CELEBRATE BROOKLYN
TIME / WARNER
Movies in the Park
Celebrate Brooklyn is now in it's 22nd year. All summer long, an eclectic variety of live shows, including dance, pop, jazz, spoken word and more are presented in the Prospect Park Bandshell to the delight of Brooklynites from all over the Borough. Three years ago Cinema was made part of the Festival. Last year, we installed our own projection system rather than renting it and the Movies in the Park became an integral component of the annual Celebrate Brooklyn Summer Arts Festival .
For the technically minded film buffs: The system consists of dual CENTURY SW projector mechanisms and Simplex XL soundheads in front of ORC 4500w high intensity xenon lamphouses. The projector film gate is cooled by continuous water circulation and the film at the aperture is both additionally cooled and stabilized by air pressure from an outboard air turbine that blows cold air directly at the aperture. The system is capable of projecting all existing film formats from the early Silents to the CinemaScope and Panavision wide screen epics and everything in between. A high-gain Technikote screen (manufactured right here in Brooklyn) along with a high-powered xenon arc light source are utilized to present a picture of unprecedented brightness and clarity. The Optical Radiation Corp Xenon Arc Lamp produces about twice the brightness of the average indoor movie theatre.
THE PICTURES:
The bandshell amphitheatre's 3000 seating area. Viewed from the stage, the three story booth structure is seen in the center of the picture . Also visible is the Right Channel speaker cluster in the foreground consisting of massive EAW Speaker bins (6 per cluster). The "Lawn People" bring their lawn chairs and blankets and populate the grass-covered hilly area behind the seating arena. This venue can accommodate over 5000 people.
The booth houses the sound mixing console and associated sound enhancement processors on the ground floor, the lighting console on the second level and the projection system on the top floor. The two blue cylinders visible at either corner on the top level are the water tanks for the cooling circulation system needed to keep the film temperature down as it passes the extreme, high intensity light.
A view of the booth from one of the lighting scaffolds on the stage. At the top of the picture are the lighting trusses and the screen rigging.
Projectionist's view of the audience from Projector #2.
The front of the projector. The air hose from the Century Film Stabilizer forced air turbine which sits on the floor, enters projector head just to the right of the lens; note the high-tech green garbage bag tie our chief projectionist has rigged to hold the hose in a position so that it will not interfere with the threading knob shaft -- sometimes improvisation is a useful art.
Another view looking out at the seating area. Visible are both projectors and the large lighting instruments that are hung very close to the projectors.
Picture of the screen set at Academy Aspect Ratio (used for decades before the introduction of wide screen processes). This setup is for the screening of the silent film STEAMBOAT WILLY -- with the Alloy Orchestra playing live. The instruments are just visible to the left side of the screen, or for the theatre people who know such stuff -- Stage Right. Also visible: the blue water tank, the Century Film Stabilizer turbine and the projectionist's foot switch for picture change-over. Sound change-over can be made independently of the picture and is accomplished with a toggle on the control box just visible at the top left corner of the picture. Notice that there is nothing at all, not even a small lip at the end of the floor, to separate the projectionist from the booth and the 30 foot drop off the edge to the ground below.
Crew prepping the screen or "sheet" as they refer to it and its frame. The screen span is 55 feet wide and a bit more than two stories high. Note the speaker clusters right, center and left. Additional subbass bins for the Subbase Enhancement channel will be located on either side of the screen. Surround speakers will be located on poles behind the amphitheatre
Screen set at 1.66:1 aspect ratio, used for most foreign films and American films between 1953 and about 1965.
View of the Century projector head with the lamphouse ignited. The blazing red light is not really red at all, but pure, super-intense white light generated by the xenon arc lamp directly behind the projector shutter and film aperture. The red color is caused by a deep, dense red filter that allows the projectionist to view the arc light's condition without eye damage.
This is a view of the Simplex Soundhead which is mounted directly below the projector mechanism. The head is equipped with the newest Kelmar optical scanner, utilizing laser light to read the Dolby audio tracks. The scan light here is actually pure red.
View of the ORCO lamphouse looking down at the rear of the 4500 watt xenon arc bulb and ignition circuitry. The xenon arc is fired.
View of the back of the booth as seen from the area populated by the "Lawn People." Folks bring their blankets, coolers, lawn chairs, and good dispositions to watch movies with their friends and neighbors under the stars in Brooklyn's most famous park and most celebrated summer arts festival.
SEE YOU UNDER THE STARS AT MOVIES IN THE PARK!
For Celebrate Brooklyn:
Co-Producers:
JACK WALSH and RACHAEL CHANOFF
(Brooklyn Information & Culture)
Cinema System Design
and Chief Projectionist :
FRANK ANGEL, SMPTE
(Brooklyn Center Cinema)
Production Manager: BILL BRADFORD
(The Arts at Saint Ann's)
Sound Design: DAVID SCHNIRMAN, AES
(David Schnirman Associates)
MOVIES IN THE PARK Film Series is made possible by the generous sponsorship of TIME / WARNER Inc.
Special thanks to Borough
President HOWARD GOLDEN,
founder and continued supporter of Celebrate Brooklyn Summer Arts Festival.
Celebrate Brooklyn is a Division of BRIC/Brooklyn Information & Culture
Special thanks to Brooklyn Center Cinema for web space and Frank Angel for page design.