A brief look at of some of the trust's recent activities.
Dion
reports on the show at the Abbeydale on Friday 29 October
The main auditorium is closed due to an unsafe ceiling and so the
stage area has now become the Flytower theatre. Consequently when we
were asked by Joe of Reel Steel to screen two films for his Halloween
event we had to work out a way to run 35mm in the venue. The films
were to be Hellraiser and Candyman.
The idea was to bring along the Portacine with a tower and using a
CP65 into their sound system. However, with space constraints we went
with a Cinemeccanica V4 and having mid-feature intermissions to help
their bar sales.
The pictures show the kit arriving in the back of my car (with Tom
and I) and being mounted on a platform at the rear of the screening
room. Then me installing and equalising the sound. We went with L-C-R
through their system and used our surrounds through a separate
amplifier at the rear of the theatre. And finally on the night Allan
projecting the films.
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The PPT was present at the Battle of Britain Flying Day at Duxford on 10 September.
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Some of the sixty five 35mm feature films we packed for Contemporary films to go to the States'
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The PPT has provided a projector, magazines, films and cans, as
well one of the seats out of our theatre, for the filming of video
clips for the stage show Shock Horror.
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On 14 July Tom and Dion went to the Abbeydale Picture House Sheffield to look at the possibility of showing 35mm on the large stage area, since the auditorium is now closed due to the main ceiling failing a safety inspection. We took the Portacine and ran both scope and widescreen ratio films for Joe our client from Reel Steel. The trial was a success and so hopefully we will be showing films again at the Abbeydale in the not too distant future (see Abbeydale article above).
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Mike Astley working on a Cinemeccanica V5 for a new screening room in
Wakefield. The pictures show the V5 with just an analogue
reader, then Mike assembling the digital reader on the bench and
finally fitting it to the machine. The machine will be on
long term loan.
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Work is continuing at the Astra Duxford to return the Astra
projection back into how it may have looked after the war.
A pair of Ross/RCA/Peerless machines have been installed and
now the work has turned to the sound system. Since the equipment is used to
show modern films as well as vintage a stereo sound system is required but the
task is to hide it away so that at first glance the box looks period.
To this end Alex is replacing the modern Dolby rack with a
new one hidden under the rewind bench the pictures show the rack being
dismantled and the old equipment being removed and awaiting the installation of
the new rack. A period RCA will then stand where the Dolby rack previously
stood.
Meanwhile it is also necessary to have a modern machine with
an invertor so that silent films can be screened as well as modern Dolby
Digital films. Consequently, at the far end of the projection room a Victoria 5
is installed for such occasions.
The machine that was in was one of a pair which will be used
at a new performing arts college in Wakefield which the PPT are kitting out
with 35mm facilities. So, the V5 has been replaced with an earlier one that had
been restored in Halifax. As can be seen from the images the lamphouse in
particular had to be completely stripped down and cleaned before
reinstallation.
Work is progressing slowly so any help would be greatly
appreciated please contact Alex Cooper if you are interested in helping with
the project.
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Installing a new sound system in the Picture House Keighley ready for the premiere in July of The Railway Children. The photos show the speaker kit (stage and surrounds) ready for shipment, Allan Foster checking out one of the power amplifiers, a shot of the auditorium where they are going, the new centre channel in place, the old Westrex centre channel pulled out of the way, the new sub driver fitted in the old cabinet before placing in an upright position, the new power amp rack sited below the original sound rack which now only houses the cinema processors and non synch. equipment, blanking panels yet to be fitted and Dion aligning the new sub woofer. The cinema owner is Charles Morris of Northern Morris Cinemas, a PPT life member we are helping out.
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Rob Younger provided the photos of the world premiere of The Railway Children at Keighley on 3 July.
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Urban-Smith Kinemacolor projector now back home on display in the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead following restoration by the PPT in Elstree.
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Mark Lees provided the photographs below of the Argyle Exhibition at The Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in Birkenhead. The Urban Smith projector was rescued from the basement of the Argyle Theatre after the theatre was bombed in 1940. The PPT had been looking after it at Elstree and with the help of Nigel Wolland, Steve Rowley and Mike Taylor had it shipped up to Birkenhead for this display in celebration for the History of the Argyle. The group picture by the projector shows left to right: Mike Clarke and his wife, Anthony Clarke, and Roger Clarke. All three are grandchildren from Mr Denis J Clarke the famous proprietor/manager of the Argyle. The exhibition ended on Saturday 3 September and it is claimed over 5,500 people visited the exhibition. Some great and interesting comments were added in the visitors book from visitors from as far away as the USA and Australia!
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A look at what is happening with some of the trust's members.
The Gaumont Barnsley opened in 1956, was renamed Odeon in 1962 and twinned in 1980. It closed in 2005. Rob was a projectionist at the Odeon. Parkway Cinemas reopened the cinema on 8 August 2007. Rob is one of the directors of Parkway and their projection engineer. He has installed 70mm in the downstairs cinema, which was originally the stalls, using the original screen. The two cinemas are digital but are both still equipped for film presentations.
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And a short video showing a 70mm print of Tenet being projected...
Bob writes:
I started
collecting cinema equipment plates after my first visit to the Cinema Museum in
2018. Ronald Grant had two boards full of incredible plates that brought back
memories of my youth working at the Ritz and Odeon in Southend.
It was a very
modest affair for the first year as I scoured Ebay and other places for new
additions but as I became more involved with the PPT, Cinema Museum and the CTA
other sources of material presented themselves. People like Nigel Wollard and
Alex Cooper have been very helpful in assisting me with several of these items
but others have come from as far away as the USA. Thus the door to my office
has gone from very humble beginnings with a lot of duplication to the present
state where I am approaching full capacity and only two items duplicated.
There are
plenty of items I would like to place on the door if they can be located but I
am now having to think what provision to make when the door is full. I do have
one or two items that do not fit on the door such as a Peerless Magnarc nameplate for which I have made a small
lightbox to display it. A lot of the items I am searching for will fit on
easily such as the badges for Brenkert, Walturdaw 5, Ross GC and DP70 mechs, a
Vulcan Arc nameplate and a Duosonic Cabinet badge. However the white back plates
from Lightmaster and President Arc lamps
will need to be displayed elsewhere - and who knows what else might turn up
apart from these items!
If you can
help Bob with his search for badges please email him at bm@theppt.org
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Nigel Wooland writes:
I took these photos at the new four Screen Curzon Cinema at the Bentall Centre in Kingston which opened on Friday 11 November. They will also have an open air cinema on the roof which opens next year. Unfortunately they got the plate wrong, as the Odeon Leicester Square did not have DP70s. I was told this machine was originally in the Royalty Kingsway.
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PPT member Fred Fullerton has produced a large number of videos over the years and we are grateful to Fred for allowing us to feature many of them here.
Visit Fred's pageThese specials are versions of our Rewind magazine covering selected subjects produced for online viewing.
Click on an image to view/download. Not all browsers display pdf files correctly. You may prefer to download files and view in Adobe Acrobat viewer (downloadable here).
David has provided a large number of articles, on a variety of subjects, for the PPT and the collection can be discovered by clicking the button.
Film projection has a long and storied history. There is a romance
to film projection that is not shared with its contemporary
replacement Digital Cinema–the idea that there is someone in a
darkened booth cleaning and lacing the projector, changing reels
and keeping an experienced eye on the focus and sound levels is a
reassuring throwback to times gone by. Indeed, it took the cinema
industry longer than most other entertainment industries to embrace digital technologies, but when, in the mid 2000s it finally
did, the change from film to digital projection was rapid and in the
space of five years digital cinema dominated the industry.
The Independent Cinema Office (one of the websites featured on our Other websites page) has published a booklet giving an overview of film projection. It was written by Dominic Simmons, and photographed by Alexa Raisbeck and Dominic Simmons.
The booklet can be viewed on the ICO website or viewed directly here.
Click on a sponsor to visit their website
