Things that are making you crabbit! [2]

How do you guys know these things

By the Power of the Buckie of course!

Something made me feel, not crabbit exactly, possibly sad-thats the problem you see, it made me feel something and I'm not sure what it was (identifying emotions beyond crabbit, drunk, angry, horny is not a Scotshobbit males speciality, actually add crazy in and it would cover our women too).

The thing which made me feel this unaccustomed emotion was a silly, slight thing. Someone I was talking to, who is about 25 years older than me said "It's years since I've been to the pictures"- meaning the cinema.
But I don't where cinema came from? When I was a kid everyone went to the pictures, my gran still called it a picture house and my grandfather worked as a projectionist in it.
It was a proper picture house too, you'd have liked it Mrs Figg- grand front, flags flying, red drape everywhere. People in red suits greeting you at the doors, usherrettes with trays of ice cream.
And the loss of that simple phrase, "going to the pictures" seemed, well something, some emotion.
Can someone from a nation who knows about emotions help?


Here's a pic of the remains of the La Scala, the 'picture house'/cinema my gandfather was a projectionist in- you can still get a sense of its once grand facade. It seated 930 people.



This is what passes for our cinema now. And yes, it is just a big corrigatted shed. If I dont go on a ferry and train trip to Glasgow to see TH this is my other choice.

That touches a chord with me too, Petty. Fortunately our local old theater was rescued by local volunteers who have done their best to fix it up. They show good vintage films and host occasional concerts. It still echos that elegance of a bygone day. The interior was done in Spanish tile, and the dome was painted like a Cordoba night with stars twinkling through the false dome.





But when I go to TH it will be in an old shopping mall across town, sitting in industrial seats in a giant shoebox.

Another reason people dont go to the pictures as much any more Dave, it used to be something special, now it feels like you are cattle being herded.

Im happy yours was saved. There is something about that period of film, a similarity acorss the countries of what a picture house should be which both our pictures echo, that has been lost.

maybe its nostalgia tinged with loss and a pinch of desolation thrown in? I know exactly how you feel Petty, when I go back to my town after years of absence, everything looks so cheap and soulless. I remember how it looked as a kid, maybe its rose tinted spectacles, but I remember the familiar smells from the Hovis bakery, the hot sugary excitement of the sweet shop, and the friendly cobbler who's shop smelt of beeswax and old leather. The chemist sold sarsaparilla by the glass (a kind of tonic drink, once tasted never forgotton) it was wholesome and comfortable and yes the old cinema had velvet curtains and an ice cream lady with a torch. mind you everyone smoked so you saw the film through a romantic drifting fog. now its blockbusters and Dixons and an off-licence with fort knox metal doors. I am always very homesick for something long dead.

wow, you have some boring cinemas!
the new fancy one

this was the old one, one "room", gigantic I remember truly magic. it's now a library with glass walls. a very noisy one.

and this is the oldest one we have, and this is true nostalgia and it is still in use.

I love that last one, why cant we have nice ones?

this is where I saw FOTR for the first time.

Wow, Mrs Figg. It would be hard to beat that for elegance, I would think.

That's the experience our old 1920's theatre was aspiring to, in a pale way. Hoquiam was a sleepy Indian village in the 1800's that boomed suddenly into a large lumber/mill/ port town around WWI. Lots of rough dirty men of all nationalities and very few "civilized" women.

The founding fathers had to build grand Victorian style homes on the hills above the town to persuade their wives to join them on the frontier, and build such public buildings as the theatre so that their wives could dress formally and go someplace civilized in the evenings.

Today I think the only people who dress up to go to the movies are the Comic Con fans, (which is not quite the same )

I imagine you felt quite at home in there Mrs Figg.

Most of my little town David is Victorian built, there is something rather odd about how similar some cities in the US are to cities in Scotland- so much so that Glasgow has appeared in films doubling as US cities (it was Philadelphia for World War Z with Brad Pitt).

All on locations shots from the streets of Glasgow/Philadelphia!

heres my old town on the set of Yanks, made years ago with Richard Gere.

Don't you guys have cinema chains, like Odeon or Vue? Pretty good value too; I used to have a monthly pass only just around £15 for unlimited films. There was a smaller cinema years back (where I saw Harry Potter for the first time!) but it could only hold 300 per screen and only had two screens! I think it turned into an indy cinema in the end.

I'm not too fused about the surroundings in these multiplexes either; the screen is better, better choice, seats are fine, and providing you didn't take your mentally limited friend with you when the movie starts you forget everything else!

I've had pretty good experiences with chain theatres, personally. They don't have as much personality as indy theatres, but frankly, they're a lot more comfortable than some of the indy theatres I've been too. Nothing compares to seeing a movie in IMAX though. Real IMAX, on a screen that's several stories tall.




Actually, there is something even cooler. OMNIMAX, which is where the screen is a half-sphere that extends all the way over the audience's head. Those sorts of screens don't really work as well unless it's a movie specifically made for it, though.

holy cow! vertigo or what? cool though.

Yeah, vertigo is sometimes a problem. They always have a warning before every presentation that if you feel nauseous you should just close your eyes for a few seconds and the sensation will pass. Fortunately that's never happened to me but if I look down -- the seats are on a very steep incline facing the screen -- my heart definitely starts racing.

ha there is no way I would get up to have a pee mid screening, I would need one of those safety ropes the climbers use, and crampons, and some Kendal Mint cake. (how anyone can eat that stuff is beyond me)


mind you according to Wikipedia,
Kendal Mint Cake has been used on many expeditions around the world as a source of energy
Edmund Hillary and his team carried Romney's Kendal Mint Cake with them on the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. The packaging currently includes the following: “'We sat on the snow and looked at the country far below us … we nibbled Kendal Mint Cake.' A member of the successful Everest expedition wrote – 'It was easily the most popular item on our high altitude ration – our only criticism was that we did not have enough of it.'”
Mint Cake was provided to the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, which was led by Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman included mint cake in their supplies for their 2004 motorcycle trip around the world in Long Way Round.
The Kendal Mint Cake is also a standard part of the 24-hour ration pack issued to the Irish Defence Forces.

So would IMAX be able to play a film in 48 fps??? What other kind of projector exists that can?

IMAX is already a 48 fps format, actually. However, it's very different from normal film in other ways, with both the projection technology and the physical film that the pictures are recorded on. The IMAX film cel is a different shape, including more at the top and bottom, and also much larger. Here's a to-scale comparison using The Dark Knight Rises, which was partially shot on IMAX cameras, as an example.




I think the picture speaks for itself.

(((Just go along with it guys))) Haha, yes Eldorion! I totally understand & agree!

Sooooooooo is that a yes to my question? Is the film square size of 48fps the same size as the IMAX pictures?

Thanks Norc! And I like Loki's hair much better short than long. He looks too grungee with long hair

sorry, I have no idea what I answered

Tinuviel wrote:Sooooooooo is that a yes to my question? Is the film square size of 48fps the same size as the IMAX pictures?

As far as I know, "normal" 48 frames per second film is the same size as regular film (leaving aside the difference between film and digital so as not to further confuse Ally ). IMAX, in addition to having a different kind of film, plays at 48 frames per second by default. So IMAX film is a different size from regular film, regardless of frame rate.

EDIT: basically, most theatres are set up to project movies at a certain resolution. The new 48fps theatres will project frames at a faster rate, but the size/resolution of each frame will remain the same.

I hope that makes sense to anyone else besides me, but sometimes I doubt my explanatory powers.