After watching the Cinerama Adventure documentary yesterday, I feel that I really get Cinerama, the experience and why people got so excited about it and why there is such an enthusiasm for it still 60 years later. A large part of what I felt and thought is summed up in that documentary. But a lot of it is in the historical context in which the technique was launched, and what it became. And of course people need to remember that as a 33 year old, who only ‘got into cinema’ at the age of 18 (so that’s a 100 years of film and cinema technology I have to get up to speed with), I have always had large screens and impressive effects and sound in the visits I have made so Cinerama will not provide the same wow factor as it did 60 years ago when it was released. However, I am not slating it in anyway, I get it, I understand why it was so amazing and so great, I appreciate it and am excited about it (now I’ve seen it) and will go and research it more and become an equally large enthusiast as anyone else.

There are a number of things which struck me about the whole Cinerama thing, especially as I have grown up with Multiplex cinemas (they arrived to the UK when I was 7 and I was 19 before I actually visited one), but I have always had big screens and visiting Screen 1 of the Empire Leicester Square with its massive screen and the IMAX is that on the size of screen which I was looking at Cinerama on was tiny in comparison. However, I except that the Pictureville is not an original Cinerama building and what is does is to allow a medium which would otherwise not be possible to show anywhere else in the UK to still exist. I am therefore willing to use my imagination, but non the less you just don’t quite get the full effect of what Cinerama was really like.

What I love and really appreciate is the play in and play out sequences of music which appear on every film and the Intermission. It struck as something which was borrowed from the Theatre world and offered a real opportunity for some showmanship in the presentation. I really liked them and would love to see them make a return on modern films – it could be done with some creative imagination so that they still worked, although of course the end credits are much much shorter than on todays films – maybe there is an argument for returning to that style, especially as there is the internet and IMDB which is the main resource for that sort of information.

I would dearly love to know more about the mobile side of Cinerama, the one which went around Europe and whatever happened to the trucks – wouldn’t it be amazing to restore those and take them out on the road again – apart from anything you could share the magic of Cinerama to the masses once again and is something which still hasn’t been achieve again in recent years (although I would love to!).

What the event has done, however is given me some new ideas to see if I can achieve a modern version of Cinerma and a whole new enthusiasm for showmanship, watch out for a number of new hair brain ideas!

And so finally, I feel that it is only right to point people in the direction of more information and content on this area, so below are a small selection of links:

• in70mm.com
• Cinerama Adventure.com/
• Wikipedia Cinerama Entry
• 2012 Widescreen Weekend
• Widescreen Museum.com/

The first session of the day was a mishmash of items from members of the audience relating to the wide screen, rather than just Cinerama. To that end there was an interesting presentation about John Mitchell, sorry John H. Mitchell, who had provided a number of the prints which had been used over the weekend, including a new soundtrack to “The Brothers Grimm’. After the presentation there as a Skype conversation between us in Bradford and John in Australia, where is was about 20:00. He was also entered into the Widescreen Academy.

There was a trailer for “Oliver” provided by Mike Taylor from the PPT. It was getting old but was still great to watch:

Other items in the morning included a fascinating film about the make of ‘Grand Prix‘:

What was more impressive was that the film was in French and there was a live translation into English for us of the narration. The real highlight for me a short film about the ‘mobile’ version of Cinerama which travelled around Europe in 58 trucks! I would love to know what happened to those trucks and whether there was any way of renovating them, as many of you know it is an error which interests me a lot. I couldn’t find a YouTube video for this, but I have found this rather interesting page all about it: http://cinerama.topcities.com/ctrichmond.htm and this page which is a newspaper article about the equipment being ready: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19580831&id=EfZVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fuIDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5169,4990514 - I think this is a topic/area which I shall be revisiting again in the future.

We were treated to a film about the installation of the National Media Museum’s new 4K Christie Digital Projector and a demonstration of 4K content (I thought it looked fantastic, but there were others who were less impressed).

The session, which over-ran, finished with a group photograph of all the audience on the stage. I believe that these will appear on the in70mm.com website.

The event went straight int the next session which I skipped to get some lunch with some of the other guys across the road (as it was raining there wasn’t much enthusiasm to go travelling too far). Because of being so far behind schedule it meant that we were able to get back in time to watch “80 Days Around the World” in 70mm along with an introduction by Tony Slowman:

The print was very pink and there were some sound issues on the surrounds towards the end of first part. However, I really enjoyed watching it. This morning as I write this, I realise that I have actually seen it before on television, but as I watched it yesterday I thought it was the first time that I had seen it.

We went pretty much into the next session which was “Cinerama Adventure” which was a 100min 35mm documentary all about Cinerama, how it started and ultimately why it died out, and will form part of my last entry:

And after that marathon of films, I headed to the pub with the others for a final couple of pints and something to eat.

Having sadly missed the first session today which by the sounds of it was very interesting with interesting footage, I managed to watch “South Sea Adventures“. This film had been transferred to digital and this particular screening was the World Priemere of the digital version. Apparently there was a special version done for the Bradford screen so that it fitted correctly. It appears that the format was used heavily as a travelog. There are a lot of beautiful sweeping camera shots of the landscape. As someone who hasn’t travelled a huge amount, I can really see how these sorts of films would have appealed to people who were not as well travelled and knowledge based world which we live in now.

I opted to miss “Ryan’s Daughter” not because I didn’t want to see it, but because I also wanted to socialise with some of the many PPT members who were also around, so below is the trailer instead:

However, this evening I watched “The Brothers Grim“, which was a fantastic treat and really enjoyable – in fact the auditorium was nearly completely fall. This film had not been shown for over 40 years, and as part of getting the print from Australia a new magnetic sound track was produced as the old one was suffering from vinegar syndrome. There was a question & answer session afterwards but as the main film finished at 23:15,  I didn’t have the inclination to stay on.

And one final video, which I found while looking for the trailers videos on YouTube for the other films, which is the promotional video for the Widescreen Weekend 2012:

So some sleep before tomorrow…..

I shall however, be heading off shortly to catch the next session……

The doors of the auditorium open and we head in to find our seats, I am lucky to have managed to get a central seat – J11 will be my home for the rest of the weekend, and also my neighbours who would also be sitting in the sits next to me for the weekend. From the people I have already spoken too, it is obvious that the event attracts a wide sector of people – not just projectionists, but people who are just interested in the films. There are also people here from all over the world, many of whom have been coming to the event for many many years.

The first film is “Russian Adventure” and is introduced beforehand. It is actually being shown digitally and there are a lot of ‘health warnings’ about the quality of the film we are going to see. What strikes me as I watch what is essentially my first Cinerma film is that there is a plain piece of music, while the red curtains are closed and as the lights slowly dim. They believed in real showmanship in those days, although for me it got to the point that I was ready for the film to begin before the music ended, but I think this is a generation thing and younger people would probably be impatient long before I was.

Having heard about the two lines down the screen when Cinerama was playing and I was clearly able to see this which this film. The one impression I got was that the film was very much of its era in terms of the narration and the subjects which were used came across and even to a degree the situations which were created for the film.

A very short break between the first film and into a documentary about how the “Windjammer” film was made. It was a really interesting account of how they made, what appears to be a very interesting film, and one which I need to add to my must watch list.

“This is Cinerama” and so I finally get to see my very first film projected (from three projection rooms) Cinerama film, and the film which launched the whole idea. I can see why it was such an amazing thing to have been at when it was launched, and why people queued around the bloke just to see the film. It would have been a completely new experience. Remembering the historical context of when this film was made, and being shown it really would have been something beyond what people had experienced before. In 1952 when this film was made there was only one black and white television channel in the UK (BBC Television), which would have had mono sound and a relatively small picture. There would also have only have been a couple of radio stations to listen to. It wasn’t that long a go since mono sound had entered the cinema. So it is really easy to understand how the Cinerama film could so easily have blown people away with it’s size and colour and soundtrack in a way that nothing else would have done. I can only equate it to my first experience of going to see an IMAX film, with a screen that was so large and sound like I had never experienced before.

After that I took a much needed break to have a brief look around the Museum, I was rather disappointed by. The TV selection was fantastic and if you are their with a group I think it could be a lot of fun as there are lots of interactive things to do, like reading the news, operating cameras in a studio and blue screen films. However, the actual gallery dedicated to motion picture and film is rather empty with only a couple of actual items on display and very little about the actual development of the medium, no 35mm projectors on display, no discussion of digital technology or even how it relates to the TV side of things. After the visit around the museum I found the centre of Bradford before heading back to the hotel for something to eat, returning for the start of:

“How the West Was One”, another famous film I had heard of but never seen. There was a making of documentary beforehand and then the film started. In the second half there was a film breakdown, and the ‘Breakdown Film’ was shown, something I didn’t even know existed, such is my knowledge of this area. It was a combination of dated, terrible and amusing all at the same time. It is probably something which should be brought back again for modern cinemas! I think what impressed me the most was that the projection team were able to get the projectors all synced up again in the middle of a reel – something which I must find out how they achieved. So at nearly 23:00 the film ended and I retired to bed……

I arrive to a wet Bradford, find my hotel and get something to eat in the hotel restaurant. Having been on the train for three hours I feel the need to go out and have a walk/explore despite the weather. Although after an hour I am soaked through.