Future of Cinema Projection in a Picture

 

"On your left, the past: A person and a film. On your right, the future: A black box." - David Bordwell, "Pandora's digital box: In the multiplex". The piece leans towards the geekier/technical end of things but it provides a lot of insight and context into the forces that have influenced the current industry-wide switch to digital projection in cinemas.

The Outer Limits: A Post-24 Hour Movie Marathon Wrap-Up

One of the oddest things about the 24 Hour Movie Marathon each year is the feeling that it doesn't seem that long since that last one. I only ever venture out to Avondale once a year, for the marathon, and whenever I'm on the way there, taking the motorway exit, driving pass the Avondale shops, I get struck with a de ja vu-like sensation that it was just the other week I was here. This may be in part due to the fact that the marathon is such an indelible experience that it actually stays with you throughout the year, whether you're conscious of it or not. Or least that's how I'm trying to justify the feeling.

Not to sound like my judgement has been coloured by Fatso's involvement as sponsor or anything, but this year's marathon has to go down as one of the best, an opinion I think - I hope anyway - will be shared by many marathon-goers. The line-up of films was as delirious and varied and unpredictable as ever, ranging from pulpy '70s crime dramas to dime-store period horrors to super-obscure spaced-out student films to surreal regional oddities.

For those wondering what the effect of watching around 12 movies in a row in a theatre is like... first off, there WILL be some nodding off at some point. Unless you're wildly hopped up on V, or caffeine or some similar sleep-deprivation substance, there's a high chance you won't be fully awake at 3 in the morning trying to comprehend the non-existent plot of a glacially paced sexploitation flick that features an ailurophobic gangster. Everything starts to blur before breakfast time. You'll be confusing the line-up of films ("did Film X come first or Film Y or..?"), or forgetting something even played. It is a sort of druggy state of mind, something enhanced especially when the program fearlessly plunges into depths of cinema so unconventional, so extremely removed from norms of taste and technique that you feel zapped into another dimension. Which is to stay, whilst the marathon will provide you with many hours of laughter and entertainment, it is also a COMPLETE SENSORY EXPERIENCE. You won't be the same person you were earlier during the day when you sat down and eagerly awaited the first film out of the gate while the innocuous old-timey sounds of a live wurlitzer opened the event.

Kudos to Ant and the Incredibly Strange team, the Hollywood Cinema crew, and the appreciative, douche-bag-free audience for a fantastic 24 hours.

Stray thoughts:

• The dinner/breakfast catering seemed to work really well.
• If most people knew the rarity of some of the prints shown... mind-blown.
• It seems to be warmer upstairs than downstairs. I usually sit down stairs at the back. There's a lot of legroom. 
• Few projection issues this year, i.e. nothing broke (Correction: there was a break at the end of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark according to marathon attendee Doug Dillaman - I must have slept through it)
• Ant mentioned that this would be the last year that the marathon will be mostly 35mm (sob).
• The superette next door has expanded!

Melbourne: Adventures in Film, Part 2: The Astor

Auckland needs an Astor Theatre. Pronto. While we still have a few single screen theatres around such as the Lido, Civic, Academy and Hollywood Cinema, they fall short of being a complete film buff’s dream house. Lido’s elegant and done up nicely, but they tend to stick to showing lite “granny-vision” “arthouse” films - same/similar stuff you’d find playing at Rialto; Hollywood is perhaps closest to Astor in feel, and they show occasional retro but it’s mostly second-run mainstream, and usually only comes alive when it’s time for the annual 24 Hour Movie Marathon. Likewise the Civic’s a once-a-year visit, when the NZFF comes round. To put it simply, things can be so much better......

OK now imagine if you had a theatre to go every week where there are cult double features, 70mm print screenings and old classics playing alongside cool second run films - that’s the Astor Theatre. Visiting the Astor was perhaps the highlight of my trip. I love being able to rock up to a theatre and catch a 35mm print of John Frakenheimer’s The Train on a Sunday night, and then the following night, a 70mm of Pink Floyd - The Wall. When you walk into the lobby it feels like you’ve travelled back in time. The old, art deco look has been maintained beautifully and the ushers even wear vests and bow ties for that extra special touch. You’ll find spots in the theatre that look like this:

There’s also a cat named Marzipan who roams around and has been known to sit on the laps of patrons during screenings.

Anyway the films were great. The Train has been sitting on my rental queue for a long time now, but when you get an opportunity to catch a film like this on the big screen, you don’t pass it up! Such an incredible, thrilling, muscular movie made when Frankenheimer was at his artistic peak churning out masterpieces like The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds. And Burt Lancaster impressively does all his own stunts! It was my first time with The Wall as well, and it was quite a spectacular psych-out treat. The screening was way more packed than The Train, which was mostly attended by senior citizens who probably saw it when it first came out (or even fought in World War II). The 70mm print wasn’t the most colourful but was fairly clean and it sounded superb.

“Fine films and atmosphere” indeed! Man, there's a Two-Lane Blacktop/Zabriskie Point double coming up...

We need this playing in ALL our theatres pronto!

For those of you who can't stand people who use their cellphones in theatres - and I hope that's all of you! - check out this hilarious pre-show PSA from Austin, Texas' super-cool Alamo Drafthouse featuring an angry patron who left a voicemail after being kicked out for texting. So good...



(via Ant Timpson)

Projectionists: A Dying Breed

Interesting article over at Slate by Grady Hendrix about the imminent extinction of The Projectionist as we know it. You know, the person behind the scenes switching reels, checking the film is running smoothly, looking/sounding good while we're watching it. It's probably not a widely known thing (or maybe it is?), but when you go to your local Event Cinema to watch a movie, there's most probably no one there in the booth while it's being projected. Actually, just to illustrate this even clearer - if you've ever been to Sylvia Park Cinemas, it's all out there in the open. When you exit the theatre from behind, you can walk through the projection "booths", and you'll see everything's fully automated, and no one's there manning the equipment.

The machines-taking-over-people argument is a common, unsurprising debate, but nevertheless Hendrix's piece poignantly touches on the human costs of implementing such technology. It's also an "art" that'll be lost; the chemical and physical qualities unique to film projection will soon be completely replaced by a couple of mouse clicks.

I'm a "purist", and not entirely convinced by digital yet, so I'll cling onto 35mm film and projection until the very end. Seeing grain is still important to me! It'll be a sad day when the world is ruled by digital projection, but maybe by that time it might also offer the same magical properties as celluloid used to, and still do - I'll give it that.

Random Stuff #6