Fulham Road Picturehouse
Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens,
London,
SW10 6SD
Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens,
London,
SW10 6SD
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There’s a feature in the new Picturehouse Recommends magazine which is at their venues now. Uploaded a couple of preliminary render images of what I presume is screen 4/5 and the foyer/bar areas from the issue.
Other interesting bit – they found original door handles and ironmongery and other artefacts hidden away in the basement so they’re refurbing and reintegrating them in the doors and more. Based on the renders they really are trying to apply the sort of modern art deco look like the new Odeon Leicester Square… Looks quite great so far.
I find it slightly perverse that two screens will be ‘flat’ considering that the majority of films nowadays are in ‘Scope. To me this is not the 'cinema’ experience at all, it is more like watching an extra large TV set where films are letterboxed onto it.
In fact it is worse than a TV set; there you can watch the correct 2.39 image. Here at the cinema, when ‘Scope films are shown 'flat’, some pixels are not displayed on the sides reducing the ratio down to 2.32.
Of all the cinema chains, Cineworld seems the least concerned at showing films properly. It is reported than some of their recent new cinemas have ‘flat’ screens in all auditoria. Quality technical presentation does not seem to be a high priority for them.
Full press release from Picturehouse – https://spotlight.picturehouses.com/uncategorised/introducing-fulham-road-picturehouse/
The planning application to which Zappomatic refers appears to be PP/19/01987.
The architectural practice marked on the documents is “Earle Architects.”
Although the application description mentions external aspects only, plans can be found in the document listed as “EXISTING AND PROPOSED PLANS INCLUDING SITE PLAN.”
(Albeit, not for the basement; the “existing ground floor plan” is marked “SCREEN 6 BELOW — REFER TO BASEMENT PLAN.”)
The document listed as “PLANNING, DESIGN AND ACCESS STATEMENT” includes renderings of the proposed canopy.
Although the “existing” plans appear to have schematic layouts of auditoria seating only, levels are marked, and from this auditoria 1-5 are definitely drawn as restepped, and for auditoria ½, as Zappomatic says, “straightened.”
It also appears that the screens as drawn have been reduced in size (albeit perhaps one should not trust the “existing” plans in this respect.) For auditoria ½, it appears that the screens are have been “straightened,” no long being slanted in. I imagine the projection is proposed to be “boothless,” with ceiling mounted units?
Replacement screens for auditoria 3-5 are ~“scope” ratio, whilst auditoria ½ are ~“flat.”
Alas, I am too tired to continue. Suffice to say that the screens as drawn in Auditoria ¾, with the screen centre being ~70% of the auditorium’s width from the farthest side wall. Above all, with auditoria 2/3 remaining very assymetrical, one side wall of each splayed in—and presumably their (~“flat”) screens will be “floating” with no masking—just too many negative elements.
Without further reconfiguration, there is just no getting past the previous poor quality subdivision, rendering the rebranding exercise nothing if not ironic.
curmudgeon:
Somewhat confused by the latter…?
In relation to the former, the current de facto standard sidewall furnishing is stretched fabric—the leading supplier is Eomac.
European Product Technical Specifications.
As the above-linked document says, typical acoustic cores are up to 75mm of rigid mineral wool slab, although greater depths are available.
(Behind which, typically, is “double wall” plasterboard with more acoustic absorption, in this case being for soundproofing.)
Note that the recommended fabric is “100% Polyester Trevira CS”—a quick Google search leads to one vendor selling such type of fabric product at £62/m (140cm wide)—which equates to £45/sq.m.
Of course, these technical aspects do not account for aesthetic preference (and, indeed, these stretched fabric systems can achieve more elaborate decor than “black box” designs, if desired)—but rather to indicate that these systems are hardly a low-cost option, and that “old” cinema designs, at least as originally built, don’t meet today’s performance requirements in terms of controlling reverberation time within an auditorium, nor acoustic isolation of auditoria.
(Granted, the latter is less of a concern in a single screen venue!)
Photos uploaded of the ABC Fulham Road when it was a ‘proper cinema’ – and, curmudgeon, I agree with all you say…….
Don’t worry Seth. I’m sure the modern day version of ‘refurbishment" will be nothing more than side wall drapery or bare brick/bessamer walls, reduced seating to accommodate reclining seats (to put you to sleep) or even day beds to ensure you enjoy a good sleep for a few hours (Bugger the movie!) while you pay inflated admission prices and are embarrassed into paying 4 x times the price for a fraction of the serve size at a local chippy. Same will apply for a beer or wine, but hey! you’re a special patron. If you manage to stay awake, well, you have the pleasure of a bare screen as you enter the black box auditorium, deathly silence (apart from your fellow audience on their mobile, as no off-synch music is provided from the manager’s office who hopefully will remember to press the start function in your auditorium at the required time. So glad I paid this admission price to sit through 30 minutes of advertisements and trailers that I constantly see on my free-to-air television. Finally, the movie that you’ve actually paid to see begins! But this isn’t a scope print, so why has no masking been employed, or worse still, this is a pseudo 'Scope print being projected onto a 1.85 screen with a huge white strip not being “masked” as the powers-that-be consider masking unnecessary with digital projection. I sometimes wonder why I can’t be bothered going to the movies anymore, and then I remember all of the above.
A necessary refurbishment for the Chelsea art house crowd but will miss the shabbiness of this for a mid-week mid-afternoon trip to the movies
Screen 1 already closed down for renovating! As the email suggested, cinema will operate as normal until October, then they’ll close until November to do the foyers etc. Wonder if we’ll already get to try the ‘new’ screens before the October closure, as well as whether they’ll introduce £5 on the day/in person tickets for Unlimited members like at Central. Would basically make Leicester Square or Wandsworth the only centralish London venues
To do as I mentioned would have been expecting too much, I suppose, Zappomatic but I did think at the time (I was based as an A/M for ABC ‘Up North’)of the initial conversion that it was a very good job they did by retaining the proper circle with the dome, chandelier etc and then I was appalled by the act of vandalism a couple of years later when it was split approximately two thirds and a third.
I had to refrain from laughing at a meeting at ABC Glasgow some years later when I was a full Manager. The Operations Manager told us that , for statistical purposes, ABC Fulham Road was compared with Glasgow. I do not know why as, even after subdivision, screens 1 and 2 at Glasgow seated 970 and 872 unlike the ‘paltry’ capacities at Fulham Road but that’s ‘big business’ for you, I suppose……..
Ground floor: Starbucks to become a restaurant/cafe. Historical display in foyer. New rubber floor in foyer.
First floor: circle bar to become private hire/dancing. First floor foyer to become a bar and lounge with original parquet flooring restored.
Looks like screens will be re-stepped, reducing (but not eliminating) the asymmetrical nature of screens 1 and 2.
Screen 1: 5330x9660, 1.81 Screen 2: 5082x9200, 1.18 Screen 3: 2470x5730, 2.34, 141 seats Screen 4: 3100x7250, 2.34, 176 seats Screen 5: 3100x7250, 2.34, 174 seats Screen 6: Details not shown on planning application
They really ought to remove the division of the circle (which looked ‘cock -eyed’ afterwards) to restore full width and symmetry. EMI, the parent company of ABC, were just being greedy when they did this years ago and they ought to have considered this theatre’s location within an affluent area of the capital rather than some dead end district.
If the original capacity of almost 800 is too large (as it obviously will be these days) then they can always re-step it and have a capacity of around 400 but the two cinemas adjacent to one another need scrapping….
Just announced – cinema will be refurbed and become a Picturehouse. Fantastic news as refurb feels overdue, and with Everyman taking the Kings Road site it made sense really:
We wanted to share some news with you, Cineworld Fulham Road will be going through a refurbishment over the next couple of months and transitioning into a Picturehouse Cinema at the end of the year. The cinema will remain in operation as a Cineworld and will continue showing all the latest blockbusters until October before reopening as Picturehouse Fulham Road.
Visited this cinema on 12 June and now concerned for its future. Cineworld are currently refurbishing all of their older cinemas, and this has ominously been apparently left off the list. Both the exterior and interiors have a deeply outdated feel. I visited Screen 1 for the first time in years, and the experience was awful : tired, worn seats, appalling sound from old behind-screen speakers and atrocious projection of the main feature – a dull anamorphic image projected onto the unmasked centre of a standard 16:9 ratio screen. Given the potential for massive property profits to be gained from a residential redevelopment of this site, I think the end is nigh. A real pity from many points of view.
My first visit here today since the Starbucks replaced the downstairs bar. Furniture from the downstairs bar has been moved to the upper foyer as well as the Circle Bar (which seems to be used as an event space rather than as a bar) however both concessions kiosks now offer alcohol, and you can take your drink into the screens.
This cinema is getting a Starbucks – no idea whether this will replace or be in addition to the existing bar.
Exterior photos from January 2009.
I worked in the box office here 1985-91. There were several 70mm presentations in screen 1 during that time. They were : Revolution, Little Shop of Horrors, The Untouchables, The Witches of Eastwick, Cry Freedom, Ibdiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman. The last 70mm was Far abd Away in ‘92. Does anybody know what the first one was? As of 1990 the #1 box office champion was “Dangerous Liaisons” with a gross of £243,000. The total gross in 1989 was £2,825,000; six times the 1985 figure during a flourishing period for the cinema. It was the first ABC/Cannon to have computerised ticketting in '87.
Have load 4 pictures hope you enjoy
A set of vintage photographs of the Forum/ABC Fulham Road:
View link
Original auditorium view:
View link
In January 1958, the former tea room/cafe in the Forum Theatre was converted into a ladies hairdressing salon, named Elstree Studio Hair Stylists:
View link
In my twenty – thirty years in London this is one of those with the nearby Cineworld Chelsea that has been an ABC, A Cannon, MGM, Virgin, UGC, and now Cineworld…it serves its purpose in the neighborhood efficiently…and am pleasantly surprised it has survived even if it looks a bit tired at the heels…Have seen White Palace, Godfather III, Big Lebowski, Best in Show, Man in the Moon, Sixth Sense, Deep Blue Sea, Buena Vista Social Club, State and Main, O Brother How Art Thou, House of Sand and Fog, Other People’s Money, Dr T and the Women here over the years…probably one or two more
OK, many thanks Ken.
All the times I’ve seen movies here in the last 25 years I had no idea of that extension.
Ian; The squash court was built on the car park at the rear of the building, on its right hand side.
Where in the above photo is the squash court conversion screens.
Here are a some 2006 photos of the Fulham.