2 old architects plans of the Cube Cinema

Written on Apr, 11, 2021 by admin in Lab activity

Here we see the Cube buildings from Princess Row, the staff door entrance. A nice detail is the glazed windows in the Lantern. This lantern feature was originally the means of light coming into the workshop which is now taken up by the wooden, fan shaped, raked, T&G auditorium. We would like to restore these glass features and explore the …

Old days, Ray and Mark Berry.

Written on Apr, 11, 2021 by admin in Lab activity

Old photo of Mark Berry on one of his UK visits. Ray is probably playing with Danny who is out of shot. This is the back door of the projection room at the Cube Cinema which leads out onto the roof of the garages in Princess Row.

To boldly go

Written on Jan, 27, 2021 by admin in Lab activity

This endlessly resourceful and insprational booklet by Esther Urlus at Worm in Rotterdam is now available as a pdf. Here is a link to the pdf version. Its free and its amazing!!!! http://www.filmlabs.org/docs/toboldlygo.pdf

Home for steenbecks

Written on Jan, 27, 2021 by admin in Lab activity, things I'm doing, done and planning on doing

Been getting into workshop hardly at all due to full time kids homeschool. Managed to get in on monday and started on the viewing table area. Ive got a 16 and a 35 and they both need a few bits of work. The 16 has had a full drive belt and bearings service by Lew.G and the picture is the …

Cinema techniques in alternative image applications as practical history.

Written on Dec, 21, 2020 by admin in Lab activity

I suppose one thing that seems to be appearing more and more as a focus of interests is the idea of practical explorations of historic cinema (trick photography) techniques but with a very different set of image outcome aims, ie not trying to create ‘fantastic’ or even ‘literal’ images that illustrate a mythological storyline or visual interventions into illusory realities …

in the middle of nowhere there is here

Written on Dec, 04, 2020 by admin in Lab activity

The PLAN in new room is to create as much SPACE as possible. I can do this by putting all filing cabs on wheels. Everything on wheels. Then with an overhead scaff grid and clean / free wall I can operate it as a studio and actually work towards making the films I have been planning and devising for years. …

Matte paintings and the emergence of the optical printer

Written on Aug, 24, 2020 by admin in Lab activity, research

Reading Craig Barron and Mark Cotta Vaz’s (1) great book about matte painting has revealed to me the interesting genesis of the optical printer starting with several strands. Starting with Norman Dawn and going through to Clarence Slifer we see the emergence of the requirement for such a machine out of the relation between the camera and its own optical …

F L I C K E R

Written on Aug, 22, 2020 by admin in Lab activity

In every moment of an analogue film projection, there is another mask, or matrix, or screen which is going to effect viewing and viewers in different ways than the perception of visually recognized cultural forms. This ‘FLICKER’ based screen is the total background field effect of an analogue image regardless of the content of ‘the image’. This screen is also …

Uses of vistavision

Written on Jul, 10, 2020 by admin in Lab activity

This isnt my photo but you can see here an interesting feature of a vistavision gate in a printer holding a standard 4 perf 35mm film strip. The ability to see the framelines top/bottom means that adjustments to new framing can be made very easily. There was an Oxberry vistavision gate for sale recently on a trade website and Im …