Page 26 - CinemaRecord Edition 3-2003 #41

How wide was the screen? electrician for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s We bumped the show out after eight
About eight metres, a wall-to-wall Really Useful Company, which was to months and I packed up all the film and
screen, beautiful image. And the show assist with staging Sunset Boulevard. the changeover device operated by the
ran every hour for about forty minutes, They had film clips to run, fill-in sound desk downstairs - I packed it all
finish, then start again automatically on sequences and these sequences would up in boxes, labelled it all, took it down
the hour. A girl on the front counter merge into stage action. Would I be on stage and said, “There we are,
could override the system by pushing a interested in running the film clips? A goodbye.”
button if there was no one in the theatre building at the back of the Regent in But that wasn’t the end of my
for the next session. When eventually a Flinders Lane was the office for the association with the Regent. From
person or group came down from the Sunset Boulevard Production Company. time-to-time I was Johnny-on-the-spot
Observation Tower and wanted to see I sat down with the technical director for other film shows.
the show she’d push the button and it and the production manager chief Gone With the Wind ran for eight or
would start. That’s all right until you technician and one of the questions ten weeks and was still building when
get a call on Sunday afternoon to say they asked was, “Can you cut an they took it off. With High Society the
that there’s film all over the floor and it aperture?” I said, “If I had a dollar for print was an old one from Metro and
had been unattended all day, lights off every aperture I’ve cut in my life I’d be there were a lot of joins just where you
from 10am until 11pm. a very rich person.” (see page 18). So I didn’t want them, in some of the
signed a run-of-the-show contract and musical numbers, so I had a second
Did you have many emergency calls?
spent the next eight months on Sunset print brought in from the Astor. George
Well I only ever had one bad one. I
Boulevard. Of course I had to find staff Florence who runs the Astor also ran
serviced the equipment every Saturday
to work with me, to do the swing shifts Chapel Film Distributors, which had
morning at about half past seven.
because I didn’t want to work full time. the rights for all the old Metro films,
Unthread the film out of the projector,
So I supplied the staff, looked after the and he sent another copy in.
clean the gate, clean the machine down,
projection equipment - two On the bench at the Regent I took
blow it down, clean the lens, clean the
Cinemeccanicas with xenons - and the out the badly cut sequences from my
porthole, sweep the floor and generally
film. copy and replaced them with better
have a tidy-up. One day a grey powder
came off the film from the continuous Were these film sequences rear ones. I did it by reading the footage
running and it was deadly stuff as far as projection behind the live action on numbers on the films. All Metro films
film was concerned. You couldn’t let it stage? had footage numbers displayed down
the edge, IA up to IA 897, 897ft or
get back on to the film because it No they were shown from the
something like that, and IB and IC and
would scratch the film to bits. original projection room and were
ID.
The ‘telephone boxes’ were built in actual scenes from the original film.
Melbourne. They were a very nice job. You may remember that in the story The only difference you could pick
When the time came to replace the Norma Desmond owned a luxury on the screen was that the picture
roller sets - there were hundreds of Bucatti. For the stage show they made a colour changed slightly, one print was
rollers in it - I devised a temporary perfect reproduction of it in fibre-glass. slightly pinker than the other, but this
projection system. The film was taken And there was a clip from the film was better than losing sound.
out of the cabinets and put on to a timed to screen just before the car What did it feel like to be back at the
3,000-foot spool, and we had two rolled on to the stage, timed to the Regent and see it again as the grand
copies. While one was running I’d second. old lady of cinema?
rewind the other and as soon as the film
How many film sequences were there? It was a thrill. The first all-film
finished I’d throw the next reel up and show I set up was the 60th anniversary
There were four, each lasting about
thread ready for the next show, which of My Fair Lady. It was a 70mm print
a minute. The first was synced with a
gave just enough time to get my fingers and for that I needed an assistant
tape dock down in the back of the
out before the machine automatically because carrying 70mm film around is
stalls. The tape would start the
started. very heavy work. The projectors were
projector and click the changeover
Seems like a lot of work. open. I’d made a special dissolving Cinemeccanicas 70/35s,Victoria X
It was. And replacing those rollers device beyond the front of the projector model. You could change the roller
was a major job. Took me three days to so we could dissolve, fade the picture systems and change the gate and
do it. on and off. Three sequences were cued everything like that in about five
by the stage manager from backstage. minutes. I didn’t have a 70mm splicer
How did you get back to the Regent so I went to Hoyts and was given
You’re on headsets all the time, and
Collins Street? permission to borrow one from Hoyts
they would say “Picture” (I’ve forgotten
I was doing casual work at the Cinema Centre. I got co-operation
a lot of it now) and it became second
Rivoli East Hawthorn as well as at the wherever I went.
nature, you knew exactly when to run
Rialto and came home one day to a
the next sequence: “Cue number four”,
message on the answering machine
“Standby - Go”; I used to get about
from David Wysholt. I’d met David
twenty seconds warning that they were
while I was doing some work at the
coming up but you got to know the
Victorian Arts Centre. I returned his
cues by heart after a few runs.
call and learned that he was now chief
26 2009 CINEMARECORD