The Night Was Sultry?

As the weather flips from chilly rainstorms to hot (and sometime wet) summer evenings we have battled to strike a balance between keeping out the summer light but letting in the much needed fresh air. Many thanks to Dave Gladden and Amanda Smith who have made us up some wonderful heavyweight lightproof (and fireproof) serge curtains for Phillip Road. We tested the first out yesterday (26th June) in time to screen the beautiful ‘Of Gods And Men’ and not only did it make a big difference to lightproofing the edges of our side windows but it also made a significant improvement to the acoustic reverberation of the space. Extra thanks also to Richard Murphy for clambering up ladders and on windowsills (at very short notice) to help put it up in time. We have to set up blackout each time we do a screening so there’s always opportunity for willing volunteers to come and help (and you get to see the movie as well of course!)

With a very sizable audience yesterday the temperature in the hall did get uncomfortable so special thanks to Jo Wheatley for her extra zeal in providing cold drinks and delicious icecreams. If you havnt tried them yet you should… (my personal favourite is Mango and Ginger, but Jayne always favours Vanilla).

Next weekend and in time for ‘The Social Media’ we should have rigged up both curtains and arranged for cooling breezes and much improved blackout. We expect a high turnout for this doc-udrama on the phenomenal growth of ‘Facebook’ so please come early to grab the best seats and enjoy your ices before we start.

sound and fury

Observant members of the audience may also have noticed that we are now testing out a new sound system which has been specced for us by Rick Cawley and is being tested out on approval over the next few weeks. The system includes a self-calibration feature (basically it can be set to send out a white noise signal and listen to itself, then adjust its frequency response to balance the effects of the room acoustics). If it works well (and the signs so far are promising) then we hope to do fundraising in order to purchase and wire it in ready for the new season. So if you think you have a finely tuned ear why not come along to a couple of screenings in the next few weeks and help us evaluate whether its what we need? And for the technically minded if you are interested in how the system works we will be happy to chat before the screenings. We always want people who can learn how to set up shows including the sound/video tech so if you are interested and would like some instruction then please let us know. You could join our team of projectionists ready for the start of the September season.