There’s a website called Studio Daily with two articles on the technical production and postproduction process of the film, and choices of why and how the IMAX parts came to be: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/topstory/9645.html
and View link
I recently visited Berlin and found time to photograph some of it’s gorgeous and less gorgeous cinemas, the Kino International being one of them. See photos of the exterior and closeups of the sculptures on the outside walls on my flickr stream: View link
Unfortunately, taking pictures inside was not allowed.
Just so everyone knows, quite a lot was shot with IMAX 15 perf cameras, and has been inserted into the film. If you see it at an IMAX theater, only the Cinemascope footage has been DMRed, the rest is pure IMAX negative, projected in a 1.33:1 (if your local IMAX screen can accomodate that, unlike mine). I’m very anxious to see the film, because of the IMAX experiment.
Man, that is soooooooooooooooooo awesome! I have some nice Drive-in intermission stuff on 35mm (and so does Derek Maxwell who’s been having a hard time to return them to me for the last 4 years!), I hope they were able to dig some up to show inbetween.
Heh, the 1922 postcard that TC links to above is the same one I got off eBay. Here’s a better look at it (I removed the rubber stamp, but if you prefer the original, that’s right behind it in my Flickrstream): View link
I have a hard time figuring out which building is the theater, as it doesn’t look like the Newark in the older postcards, nor like anything in the photos. Feel free to add a note to the picture.
Good thing it’s being restored! See a hi-res scan of one of the postcards from above, featuring Reade’s Strand and the Paramount across the street, from 1939, in my Flickrstream: View link
See a hi-res scan of one of the postcards from above, featuring Reade’s Strand and the Paramount across the street, from 1939, in my Flickrstream: View link
A vintage view of “The Ojay” as the Playhouse was also known in the Fifties, can be seen here on this postcard from my collection: View link
ELEPHANT WALK is playing.
Ojay seems to be a lovely little Californian town. I wonder what the interior was like. Somehow so many theaters never show photos of their exteriors and interiors on their websites.
The old postcard above can also seen in a higher resolution in my Flickrstream. The photo on the card dates from 1936. View link
What a shame it got torn down. The should’ve put it on a boat and ship it to Miami’s South Beach. But then again, preservation was just about kicking in on shady South Beach in the Eighties.
Does anyone know anything about the Green Bay Theater, which was in Green Bay, WI, on numbers 217-221 of some street? See my postcard in my flickrstream: View link
It sure doesn’t look like it could be the Bay theater.
As you may have noticed in FBI warnings and such, you can’t show media that were released for home entertainment to large groups. You would still have to pay for rights to show these to groups, so the films will still cost you a fair amount of money for a lesser quality.
There’s an article in the current issue of wired about enterprises that offer things for free, and in it they’re illustrating the thought of free movies at theatres as well. Large premium special film screenings would be quite expensive, regular films free. As serverspace is becoming cheaper and cheaper, as well as bandwith, transportation and storage of digital films may become free, and so film screenings could be, according to the article (it’s a thought really, nothing more). Of course the projectors still cost quite a bit, and so does everything mentioned above, so I don’t see this happening too soon.
Then there was the EasyGroup’s EasyCinema idea: “The cinema was sold to the easyGroup, renaming the cinema as easyCinema.com. This was regarded as the world’s first budget cinema, with ticket prices starting from as little as 20p. In a bold move, it decided to get rid of the foyer’s built popcorn, drinks and pic ‘n’ mix stands, replacing them with a vast empty space and also allowing visitors to bring their own food. It also showed films that had just recently been taken out of the cinema instead of recent ones and it didn’t rely on fixed showtimes.
Later ventures within the area included an easyInternetCafe and an easyPizza pick up point. The cinema and business model was unsuccessful and in early 2006, the company was evicted from its site.” (from Wikipedia). Just like the airline seats, tickets were cheapest if you booked way ahead.
I like your idea of running a free cinema. It’s not a new idea, I remember discussing this on a board about 10 years ago. Someone actually ran a 6-plex or so (I think 2nd run) who dedicated an auditorium for just screening trailers in an hour-loop for free, with a customary concession purchase, and people loved it.
As for a repertory house, I think the costs are a lot higher than renting regular films, so you need to recoup a lot more from the concession stand. Perhaps you could do it in a sort of club-form, with a membership and exclusive delecacy concessions. This seems to work fairly well in the UK in some spots (the screenings are not free though). Also note that a lot of films that are restored these days have no releaseprints struck, just D5 tapes or Harddisks made.
THere’s distributor’s specialised in classics, like Criterion and.. what is that other one Jan… something.
The theater has been photographed and put on postcards, both in color and black and white a lot of times, that it seems off that it’s so hard to find info about it online!
Show us Kev! I also now know the film advertised on the marquee in the courtyard of the postcard I posted a link for above is “The Last of Mrs. Cheyney” from 1937, starring Joan Crawford.
It looks like that’s the only thing intact! Or are there still seats left? Original carpet? Must all be destroyed by the water from hosing down the fire I take it. What a shame.
Amazing theatre, wish I was on that side of Florida too last january. The organ grill reminds me of the one at the Olympia (Gusman) in Miami, although that one is less Baroque (or almost Rococo as the whole mash of European styles seems to be in these palaces – no disrespect to Ebersons choices and designs of course).
For a more detailed look at the postcard at the top of this page, see my scan on my Flickr stream: View link
So of who are the other statues on the grill?
There’s a website called Studio Daily with two articles on the technical production and postproduction process of the film, and choices of why and how the IMAX parts came to be: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/topstory/9645.html
and View link
I recently visited Berlin and found time to photograph some of it’s gorgeous and less gorgeous cinemas, the Kino International being one of them. See photos of the exterior and closeups of the sculptures on the outside walls on my flickr stream: View link
Unfortunately, taking pictures inside was not allowed.
Just so everyone knows, quite a lot was shot with IMAX 15 perf cameras, and has been inserted into the film. If you see it at an IMAX theater, only the Cinemascope footage has been DMRed, the rest is pure IMAX negative, projected in a 1.33:1 (if your local IMAX screen can accomodate that, unlike mine). I’m very anxious to see the film, because of the IMAX experiment.
Shock! Stan was always a great inspiration to me as a VFX artist and lover of Horror/Sci-Fi/etc. films. Sad to see him go, he will be missed indeed!
Damn Apple for taking articles offline older than a year!
Man, that is soooooooooooooooooo awesome! I have some nice Drive-in intermission stuff on 35mm (and so does Derek Maxwell who’s been having a hard time to return them to me for the last 4 years!), I hope they were able to dig some up to show inbetween.
Here’s a lovely postcard from my collection of the theater in 1941 (that’s when the card was printed). Nothing on the Marquee though..
View link
Heh, the 1922 postcard that TC links to above is the same one I got off eBay. Here’s a better look at it (I removed the rubber stamp, but if you prefer the original, that’s right behind it in my Flickrstream):
View link
I have a hard time figuring out which building is the theater, as it doesn’t look like the Newark in the older postcards, nor like anything in the photos. Feel free to add a note to the picture.
Good thing it’s being restored! See a hi-res scan of one of the postcards from above, featuring Reade’s Strand and the Paramount across the street, from 1939, in my Flickrstream:
View link
See a hi-res scan of one of the postcards from above, featuring Reade’s Strand and the Paramount across the street, from 1939, in my Flickrstream:
View link
A vintage view of “The Ojay” as the Playhouse was also known in the Fifties, can be seen here on this postcard from my collection:
View link
ELEPHANT WALK is playing.
Ojay seems to be a lovely little Californian town. I wonder what the interior was like. Somehow so many theaters never show photos of their exteriors and interiors on their websites.
For a view in 1954, see this postcard from my collection here:
View link
Here’s a postcard in my collection from 1954 with the Cine Callao on it, as well as another one, but which one is it?!
View link
The old postcard above can also seen in a higher resolution in my Flickrstream. The photo on the card dates from 1936.
View link
What a shame it got torn down. The should’ve put it on a boat and ship it to Miami’s South Beach. But then again, preservation was just about kicking in on shady South Beach in the Eighties.
Does anyone know anything about the Green Bay Theater, which was in Green Bay, WI, on numbers 217-221 of some street? See my postcard in my flickrstream: View link
It sure doesn’t look like it could be the Bay theater.
As you may have noticed in FBI warnings and such, you can’t show media that were released for home entertainment to large groups. You would still have to pay for rights to show these to groups, so the films will still cost you a fair amount of money for a lesser quality.
There’s an article in the current issue of wired about enterprises that offer things for free, and in it they’re illustrating the thought of free movies at theatres as well. Large premium special film screenings would be quite expensive, regular films free. As serverspace is becoming cheaper and cheaper, as well as bandwith, transportation and storage of digital films may become free, and so film screenings could be, according to the article (it’s a thought really, nothing more). Of course the projectors still cost quite a bit, and so does everything mentioned above, so I don’t see this happening too soon.
Then there was the EasyGroup’s EasyCinema idea: “The cinema was sold to the easyGroup, renaming the cinema as easyCinema.com. This was regarded as the world’s first budget cinema, with ticket prices starting from as little as 20p. In a bold move, it decided to get rid of the foyer’s built popcorn, drinks and pic ‘n’ mix stands, replacing them with a vast empty space and also allowing visitors to bring their own food. It also showed films that had just recently been taken out of the cinema instead of recent ones and it didn’t rely on fixed showtimes.
Later ventures within the area included an easyInternetCafe and an easyPizza pick up point. The cinema and business model was unsuccessful and in early 2006, the company was evicted from its site.” (from Wikipedia). Just like the airline seats, tickets were cheapest if you booked way ahead.
More of the postcard shown above can be seen in my Flickrstream:
View link
The postcard shown above can be seen in my Flickrstream:
View link
I like your idea of running a free cinema. It’s not a new idea, I remember discussing this on a board about 10 years ago. Someone actually ran a 6-plex or so (I think 2nd run) who dedicated an auditorium for just screening trailers in an hour-loop for free, with a customary concession purchase, and people loved it.
As for a repertory house, I think the costs are a lot higher than renting regular films, so you need to recoup a lot more from the concession stand. Perhaps you could do it in a sort of club-form, with a membership and exclusive delecacy concessions. This seems to work fairly well in the UK in some spots (the screenings are not free though). Also note that a lot of films that are restored these days have no releaseprints struck, just D5 tapes or Harddisks made.
THere’s distributor’s specialised in classics, like Criterion and.. what is that other one Jan… something.
The Uitkijk has reopened some months ago and is now succesfully up and running with a new crew of volunteers, showing classics and documentaries.
The theater has been photographed and put on postcards, both in color and black and white a lot of times, that it seems off that it’s so hard to find info about it online!
Show us Kev! I also now know the film advertised on the marquee in the courtyard of the postcard I posted a link for above is “The Last of Mrs. Cheyney” from 1937, starring Joan Crawford.
It looks like that’s the only thing intact! Or are there still seats left? Original carpet? Must all be destroyed by the water from hosing down the fire I take it. What a shame.
Amazing theatre, wish I was on that side of Florida too last january. The organ grill reminds me of the one at the Olympia (Gusman) in Miami, although that one is less Baroque (or almost Rococo as the whole mash of European styles seems to be in these palaces – no disrespect to Ebersons choices and designs of course).
For a more detailed look at the postcard at the top of this page, see my scan on my Flickr stream: View link
So of who are the other statues on the grill?
Thanks guys. Feel free to comment on them in Flickr as well (you need to subscrobe though).