E.g: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/archive_article.aspx?Id=2786
I interviewed Malcolm Brown, a Projectionist at the GFT:
I
went to The Glasgow Film Theatre to speak to projectionist Malcolm Brown on what it is like to be one of few left in an
important and nostalgic profession in the film industry.
I’m Glaswegian through
and through. From the Southside. Originally I’m
from Barrhead. I’ve been here years now. I was at university and worked part
time behind the bar; I was doing electrical engineering. I started in here full
time, working behind the bar and then I picked up the job to train up as a
projectionist about eighteen years ago now. So I trained on the job and also I
(attended) a lot of training courses over the years at various places in
Scotland but mostly in the National film Theatre in London.
We’ve been trained from
the word GO in digital. The GFT were good enough to send
us off on training courses with the changeover in mind. It’s been quite
surprising how quick it’s happened. Obviously when I originally came it was all
35mm, and we also did 16mm and 70mm. A smaller format which was for mellow film
makers mostly because it was cheaper. 99.9%
of the time if you went to the cinema you were watching 35mm and also 70mm –
which we would maybe show two or three times a year. We were probably the only
cinema, certainly in Glasgow, which showed it. We no longer show 16mm at all
and very rarely we show 70mm, but I was trained in film.
It was quite sad to see
the 35mm go.
I did like film although in a way
it’s easier for projectionists, for us to deal with digital stuff although it’s
got its own problems. There’s security issues, there’s keys to be issued, they
are very exacting about times. Although we still show quite a lot of film;
we’re maybe about 80% digital.
One cineworld
down the road, which has eighteen screens, has no projectionists now. It’s
basically front of house managers now because it’s all programmed.
I don’t even know what
my favourite film is.
I’ve
been asked this before but I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s so many. I like
Scorcese. On the big screen in particular it looks lovely. I quite liked a
trilogy from Allan J.Pakula. . He did: Klute, All The President’s Men and the
Parallax View; early 70s. The Parrallax View – that’s one of my faves. All three
of them are very good films. There’s hundreds. I was a film buff in my youth
but now I’m not so much. I never really go to the movies because it’s a
busman’s holiday really.
How you learn is from
making mistakes. I remember once putting on a film shot
in Glasgow, Ken Loach’s “Carla’s song.” When that was first released, I made it
up on what you call a cake stand which means you can show a whole film start to
finish upstairs in cinema one, and I started that day and I went downstairs. We
have CCTV monitors so if we’re sitting downstairs in cinema two we can keep an
eye on cinema one; and I was sitting looking at the monitor and I thought ‘Is that screen meant to be upside down?”
But of course it wasn’t. It was a Friday afternoon. Because it had been shot in
Glasgow I think we had about 350 people in to see it. We had to cancel the
showing. That’s the kind of things you don’t do very often, and that’s becoming
less relevant now because of digital. There always was the human error
possibilities. Now if something goes wrong it’s likely to be a software glitch;
which is really out of your hands.
The fact that we still
have four projectionists here at the GFT is a good thing. Not only are we
just showing films we’re doing education events. We also deal with the art
school maybe three days a week doing lectures. We would deal with setting that
up and getting their PowerPoint presentations on the screen and lighting the
people up.
We can be busy from
nine in the morning until eleven at night.
Which is good for us. We’ve kept four projectionists because we need them. Q
and A’s. Director’s coming in. You name it - there’s always something going on.
’37 this building was
built
so,
obviously, we’ve updated it quite a lot
since but there’s still quite a lot of maintenance we’ve got to keep our eye on
or else. So we would look after all of that, it’s becoming more relevant. Also
be dealing with fire safety and general maintenance.
Quentin Tarantino -
He’s
been in here a couple of times. I met him twice actually. Once – just as
Reservoir Dogs was released which was way back when I started. I made him a coffee and he sat chatting. He
was back three years ago at the festival so he was obviously much bigger. The
first time he came he just arrived himself; he was touring Europe promoting
Reservoir Dogs. Peter Mullan’s a regular. He was at university in Glasgow; he
knows the GFT really well. He’s here often. We’ve met a lot of celebs over the
years.
There’s
always something to be doing. It’s not often we sit about watching the movies,
you know?
