70mm...Titanic By Nature скачать в хорошем качестве

70mm...Titanic By Nature

This is an old video I made back in 1998 when I worked as a projectionist at the Warner Village Cinema in London's, Leicester Square. It was made as a record of the 70mm print of Titanic being shown in the West End and was, even back then, probably going to be one of the last times the format would be presented. As it turned out, there was a 70mm print of Armageddon that followed a few months later and more recently, Paul Thomas Anderson's film, The Master has seen the dust blown off the format. This video was conceived as a document of the time and sort of grew in scope. It was initially going to be just some shots of the print being played in projection but I ended up asking myself the question of 'Who is this video for and who is likely to see it?' At the time, the answer to this question was indeed friends and family and people who, in general, didn't know a thing about projection or what significance a film being presented in 70mm had. Also back in '98, upoading a video to something like YouTube wasn't really an option for me due to technological restrictions. This video was shot on the old 8mm Video Tape format and over 3 days. It took an entire weekend to assemble edit using the Video 8 Camcorder and a friends VHS Recorder. Knowing how loud and obtrusive the ambient sound in most projection boxes is, air con and extract fans and the projector motors themselves, I wanted to minimise the effect of this noise within the video as much as I could by playing some appropriate music (in this case, music from the film Titanic itself) over the video. Fortunately, my friend's VHS deck had the ability to lay down the music on it's mono linear track allowing me to then edit to the music. This is so easy to do now but it was a absolute time consuming chore back then. Apart from the time taken to film this, if I had to edit this now it'd take me about 2-3 hours. I digress. I should also add that I fully acknowledge the use of the late great James Horner's music in the end credits and am in no way seeking to profit from it's inclusion in my video. This project was made out of love for my job, my appreciation of James Cameron's film and for archival purposes only. It also became apparent while videoing this, that I needed to explain certain things to the viewer but I couldn't see a way to easily do a voiceover in the edit (as the VHS deck had no mic input) so I had to resort to doing pieces to camera. For this, I can only apologise. I dont like seeing or hearing myself on tape and had little time to enlist the help of friends or collegues. The pieces to camera were all written in absolute haste prior to shooting them. I was pushed for time because I had a limited window of filming opportunity in the early morning when the cinema was quiet and now, I was eating into that shooting time trying to write something coherant. Then of course I had to deliver the pieces to camera, which in itself was a first for me. I'm pretty useless at remembering lines and even less experienced at injecting those words with some energy to liven up my monotonous, flat voice. I also have to apologise for the dim lighting conditions and low/varying sound levels during those pieces to camera. I may add subtitles to this. I did my best with what I had at the time and while seeing my efforts in front of camera is always embarassing, I'm still extemely proud of my little video. With the passage of time, it's significance for me only increases as cinemas (and the running of them) have changed in the last 10 years. Whilst the arrival of digital presentation has unquestioningly improved the experience for the audience, it has not been without cost to the many people who used to work as projectionists up and down the land and all over the world. I speak as one of the many affected by redundancy and....well..... it's been difficult. Probably the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in life thus far. So this is dedicated to the 1000's of projectionists out there, redundant or otherwise. Be proud to work in the profession for as long as it lasts and to all those who were uncermoniously shown the door due to the march of technology, know that you were the one who made a difference to every person who saw and enjoyed a film for that first time, back when your skills were essential and indepsensible to the enjoyment of millions. You mattered.