1975: a typical 16mm film show at the local church hall, St Matthew's in fact, and the vicar is no other than Frank Williams of Dad's Army fame. And when he steps forward to address the audience with the statement that I am sure this will be an experience which none of us will ever forget, you know that it will all end in tears - and it does! The disastrous evening starts with the projectionist Graham Stark arriving late and then proceeding to demonstrate how the job should not be done (but all to often is, even today)
The projectionist sets up the screen at an angle to the projector. The projector is balanced on a chair which itself is placed on top of a wobbly table. The projectionist, using the instruction book (so he's really familiar with the Rank Aldis machine) threads the film up the wrong way and then there are several false starts before the oversized picture, with terrible sound hits the screen. The projector mains lead is of course too short for the job and is stretched taut across the audience so that when someone enters the hall in the dark they become entangled with the mains lead and the projector is yanked of the stand: the show is quickly terminated.
After this and many other incidents we are then told the ten golden rules (what I would describe as the 'John Bird Traveling Showman Command merits) on how to put on a polished show. But even the best projectionist should check the film beforehand for "Followers of the Sun", booked for the church hall turns out to be a nudist movie!
Did you know that Derek Simmonds used to do shows around the Midland clubs? Well I understand that this film was produced as a direct result of those shows.
Incidentally the same company should produce a similar 'how to do it right' film for recordists since our review copy was a least five seconds out of sync!
The print is a bit soft and the sound not all that wonderful - but don't let that put you off, you soon get use to it. We know you, dear reader, won't project films like Graham Stark, but get it anyway - you no doubt know many projectionists who do and perhaps they might take the hints. Recommended.
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Distributed by: Derann
Films. |
The above review was printed in Super
Eight Film Review issue 40 from Summer 1998. |
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002