Introducing Henry V

Our very own Bill Thompson did the introduction for Henry V/Words of Battle on Sunday..

Observations from the Dark Side

The view from the booth...

We'll draw a veil over Wednesday, just say that teddy stayed in the pram, but got a good look over the side. Thursday saw the finish of the Junction shorts programs, so thats one less warzone to worry about. Just one more big push over the weekend, and then it's the survivors party. At this point in the campaign, little things like stringing temporary network cables hardly seem worth mentioning. By the way, why do people get upset when they're wingeing on about working 10 hour days, and I say "I was thinking about dropping down to part-time working..."

Observations from the Dark Side

Words of wisdom from the booth

Oh the joys of silent movies.

Dismantling projectors and modifying the internals to accomodate the full silent frame, filing out old aperture plates to try and match up, picking through the spare lenses to find the nearest size.... Pity the poor guy in 2050 who's going to have to try the same exercise on a 50 year old digital format, which will of course be proprietary, undocumented, and encrypted to hell and back. At least after a 100 years practice with film everyone has pretty much agreed on standard formats. Plus of course the greasy thumbprint test. I'll put a greasy thumbprint on one frame of a film, you put a greasy thumbprint on your Blu-Ray disc, and we'll see who's worried most at showtime.

By 2050 we'll still have projectionists operating machines that are older than they are, probably some of the same machines running today, while all the current DLP kit will have been mouldering away in a landfill for years.

And don't forget that any decent engineering shop could build a 35mm projector from a set of drawings.

Observations from the Dark Side...

Our correspondent in the projection booth writes:

Had the pleasure on Sunday night of screening the restored print of "Dracula" (Hammer Films, 1958), looked better than when I saw it first time around. Shame about the human detritus, but that's Cambridge night life. At least some people were pleased and surprised, mostly those seeing it for the first time.

Observations from the Dark Side...

Our correspondent in the projection booth writes:

We're a Cinema, dark is what we do

Me, after a customer walked from full sunlight straight into a screen and said "its a little dark in here".

Think about it, because of the way film works, for 50% of the time you are watching a film you are actully looking at a a blank screen.

Anyway, we've survived the pre-festival warm-up match, screening the Aliens trilogy in 70mm. If you're not familiar with the format, just think big and heavy. The trilogy weighs in at over half a ton in its transport cases.

So now I'm back from two outdoor screenings in Ipswich, one more to go on Parkers Piece, then its back into the trenches, where everything arrives in a continous barrage, except instead of 88's, 105's and 7 pounders, its 16mm,35mm,70mm and every video format you've never heard of. At least we know it really will be over by Christmas.

Opening day

Schmoozing after the show

Michael Nyman chats to the Rock, Paper, Scissors cast after his performance at the opening night of the Festival.

Welcome to the Cambridge Film Festival Blog

There's a mass of officially sanctioned stuff online around this year's Cambridge Film Festival, but this site isn't part of it. We're open to anyone who has something to say about the films, the festival and the future, so if you want to become a writer here just get in touch and we'll add you to the list [you'll need a Blogger/Google account to post direct]