Entries for January 2005
Marathon XXX: Surprise 1B, That's not what the label on the film can says!
We always have two movies on the schedule listed as "Surprise"; those movies are planned in advance, but only known to the projectionists & the student Directors who work with the various film distributors to book all of the films we show.
BUT...another fine old Sci-Fi Marathon tradition is the unplanned surprises, invariably a result of a shipping error of some sort. This year, it's Real Genius...which we discovered after opening the box is actually a copy of Amelie. Oops.
So now what? Well...this is where we tap into the Film Society's little-known "archive" of film prints. Marathon regulars are most familiar with Darkstar, John Carpenter's student film project and a monument to cheap & cheesy filmmaking; it's been shown here probably a half-dozen times by now to fill in for missing or incomplete Marathon prints.
But we found (mostly because it was near the door of The Crypt) Evil Speak, and decided to use that since it's never been run at a Sci-Fi Marathon.
Marathon XXX: Correction, and Surprise 1
OK, so I lied in the last post...the machinery here in Strosacker was not in fact running quite right. The annual disassemble-and-fix-during-a-movie issue was a sprocket on the #1 projector that was ever so slightly out of alignment after Charley & I had it apart to replace the main vertical shaft and some turfed bearings last week.
Surprise 1 was just unveiled, to cheering from the audience: Mom and Dad Save the World.
Sci-Fi Marathon 30: One hour down, 30 hours to go
Woo-hoo! An hour into the first film, and (as usual) anyone playing the sci-fi drinking game would be in trouble already--The Day After Tomorrow is chock-full of Bad Science(tm)!
Life in the projection booth is looking pretty good; despite a shipping screw-up that left us without the parts needed to fix a busted rewind, we're up & running with all equipment. We scrounged an almost-the-right size part from an old hand-cranked rewind stashed under the booth, and with a trip to Charley's office (which is equiped with a drill press) to modify it, all was made well enough to get us through the weekend.
The crowd was amused by the pre-show fanfare; for the 30th year, all of the attendees who've been to 25 or more Marathons were presented with "Geekier Than Thou" medals, in a ceremony suspiciously like the ending of Star Wars Episode IV (including the proper bit of musical accompaniment from the movie).
Speaker Wars: Return of the Surround Sound
So Charley Knox and I spent the university's bonus holiday today in Strosacker, finishing up the process of hooking up the new surround speakers that were installed in August/September as part of the University's upgrades in Stro. We're now back to full Dolby Stereo w/ Surround; all that's left is to hook up the new Left Extra/Right Extra speakers (over the doors at the sides of the stage) and modify the Dolby processor to route non-sync sound (tape/CD/iPod/etc.) through those speakers instead of the main screen L/R channels (that way, we can play non-movie audio with the screen door closed).
We also disassembled and rebuilt a large part of the #1 projector, replacing some damaged parts that we found while replacing a busted gear back in August. Of course, we had to dig deeper into the machine this time, and found yet more bogosity :-(. Turns out that all 3 bearings on the sound head horizontal shaft were toast (we installed replacements for the two on the drive side of the machine, but didn't realize when we ordered parts that the one on the operator's side is toast as well). If we'd looked closer before, we could have seen the dented spot where some bozo at Cineplex Odeon whacked it with a screwdriver. Idjits.
BUT...now that things are back together, the machine is humming quietly, doesn't make the nasty sticky-bearing-caused gear-grinding noise every time we shut it off, and has zero play in the main vertical shaft. We should be in good shape for Sci-Fi Marathon 30 and the Spring 2005 semester.