The Future is Bright the Future is Film |
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| Written by: Mark Lyndon, in70mm.com's London office | Date: 12.05.2022 |
 From
left: Mark Lyndon, Michael Mannix and Gordon Elliot in the projection room
of
the Odeon Leicester Square, London, UK.
Picture: Margaret WeedonMichael Mannix, the Senior Projectionist of the Odeon Leicester Square [London, UK], the universally acknowledged Flagship Cinema for the film exhibition industry, took time off from his busy schedule to grant an interview to in70mm.com. Mark Lyndon: First of all, many thanks for affording us this interview for in70mm.com. My first question is that for some years it looked like 70mm film projection and indeed all film projection was going the way of black and white television. But, that did not happen. So that’s why we are here, to celebrate 70mm film. What do you think went right? Michael Mannix: The film makers drove the project of getting 70mm film back in cinemas and the response from the guests as well, the turnouts for films like "Interstellar" on print and "The Hateful Eight" on print was just fantastic. That drove demand from the cinema side to the distributors - hey, give us these, we’d actually like to see more prints! ML: The most exclusive club in the world has to be the profession of 70mm projectionists. What are the biggest challenges these days? MM: These days we are working with legacy equipment, and so a number of items are just not made anymore, in particular, items that were of the early days of digital, the digital sound presses, for instance, that we need for the DTS soundheads are not made anymore and so keeping that equipment going into the future is going to be a challenge that we will have to look at. Things like Xenon lamps will not be easy to procure in the future and if not and if we had to adapt a light source to something else, possibly it would still be Xenon lamps. We would have to look at adapting newer models designed for digital cinemas and projectors with new adaptors to fit inside our legacy lamphouses. ML: And finally, how do you see the future? A bright future? MM: Absolutely, I think it’s still a very exciting bright future. Film makers will want to and demand their films be presented in 70mm film. I think it will always be there. We’d love to keep showing it. ML: Many, many thanks for the interview. |
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