Blackpool puts Super 8 and 16mm on the big screen this weekend. Bristol has a date for Daïchi Saïto’s personal prints, the Prince Charles sets out its 70mm Christmas timings, and The Brattle has a new 35mm print of The Hole.
Peter J. Knight
MCP | Creative Labs
Blackpool: three gauges in two days
The Blackpool Film Collectors’ Convention is at the Grand Hotel on the North Promenade this weekend. The free screenings start with a 35mm show on Friday 13 November from 20:00. On Saturday 14 November, Super 8 and 16mm run from 10:00 to 16:00. The Sunday film fair runs from 10:00 to 18:00 on 15 November, with a film auction and a bring-and-buy stall. The Saturday dinner is separate and needs to be booked in advance.
Most of us encounter the smaller gauges one programme at a time. Putting them alongside 35mm over a weekend gives people a chance to compare how different prints look and sound in a room, and then speak to people who still run the machines. For anyone bringing a small-gauge projector back into use, the fair is also somewhere to ask what can still be serviced and what spares people actually keep. The organiser’s timetable confirms the gauges but doesn’t name the films.
Bristol: Daïchi Saïto’s personal prints at Watershed
We covered the ICA date in October. There’s now a Bristol booking to point readers to: Watershed lists Sonic Cinema’s Daïchi Saïto programme on Thursday 26 November at 18:30. It includes Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, Engram of Returning and earthearthearth, shown from Saïto’s personal 35mm prints, with a Q&A afterwards. Watershed lists a 20:09 finish.
Having the filmmaker there is useful for work in which sound and image depend so much on one another. A question about how an optical effect was made can be answered while the audience still has the image in mind. For a venue booking artists’ prints, the practical conversation starts earlier: ask the lender how the prints should be handled, whether the programme needs separate sound or cue arrangements, and how much rehearsal time to allow. Those details belong in the booking, while everyone is still available to answer.
London: allow time for the music in 2001
The Prince Charles Cinema, London, has 2001: A Space Odyssey on 70mm on Monday 28 December at 20:20, Tuesday 29 December at 14:25 and Wednesday 30 December at 20:20. These are the cinema’s conventional 70mm presentations.
The booking page makes room for details that often get lost in the running time. The overture, interval, music before the second half and exit music are part of the presentation. The cinema gives roughly 170 minutes in all, depending on the length of the interval. It’s a useful example of what to put on a ticket page when a show runs longer than the feature. It also gives the booth and front-of-house teams the same schedule to work from.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: a new print of The Hole
The Brattle’s 35mm programme lists a new print of Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole for its 20 to 22 November run. The first show is Friday 20 November at 20:30 local time at The Brattle Theatre, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The film is listed with English subtitles. Book the Friday performance or check the programme for the other sessions.
The venue says its 35mm Film Fund helps pay for this programme and supports equipment maintenance and projectionist training. A new print is something an audience can see straight away. The more durable part of that spending is having a booth and trained people ready for the next print that comes through the door.