Something Different

[simonw]

Gday folks. I thought some of you film users may be interested to know that I am a cinema projectionist. I have never used a film camera, but work with 35mm film all day. Apart from 2 cinema complexes (that I know of) in Australia, everything is still run on 35mm, apart from 3D movies. Unfortunately digital is starting to push film aside and it wont be long until they stop printing new releases but for now we can still enjoy the warmth that film gives us.

Here is a picture I took recently of a 35mm film setup. If there is anything you would like to know about cinema, just ask

[old dog]

thanks Simon for showing the setup. I`d never have imagined it being like this .

[etherial]

Wow, that's cool!

Why is popcorn so expensive?

[swifty]

Hi Simon, thanks for this.
Unfortunately I know so little about cinematic 35mm film that I wouldn't know what questions to ask.
Ok.. here's a potential very stupid question: Do you need to process 35mm cinematic film too, like you do with photographic film? If so, how the heck do you process that much film??

[peterking]

Nice and clean environment.
Much better than the two old Carbon Arch pre 60's machines I used to use.
Is that a full movie on one platter? The best we got was four reels with the worst being 12 and hope nothing went wrong. Which it always did. It was the first place I learnt to splice anything and that stood me in good stead when I started playing with audio tape and then video tape.

[Gemini2261]

Interesting, I never imagined the film would be so exposed...so to speak

[simonw]

Old Dog: Because it smells so good!!! and you get to spend the next week pulling it out of your teeth

Swifty: I have had nothing to do with the processing side of things, but I believe the emulsion is printed straight onto the film. It can be scratched off to revel clear film underneath.

When a movie has finished, it is sent back and chemically treated to remove the emulsion, and a new movie is printed onto the same film.

Gemini: We try to keep the place pretty dust free and it runs so fast that it doesn't have much time to pick up the dust, but it definitely gets some on there.

[simonw]

Nice and clean environment.
Much better than the two old Carbon Arch pre 60's machines I used to use.
Is that a full movie on one platter? The best we got was four reels with the worst being 12 and hope nothing went wrong. Which it always did. It was the first place I learnt to splice anything and that stood me in good stead when I started playing with audio tape and then video tape.

Very glad I dont have to worry about carbon arks. We just strike a xenon lamp and it looks after itself all day. We splice the whole film into one reel which makes things a lot easier!

[GlennSan]

Now that is pretty neat. Do you stay in the room monitoing for the entire movie?

[mongo]

Absolutely fascinating ! would never have known or seen this otherwise. Thank you for posting this.

[simonw]

Now that is pretty neat. Do you stay in the room monitoing for the entire movie?

Once it kicks off, they pretty much look after themselves. The projection booth is one big room with all the different projectors in it, not a small room like most people think, so I can walk around and check there all running ok

[uglysingaporean]

Thanks for the picture. Always wondered what the room looked like.

[lostris]

Hey, simonw great to see. I worked in 3 different theatres, for over 8 years, as a projectionist. I love it. Haven't done so since moving to Australia though. Projectionists are a dying breed these days. One theatre I worked at even had a 16mm projector that we showed old movies on, like the black and white 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' in 3D. Is that ever hard to focus! And one theatre had a 5platter system. Really hard to squeeze between and thread up!

[geck]

Sorry for the slight gravedig, but that's really cool. Are there ever any issues with the film twisting from all the directional changes?

[Athiril]

Hi Simon, thanks for this.
Unfortunately I know so little about cinematic 35mm film that I wouldn't know what questions to ask.
Ok.. here's a potential very stupid question: Do you need to process 35mm cinematic film too, like you do with photographic film? If so, how the heck do you process that much film??

With a much bigger tank, or continuously run tank.

ECN-2 Process and Specifications Module document from Kodak specifies design type of how to do it.

I built my 16mm 100ft tank as a test and mixed up my own Custom ECN-2 developer, which I filmed the making of the tank.

Here is one of my early film tests from 19 year old 50D, shot in a 4x5" camera.

[mikew09]

Amazing, I thought it was all digital by now. Looks like nightmare to thread up. Does it take long to get the film threaded ready to show.

[simonw]

Amazing, I thought it was all digital by now. Looks like nightmare to thread up. Does it take long to get the film threaded ready to show.

Having done it a few thousand times I can actually do it in about 30 seconds, but then spend another 30 seconds checking everything because if the film is sitting off one of the rollers it can ruin a whole print

[TOM]

thanks for posting this Simon, i never imagined that the projector setup looked like this. i would have thought that you would need to control the dust with all of that film in the open like that. i'm getting itchy feet every time i walk past the fridge at my local camera shop, when i see the Super 8. but i think it runs at about $80 by the time you get it developed and telecine, and you only get under 2 minutes @ 24 fps, probably under 1 minute of usable footage. next step up is 16mm, which costs a lot more, then up to 35mm. the cost is astronomical.