northwest, but Psycho was altogether different - the like of which most cinema-goers had never seen.

With its shocking bursts of violence and provocative sexual explicitness, Psycho tested the strict censorship boundaries of the day as well as audiences' mettle - and it gave Hitchcock the biggest hit of his career.

Awakened to the box office potential of violence and sex, mainstream filmmakers followed suit. Here is how Psycho changed cinema:

GRAPHIC VIOLENCE

The 45-second shower murder in Psycho is possibly the most famous scene in cinema history.

David Thomson, author of The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder, has said it still ranks "legitimately among the most violent scenes ever shot for an American film". According to the book Story of the Scene, by Roger Clarke, it "changed cinema forever".

For the film's first three-quarters of an hour the audience has followed Janet Leigh's Marion Crane, building engagement with the film's supposed central character.

Then in an electrifyingly brutal scene, as Marion readies herself for bed with a shower in the decrepit Bates Motel, she is hacked to death by a barely-glimpsed old woman.

THE SHOWER SCENE

Most of the film was shot quickly with a crew from television, but the 70-plus shots for this 45-second scene took a week to film

To get the scene past the censors Hitchcock claimed the knife never touched the victim, but studies have since suggested it does

Chocolate sauce was used for blood, and the hand holding the knife in some shots is Hitchcock's

Janet Leigh said she avoided taking showers for the rest of her life after filming Psycho

Source: Story of the Scene by Roger Clarke

"They [audiences] had never seen anything quite like it before - the total shock of killing off a lead character a third of the way in, and just the complete feeling of disorientation," says Michael Brooke, Screenonline curator at the British Film Institute.

Psycho was filmed in black and white - unusual for Hitchcock by that stage of his career - partly to cut costs, but also to manage the graphicness of this scene. Hitchcock knew he would not get shots of red blood splattering the wall and floor past the censors of the time.

"The shower scene in colour in 1960 would have just been unshowable," says Mr Brooke.

Psycho "opened the floodgates" for screen violence, says Mr Brooke, paving the way for the slow-motion bloodshed of Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch in the late 60s, up to today's torture porn of Hostel and the Saw films.

Though "watching the film, you think it's a lot more graphically violent than it actually is".

It is a mark of the shift in levels of violence in cinema that Psycho, given an adults-only "X" certificate in the UK in 1960, now carries a relatively tame "15" rating.

SYMPATHY FOR THE KILLER

Arguably the film's most appealing character is Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, the awkward, softly-spoken young man resignedly running the declining family motel and caring for his abusive, invalid mother.

After Leigh's slaughter, the film switches to Bates' point of view and the audience is invited to sympathise with his agonising dilemma over concealing his mother's horrific crime.

"There is that scene just after the shower murder when the car is sinking into the swamp and it pauses momentarily," says Mr Brooke, "and in a weird kind of way you almost want it to carry on sinking. You don't want him to be discovered even though he is covering up this hideous murder."

Mummy's boy - Bates' character was meant to draw viewers' sympathy

The effect was to toy with audiences' sympathies in a way mainstream thrillers hadn't done before.

Psycho is considered the first modern horror film and credited with launching the "slasher" sub-genre. But Paul Duncan, author of The Pocket Essential Alfred Hitchcock, argues its greatest legacy is the shifting point of view that became a common device of the slashers.

Most of Hitchcock's peers worked in the "third person", positioning their camera as a detached, neutral observer of the film's events, says Mr Duncan, whereas Hitchcock's "first person" camera allied his audience inescapably to key characters.

"That, I think, is probably the most copied aspect of Hitchcock's movies," he says.

John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween, whose considerable debt to Psycho is emphasised by the presence of Leigh's daughter Jamie Lee Curtis in the lead role, is a "very good example of point of view camera being used brilliantly", he adds.

"Don't give away the ending - it's the only one we have! " Psycho promotional slogan

Having switched the film's point of view to Norman, Hitchcock has manoeuvred his audience exactly where he wants them for the film's shattering, shock twist.

"With all the information you are given you believe him to be innocent, and you identify with his crisis," says Mr Duncan.

SEXUAL EXPLICITNESS

The film opens on the skyline of Phoenix, Arizona, on a hot December day, the camera panning lazily across the rooftops before casually zooming in through a window to a hotel room where - unmistakably - an underwear-clad Leigh and shirtless John Gavin have made love moments earlier.

RELEASE OF PSYCHO

To keep secret the film's final twist, Psycho was not screened for critics or cinema-owners before release

Unusually for the time, cast and crew had been made to sign non-disclosure agreements preventing them speaking about the film

No-one was allowed into the cinema once the film had started - enforced by uniformed guards, this was an extraordinary measure in an era when people were used to coming and going during theatres' continuous programmes

These first moments are almost a statement of intent from Hitchcock. "He was quite deliberately testing the waters as far as the censors were concerned with the film," says Mr Brooke.

"It took what had previously been only suggestive sexual undercurrents and made them absolutely upfront."

At that time most US studio films were constrained by the puritanical Production Code, which dated from the 1930s and restricted depictions of sex, drug use, drinking, offensive language and anything else that could "lower the moral standards of those who see it".

When he was unable to secure financing for Psycho from studios fearful of the film's potential for controversy, prompting him to put up 60% of a scaled-down budget of less than $1m himself, the director found himself with an opportunity to work outside the restrictions of the studio system and deliver an exploitation film Hitchcock-style.

The overt sexuality of the film's sightings of Leigh in her underwear, the shocking violence - even a shot of a flushing toilet - were radical in commercial cinema at the time.

And while there had usually been varying amounts of humour in Hitchcock's films, it had never before been combined with such dark, violent material as in Psycho. Today, that pioneering blend of shocks and laughs is notably evident in the films of Quentin Tarantino.

USE OF MUSIC

The violins wailing away during Psycho's shower murder scene have achieved the status of cultural shorthand - denoting imminent violent insanity.

Their importance to the impact of that terrifying scene is emphasised by the fact that at pre-release screenings of a cut of the film before the music was added, many viewers reacted with mild indifference.

"It was only with the second version, with the music added, that people just leapt out of their seats - especially when the shrieking violins started," says Mr Brooke.

The most memorable part of Bernard Herrmann's score has now been imitated to the point of being "one of the all-time aural cliches", he adds.

But the entire soundtrack is integral to the mood of the film, from the blast of strings over the opening credits onwards, says Mr Brooke.

Its influence can particularly be seen in films that use music to evoke a sense of menace and heighten sudden shocks, such as Jaws.

This is not the only way in which Steven Spielberg's 1975 blockbuster, in turn massively influential itself, bears the influence of Psycho, says Mr Brooke.

"When they made Jaws, one of the stated aims was they wanted to make America's beaches as empty as American motel showers were when Psycho came out."

Psycho is re-released in the UK on 2 April. A season of films - entitled Psycho: A Classic in Context - runs at the BFI Southbank, central London, throughout April.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is a selection of your comments

In 1961 I was an usher at the Paramont Theater in Salem, MA and my job was to hold the crowd back for the last 15 minutes of the movie "Psycho" and we could not tell them anything about the ending.

Paul Duggan, Salem, Massachusetts

Nitrate Film Burning

2011-04-04T15:14:00.001-03:00

A working life: the cinema projectionist

2011-04-01T03:05:00.001-03:00

Kevin Markwick spent his childhood in the small-town Sussex cinema his father bought in 1964. Now he owns and runs it.

By Mark King for The Guardian, Saturday 18 September 2010

I follow Kevin Markwick along a corridor lined with boxes of popcorn to his office while he does an impression of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars. "These aren't the droids you're looking for," he recites, sounding uncannily like the late actor. Markwick is a great mimic, quoting lines from classic movies with near-perfect accuracy.

His office is much like any other, except for the constant roar of movies playing in ear-splitting Dolby Digital next door. Today, it's an early afternoon showing of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, making my chest boom as we chat happily about film.

Markwick owns the independent Picture House cinema in Uckfield, a sleepy town in East Sussex about 10 minutes from Lewes with a population of around 14,000. An hour and a quarter from London by train, Uckfield isn't exactly isolated but has a small-town feel and an anonymity to it, despite last month's flooding that brought it to national prominence.

The Picture House (not to be confused with the Picturehouse Cinemas chain) adds a lot to the town's charm. Built during the first world war, it was first used as a garrison theatre for troops stationed in the area before launching as a cinema proper in 1920.

Kevin Markwick was a baby when his father bought the Picture House in 1964, but remembers it being refurbished in 1967 to reduce the seating from 500 to 305 for comfort, and again in late 1978.

"We'd been struggling as a single-screen cinema in the late 70s," he says. "So my father converted it into two screens, which saved the business. He was great at that, he really had an eye for knowing how things would look."

By his own admission, Markwick was "terrible" at school. He failed his O-levels so did not get to study drama at college in Lewes, as he had hoped. Instead he went to London at the age of 16 and worked in the Hammersmith Odeon as a projectionist. "I was too young to be in London. I had no friends and nothing to spend my money on. I was miserable. So I moved back to Uckfield and started again at the Picture House, which I'd grown up in."

Without formal training, Markwick learned all about cinema "through osmosis". Salesman, usher, projectionist – his father taught him all he needed to know, though many of those abilities are disappearing as technology renders much of the old magic obsolete.

"I learned when we had dual projection, when each reel of film lasted 20 minutes and you had to get the next one ready while the last one finished and do the changeover seamlessly."

Film is still used, though many predict its imminent demise. We walk into the projection room for Screen One and I study the movie Inception in its raw state, a giant reel of film formed from eight smaller reels Markwick had to stitch together to create the movie.

He has had his fair share of disasters over the years, especially when he was younger. "Wrong reels, wrong films, reels in the wrong order, film that has got stuck and burned through, I've had it all," he laughs. I wonder if it will be the same for tomorrow's projectionists, who will have little more to do than press a button to start a film screening.

Markwick holds up a section of Inception (a series of stills that will be transformed into a thing of wonder when played at 24 frames a second) and tells me film has not been made from nitrate since around 1950. Before then, nitrate film often caused devastating fires; nitrate was so flammable that the film, along with the projector and projectionist, used to be cased in a giant tin box in case it caught fire.

"That's why we still call it the projection box or 'the box' today." He still gets in the box occasionally, but Markwick employs 25 staff (mostly part-time) including projectionists, leaving him with more time to manage the business.

His father died in 1994, leaving Kevin to run the cinema. "Owning your own cinema requires a heavy dose of creative thinking and second guessing what your customers might want to see. No amount of formal training is going to give you that, you have to learn on the job," he says.

This requires dedication and a certain amount of blind tenacity, according to Markwick. "Obviously any business qualification is good, but a working knowledge of exhibition and a love of movies is essential. You can start, say, front of house, and work up through the ranks for a big chain if you have the passion and natural skill. But learning the technology side will also give you an edge – not least because you can run the show if your projectionist falls ill. In my case, I think I'm good at it and there's not many things you're good at in life which you enjoy and can make money from."

At the end of the 1990s Markwick mimicked his father's ambitions by knocking out the back of the cinema and building a third screen, something that was to save the business once again. That said, the Picture House is coming off the back of the worst June and July since 1996, with average weekly admissions dropping from 2,500 to around 350, hit by a lethal combination of the World Cup, a series of rubbish films on release and hot weather.

"These things even out," he explains. "But we are vulnerable to the ebbs and flows of business and it's particularly tough if distributors get heavy-handed and demand that credit is repaid within two weeks. In most businesses you get 30 days from the point of invoice, but in the film business things are changing. It's very corporate these days."

Markwick says that in bad months "the tank empties quickly" because it costs the same to open the cinema for a handful of people as it does for a sell-out. This is perhaps why he recently applied for, and was granted, a licence to sell alcohol; he already sells the usual staples such as popcorn, soft drinks, sweets, tea and coffee. "I'd also like to find the space to open a bar/café," he says as we stand in front of the pick 'n' mix section, trying to imagine where a bar would fit into the Picture House's tiny foyer.

I visit on a Monday, which is "hold-over day", when owners and programmers decide what films will play for a week from the following Friday. Schedules are tweaked to take into account new and existing films, what played well last week and what might play well in the coming week, and whether a film needs to play once, twice or three times a day. Markwick needs to keep distributors happy too.

He receives calls from Lionsgate, Warner Bros and Sony, chatting with humour to executives who ring to ensure (in some cases insist) that their films continue to appear at the Picture House. It's a balancing act for Markwick, who needs to stick to his contractual agreements even if a film has tanked. "You get used to films dying," he says. "That's why we have multiple screens. Half the time it's knowing what to leave out."

The week I visit he's juggling Salt and The Expendables (which under-performed), Toy Story 3 and Inception (which did well), along with the forthcoming The Girl Who Played With Fire and a spare matinee slot which could see Shrek Forever After (3D) play again.

"It's difficult because you have to think about when people might want to watch a film, the age group and the particular tastes of people in Uckfield."

On the final point he has branched out to screen live events for locals, such as a live broadcast of the Traverse Theatre's Impossible Things Before Breakfast from the Edinburgh Festival and performances from Glyndebourne.

In his office I spy books such as 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey on his shelves, as well as surprises such as The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels. A book entitled Your Screenplay Sucks! betrays Markwick's creative bent. He has written and directed two movies: a feature-length film, Neil's Party, in 2005, and a 14-minute short film, Lullaby, made two years ago.

He screens Lullaby for me, which was filmed in two days and cost £30,000 to make, with funding coming from "everywhere". The short is a hugely affecting monologue from actress Haydn Gwynne on loss and grief, beautifully shot on 35mm film. At the end I'm visibly moved and notice him wiping his eyes. I ask him what was his inspiration. "It's a personal story," he says quietly. "Some of the most memorable movies ever made come from the heart."

Markwick is not afraid of the future, despite the continued onslaught from movie downloads, Blu-Ray players, video games and thousands of other industry death-knells. He has installed Dolby Digital sound, Xpand 3D, digital projectors and has enthusiastically embraced the internet, chatting to local film fans via his website as well as posting regular updates on Twitter.

"It's about reinventing ourselves, keeping the cinema up to the standard that people want so they continue to come," he says. "I might be constantly updating it, but this place is so familiar to me. It's become my home."

MoMA Film Preservation Center: Tour

2011-03-31T22:39:00.002-03:00

Ver mapa más grande

"A Fair(y) Use Tale" Short film by Prof. Eric Faden

2011-03-31T13:33:00.000-03:00

Dolby History

2011-03-31T13:12:00.002-03:00

A History of Audio Innovation

1965: Dolby introduces A-type® noise reduction for the professional market.

1968: Dolby introduces Dolby B-type® noise reduction for consumer products.

1970: Advent, Fisher, and Harman Kardon begin offering cassette tape recorders with Dolby B-type noise reduction.

1971: Dolby and Signetics create a simplified Dolby B-type integrated circuit, widening the range of products in which the technology could be used.

1975: Dolby introduces Dolby Stereo®, a highly practical 35 mm stereo optical release print format.

1977: Dolby receives acclaim with the release of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, both in Dolby Stereo.

1981: First product with Dolby C-type noise reduction reaches market.

1982: Dolby introduces Dolby Surround, which encodes the two tracks of any stereo source with four-channel surround sound.

1984: Dolby releases Dolby AC-1, our first digital coding system.

1986: Dolby SR (spectral recording) improves analogue recorder performance to equal, and in some respects surpass, costly digital recorders.

1987: Dolby Pro Logic® surround elevates the home cinema experience with four-channel surround sound.

1989: Dolby introduces Dolby AC-2, allowing separate facilities to do full professional-quality audio monitoring and dubbing remotely via ISDN lines.

1991: New multichannel audio coding system, Dolby AC-3, announced. Now known as Dolby Digital, its first application is as a sound format for films.

1995: First consumer products with Dolby Digital playback compatibility announced.

1998: First video game with interactive Dolby Digital 5.1 audio launched. Dolby Headphone technology announced.

1999: Codecs featuring new Dolby E for DTV multichannel audio production and distribution debut.

2000: Dolby Pro Logic II technology announced.

2002: Dolby Virtual Speaker technology introduced for consumers lacking the space for a dedicated 5.1-channel playback system.

2005: Dolby TrueHD lossless coding for high-definition video discs debuts.

2007: Dolby 3D Digital Cinema demonstrated to film industry.

2009: Dolby Axon brings 3D voice communication to online games.

2010: First public demonstration of 5.1-channel surround sound on a mobile phone using Dolby Mobile technology.

A more detailed Chronology available here.

SOUND RECORDING AND REPRODUCTION ON FILM (1943)

2011-03-29T19:59:00.003-03:00

"TOUCH OF EVIL" (1958) Original Trailer

2011-03-29T12:34:00.001-03:00

I´ve been catching up with Universal International´s neglected jewels. First I´ve started with this one, which, apart from the opening shot, I´ve never watched complete.

Differing versions (extracted from Wikipedia´s article)

1.- The original 1958 release version
2.- A longer version, released in 1976
3.- A 1998 restored version that attempted to follow Welles's 1958 memo as closely as possible.

Welles's rough cut as submitted to Universal no longer exists. This was worked on and trimmed down by Universal staff, and in late 1957 Universal decided to perform some reshoots. Welles claimed these were done without his knowledge, but Universal claimed that Welles ignored their requests to return and undertake further work. This was when Keller came aboard: some of his material was entirely new, some replaced Welles scenes. Welles viewed the new cut and wrote a 58-page memo to Universal's head of production, Edward Muhl, detailing what he thought needed to be done to make the film work. However, many of his suggestions went unheeded and Touch of Evil was eventually released in a version running 93 minutes.

In the mid-1970s, Universal discovered that it held a 108-minute print of Touch of Evil in its archives. Aware that there was a growing audience of cineastes with a strong interest in Welles' work, the studio released this version to cinemas in 1976 and later issued it on video, billing it as 'complete, uncut and restored'. In fact, this print was not a restoration at all, but a preview version which post-dated the Welles memo but pre-dated the release version. While it did feature some vital Welles scenes which had been cut from the release version, it also featured more Keller material: the new footage had been cut into the film, but much of it ended up being cut out again, resulting in pointless expense for Universal.

In 1998, the film was re-released in a re-edited form, which was based on the Welles memo and edited by Walter Murch, working from all available material, with Bob O'Neil (Universal's director of film restoration) and Bill Varney (sound engineer) participating in the restoration.[6] As Welles' rough cut no longer exists, no true 'Welles cut' is possible, but Murch was able to assemble a version incorporating most of the existing material, omitting some of the Keller scenes (though some were retained, either because they had replaced Welles scenes which no longer existed and were necessary to the plot, or because Welles had approved of their inclusion). In addition, some of Welles's complaints were concerned with subtle sound and editing choices, and Murch was able to re-edit the material accordingly.[7] Notable changes include the removal of the credits and music from the three-minute opening shot, crosscutting between the main story and Janet Leigh's subplot and the removal of Harry Keller's hotel lobby scene. Rick Schmidlin was the producer on the 1998 edit, which had a limited but successful theatrical release (again by Universal) and was subsequently made available on DVD. The DVD includes a reproduction of the 58-page memo.

AMC on Film Restoration - from 1993!

2011-03-29T12:32:00.002-03:00

N.Z. TO THE RESCUE

2011-03-28T12:57:00.000-03:00

Disclaimer: This is not an earthquake related post.

Time-wise, it doesn´t get any further away than this. Buenos Aires being GMT -3:00 and Auckland being GMT +12:00, nobody can say that I haven´t searched the earth for those elusive parts I am missing. Straight from New Zeland and from a person I consider a friend (even though I have no idea what he looks like), comes one of the most meaningful parts missing: the film speed dial that is (was) missing from my Ernemann (see picture below).

Thanks, Dave!

RESTORATION (DATE March 27th, 2011)

2011-03-28T11:54:00.000-03:00

What´s new? Trap/Gate assembly are finished and in place. So are top and bottom pad rollers. The José Reyes Soundhead is coming along nicely too. As you can see it is completely bare of paint. The idea is to get it finished and working, then I´ll dissasemble it again and send it to be painted in the same shop that did the projector. Oh, and, just for fun, I slapped a DTS timecode reader on top of it.

ERNEMANN II

2011-03-27T12:28:00.000-03:00

A working Ernemann II in someone´s house. How cool is that?!

94-year-old ex-projectionist shares movie memories

2011-03-27T12:24:00.000-03:00

By HEATHER KEELS

The Herald-Mail

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - George Wagner doesn't see very well anymore, but as he runs his hands over The Maryland Theatre's 1930s-era projection machines, his fingers know every knob and clamp.

He knows that the original screen was 90 feet away, 24 feet long and 18 feet high. He knows that there were about 1,300 seats and, like a dwindling number of local residents, he remembers when they were filled nearly every night with patrons eager to see the news reels and catch the latest feature.

It was in this room that Wagner, 94, eagerly learned the art of movie projection as a boy in the 1920s. He continued to show films there off and on for more than 60 years.

He returned just before Thanksgiving to share his memories on camera for a historical documentary about the theater being produced by After Five Productions.

"I'm 94 and I'm getting older by the minute," he quipped. "You've got any questions, you'd better let me have them now."

Wagner got his first movie projector when he was 8 years old and living in Emmitsburg, Va., as a prize for selling a dozen bottles of salve for 25 cents each.

"I think my mother bought most of them," he said.

Wagner became an amateur projectionist, showing films for the neighborhood children on a screen he built in his yard.

After he moved to the Hagerstown area at the age of 10, he began hanging around The Maryland Theatre, where he would climb up the fire escape and beat on the door of the projection room to watch the projectionists work.

Wagner was not as interested in watching movies as he was in watching the machinery.

"I liked the idea of what they could do with the piece of film," he said.

He also knew projecting was where the money was, because the theater's projectionists drove convertibles.

"It's not what you know, it's who you know, and I made a point to know them pretty well," Wagner said.

Wagner didn't attend high school, and on the last day of eighth grade, his mother warned him not to come home until he had found a job. He got one that very day in a projection booth for $7 a week.

As an apprentice, Wagner gradually was entrusted with the responsibilities of putting film in the machine, trimming the lamp and adjusting the volume, and he took those responsibilities very seriously.

"I'm the guy who came up to the booth 20 minutes early to oil the machines, to clean the lenses, make sure everything's OK," he said.

He remembers the importance of movies in those days, when children came to school every day talking about the movies they had seen the night before. He remembers looking out from the projection booth and seeing the entire theater packed, and knowing that if he got caught up reading a newspaper or daydreaming and forgot to trim the lamp, he would have to face their wrath when the picture disappeared five minutes before the end of the film.

"That's embarrassing, and that's when you catch hell from the manager," he said. "It's inexcusable, it seems to me, but it does happen."

When Wagner learned at age 16 that he had high blood pressure and could not do anything too strenuous, he decided to turn movie projection into a career. At that time, there were about nine movie theaters in the Tri-State area, and Wagner worked at most of them at one time or another, including the Colonial and Academy theaters in Hagerstown.

For 3 1/2 years during World War II, Wagner showed films for soldiers overseas, then returned to Hagerstown and continued as a projectionist until he was laid off and went to work at Fairchild, a hardware store and Mack Trucks.

"I've never done anything, except process inspecting, that I liked to do any better than being in a theater," Wagner said. "It broke my heart when they decided that at The Maryland Theatre they weren't going to have any more movies."

HOW MOTION PICTURES MOVE AND TALK (1940)

2011-03-19T19:52:00.001-03:00

A PIECE OF ROBERT A. HARRIS Part 5

2011-03-14T12:46:00.001-03:00

What follows is the transcription of a fragment of an article intitled "Universal Upbeat in Studio Fire Aftermath" by Robert Marich for Broadcasting and Cable, published on June 20th. You can read the original here.

In February, 1993, a symposium was held by the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. to discuss the problem of the decay of motion pictures. Excerpted from the transcript of the February 26 testimony is this submission by film preservationist and restorer Robert A. Harris. Few people in the world have the ability to judge the condition of our film heritage as does Bob Harris. Working with David Lean, he gave us what is arguably the best presentation of Lawrence of Arabia ever seen, even after the original negatives and sound were considered to be virtually lost. With his equally fastidious partner, James C. Katz, Bob has worked miracles on the deteriorated likes of My Fair Lady, Spartacus, Vertigo, and Rear Window, not only saving these films from loss, but providing vivid new prints that rival the originals in many ways. Before placing this transcript in the American WideScreen Museum web site I asked Bob to review and update his statements. He altered one sentence. And that, boys and girls, says a lot about the condition of the films, good and bad, that many of us grew up with.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert A. Harris' Statement at the Film Preservation Study:
Washington, D.C. Public Hearing, February 1993
We have all heard many times that we have already lost some 50% of the films made before 1950, that our nitrate heritage is slowly turning to powder before our eyes while budgets and time are running out. This is all true. However, with little mention of our post-1950s film this perpetuates the myth that film preservation is dedicated to our remote past, something that belongs more in museums than on theater screens.

Robert Harris and David Lean during the restoration of Lawrence of Arabia
Further, it gives the impression that all of these nitrate films simply decomposed while attempts were being made to preserve them. This is untrue. Most of the early films did not survive because of wholesale junking by the studios. There was no thought of ever saving these films. They simply needed vault space and the materials were expensive to house. There also seems to be a feeling that we must save it all. Like art and the written word, there was as much junk film produced during the first half of the century as is being produced currently. I made one of those in 1987, a junk film, which we can add to the pile of junk. It simply is not all worth saving with today's limited funding.

If our greatest problem were nitrate, then my chosen work in the archival field would be incomparably simple. But it is not. In 1988, while completing work on David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, I was asked to look into Tom Jones, the 1963 Academy Award-winning Best Picture, newer than Lawrence by only one year. Try as I did searching vaults worldwide, the best I could come up with was a single dye-transfer Technicolor print with an Italian soundtrack. It was so worn that it could not be used for duplication.

I was told that the feeling when Tom Jones was in post-production was that it would not amount to anything. A judgment call. UA never made protection separations to back up the original negative. Today, a proper print of Tom Jones cannot be produced.

Although I do not necessarily have the answers to our preservation problems, I can at least raise or help reevaluate some of the questions.

Since the early fifties, we have been dealing with the Eastmancolor negative. There is nothing inherently wrong with this material except that it fades. We have lost the original negatives to many important films of the fifties, and we are now going into the sixties; films of the seventies are now showing signs of fading.

Lawrence, a 1961-62 production photographed in Eastmancolor and processed by Technicolor London was fortunate. For some reason, the work done at that particular laboratory seems to survive years longer than film processed elsewhere, possibly the water from the Thames, I am not sure. Lawrence was still in good enough shape, although the negative was cracked and falling to pieces, that new color protection materials could be produced. We could not produce new black-and-white protection material, because the negatives would not run three times to produce separations.

The camera negative on Universal's 1960 Spartacus was totally faded, totally unusable. Nothing could be done to produce any printing material from that element. We worked from black-and-white separations and had to create the equipment to manufacture a 65mm preservation internegative on the film. We worked from the seps but those seps had been produced defectively. They had been vaulted 30 years before and never tested. I will not go into the problems that were encountered, but the lesson learned was simple and dramatic: black-and-white master separations, when produced, were routinely vaulted and forgotten, assuming they would yield beautiful results when needed. We now know that this simply is not accurate in all cases.

No one knows what materials can be produced from separation masters unless they have been printed, not selectively tested or reviewed on a Rank [film-to-tape transfer machine], but printed. This should be done before the negatives that they protect are no longer viable printing elements. If the protection is defective and the negatives have gone, nothing further can be done. Without doing so, we may have no protection for the last 40 years of color film history. Every film worth saving which has not been backed up should be looked into with immediacy.

The large format films, 70mm, Technirama, etc., are in the highest risk group. Since most 70mm prints were made directly from the camera negatives, many are extremely worn. Most large format masters are untested. They probably will not register very well and they generally are not backed up by large format color interpositives of any vintage no less recent.

My single hard and fast rule is do not rejuvenate original negatives; and this keeps happening continuously in laboratories around the world. Do not put chemicals on preservation materials. This will go against everything that you will hear if there are people coming here representing rejuvenation and scratch-removal vendors. They will tell you that the panacea for saving our film heritage is to coat it with chemicals.

There is a problem right now with the original camera negative of a very well-known 1968 film. Someone allowed the negative to be chemically treated and a lab wetgated the footage. That film is now a solid block. We are trying to ease it apart and remove the coating without the emulsion coming off.

Rejuvenation causes film to shrink, warp and shed its emulsion. Particles of dust and dirt are caught under the coatings and become a part of the picture never envisioned by the director of photography.

The overall quality of preservation work done by some vendors is a joke. What they produce is generally in the "good enough to get us paid" category. Once materials are delivered, they are generally accepted. Although much preservation material was produced before the advent of wetgate printing and therefore wear was more apparent, there were still materials produced after this process was available, which just was not done professionally.

If someone 15 or 20 years ago had made decent materials on pictures like Casablanca, they would look a lot better than they do today, and they would not have to be constantly redone. There are not adequate materials produced on hundreds of films; but there are materials. You can generalize that the more popular the film, the worse shape it is going to be in. Quality is a problem that has been with us for decades.

Nitrate is preserved once, then again and then possibly a third time, hopefully the right way. Original negatives are sometimes pulled to create non-preservation elements to be used for a video transfer. This places wear and fade on the negative without accomplishing anything.

One final point on this subject. Once materials are preserved properly, that does not then mean that the original nitrate should be junked. I have to assume that today's technology will be constantly supplanted in the future with new means of creating even higher quality preservation materials. You never want your finest surviving asset to be a dupe when you can have the luxury of going back to an original element.

If someone asked what I would do if I could selectively control all film preservation except that being done by the few studios and archives who are doing it correctly, my initial answer would be very simple: nothing. I would shut it down completely. Vendors should be checked for quality and accredited to do preservation work rather than just offering it on rate cards. Preservation work should not be synonymous with lab work. Simply producing a set of separation masters does not mean that a film is preserved. Producing a finegrain from a nitrate original does not mean that it is preserved. All these materials have to be produced correctly not just produced, shipped and billed.

There are too many situations in which the wrong material is produced from the wrong material. This does nothing more than spend preservation dollars for masturbatory or "voodoo" preservation. All this junk has to be stored, placed on databases and occasionally checked but it will always be junk. Years from now, someone will come along and wonder why it was produced but the good materials will already be gone. Once all these problems were solved, then I would start the wheels turning again.

Some people who work in preservation do not know what a preserved or restored film should look and sound like. This is exacerbated by the fact that few titles have an original print. Without a reference print, you have no idea what the intentions of the filmmakers were regarding color, density, contrast or even major points like "day for night" scenes. When a reference print is available, it may not be an approved print. It could well be left over from a reissue or have survived as a lab reject.

Work is accepted which should be rejected because some people are either too lazy or just not knowledgeable enough to know what to do. People with a background in business as well as film history, film elements and lab techniques should be running motion picture asset protection programs.

Studios and rental vaults are now placing inventory on computer. Sometimes, as in the case of Universal, people actually open cans, inspect and listen to material. However, all too often these inventories are simply perpetuated error. An element is incorrectly listed on a label, insecurely attached to a can, then transferred to a card, and then years later, from the card to computer by someone who cannot quite decipher the original handwriting. All of this with never a look back at the actual materials, especially if they are in another country or vaulted underground.

There have been too many occurrences in which I have called someone to see if they have protection on a long version or stereo tracks, only to be told that the film was monaural or that there was no long version. It is simply bad recordkeeping.

If we are going to really start taking all this seriously, now is probably a good time to begin. If we do not, here is what we can do. Make a list of films produced since 1953, then draw a line around 1965. That is the date before which it is safe to assume we will not be able to protect anything much longer unless it is already protected.

Take a look at the titles and then dismiss every great film that you would like to share with your children or grandchildren or possibly just see again. They are not going to be there when we want them. It is all as simple as that. Either we do something now and do it right or let's forget it all. It will soon be just so much junk.

RESTORATION (DATE MAR 8th, 2011)

2011-03-08T20:56:00.001-03:00

Almost all of the time that I have spent in my "workshop" this past weeks has been devoted to organizing it to make the most of the space. I did find time here and there to work on the E-III restoration. Progress has not been note worthy.

I have assembled, though, the trap/gate assembly (as you can see in the picture). It´s been 3 years since I had taken it apart. So, pictures of it in its original state were mandatory to make sense of all the bits and pieces. :(

Pic taken on January 2008

HOW YOU SEE IT (1936)

2011-03-07T14:59:00.000-03:00

A PIECE OF ROBERT A. HARRIS Part 4

2011-03-06T21:07:00.003-03:00

Vertigo - A Smash-Hit Down Under!

Was it worth the more than one million dollars that it cost to restore Alfred Hitchcock's classic film, Vertigo.

The answer has to be an unqualified yes if the crowds that turned up to see the 70mm release at The Astor Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, are any guide.

More than 2,000 people were there for the first three screenings on a Sunday in late September - there were close to 1,000 in the audience at the late show alone!

By the end of the three-week run the results were the best The Astor had achieved for any re-release. In fact, they were nearly as good as those for the 70mm version of Hamlet. And that screening at The Astor broke all national, season-average records for a first-run release.

Vertigo also played in Sydney. It did well there although the figures were not as good as those for Melbourne which did 50% better in half the time.

The audiences were almost as fascinating as the film. Some were Hitchcock aficionados while others were simply intrigued by the Hitchcock legend. Many had seen the film some 30 years ago and wanted to see it presented in 70mm - a close as possible to how Hitchcock had meant it to be seen.

The Astor is superbly equipped for doing just that (see the August, 1997, issue of Wide Gauge). And it is the only cinema in Melbourne capable of screening the Vertigo restoration with 70mm DTS sound.

There was an almost-palpable sense of expectation as the film started. The screen masks, fully-open at 2:1 for the Universal logo, closed to about 1.8:1 when the old VistaVision logo appeared. It was faded and washed-out with a slight colour-cast. It looked as though it might have been the original logo left unrestored as a contrast to what was to follow.

And the first scenes, with James Stewart running across the roof-tops, had many people catching their breath.

It was clear that it was a restoration, that it was not an original, Technicolor print. There was a certain softness and, sometimes, the colours seemed somewhat pastel in nature. But the superb quality of the restoration became blindingly obvious during those few sequences for which the colour separations had deteriorated too much - the restorers had been forced to resort to the camera negative. The sheer detail and apparent accuracy of the colour must leave one in awe of the work done by Robert Harris and James Katz.

The full, 70mm frame was being projected so nothing of the image on the film was lost. It was most-interesting to see the VistaVision framing marks.

The 70mm DTS sound was stunning and, clearly, vastly superior to the original. The use of the surround and screen-effects channels was particularly effective during the driving sequences when vehicles in the background crossed from one side of the screen to the other.

There was a sync problem during the first reel with the sound leading the picture but it corrected itself after a while. It happened at every screening and appears to have been caused by errors in the time-code on the print.

One particular thing about the sound that caught the attention was the fact that music sometimes continued uninterrupted as the reel-change cue-marks appeared.

At The Astor, film from the shipping reels is combined to make-up 4,000-foot reels so not every set of cue-marks is at the physical end of a projection reel. But there were some continuing effects and music at actual change-overs.

The owner, manager and chief-projectionist of The Astor, George Florence, had noted them while previewing the print. He found that it was possible to change projectors with no discernible jump in the sound if the film was cued-up accurately and the change-overs made exactly on cue.

It is possible that Universal expected Vertigo to be shown using platters instead of reels - a view supported by the fact that some of the shipping reels had some very-odd film lengths. One, for example, had just eight minutes worth.

One thing that did give Florence some concern was the lack of audio back-up - there was only one set of discs and, of course, no fall-back sound-track on the film. However, he is certainly well aware of the huge financial and logistic benefits to be gained by producing in 70mm DTS instead of mag-stripe.

Leaving the technical aspects aside for a moment, how did the audiences react to the film?

Many people seeing Vertigo for the first time were expecting nail-biting suspense. But that's not what Vertigo is all about. It is a disturbing rather than a suspenseful movie - a story of obsession. Hitchcock meant to leave audiences with a feeling of disquiet. It certainly achieved that although there were several instances where the "dated" nature of some of the scenes gave rise to gentle, but not unkind, laughter.

Those who had seen Vertigo before were stunned - they felt that the 70mm restoration was much better than the 35mm screenings they had seen. Memories were sometimes a little hazy but everybody commented on the bigger screen-image and on the superb sound. As one member of the first-night audience put it, "I now feel that I had never really seen Vertigo until tonight."

It is noteworthy that most of the audience stayed to watch the closing credits which gave some insight into the work and the people involved in the restoration.

George Florence is obviously excited about the success of the Vertigo restoration. He hopes it will spur film-company executives to put up the money for the preservation or restoration of other wide-format films - there are undoubtedly enough of them in need of it!

He is certainly looking forward to the 1999 release in 70mm DTS of the Harris/Katz restoration of Rear Window. And he is looking at the possibility of getting new prints of some of the classics in 70mm DTS.

He also hopes that the digital system will encourage film makers to use the wide format. "The major cost with 70mm," Florence says, "has been adding the mag-striping and then recording the sound reel by reel. With DTS the cost of a 70mm print could be brought down to about three times that of a 35mm print instead of something like twelve times the cost."

As Scott Marshall, the Editor of Wide Gauge, put it, "That would be a nice side effect. I think that digital sound these days is so fine that it's starting to make the picture look bad in comparison. That's a surprise reason why digital sound may encourage large formats. It was previously thought to discourage them because it was assumed that mag tracks were 70mm's only advantage."

The Vertigo print went from The Astor to a, possibly-ambitious, five-week run in Adelaide, the capital city of the state of South Australia. It will then be screened in three other capital cities before returning to Melbourne and The Astor in February.

George Florence says he expects to get good houses at the second run of Vertigo as well. "Melbourne people seem to like nostalgia and classic films," he says. "And they are becoming increasingly aware of the advantages of wide-format presentations."

Apart from the return of Vertigo, The Astor's audiences can look forward to more screenings of the 70mm version of Hamlet, a new 70mm print of 2001 in December, the Harris/Katz 70mm restoration of Lawrence of Arabia at Christmas and a new 70mm mag-stripe print of Ben Hur next Easter.

"But," says Florence, "if I had known six months ago, when I was doing the deal, how successful 70mm DTS would be I would have ordered Ben Hur in that format instead of in mag-stripe and saved a bundle!"

© Copyright 1997 Ralphe Neill
Melbourne, Australia

ran@sub.net.au

(This article was first published in the October, 1997, issue of Wide Gauge Film and Video Monthly in the US)

(SING-A-LONG AT) THE CASTRO

2011-03-06T13:01:00.003-03:00

The Castro dubbed San Francisco´s historic movie palace is located at 429 Castro Street (at Market), San Francisco, CA 94114. Telephone: (415) 621-6120.

HISTORY
The Castro Theatre was built in 1922 by pioneer San Francisco theatre entrepreneurs, the Nasser brothers, who started with a nickelodeon in 1908 in the Castro neighborhood.

The Castro was built at a cost of $300,000. The Castro's designer was Timothy L. Pflueger (1894-1946) who went on to become a famous Bay Area architect. Read more...

SING-A-LONG
Sing-a-Long movies at the Castro Theatre give you an alternative way to enjoy campy old musicals. There aren't many places you can publicly sing along with a show without annoying everyone in the theater. Here, it's all about singing along. And the crowd participates to varying degrees, with some in full costume and others just along for the ride. Read more...

The Castro Theatre is truly an acre of seats in a palace of dreams!

Woman Projectionist (1966)

2011-03-05T22:49:00.001-03:00

IMAX Upgrade to 3D

2011-03-04T12:46:00.001-03:00

CENTURY JJ

2011-03-02T17:10:00.001-03:00

As far as I´m concerned, this is the end-all be-all projector to have.

.pdf manual of the Strong Century JJ

All photos by the author.

Cinema "Polonia" at Sopot, Poland

2011-03-01T12:39:00.001-03:00

THE ZIEGFELD THEATRE, NYC

2011-02-25T13:35:00.000-03:00

In addition to the last article, I believe this to be the perfect time to do a dossier on the Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC.

On December 17, 1969, a few hundred feet from the original Ziegfeld Theatre (razed in 1966), a new Ziegfeld Theatre opened as a single-screen movie house. Located at 141 West 54th Street, it is one of the last large-scale movie palaces built in the United States. Constructed by Emery Roth & Sons from designs by Irving Gershon and sumptuous red-carpeted interior designs by John J. McNamara, it has 1,131 seats (825 seats in the orchestral section and 306 seats in the tiered rear section). It has been used for 70mm world premieres and big-event press screenings, such as the November 1977 opening of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The theater underwent extensive renovations in the late 1990s. It was a centerpiece site during the 2008 New York Film Festival because of reconstruction work at Lincoln Center that year. During the 2000s, digital projection was installed at this theater.

In 2010 the Ziegfeld is operated by Clearview Cinemas and remains New York's leading commercial film venue. The theater is the largest single screen cinema in New York and is regularly the site of film premieres and gala events. (Source: Wikipedia)

Ziegfeld´s official website

"Ziegfeld Theater Will Be Razed for a Skyscraper" By Louis Calta, published by the New York Times on August 05, 1966.

Cinematreasures.org Zeigfeld´s page.

"The Film Projectionist Who Looks Away"

2011-02-23T16:35:00.000-03:00

By ROBIN FINN - Published: November 24, 2010

On day one of a recent vacation, Joseph J. Micherdzinski was home in Yonkers with his wife, Mary Ann, watching the original black-and-white version of “The Night of the Living Dead.” Mr. Micherdzinski, 67, has been a film projectionist since 1968, so this seemed a bit like a pizza-maker going out for a holiday meal and wolfing down a dozen slices of Sicilian, but no.

Joseph J. Micherdzinski has been a film projectionist at the Ziegfeld Theater for 17 years.

“The sad part is that projectionists are going the way of the dinosaurs and reel-to-reel,” Mr. Micherdzinski said.

According to him, there is nothing innovative coming out of Hollywood, hence his home library of go-to classics. He has worked at the Ziegfeld Theater for 17 years but says he rarely bothers sneaking a peek at the big screen.

Last movie watched at work: “The American” with George Clooney. I thought it was slow. But I enjoyed the story. I saw “Avatar” at a theater where one of my buddies is a projectionist. “Inglourious Basterds” I’ve seen several times; there’s a scene that shows what’s so dangerous about the old silver nitrate film that’s no longer used by the industry.

Speaking of flammable ... In my whole career, I’ve only had one fire break out during a movie, but once was enough. It was at the Ziegfeld — some wiring behind the booth caught fire and it spread. First the assistant manager and I cleared out the theater. Then we fought the fire with extinguishers until the Fire Department got there. The movie we were showing that night was “Vertigo.”

Intro to cinema: I grew up in Parkchester in the Bronx; we had two theaters, the Palace and the Circle. On Saturday afternoons you could see 2 features, 10 cartoons and one part of a serial, all for 50 cents. The first movie I remember going to at night was “Mister Roberts.” It was my mother’s sister’s husband who got me into this business; he was a projectionist on Broadway and at Lincoln Center.

In the Navy: I was assigned to the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, an attack aircraft carrier stationed out of San Diego. I was an internal communications electrician; part of my job was taking care of the projection equipment on the ship.

In-flight entertainment: My uncle told me they were hiring at Bell & Howell airline services company out at J.F.K. airport, a union job. We serviced the projection equipment when the aircraft were at the gate or in the hangars; all a stewardess had to do was press a button at movie time. It was 16 millimeter film. I was there 15 years. For training, I went to something called motion picture operators’ school.

The big screen: I wanted to work in a theater, and in 1983 there was an opening for a projectionist at the Riverdale, part of the Loews chain. I was there a couple years, then it closed. When it reopened as an independent, the new owner twinned it and threw me a few extra shifts.

Endangered species: The sad part is that projectionists are going the way of the dinosaurs and reel-to-reel. Everything went digital. At the Ziegfeld I can show digital movies, I can show 35 millimeter, and I can show 70 millimeter, but I’m down to 25 hours a week. My daughter-in-law was a projectionist in Co-op City for 10 years; she just got laid off.

Favorite movie: Anybody who says they have a favorite movie, it is one big fat lie. There’s too many out there. O.K., the original “King Kong” is one of the best; for Westerns, “The Searchers.” James Cagney in “Public Enemy.” “Some Like it Hot” was a great comedy. I thought “The Hangover” was funny. I saw it on cable.

As read on the New York Times

"The End" (of projectionists)

2011-02-22T18:02:00.000-03:00

By Grady Hendrix - Posted Monday, Dec. 6, 2010, at 7:12 AM ET

More people die in a movie theater than you would think. "I was at a theater and the manager came up to the booth and said there'd been four shows that day and this guy had sat through three of them. I went downstairs, sat down next to him, and sure enough, he was dead," says Joe Rivierzo, a projectionist. "I called the paramedics and told them that the man is dead, there's no question about that, and I'm going to bring the house lights up just a little and please just carry him out of the theater. So they did. No one really noticed; they just thought he was having a bad day. The show kept playing."

Rivierzo has been a projectionist for 30 years. His father was a projectionist. His grandfather was a projectionist. Between them, they've seen it all. "In the '60s there was a screening of Frankenstein. Projectionist dies right in the middle of the movie. They call one projectionist after another, saying, 'This guy's died. Can you finish the show?' and none of them want to do it. Finally they reach my father, and they don't tell him anything; they just say the guy can't finish his shift, can you fill in? My father goes up, and the guy is lying there on the floor of the booth. He knows this guy, and he has to keep stepping over his body to do the changes while they wait for the coroner to arrive. He's up there, alone in the booth, playing a horror movie and stepping over his good friend's body."

And where there's death, there's sex. Jose Ramos has been the projectionist at the Anthology Film Archives since the '90s, but his career started back in the '80s in New York City's porno houses. "I remember one time I had a break in the film," he says. "I forgot where I was and turned on the lights like I was in a normal theater. You could hear everyone screaming, because the porno houses were just about backdoor sex. At the Roxy, I used to have to do the music and the lights for the strip show and the live sex acts. It was wild times. The strippers would change clothes in my booth to get away from the tricks, and you'd get to know each other. We're all just people, regardless of our chosen profession."

But these days, stripping is thriving while projectionists have fallen on hard times. In an age when studios claim that box-office salvation will be found in new projection technology like Imax and 3-D, projectionists themselves are facing complete and total annihilation.

Rivierzo is an executive board member of Local 306 in New York City, the last uncombined projectionists union in the country. At the height of its power in the '40s and '50s, it had 3,000 members. These days, it's down to 400, and that number's dropping fast, which makes no sense because currently there are more theater screens in the United States than at any other point in history.

But nowhere is technology eliminating the need for human labor faster than in motion-picture projection. From the birth of cinema until the 1960s, the system was the same: Every projection booth had two reel-to-reel projectors with carbon arc light sources. The movie would start playing on one machine, and the projectionist's job was to watch for the changeover cues: usually a small circle or an X in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

"You see those cues all your life," Ramos says. "Some people know what they are, and some people don't. There's two of them: There's the machine cue, and you already have your reel threaded up to seven or eight on the countdown reel, and when you see the first one, you hit the switch and the second machine starts to run, and when you see the second cue, you step on the pedal or flip a switch, and this projector shuts down and that one starts up. If you do it smooth, it's seamless; if you do it wrong, it f---s up."

Getting a lamp that was bright enough to throw a projected image onto a screen hundreds of feet away was a huge problem, and the first solution was the carbon arc. Two carbon electrodes are brought together, they touch and are then pulled apart, creating a brightly burning arc. The strong, steady light would bounce off a reflector and toward the lens.

"You had to keep them a certain distance from each other," Ramos says. "There were mechanisms in there that moved the rods, but they weren't always reliable because a lot of these machines were really old. The bigger theaters had thicker arcs, and the smaller ones had smaller arcs, and we would monitor it. All the theaters had two lines drawn on the ceiling because the reflection would hit the ceiling, too, and when you saw that the light was going off the ceiling lines, you would have to adjust it."

Then, in the late '60s, projectors started switching to xenon bulbs. These were expensive, sometimes running up to $1,000 each, but they provided a strong, steady light source that didn't need to be monitored. And for Rivierzo, this was the beginning of the end.

"Most guys will say the problems started with platters, but I would argue it was xenon bulbs. Before that, it was a reel-to-reel system, and it was labor intensive because you had to change the film every 20 minutes, and you had to change the carbon. Once they were able to get over that hurdle and get a dependable, inexpensive bright white light, they could come up with a system to feed the film forever."

And they did. Platters appeared in the mid-'70s and, suddenly, instead of two projectors showing individual 20-minute reels of film, projectionists were taking all the individual reels and building them into one monster reel that lay on its side on a spinning platter, and the entire film would feed through a single projector. Films would still have to be built—assembled from individual reels into platters—but with no need for reel changes and a consistent light source, projectionists were no longer needed to run the movies. The unions tried to hold back the inevitable, but chain theaters wanted to get away from expensive union contracts, and the first thing to go were licensing standards.

"Giuliani came in and started to change things to be more favorable to management, and we sensed it was going to be a problem," Rivierzo says. "They wanted to get rid of the projectionist license completely. We fought it at city council, and eventually what they did was water down the test so anyone could pass it."

"Before, you used to have to take a 100-question exam to become a licensed projectionist," Ramos says. "And you had to know electricity, you had to know your currents and your storage and so forth, and you also took a practical exam. But they dumbed it down to a 40-question exam, and the department of consumer affairs took over testing rather than the bureau of gas and electricity. So managers were able to get their license and run the theater, run the box office, run everything, for ten bucks an hour."

As multiplexes put mom-and-pop theaters out of business, the number of movie screens increased while the number of individual theaters decreased. For the companies running chains, movie theaters were machines designed to make money, and the biggest concession they received from the union was the ability to hire fewer projectionists.

"For a 12-screen multiplex, one projectionist will work," Ramos says. "He might get help on 'make and break day,' usually Thursday, when another projectionist comes in for about six hours and helps him build the new films and break down the old ones. But otherwise, it's just one guy. You set the timer to start the show, you set the type of sound system you have for the soundtrack, and you leave it. You walk around to make sure it's running, but with 14 screens, it's impossible to be in all of them at the same time."

To get more out of each projectionist, the chain multiplexes are standardized. Says Rivierzo, "There's automation. There's status boards that'll tell you what's running, what's down, and what has to be threaded. Most multiplexes put all their screens on one floor to make it easier for one projectionist to check them. And some theaters are laid out exactly the same, AMC theaters in particular, you can close your eyes in Chicago or New York and know exactly where you are in the house. Even the way the panels are put in; they use the same equipment."

Ironically, as movie theaters tout their state-of-the-art projection facilities, like Imax and 3-D, they no longer have the staff to ensure that the equipment is maintained. Imax and 3-D require extremely bright light sources, and when the projector bulbs start to fade, the image on the screen dims. Avatar may have cost millions to make, and it may require state-of-the-art equipment to project, but if the $1,000 bulb is old, all those expensive images will look like mud. And with fewer projectionists, there's less quality control.

"Some theaters used to change the bulb with every new show that came in," Ramos says. "But now, you have 14 bulbs, and every bulb is $700 or $800, so you're talking a good chunk. With a bulb, you get 1,500-2,000 hours of life, and there's supposed to be a procedure where you rotate them every 500 hours and make sure they don't burn up. But if I've got to work 14 theaters in a night, and I'm scheduled to come in one hour before opening, how much time do I have to do that s---? And at the end of a 12-hour day, I'm not going to walk through and rotate every bulb."

Besides union labor, the physicality of films has always been expensive. If a movie like Hot Tub Time Machine is going to open on 1,500 screens, that means that 1,500 35mm prints need to be struck, each one weighing approximately 50 pounds. They'll have to be shipped via air and ground to 1,500 different screens across the country, where 1,500 projectionists will have to unpack the five to six reels and build them onto platters. The platters will run for a week or two, then the prints will be broken down and shipped back to the studio. It's an expensive, labor-intensive system. Digital projection, on the other hand, will see films downloaded remotely to hard drives in theaters and then beamed onto screens via projectors. And that will be the end of union projectionists.

"Digital will eliminate us completely," Rivierzo says. "All you have to do is load it and play it, and a lot of this stuff can be done off-site. We have theaters now running with 35 percent of the house digital. Once they go over 51 percent running digital, and they run it that way for 90 consecutive days, they can eliminate the presence of a projectionist. Our only saving grace is they can't manufacture these digital machines fast enough."

The image of technology replacing humans used to be that of a robot arm replacing union guys on automobile production lines, but the auto unions have largely survived intact. It's projectionist unions that have been hit hardest, and these days technology and a concerted effort on the part of theater chains to eliminate union labor have resulted in the death of projection as a career.

"We had a guy call the other day looking for extra work because his daughter was diagnosed with M.S.," Rivierzo says. "He had left and opened a plumbing business and he just wanted to pick up a couple of shifts somewhere. And I said, 'Joe, there are no shifts somewhere,' and he couldn't believe it. Years ago, you could do that. A guy could come in the office and say, 'I just bought a house, and I need to get the down payment together, so can you give me a couple of days in some porno house?' And there were porno houses everywhere. We don't do that anymore."

"You're probably going to have isolated pockets—Imax, screening rooms in private homes—stuff like that. But how many guys can you have? Fifty? Twenty? We used to have over a thousand members, and there were third-generation projectionists in the union. There won't be a fourth generation or a fifth. We have a membership that's getting older, and they've been well-paid for many years, but limited in their abilities to what they've done in the projection booth. Now that guy has to go out and find a new job. It's sad. It really is."

With projectionists gone, another part of our lives will lose the human touch. During the Solidarity strikes in Poland in the early '80s, Rivierzo was working at a mom-and-pop theater and received a print for the night's show that smelled like vinegar. He began searching the reels of the innocuous Hollywood feature and found that a chunk of nitrate film stock had been spliced into middle of the film. Nitrate is an incredibly dangerous early film stock that is so flammable it will burn underwater. It is so volatile that playing it requires not only fireproof projection booths but special projectors equipped with multiple, built-in fire extinguishers. Projectionists are trained to treat it like the deadly explosive that it is, and Rivierzo, knowing it could catch the theater on fire, refused to play it.

First the manager begged and then he threatened, but Rivierzo wouldn't budge. Finally, the theater's owner showed up and promised Rivierzo that he would assume all responsibility if anything happened, but he insisted that the film be screened. Reluctantly, Rivierzo agreed, and he carefully threaded up the flammable stock. That night, the cinema hosted a private show for the owner and a crowd of Polish community leaders. The nitrate footage Rivierzo screened was some of the first film smuggled out of Poland, shot by film students on antiquated equipment, that showed police breaking up the Solidarity strikes with bullets. It was the first proof that the crackdown on the Solidarity movement was worse than anyone was being told, and that night's screening was designed to raise money from Polish expats for the cause.

The Starus NC2500S DLP is the world's brightest digital movie projector. One day it will be standard issue in many movie theaters and it can do a lot of things very well. But one thing it won't do is what Rivierzo did that night. It will be a very good projector, but it will never be a projectionist.

As read on Slate.

The 'other' conversion: Imax - Variety

2011-02-21T17:59:00.001-03:00

Pics undergo big changes for giant-screen format

By Karen Idelson

Auds have learned to be wary of movies converted to 3D, as some pics have failed to deliver the premium experience paid for.
But conversions for the other popular premium format in the marketplace, Imax, have so far faced no such resistance. In fact, gross box office for films converted for Imax exhibition using the company's DMR process doubled in 2010 to $546 million, and those conversions go largely unremarked upon.

But converted they are, in ways that can alter a movie fairly drastically -- and not always in ways filmmakers like.

Morphing a movie to Imax involves several steps that can vary from pic to pic. David Keighley, the company's executive veep and overall post-production guru, says Imax spent a lot of time and money developing its proprietary conversion DMR process to remaster a picture.

The company uses complex, expensive software to de-grain or "smooth out" the picture.

"We make the film brighter, we change the color saturation and we also have to deal with any visual noise in the film when we make the picture larger, because we're asking you to sit closer to the screen," Keighley says.

Following the DMR process, filmmakers can also choose to convert the aspect ratio of their film for exhibition in the Imax format.

The Imax aspect ratio is 1.43:1, not far from the traditional "Academy" ratio of Hollywood's Golden Age. But most movies today are released in widescreen formats, either 1.85:1 or 2.39:1.

Some movies are shown letterboxed in Imax, but the filmmaker has the option to change the aspect ratio to fit the squarer screen, which can change the look and feel of a widescreen picture.

The movie's sound also gets an overhaul. It's remastered uncompressed to make it as visceral as possible. It's then pumped out into the theater using DSL-4D sub-bass 15,000-watt speakers. (Some viewers complain that means cranking up the bass to ear-splitting levels.)

The conversion can involve a lot of tampering with the movie, but Keighley says Imax works closely with filmmakers in the process.

"Christopher Nolan, James Cameron, all those guys have been in our hallways for days and weeks during the time we're getting their films ready for an Imax release," says Greg Foster, president of filmed entertainment for Imax. "We work with them to make sure they feel their original intent is honored and that they're satisfied with how the film looks."

Nolan in particular has embraced the format. He specifically shot sequences of "Inception" and "The Dark Knight" in 65mm large-format film that were then projected in "native" Imax in Imax theaters.

"You get incredible things from Imax as a filmmaker," Nolan says. "The screen shape and size makes the experience more immersive and the resolution of the image is simply the gold standard in exhibition."

But some filmmakers have expressed reservations about Imax.

Cameron, in a 2006 interview with Variety, said he didn't care for the giant-screen format for narrative filmmaking.

"Yes, they have more resolution, but they also have too much screen. It's too in-your-face, and it fills too much of your peripheral field," he said.

He objected that the giantscreen format undermines the director's ability to use framing and composition to guide the viewer's eye.

(Nonetheless, a few years later, Cameron's epic "Avatar" was released in Imax twice, including an extended edition released only in Imax.)

In the end, there's one main reason that Imax conversions have been noncontroversial, compared with 3D conversions.

Those 3D conversions are done by producers and studios who may are more interested in a quick buck than quality.

All Imax conversions, by contrast, are done by a company that has every reason to maintain quality and protect the its proprietary format: Imax itself.

LEGO TECHNIK SUPER8 PROJECTOR

2011-02-21T17:01:00.000-03:00

Lego Technic Super-8 Movie Projector from Friedemann Wachsmuth on Vimeo.

As seen on Film-Tech.

ON IT´S WAY HOME

2011-02-20T20:41:00.001-03:00

Paramount Manchester

2011-02-01T10:47:00.000-03:00

THX Snipes Across the Decades

2011-01-31T13:02:00.000-03:00

The famous THX crescendo, Deep Note, is like no other audio mark in the world. But where did it come from?

When THX was founded, the company was looking for a truly unique sound effect. A sound that would test the frequency and dynamic range of a theater’s acoustics and surround sound system, while also letting the audience realize that they weren’t in just any typical movie theater.

Working with the artists and engineers at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Ranch, THX developed an algorithm that produced a beautiful and mysterious electronic sound. This creation continues to wow and impact audiences around the world and sets the stage for a superior entertainment experience.

A THX trailer consists of stunning audio and visual effects, with each trailer taking on its own personality. A few of the artists that have brought these trailers to life include, John Lasseter at Pixar, who conceived the animated character Tex; Gary Rydstrom, the seven-time Academy Award®-winning sound designer whose credits include “Jurassic Park” and “Finding Nemo;” Skywalker Sound’s Gary Rizzo and Steve Boeddeker; veteran composer, Marco d’Ambrosio; and Van Ling, the renowned visual effects supervisor.

By clicking on the title of this post, you´ll access THX.com and will be able to view all trailers.

RESTORATION (DATE 11-NOV-2010)

2010-11-18T14:01:00.001-03:00

890 days have elapsed since my last post here. This labours of love are usually like this. That is the reason why they usually take 10 years to complete. My passions have taken me back to work on this restoration and here I deliver some pictures of my recent progress.

2009-04-13T21:57:00.007-03:00

Last Saturday I got to live one of my dreams... (almost).

I got to watch "Vertigo" on the big screen. I say "almost" because it was only a crappy DVD being projected. My dream involves it being shown on 35mm... To watch the DTS-70mm print that blossomed after the Katz-Harris restoration back in 1996 would be more like a wet dream..... ;)

Anyway, the soiree took place in this gorgeous theatre in downtown Mendoza. The image, of course, sucked. Don`t worry! I asked the box-office dude before going in to watch it. It`s not that I´d realised that it was a DVD while sitting on this beautiful(ly uncomfortable) leather-bound seats. I decided it was worth the $8, despite the crude quality.

Counting down the days until I get to watch "Psycho" on the big screen... whenever that may be.

Some other time I´ll tell you about the time I projected a rather nice copy of "Dial M for Murder" myself, back on Xmas 1998. Until then...

A PIECE OF ROBERT A. HARRIS Part 3

2008-07-16T01:03:00.002-03:00

IDENTIFYING 70mm FRAGMENTS - UPDATE

2008-07-15T01:44:00.008-03:00

Because of the location of the actor´s suit pocket (the one with the handkerchief), it was pointed out to me that the pictures were taken the wrong way around, which also means that the Mini Cooper has the steering wheel on the left, practically ruling out a British film. (Having symmetrical soundtracks on the film makes it harder to distinguish the "right" way around.) Assuming that is correct, the images should have been scanned this way around:

There seems to be multiple opinions as to the identity of the man in the suit. Some have said it might be Gig Young while others believe him to be David Janssen (which is possibly related to the identity of the fragments of mistery film #2).

The last 2 fragments have been identified as "The Shoes of the Fisherman" from 1968. In the first case, Anthony Quinn is sharing the frame with Oskar Werner, who played fraille David Telemond. In the second frame, standing at the left is Burt Kwuok (as Peng) and, as previously stated, Anthony Quinn (as Kiril Lakota).

All these information came from the scholars at AMIA-L. My immense gratitude to them.

HELP IDENTIFYING FILM

2008-07-13T13:21:00.009-03:00

The pictures that follow show frames from several 70mm fragments that I have located recently. I don´t know if they belong to the same reel of a film or not. Sadly no head or tails, that is why I seek help identifying the name of the feature.

I have reason to believe that the following 2 fragments do not belong to the same film as the precious ones. I suspect that the man sitting on the left in the first example, and the one standing on the right in the second one, is none other than Anthony Quinn.

Any help will be greatly apreciated.

EXHUMED FILMS.COM

2008-07-11T12:40:00.002-03:00

"Hollywood mediocrity and corporate greed have doomed classic horror movies to the limbo of dusty video store shelves and occasional late night cable programs."

Find the rest of this witty, nicely written and extremely insightful manifesto here.

A PIECE OF ROBERT A. HARRIS Part 2

2008-07-10T12:39:00.007-03:00

What follows is the transcription of an article intitled "Film Restoration: More than ´Rear Window´ dressing" written by Bill Desowitz for cnn.com, published on December 11th, 1997. You can read the original here

First "Vertigo" was brought back from oblivion; now the ever-popular "Rear Window" is the latest Alfred Hitchcock classic starring Jimmy Stewart being saved from the ravages of time.

To enhance its image quality, the restored version will be among the first films printed in Technicolor's new dye-transfer process (so far used only experimentally with a few prints of Warner Bros.' "Giant" reissue and "Batman & Robin").

This marks the third Universal Pictures restoration by the team of Robert Harris and James Katz, following "Spartacus" and "Vertigo." The "Rear Window" fix-up is less expensive the other large-format projects -- "Vertigo," for example, cost $1.3 million -- but no less intensive.

"Like 'Vertigo,' we can make 'Rear Window' look like it's never looked before, with rich colors to show off the new process," says Katz, who produces the restorations. "This serves the future without forgetting the past."

Indeed, as Technicolor gears up for next year's high-tech return of dye transfer (abandoned since the mid-1970s) -- which has suddenly become cost-effective in the current "event" film market -- the "Rear Window" announcement proves that the process can also accommodate special reissues as well.

According to Frank Ricotta, Technicolor's senior vice president of worldwide technical and engineering operations, the new process yields sharper, less grainy prints than conventional color positive prints, as well as "an extended tone scale resulting in blacker blacks, whiter whites and improved color rendition."

The restorers concur that the results are impressive.

"'Rear Window' is a dark-looking movie," Katz says. "And in the tests, we've been getting a lot of detail in the blacks you don't ordinarily see. There's also increased sharpness. You can see it in the bricks on the buildings (in the courtyard) and in the patterns on the dresses."

Actually, "Rear Window" has never looked as good as it could have, according to Harris, even during its initial release in 1954. That's because the first dye-transfer prints weren't made until the 1962 reissue, when they were badly timed and came out beige. "So this will be the first time we see the film's full-color spectrum," he says.

But first the restorers must clean up an extremely dirty negative, abused from the very beginning. "It's a mess," Harris says. "There were 400 runs off the camera negative before the end of 1954. We don't know why they didn't do it dye-transfer, which would have saved printing off the negative. This was reasonably unusual for the period. And we're missing 1,000 feet of negative."

It is ironic that "Rear Window" has suffered this fate, considering it was one of Hitchcock's personal favorites and his most successful film of the '50s. It was also the first movie from his peak Paramount period, which he eventually owned outright and later withdrew for a decade. When last reissued, in 1983, "Rear Window" grossed another $9.1 million for Universal, which acquired it from Hitchcock's estate.

Inspired by Cornell Woolrich's cunning short story about murder, voyeurism and confined spaces, the director was obviously at his crafty best. He had all the technical toys he desired at his disposal, plus two of his favorite stars, Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly. "Rear Window" was Stewart's favorite of the four films he made with the director.

Breakthrough made restoration possible
Yet were it not for a recent technological breakthrough conceived by the restorers and developed by Phil Feiner, executive vice president of Pacific Title film lab, a complete restoration of "Rear Window" would not have been achievable.

Besides the accumulation of dirt, pieces of the original Eastman color negative that were dupes (titles and optical effects) have faded in the yellow layer of emulsion due to aging and improper storage -- a malady that sooner or later strikes all color negatives from the early '50s through the '80s, when a more stable stock was introduced. This first- layer deterioration includes loss of contrast, blacks and shadows going blue and facial highlights turning, in the words of the restorers, "a lovely shade of crustacean."

Compounding "Rear Window's" problem is an additional reel of negative that had its yellow layer stripped off the emulsion when a lacquer that was applied and reapplied over the years to cover scratches was eventually removed.

"No one was malicious here," Katz says. "The film was a victim of its environment over the years. It doesn't stand alone. There are thousands of films out there like this. No one knew enough about the properties of emulsion or temperature control for color negatives."

The restorers were first stymied by the yellow-layer problem last year when trying to correct the revelatory flashback in "Vertigo." Frustrated by their inability to restore the sequence, they later approached Feiner about devising a solution for subsequent restorations.

Using test footage from "Rear Window" and the 1956 remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (to be restored at a later date), Feiner spent six months implementing a cost-effective photo- chemical solution.

To bring "Rear Window's" colorful brilliance back to life, an interpositive, an extremely fine-grain, low-contrast color- duplicating element, will be made from what survives on the original negative and combined with what survives on the yellow separation master.

"This is something that's going to benefit all of these pictures," Katz adds. "All the damage seems to be in the yellow layer."

'That shot is going to be breathtaking'
The most important moment in "Rear Window" to benefit not only from the yellow-layer breakthrough but from the new dye- transfer process is Kelly's seductive entrance -- which over the years has developed a yellow-green tint. Stewart, the aloof photographer confined to a wheelchair because of a broken leg, is awakened in his apartment by her tender kiss. To prolong the kiss and make it appear more sensual, Hitchcock shot it in close-up and then double-printed each frame in slow-motion.

"That shot is going to be breathtaking in Technicolor," Katz predicts. "When people first see her, they'll understand why everyone who came into contact with her fell in love with her."

The main title sequence, another casualty of yellow-layer fading, has already been repaired. "We used five different formulas to get the precise color for the main titles," Harris says. "There's a kind of Chinese red drop shadow that was difficult to reproduce. We finally got one that was acceptable using the yellow-layer method."

The original Paramount logo, incidentally, will return to the film's beginning and end, linked, of course, with the rising and falling bamboo shades in Stewart's apartment.

While "Rear Window" lacks the stunning visual reputation of "Vertigo," its technical virtuosity is legendary, boasting Hitchcock's most elaborate set to re-create the Greenwich Village apartment complex where Stewart spies on his neighbors with his telephoto lens. The effect, as Francois Truffaut first observed, is like viewing ambiguous scenarios of love and marriage from tiny movie screens or TV sets.

It was all part of Hitchcock's famous "pure cinema" scheme: creating tension between Stewart observing and being observed -- and involving us in the suspense of waiting for him to get caught. In fact, the way he introduces Stewart and his neighbors through a series of serpentine camera movements is as succinct an example of visual exposition ever filmed.

"People don't ordinarily think of 'Rear Window' as a stylish movie," Katz says. "But what we're discovering is that there is a style in the way Hitchcock used color. With Miss Lonelyhearts, we can now see the mauve in her apartment and the green in her dress. Each apartment has its own color style."

Harris and Katz expect the restoration to be completed next spring. However, Universal's distribution plans could be complicated by a blackout in place until 1999, coincidentally, the centenary of Hitchcock's birth. Sheldon Abend, who owns the copyright on the Woolrich short story from which the film is based, won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1990 declaring his copyright renewal was violated.

"The important thing is, we're saving another Hitchcock," Katz adds. "And we have a whole new audience right now for this."

HITCHCOCK CAMEOS (at least some...)

2008-07-07T14:11:00.000-03:00

NEWS FROM YARDS AWAY

2008-07-06T16:31:00.003-03:00

What follows is the transcription of an article intitled "Key Scenes Rediscovered" published on July 2nd on ZEITmagazin.com. You can read the original here.

Key scenes from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” have been rediscovered

Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier travelled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered.

Fritz Lang presented the original version of Metropolis in Berlin in January 1927. The film is set in the futuristic city of Metropolis, ruled by Joh Fredersen, whose workers live underground. His son falls in love with a young woman from the worker’s underworld – the conflict takes its course. At the time it was the most expensive German film ever made. It was intended to be a major offensive against Hollywood. However the film flopped with critics and audiences alike. Representatives of the American firm Paramount considerably shortened and re-edited the film. They oversimplified the plot, even cutting key scenes. The original version could only be seen in Berlin until May 1927 – from then on it was considered to have been lost forever. Those recently viewing a restored version of the film first read the following insert: “More than a quarter of the film is believed to be lost forever.”

ZEITmagazin has now reconstructed the story of how the film nevertheless managed to survive. Adolfo Z. Wilson, a man from Buenos Aires and head of the Terra film distribution company, arranged for a copy of the long version of “Metropolis” to be sent to Argentina in 1928 to show it in cinemas there. Shortly afterwards a film critic called Manuel Peña Rodríguez came into possession of the reels and added them to his private collection. In the 1960s Peña Rodríguez sold the film reels to Argentina’s National Art Fund – clearly nobody had yet realised the value of the reels. A copy of these reels passed into the collection of the Museo del Cine (Cinema Museum) in Buenos Aires in 1992, the curatorship of which was taken over by Paula Félix-Didier in January this year. Her ex-husband, director of the film department of the Museum of Latin American Art, first entertained the decisive suspicion: He had heard from the manager of a cinema club, who years before had been surprised by how long a screening of this film had taken. Together, Paula Félix-Didier and her ex-husband took a look at the film in her archive – and discovered the missing scenes.

Paula Félix-Didier remembered having dinner with the German journalist Karen Naundorf and confided the secret to her. Félix-Didier wanted the news to be announced in Germany where Fritz Lang had worked – and she hoped that it would attract a greater level of attention in Germany than in Argentina. The author Karen Naundorf has worked for DIE ZEIT for five years - and let the editorial office of ZEITmagazin in on her knowledge.

Among the footage that has now been discovered, according to the unanimous opinion of the three experts that ZEITmagazin asked to appraise the pictures, there are several scenes which are essential in order to understand the film: The role played by the actor Fritz Rasp in the film for instance, can finally be understood. Other scenes, such as for instance the saving of the children from the worker’s underworld, are considerably more dramatic. In brief: “Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s most famous film, can be seen through new eyes.”, as stated by Rainer Rother, Director of the Deutsche Kinemathek Museum and head of the series of retrospectives at the Berlinale.

TEIL 2
Helmut Possmann, director of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau Foundation, the holder of the rights to “Metropolis”, said to ZEITmagazin: “The material believed to be lost leads to a new understanding of the Fritz Lang masterpiece.” The Murnau Foundation now sees itself as “responsible, along with the archive in Buenos Aires and our partners for making the material available to the public.”

The rediscovered material is in need of restoration after 80 years; the pictures are scratched, but clearly recognizable. Martin Koerber, the restorer of the hitherto longest known version of “Metropolis”, who also examined the footage, said to ZEITmagazin: “No matter how bad the condition of the material may be, the original intention of the film, including all of its minor characters and subplots, is now once again tangible for the normal viewer. The rhythm of the film has been restored.”

And perhaps the scratches, which will probably remain even after restoration, will have an added advantage: The cinemagoer will be reminded of what an exciting history this great film has had.

HITCHCOCK FLAVOURED SUPER8 DUALITY

2008-07-03T20:20:00.001-03:00

Even though I haven´t made much noise about it (except for the modified header), some time ago I decided to stop collecting Super 8 films. Mainly because of the lower quality compared to 16mm, also because of the amateurish halo around it. As a matter of fact, I have begun the process of getting rid of everything that I don´t hold personally dear.

Having said that, there´s still one Super 8 fetish I haven´t been able to shake.

Hitchcock films. Buying Hitchcock films in Super 8.

They appear occasionally on the usual channels, and I jump at them like mad.

If you´ll endulge my vanity, I´ll show off my little collection:

Hawke Films presents Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival Part 1: 350ft - Color - Silent - Includes scenes from North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). Also advertisements for Frenzy (1972).

Hawke Films presents Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival Part 2: 350ft - Color - Silent - Includes scenes from The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964) and Frenzy (1972).

Hawke Films presents Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival Part 3: 350ft - Color - Silent - Includes scenes from Torn Curtain (1966), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and Vertigo (1958).

Hawke Films presents Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival Part 4: 100ft - Color - Mono - Includes 6 promos by Hitch himself.

Alfred Hitchcock Trailer Reel: 400 ft - Color - Mono - English spoken w/no subtitles - Includes trailers for Frenzy (1972), The Birds (1963), Vertigo (1958) and Rear Window (1954).

One thing that will haunt me to the last of my days is my personal loss of a 16mm copy of Psycho (1960). That one is my favourite film of all time, and recently I came across a 16mm copy on eBay. It was going for USD200 and as much as that is for a banana republic collector, I bought it. Because of it´s weight, it got stopped in customs, and those a$$#°1e$ wanted USD700 for the print to clear. Unfortunately I couldn´t afford that much on top of the 200, so, brokenhearted I had no chance but to abandon it. In my imagination there is a warehouse exactly like that of the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where my print collects dust in shelf.

WHAT GOOD IS DIGITAL IF IT CAN´T EVEN SAVE CLASSICS??

2008-06-28T20:54:00.004-03:00

What follows is a transcription of an article intitled "Studio Classics in Need of Facelifts" written by Tatiana Siegel for Variety and published on November 30th, 2007. You can read the original here.

In Cannes this year, Martin Scorsese talked about the importance of preserving such films as Ahmed El Maanouni's 1981 Moroccan music documentary "Trances."
But he didn't mention that his own "Taxi Driver" is deteriorating.

Although the 1976 film is part of Sony's vast library, few are rallying to its aid. The myriad film-preservation orgs throw their money and muscle behind titles that are indie, foreign or obscure. It's assumed Hollywood's majors will take care of their own films. In fact, they don't.

One Paramount veteran compared the studio's vault to a teenager's chaotic bedroom. In fact, a visitor accidentally stepped on the negative of "Rosemary's Baby," which was unspooled on the floor.

With constant pressure on the bottom line, studio execs often lack the funds -- or interest -- to make sure their heritage is being cared for properly. Digital technology, which was touted as the salvation of film, has turned out to be deeply flawed, deteriorating faster than anyone imagined.

Movies "get lost in the wilderness unless (studios) pay attention to them," says Ridley Scott, who found the digital version of his 1982 "Blade Runner" in fragile condition. "We discovered inadvertently that a lot of digital stuff was fading quicker than expected. We think it's safe forever on disc, but, in fact, it was actually fading."

Roger Mayer, a former MGM honcho who's now chairman of the National Film Preservation Foundation, estimates each studio spends $5 million to $10 million a year to fund preservation or restoration programs -- a sum that wouldn't even cover the marketing costs of a low-budget comedy.

Furthermore, the current funding is not enough to undo the damage after decades of neglect. While Sony and Warner Bros. get high marks for attempts at maintaining their libraries, Fox and Paramount get lower grades.

But preservation execs are facing impossible odds. Even though Columbia's "Taxi Driver" is stored in Sony's climate-controlled vault, it's losing its color (though some critics have placed the blame on the restoration work Scorsese performed in 1996). Meanwhile, many 1970s films are suffering because they were preserved on a form of film called CRI (Color Reversal Intermediate), instead of a negative.

"That particular form of negative turned out to be unstable and not good enough. A lot of the films had to be redone," Mayer says.

Other vulnerable pics from the era include the seminal dark comedy "Harold and Maude," which is in grave condition. Even "The Godfather" was recently in need of triage. Paramount sent the original camera negative to Warner Bros.' facilities for color correction and sound remixing, among other restorations.

The Francis Ford Coppola movie has been a consistent money-maker since its 1972 bow, on vidcassette, DVD and homevideo. If that movie is in need of repair, what hope is there for lesser-grossing films?

In December 2006, the National Film Registry listed, as usual, 25 films it feels warrant preservation, including "Groundhog Day" (1993) and "Fargo" (1996). Clearly, this is not just a concern for early Hollywood films.

Studios are quick to cut the budget for film preservation and restoration after a poor year. They're being shortsighted: New media is constantly coming up with new delivery systems, and the majors could tap into their vast libraries for added income -- but only if the films are in great condition.

Still, even if a studio wants to spiff up a film, it may not be able: When studios acquire libraries, they don't necessarily own the original camera negative. So sometimes when they prepare for a DVD release, they can't access the materials they need.

"Everyone assumes that studios are caring for their films because there is an economic incentive to do so, which means outside film preservation groups aren't particularly worried about their films," says Annette Melville, director of the National Film Preservation Foundation, which focuses on saving American films that would be unlikely to survive without public support, such as shorts or newsreels.

Like an HMO that covers surgery but not preventative medicine, the studios sometimes wait until a film's condition is critical. Most concede that a better solution seems to be an ounce of prevention. As Mayer explains, "If you preserve a film properly, you don't have to restore it." He estimates that a properly stored film will last 100 years before restoration work becomes necessary.

Since the advent of homevid in the early 1980s, studios have been more serious about caring for library assets. From 1988-1993, Paramount invested $35 million in the construction of a vault in Pennsylvania to store second master printing copies and an automated inventory system to track the studio's then-750,000 prints worldwide.

But with an eye on the bottom line, studios are reluctant to preserve or restore films for which they have no foreseeable distribution plans.

But income opportunities sometimes crop up in unexpected places.

"A good example of that is when Ted Turner wanted to start TNT and Turner Classic Movies in South America, we at MGM had already restored the Spanish and Portuguese soundtracks, which were separate pieces of film," Mayer recalls. "Therefore, (Turner) was able to do it very quickly, in three or four months rather than three or four years."

Studios also have to decide whether to digitally preserve a film that has already been preserved on celluloid. "There are arguments both ways on that," Mayer says. "The biggest argument against it is that it is extremely expensive, and since we've had no experience on its longevity, we're not sure yet that it is as good as film."

Directors like Scorsese have become adept at using their influence to further the preservation and restoration cause.

"As directors became more powerful, they were able to force studios into spending money that they might not otherwise have spent," Mayer explains.

Steven Spielberg was one of the first directors to build a clause into his contract that called for preservation and restoration work on his own pictures. That phenomenon has ultimately benefited all studio films, because once the preservation technology and infrastructure are in place, they tend to be employed throughout a library.

One Par vet says the studio began to clean up its act when it started to make movies with Scorsese.

Meanwhile, Barry Allen, executive director of film preservation and archival resources at the studio, says he is unaware of the "Rosemary's Baby" incident. " 'Rosemary's Baby' is in very good condition," he insists.

For the first half of the century, studios let their sprawling libraries fall into disarray. The result is half of all American films made before 1950 have been destroyed, while 80% of U.S.-produced pics dating before 1929 are lost. But film preservation and restoration efforts sprung up in the early 1960s. Mayer, a longtime MGM executive, launched the first large-scale effort to safeguard a studio library in 1965, when he oversaw MGM's construction of refrigerated vaults to house its library, which included such titles as "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz."

"The studio wasn't storing its films properly," says Mayer, who received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Academy Award in 2005 for his work on behalf of film and TV preservation. "I discovered that it would get to 100 degrees on the lot, and films were stored in these concrete bunkhouses because they were trying to keep out thieves. But they were deteriorating because of heat and humidity."

Meanwhile, Scorsese launched World Cinema Foundation this year at Cannes, recruiting Alfonso Cuaron, Walter Salles and Wong Kar-wai to help restore international films. And Scorsese's Film Foundation has partnered with other orgs, such as the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y., to save nearly 500 endangered films. These orgs also do extensive preservation and restoration work on their own.

Ultimately, the Hollywood majors are responsible for keeping the vast number of motion pictures in pristine condition. Unfortunately, history has proven that they are not always the best custodians.

(Anne Thompson contributed to this report.)

PARAMOUNT THEATRE: UNDERWATER ATTRACTION

2008-06-27T17:22:00.005-03:00

The Paramount Theatre in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA sustained heavy damage from the recent flood that affected the state.

What caught my eye of this Des Moines Register article is this gruesome picture of what used to be a mighty Wurlitzer organ tipped over and soaked after the waters retreated.

You can read the original article: here.

...PELICULAS DE VERDAD ERAN LAS DE ANTES

2008-06-22T14:14:00.003-03:00

"UNIVERSAL UPBEAT IN STUDIOS FIRE AFTERMATH"

2008-06-21T20:08:00.003-03:00

In an email to employees, Universal Studios president/COO Ron Meyer said that the June 1 studio fire at Universal Studios—the result of a worker accident—did not cause irreparable harm, especially to NBCU’s valuable film/TV library.

“Although our video vault was destroyed, losing thousands of tapes and hundreds of duplicate film prints that we are now in the process of recreating, the vault in which we store our library of films was untouched,” Meyer said in the Thursday memo. “The teams are still assessing what was lost and what may have been salvaged, but we do know there will be minimal long-term impact on what we do, as our company has taken film preservation very seriously and adhered to a policy of geographically separating elements that ensure our film and video legacy can continue.

“We are focused on bringing back our historic back lot tour, developing a replacement for King Kong and rebuilding (production backdrop) New York Street. I will keep you posted as we progress.”

Meyer also said news reports suggesting that the studio’s fire sprinkler system had inadequate water pressure are not true.

The fire erupted in the wee hours of Sunday morning June 1, burning several square blocks of movie sets on the blacklot and the King Kong studio tour attraction. A huge plume of smoke from Universal Studios, which is the sprawling 415-acre film lot at the north end of Cahuenga Pass in Los Angeles, was visible for miles away.

The Universal Studios Tour was closed that day, but reopened the following day and NBCU executive offices opened normally Monday.

"CLASSIC FILMS LOST ON UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FIRE"

2008-06-19T23:03:00.006-03:00

What follows is a transcription of an article intitled "Classic Films Lost on Universal Studios Fire" written by John Horn and Susan King for the LA Times and published on June 4th. You can read the original here.

Destruction of the copies could affect several

upcoming screenings at museums and other sites.

By John Horn and Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
June 4, 2008

In addition to the ruined "King Kong" attraction and the burned New York street scapes, the Universal Studios Hollywood fire has claimed another casualty: perhaps hundreds of classic 35-millimeter film prints, the studio said Tuesday.

The prints were high-quality copies of decades-old movies, not original masters, which are stored in a Philadelphia vault, the studio said. But the loss of the copies in Universal's scorched vault building, which the studio had not yet quantified, could affect several upcoming screenings of classic films at museums, festivals and repertory theaters.

"It's a real shame. The timing couldn't be worse," said Bernardo Rondeau, the coordinator of film programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As part of July's "The Discreet Charm of Charles Boyer" program, LACMA was scheduled to show the French-born actor's 1941 film "Hold Back the Dawn."

The print of that movie, which was originally released by Paramount but is part of Universal's archival collection, was being transferred from New York's Lincoln Center to the Los Angeles museum and may have been in the Universal vault when the predawn blaze broke out Sunday.

Making new film prints can cost $5,000 or more each and take months to produce.

The fire also claimed about 5% of Universal Music Group's recordings, primarily big band and jazz recordings on the Decca label, and video copies of Universal movies and television shows. Universal Music Group is no longer part of the NBC conglomerate but rents storage space from the studio.

LACMA's Rondeau said the museum was nearly finished preparing the schedule for its July 11-26 festival and still planned to include "Hold Back the Dawn" on the slate, hoping that the film was spared or that a substitute print could be located.

In an e-mail sent to several dozen film exhibitors Monday, Universal said the "fire destroyed nearly 100% of the archive prints kept here on the lot. Due to this we will be unable to honor any film bookings of prints that were set to ship from here. Over the next few weeks and months, we will be able to try and piece together what material we do have and if any prints exist elsewhere."

Jan-Christopher Horak, the director of UCLA Film and Television Archive, said that in addition to the uncertainty surrounding "Hold Back the Dawn," the status of several other classic film prints was murky but not as bad as once feared.

"Initially, with the flood of e-mails [asking for prints], the situation seemed more dire than it turned out to be," Horak said. "Universal did find prints on some stuff."

American Cinematheque, which operates the Egyptian Theatre and Aero Theatre, had booked prints of "Her Jungle Love" and "Aloma of the South Seas" (both Paramount films with Dorothy Lamour), and now Universal will not be able to provide the 35-millimeter prints, Horak said.

"It is upsetting," said Horak, who once worked at Universal. "I feed bad for my colleagues at Universal. I was in that vault. It was filled with stuff. It's going to take quite a while to assess what really was lost."

Text and photos copyright of their respective owners.

SAD NEWS FROM UNIVERSAL

2008-06-19T22:59:00.002-03:00

For those who run classic films, Universal just announced:

"It is with great sadness that I must inform you that yesterdays fire destroyed nearly 100% of the archive prints kept here on the lot. Due to this we will be unable to honor any film bookings of prints that were set to ship from here. Over the next few weeks and months we will be able to try and piece together what material we do have and if any prints exist elsewhere. For the time being please check your rental confirmations and look under shipping instructions. If the print was set to ship from the studio then you date is now canceled. If the shipping instructions say ship from Deluxe then those dates are still good."

The good news is that the elements survive. The bad news is that most likely, only the "big" titles will ever be reprinted in 35mm. Many Universal titles will never be seen in 35mm publicly again.

A PIECE OF ROBERT A. HARRIS Part 1

2008-06-11T18:37:00.006-03:00

What follows is the transcription of an article by Stephanie Argy and Rachael Bosley for the ASC Magazine. The original can be found here

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Widely regarded as an American classic and a landmark achievement in cinematography, Paramount Pictures’ The Godfather (1972) is identical to most films of its era in one respect: it was not properly preserved. Paramount, like most Hollywood studios, did not create a preservation program — “asset protection” in industry parlance — until the home-video boom of the 1980s proved film libraries could have indefinite, lucrative lives. Before that awareness took hold, original negatives were typically used as printing negatives, which meant the original negatives for popular pictures took a lot of abuse. The Godfather was not only popular, it was Hollywood’s first blockbuster, and over the years, “the neck of the golden goose was certainly wrung out,” says the film’s cinematographer, Gordon Willis, ASC, with typical candor.

Now, a new batch of golden eggs is in the offing. At director Francis Ford Coppola’s request, film-preservation expert Robert A. Harris and associate archivist Joanne Lawson of The Film Preserve recently spent a year digitally restoring The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (1974) with Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging (MPI). Harris’ key collaborators in the endeavor were ASC associate member Jan Yarbrough, MPI’s technical director/senior colorist; Daphne Dentz, MPI’s vice president of digital services; Willis, who shot the pictures and gave advice by phone; and Allen Daviau, ASC, who paid many visits to MPI to lend the effort a cinematographer’s eye.

After working through The Godfather and Part II, the team turned to the much more recent Part III (1990), which required no restoration at all; they did a digital intermediate (DI) to create the director’s cut, a version that previously existed only on home video. For all three films, there are now new 4K preservation negatives, separation masters from which new printing elements can be derived, and backup data tapes. Shepherding the project to completion was Martin Cohen, Paramount’s executive vice president of feature postproduction. “Marty’s support was vital,” says Harris. “He is a postproduction executive who truly understands film restoration — he gets it.”

Best known for meticulous restorations of Vertigo (1958) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Film Preserve began work on The Godfather in the fall of 2006. Paramount delivered the film’s surviving elements — original camera negative, YCM separation masters, intermediate separation masters and thousands of feet of miscellaneous elements — to Pro-Tek Preservation Services in Burbank, where an inspection confirmed that radical surgery was required. Held together with tape, the original negative was filthy and riddled with scratches, rips and tears, some of which broke into the image area; in some sections, parts of the image had actually been torn away. An entire reel (1B) had at some point been removed and replaced with a dupe. Scenes were even missing from the final separation masters because they had been made before the cut was final. (Today, studios routinely combine separation masters or at least portions of them before tucking them into the vaults, but “until the mid-1980s, separation masters were typically made and never looked at or not made at all,” notes Harris.)

In consultation with Rick Utley, Pro-Tek’s vice president of preservation services, Harris determined that a photochemical restoration was out of the question. “Not only that,” he says, “but we determined that the original negative of The Godfather should never be run through a pin-registered mechanism. It could crack up.”

As he got into the project, Harris discovered that the negatives for the first two Godfather films had sustained additional damage in the 1980s, when Paramount sent them to an optical house to make new prints. The original rolls were disassembled and then reassembled incorrectly, a cheaper but chemically damaging fill was used, and the films’ lyrical 12' and 16' dissolves were replaced with dissolves of generic length for ease of printing. He recalls, “I locked a current print into a synchronizer with an original print, which is what I always do when I begin a restoration, and they were not tracking at all. Paramount knew nothing of this [damage].”

Harris believes it’s critical for a cinematographer to be part of the restoration process, and because Willis lives in Massachusetts and could not be in Los Angeles for the many months the restoration would require, Harris asked Daviau to consult on the project. “Allen standing in for Gordon was one master standing in for another,” says Harris. “Allen has the best eyes in the business —he’ll see a quarter-point difference shot to shot. The first thing I asked him to help with was figuring out exactly what ‘black’ is in these films; that was our biggest challenge in terms of Gordon’s work. Allen donated his time, and without him and Gordon, we would have been lost.”

In his conversations with the restoration team, Willis emphasized that the most important visual aspect of The Godfather was its color structure. “It’s yellow-red in much of the lighting as well as the lab work, and that ties all three films together,” says Willis. “So my main concern was to get the color right.” Harris was able to track down original dye-transfer prints of The Godfather, and one of them, from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Technicolor collection, was screened for Willis, who determined it to be an accurate color reference.

“Gordon kept saying all three pictures look the same, that they have the same rhyme and rhythm and use of contrast, and it’s true,” says Daviau. “A lot of people wouldn’t notice that, but when you’ve dealt with the color correction, you see he’s right.” Willis notes, “The repeatability of the visual structure really has to do with making the right choices. The initial choice is taste, and maintaining the look is craft. There’s great elegance in simplicity. My choices in lighting and the overall color were designed to create a mythic, retrospective feel, [one] without clutter.

“On every movie I shot,” continues Willis, “I maintained strict developing and printing control — everything was printed on one light. In fact, much of the negative on the Godfather films will only work when printed that way. I lit and exposed things at the level I wanted to be perceived on the screen; if you don’t do that, anyone can decide what your work is supposed to look like, and I never believed in giving the studios that kind of flexibility. So when making exposures, I based my exposures on the full curve of the film, shoulder to toe. The exposures are right where they should be to achieve a given look on the screen as long as they’re printed as designed. There’s no room to move things around on the printer.”

Despite the physical condition of the Godfather negative, Harris found that much of the image information was well-preserved and usable, “a testament to the viability of Kodak’s negative stocks.” The restoration began with a 4K scan of the negative, which was carried out on a Spirit Datacine. (Some pickups and title material were scanned on a Filmlight Northlight.) Harris recalls, “Every time a new piece of the negative went into the scanner, I was sweating bullets, because if we’d torn certain scenes, there was no quality backup — some shots in the first two films existed only on the negative.”

The digital files were imported into Yarbrough’s Baselight system, where they were cleaned, repaired and color-corrected scene-by-scene. There was also a team doing cleanup with MTI’s Digital Restoration System, but some details were only visible in Yarbrough’s room, which had the best viewing environment. “Most environments for doing dirt removal and scratch removal involve some sort of flat-screen video monitor, and once the dirt and scratch work is completed, I prefer to view the result on a screen similar to a standard theater screen,” says Yarbrough. “In our DI suites, we can view the projected image at 1 to 1.5 screen heights [back from the screen]. This gives us an excellent critical viewing environment in the native data resolution.”

The project stayed at 4K throughout the restoration, and Harris says this capability was key to the team’s success. “Paramount didn’t wait to do this work because they didn’t want to invest in it,” he says. “What was necessary was the ability to work in true 4K resolution; anything they might have tried on the digital side before that would have been a waste of time.” Often, the DI process is carried out with 2K proxies, but some adjustments, including noise reduction and sharpening, do not translate well from one resolution to another. In this case, occasional sharpening and noise reduction were necessary, largely to even out differences among the many elements Harris brought in to remedy problems. He explains, “We started scanning bits and pieces of separation masters, interpositive, CRI [Color Reversal Intermediate], internegative — anything from which we thought we could harvest what we thought was the finest image. One would be sharp but wouldn’t have the right color; another had the right color but was soft or damaged.”

In one instance during the digital grade of The Godfather, Yarbrough was able to draw out detail that was previously invisible because of a lab error during the production. The sequence in which Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) murders Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and Capt. McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) in an Italian restaurant was shot over two nights, with the first night covering the first half of the scene, up to the point when Michael goes to the bathroom to retrieve a hidden gun. The first night’s work came back from the lab looking exactly as Willis intended, but the second night’s work came back too thin: the lab had neglected to push the film. “They simply pushed the wrong button and underdeveloped a day’s work,” says Willis. “When that happens, you don’t lose that much speed, but the fog level drops, and the look of the film changes. We left that lab and continued at Technicolor.”

Reshooting the scene wasn’t possible, and Harris believes Technicolor tried various photochemical processes to salvage it, creating separate masters of the daily rolls at different gammas to bring up the contrast, then mixing and matching those YCM masters to see what would look best. As a result, those shots have always been a couple of generations down, even when the negative and prints were new. Harris notes that on dye-transfer prints, it looks slightly off but not too bad, but when printed to direct positive, “the image started falling apart.”

The search for original film elements for this sequence went on throughout the restoration process — “[Pro-Tek inspection technician] Joe Caracappa spent months looking for anything from the Italian restaurant,” recalls Harris — and the team eventually recovered about 80 percent of the original negative, as well as usable intermediate separation masters for all but one or two shots. Yarbrough was able to bring out additional information, which is particularly noticeable in a close-up that tracks in on Michael just before he pulls the trigger. “Jan is like a concert pianist, a true artist,” says Harris. “Now, you can see the stress on Michael’s face. In the dupe of the dupe of the dupe, you lose that.”

This, he adds, raises ethical questions familiar to those in the preservation field. “It’s a dual-edged blade, a slippery slope. If there’s a photographic problem during production that could not be fixed at that time but can be fixed now, do we fix it?” Willis’ take: “Yes, provided that doing so has no impact on the overall restoration.”

In initial discussions with the restoration team, Coppola gave a directive: they could replace problematic frames or shots as long as the replacement was “imperceptible” except for “forensic examination of grain structure,” says Harris. In a few cases, a shot was salvaged by using pieces of camera negative that hadn’t actually been used in the movie. For example, there was a very badly damaged shot of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) in his hospital bed, with the camera looking up at him from the foot of the bed. Using camera reports and the editor’s line script, Harris was able to find the trims of the take that contained the footage used in the movie. He had the remainder of the take scanned, and with Yarbrough’s help, he found a portion in which Brando’s chest was rising and falling in sync with the clip that was used in the movie, and replaced the original clip with the new one. “Where you can use original negative, you do,” says Harris. “When you find a problem with a shot, you have to think about how to get around it, and the answer isn’t always to go to a dupe or to the separation masters. There are a number of viable options.”

Although restoring sound can often be as difficult as restoring picture, that wasn’t the case on The Godfather. “The sound really wasn’t a problem because everything survived, and in 1997, [sound re-recording mixer] Walter Murch went back to the elements and created wonderful stereo mixes of the first two films,” says Harris. “[Post supervisor] Jeff Cava and [vice-president of DVD mastering] Ron Smith at Paramount worked with what Walter created.” The analog tracks on the 35mm prints of the restored films are new, clean mono tracks; stereo tracks are also there for DTS and Dolby Digital presentations. “That way, if an archive wants to run the films with their original sound, it will be able to,” says Harris.

The original negative for Part II had far fewer problems than the negative of the first film. “It was filthy from continuous wet-gate printing, and the recut had created havoc, but overall, it was about 75 percent better than the negative of The Godfather,” says Harris. One reason for the disparity is that Paramount did a much larger initial print run for Part II because the first film was so popular. “The initial print run on the first Godfather was short,” explains Harris. “Many more dye-transfer prints were produced on Part II and survived, so the studio didn’t need to go back [to the original negative] to make more prints as quickly or as often. We never did find a solid color reference for Part II, however. The dye-transfer prints were all over the place, and it was a much more difficult film to work through in terms of color and densities than the first film, much more complex.

“When we turned to creating the director’s cut of Part III, which had a Super 35 negative, we had to conform to video,” he adds. While Harris and Yarbrough were finishing up Part II, colorist Ray Grabowski started the digital grade on Part III in another room at MPI, with Bob Raring, the film’s original color timer at Technicolor, providing some guidance.

Yarbrough estimates that the digital files for the Godfather trilogy required 160 terabytes of storage space. (By comparison, the final scans for a 4K DI of a 100-minute feature require about 8 terabytes.) The corrected files were recorded out to 35mm (Kodak Vision 2242) via an Arrilaser at the last possible minute because Harris kept unearthing new pieces of film. For example, well into the restoration of the first picture, he found the original negative for Reel 1B in a film can labeled “Dupe #2.” He notes, “Paramount has a superb vault system, and the staff there was incredibly cooperative. The problem was that the system was put in place in the ’90s, and two of these films were from the ’70s and had been handled by many other people. They brought in every element Paramount owned on all three films, and every element had fingerprints on it from the various incarnations of the trilogy.”

Because Part II was the last feature whose release prints were made using Technicolor’s dye-transfer process, Part III featured black levels that did not match those of the first two films. The contrast and saturation controls available in the DI suite made it possible to achieve a closer match, and new prints of all three films have been made (at Technicolor in Los Angeles) on Kodak Vision Premier 2393, making the blacks even deeper. “When we tested regular Vision [2383], the blacks were milky,” says Harris. “There are occasional shots in the first two films, maybe a dozen in 175-200 minutes, where the Premier grabs the blacks and drags them down a little too much. But I feel the sins of Premier were far outweighed by its positives.” After a pause, he adds wryly, “To be honest, I would have liked to print on Vision 2391 — which doesn’t exist.”
The restored versions of the first two Godfather films were recently screened for select audiences in Los Angeles, the first via 2K digital projection and the second via 35mm print. (New DVDs of the trilogy will be released in September.) However, at press time, the new prints were works in progress. After screening them in New York, Willis had this to say: “I think a remarkable job was done repairing all the damage done to the negative — very difficult work. The Godfather is a very good-looking picture now. They have not tried to dial anything into the film that wasn't there before.” That said, he continues, “I’m the first to admit that the darker material, especially in Part II, is difficult to reproduce properly; it was beautiful on dye-transfer, but at the moment, the positive available isn’t doing the job we all hoped for. The print stock I saw doesn’t produce a full and comfortable range from black to white, and the mid range is compressed as well. Everyone is pursuing a solution.”

Willis emphasizes that a restoration effort as disciplined as this one was essential, especially because The Godfather’s unusual look made studio heads nervous even in its day. “When people see things they don’t understand, they become frightened, and the concept of what The Godfather is — or was — still eludes some people,” he observes. “We all tend to reduce or expand things to a level we understand, and it can be fatal to a film like The Godfather if what someone understands is Petticoat Junction. The goal here was to restore, not to remake. The film has already been made.”

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FIRE #2

2008-06-11T18:31:00.001-03:00

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS FIRE #1

2008-06-11T18:29:00.001-03:00

RESTORATION (Date 4-JUN-08)

2008-06-05T14:10:00.004-03:00

I´ve been trying to devote every spare second to this restoration, because next Monday, June 16th, I´m leaving town again to go on another instalation. This time an 8plex.

Here are some pictures of the progress I have been making with the Reyes Soundhead.

RESTORATION (31-MAY-08)

2008-06-03T13:41:00.006-03:00

Last Saturday (after spending 3 weeks on an install of a new 5-plex) I returned to my dealer (the same guy whole sold me the Cinemeccanica lamphouse and the Reyes Soundhead). I was to pickup the lensholder for my E-III.

This used lens holder was attached to an old E-II that has been out of work for a number of years. Removing the lensholder from the E-II was, apparently, too much of a struggle for my dealer, so, for a few peanuts more, I took home the entire thing.

I intend to use this E-II for spares for my E-III, since they are virtually the same.

As some of you know, the E-II came from the factory with an external shutter blade, that spinned in front of the lens mount. This particular one had been modified to take a barrel shutter behind the gate.

(This is what they used to look like)

RESTORATION (18-MAY-08)

2008-05-18T20:55:00.007-03:00

This past month has not been very active on this restoration, unfortunately. I was busy working on another area of my life. Finally, my E-III and me have a new home.

RESTORATION (7-APR-08)

2008-04-07T17:22:00.006-03:00

"The most important thing is not to know everything, but rather to have the phone number of that person who does know everything."
Anonymous

I was out of my league, and I knew it. Rebuilding an intermittent that is 80 years old is more than I have patience for. This is why I took it to a dear friend of mine who has greater amounts of knowledge, patience and know-how at hand.

He chose to remain nameless.
But he did an excellent job on the intermittent. So much so, that I felt compelled to thank him through this.

RESTORATION (Date 22-Mar-08)

2008-03-23T22:36:00.003-03:00

This past Saturday was a very exciting day for this restoration effort. In between Easter Eggs, I went to downtown Buenos Aires to pick up a Lamphouse and a Pedestal. Another benefactor of this process, LFC, located this two machines for me and negotiated a decent price.

We got together in what was once the heart of the entertainment district, where we met a local tech, who is sitting on a gold mine in the shape of obsolete film exhibition equipment. Totally neglected, but with the power to shine again.

The pedestal ended up being a heavy and obtuse chunk of metal that didn´t appeal to me. Instead, I ended up exchanging it for a soundhead, which appeared to be an RCA, but ended up being a autoctonous José Reyes Soundhead.

The soudhead came together with a Westinghouse syncronous motor together with a drive train to transmit motion to the soundhead sprocket, to the projector and to the lower reel.

The Lamphouse I ended up buying is a Cinemeccanica Zenith 420. It was manufactured for carbon arc, was later adapted for a Xenon bulb and, after years of neglect, was ravaged for spares and any copper that could be sold off for a quick buck.

RESTORATION (Date 11-Mar-08)

2008-03-11T15:14:00.003-02:00

One of the things that made this awesome paint job look cheap, was how the letters and the serial # were covered in paint.

Step 1 was, of course, to remove the paint.

Step 2 is to figure out if to leave them bare metal or go with some color. Maybe devil red...?

RESTORATION (Date 6-MAR-08)

2008-03-06T13:39:00.008-02:00

The other big benefactor of this restoration, Dave Ritchie, went into great pains to get the chrome parts of his Ernemann Imperator to shine. (You can read about Dave´s efforts, here.)

I don´t mind admitting that I am way too lazy to go to such extremes, so I just gave my parts a good scrapeing and sent them to be nickel-plated.

Today I got those parts back.

"Not all that shines, is gold"

RESTORATION (DATE 4-MAR-08)

2008-03-04T11:56:00.003-02:00

As it turned out, I already had the oil pump of the projector, I just did not know it. After a lot of legwork, and thanks to one of the two major benefactors of this restoration effort: Warren Smyth of New Zealand, I realised that that strange gear, inside of the lower sprocket casing, was in fact the oil pump! Go figure!

That little piece of pipe that´s sticking out beneath it is what connects the pump to the bat where the oil is collected.

As you can see, it is quasi-hard to suspect that the pump is hiding inside that casing once the cover is on!

FILM FOR SALE

2008-03-01T15:25:00.010-02:00

UP FOR SALE is this Castle Films Super8 Short:

SPECS

NAME: Yesterday Lives Again
CASTLE FILMS #501
YEAR: Released between 1937-1967 and 1973-1977
FORMAT: Super8 Color
VERSION: Short
LENGTH: 200ft/60mts.
RUNNING TIME: 9 min.

BASE: Estar
SOUND: Silent
LANGUAGE SPOKEN: N/A
TITLE CARDS: English

CONDITION OF FILM: Fair.
Little or no scratching. Heavy Color Fade.

CONDITION OF BOX: Castle Film´s generic but Original.
Mint condition. See picture.

Price: USD 25,00+shipping and hadling

*I would be willing to trade it for another title.

**Shipping to the US $12.00

80th ACADEMY AWARDS CEREMONY

2008-02-24T23:55:00.001-02:00

I´ll never forgive the Academy for not putting a shot of Alfred Hitchcock in it´s 80 year montage.

LATEST ACQUISITION

2008-02-18T23:49:00.005-02:00

I have come across (and purchased) a reel 3 of an unidentified feature.

In order to ascertain the name of the film, I have the following facts:

1) It is in black and white, printed in the Soviet Union in unknown stock, in what appers to be triacetate base. (see pictures).

2) It is spoken in Russian (in Mono) (and subtitled in Spanish because I bought it in Chile).

3) The Aspect Ratio seems to be Academy.

4) Plot: The drama takes place in occupied Germany post WWII. The main characters are Tedia Nofoldev and his girlfriend Olga. Reel 3 shows a banquet with an US Mayor (from Milwaukee, who used to be the US ambassador in Moscow) and a Soviet Mayor (from Smolensk).

5) The can (original) has no other information than it was distributed by Sovexportfilm.

Any and all pointers, no matter how small, will be greatly apreciated.

RESTORATION (DATE 16-FEB-08)

2008-02-17T15:25:00.003-02:00

If you look for the definition of Eco-Projector in the Websters Dictionary, alongside the explanation, you´ll find this picture:

Eco-Projector: Environmentally friendly projector.

Note the tiny Caterpillar dancing through the base of the projector. The downside of working in the garden.

All jokes aside, these are the latest pictures of the putting-back-together process.

RESTORATION (DATE 9-FEB-08)

2008-02-09T16:40:00.001-02:00

I wonder if body shop guys are the same the world over? This is not the first time I have one of them do some work for me. They have a bad case of deadline allergy! When I dropped the projector off on Monday at 9AM he said it was going to take 2 days. On Wednesday it wasn´t ready. Neither was it ready on Thursday, or Friday. Finally I picked it up today.

All complaints aside, it was worth the wait.

The Intermittent´s flywheel back cover.

The back cover itself.

...and that is my reflection on the back cover!

(Scroll all the way down to see how it looked like last Sunday.)

INTERVIEW

2008-02-07T15:26:00.000-02:00

In the following link, you´ll be able to find an interview that I gave for an argentine radio elaborating about Imax technology and my position as Service Parternship Program Technician.

primerplanonews.com

(Oops, sorry, it´s in Spanish...)

MY LATEST ACQUISITION

2008-02-06T18:39:00.002-02:00

These are my last two acquisitions. Two black and white silent (double-perf) 16mm films. I bought them through way of Uruguay, but they are Argentine made and/or distributed.

They are:

Castle Films #776: Mighty Mouse in "Mouse of Tomorrow". 100ft. (Published between 1950 and 1953)

Walt Disney Cartoons: "The Country of the Fairies" 100ft.

I particularly liked the "Non-Flammable Film" sign on the side of the box!

RESTORATION (DATE 3-FEBRAURY-2008)

2008-02-04T15:57:00.000-02:00

Yesterday wasn´t a very productive day due to sad news I received. However, here you can see the shutter blade and blade´s housing before and after the restoration process.

RESTORATION (DATE 2-FEBRAURY-2008)

2008-02-02T18:33:00.000-02:00

This is more like it... even for a first coating!

KEVLAR M.I.A.

2008-02-01T12:53:00.000-02:00

RESTORATION (DATE 30-JAN-08)

2008-02-01T11:28:00.000-02:00

Finally here´s the projector stripped all the way. I got a decent quote from a car body shop, so I´ll go ahead next week and have it all painted black (no relation to the Rolling Stones intended).
For those of you who have just tuned in, a quick reminder of how it looked like on December, 30th.

DROP ON "YOUR" HEAD

2008-01-28T16:26:00.000-02:00

Question: What does a Christie brand new head looks like, after you (accidentally) drop it 35 feet?
Answer: Like this:

RESTORATION (DATE 26-JAN-08)

2008-01-26T12:41:00.000-02:00

Ok. I went for acryllic paint and I am even less satisfied. I might have picked up the wrong paint. I don´t know.

For the time being, I am considering doing the drawing in AutoCAD and having it plotted out.

RESTORATION (DATE 24-JAN-08)

2008-01-25T12:45:00.000-02:00

Framing knob: this is how it is supposed to look like.

...and this is one approach to trying to get it to look similar.

But I´m not very convinced with the results.