SCREEN
TIME

A 16mm projectionist's notebook
by Edwyn Gilmour

 

 

 


So seasonal do most people imagine the film exhibition business to be that they tend to enquire what film projectionists do during the summer rather as one enquires where flies go in winter.

True enough, there are plenty of one-man-bands who stow their projection equipment away in May and turn to beach photography or processing until October, but for every one who abandons show business in summer there is another who keeps going regardless. 

Hotel shows have become increasingly popular of late and it has become 'the norm' in some coastal regions of Britain for the better hotels to offer regular screenings of feature films during the summer. And one has only to consider the average sort of summer weather we have to appreciate that in-hotel shows can be good business both for the proprietors of the hotels and the mobile exhibitors who service them. 

So successful has one organisation been that pilot schemes have now been tried in which composite programmes not of features and 'funnies' but good honest down-to-earth documentaries paid for by their sponsors have been screened on a regular basis in the hotels of some coastal resorts. 

Shows at holiday camps, caravan and chalet estates are also gaining popularity and generally the indications are that the more likely answer to the question about where operators might be found during the summer is with their projectors on the job!


Next, a recommendation. For a good quality tripod screen at a very reasonable price I doubt whether anything would match what DRH (Screens) Ltd of 58 Victoria Road, Stroud Green, London N4 offer. A 72in. square-surface screen adjustable to cine format costs £12.90 (including carriage) or with a 60in. square surface, also adjustable, £9.30. 

My firm have already bought two of the larger size and what we particularly like about them is that you can raise the bottom tube to a good height, which is seldom the case with many of the more expensive screens. What we dislike about them is that there is nothing to assist with splaying or closing the legs which makes this part of the job rather fiddlesome. At the same time the absence of a black border gives them a somewhat blank look, but at their price it is unfair to be critical of such small details. One thing I must emphasise by the way is that the suppliers are a mail order firm only.


Seeing the strength of l6mm in the Audio-Visual field at the National Audio-Visual Exhibition in July I am tempted to say nonchalently "Of course. Didn't I tell you so ?" But in fact I was surprised myself at the small part played by Super 8, considering the amount of publicity it has enjoyed in recent months as 'the emergent format' in the A-V field. 

All in all, I am inclined to think that if super 8 doesn't very soon begin to do more than 'scratch at the surface' it will never make the grade in the A-V field. 

Look at the situation. As a straight competitor to 16mm it hasn't got a chance. As a recording and replay system it cannot compete with the flexibility of Videotape. As a compact-image storage method it cannot compare with picture-and sound-on-disc and as a package sound and vision lecture system, it has little to offer beyond what can be provided with tape and slides. 

Super 8, so far as serious applications are concerned seems to have got stuck, not in the groove, but in the loop. And when you come to think about it further, there is nothing that a Super 8 loop projector can do that couldn't be done by any of the other systems already mentioned. 

Outside of the amateur field, the future for super 8 seems to be very bleak on the present showing.  


My suggestion that independent mobile projection units should form their own associations to protect and further their own interests has already begun to draw forth interesting comment. 

Bearing in mind that one of the reasons for such an association to come into being would be to give the exhibitors some power collectively to tackle some of the restrictions imposed by the renters, I feel that one suggestion made would lead us all quickly to nowhere. 

It has been pointed out to me that there is already the nucleus of such an association among the 30 or 40 independent firms currently working along with Guild Sound & Vision and that because of this the formation of a mobile operators' group should in the first instance be discussed with the principals of G.S.&V. 

A great notion my friends, except for one small point that seems to have been over- looked: Guild Sound & Vision Ltd are themselves one of the 23 member companies within the Kinematograph Renters Society. 


I suppose it could be regarded as encouraging that there are 22 16mm film libraries who are not members of the K.R.S. and one of these firms has, I see, taken the unprecedented step of announcing that their films are for hire "without restriction". 

Forgive me if I don't sound too enthusiastic about this, but some film libraries have all the plums and others don't and it just so happens that those libraries with the plums are by and large the members of the K.R.S.! 

One might be forgiven for thinking that the renters had been looking at too many of their own films and had finally begun to act out their respective parts in that classic situation of the stranger (i.e. 'the hirer') who arrives in a town of the Wild West and finds that the Saloon, the Barbers, the livery stables, the bank and the ranches (i.e. 'the renters') are all under the same ownership (i.e. the 'K.R.S.'). 

And all I need to add to this is that they really have got the law on their side! 


Writing in one of the 'Way Out' periodicals, one journalist said of the recent International Carnival of Experimental Sound staged at the Roundhouse, Camden Town that London would never be the same after this event. 

As one of those who supplied a quantity of projection equipment on hire to enable the I.C.E.S. organisers to provide multi-screen backgrounds to their experimental sounds I feel that the same comment might be made about our equipment. 

I derive some consolation from the knowledge that if our missing accessories went back to Dixon's hire division, as their lamps came to us, at least they will be in good hands. 

It also gives me a fine chance to achieve photographic one-upmanship. The problem is to say it sufficiently casually but loud enough to be heard when I let it drop in the right quarters that I am now one of Dixon's suppliers!


This page was last updated 12 Jan 2003

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