General Chat

Our local cinema runs a silver screening matinee on Wednesday afternoon if the film being shown that week is suitable. The scheme was designed to encourage older people who wouldn’t go out on an evening, to visit the cinema

Ha ha! :-D :-D We stay at home and eat on Father's Day and Mother's Day Sharron as everywhere gets packed to the gills and is noisy. As it is we get there normally for 11.30am so we don't have to queue, so are done nice and early too. I don't think we'll be visiting the cafe after what you said about the food..........hubby wouldn't be keen on the wartime fodder although he's enjoyed spam fritters at home before.

What are you doing on here?Was The Elmsshut?

Our Odeon in the city does the same and we have been a few times in the past. Watch out for the scrum for the biscuits though, it's 'handbags at dawn' in our cinema when those appear! Some of the greedy so and so's come by with handfuls protesting that they are also for a 'friend! lol. It's nice not to hear the crunch of popcorn.........but the boiled sweet wrappers are just as noisy!

The Silver Screen Cinema in Folkestone is a step back in time, but shows modern films too.

It has an old-fashioned charm not found in many newer cinemas.

I believe that's right, Sylvia. :-D

I've not googled, so I may be wrong .............

but I have a vague memory that the term "silver screen" came about because there WAS silver included in the surface of the original screens way back when

then it gradually came to refer to the whole movie industry.

They run a similar scheme here on Monday afternoons. I think it's popular but I have never been because of family commitments.

Our local Water Board offices also do a pensioner lunch on Fridays - again, it's popular, and is recommended by someone who is a member of the local community centre Monday Luncheon Club.

I'll try them all one day.

Many many moons ago, when films were in black and white, the cinema was called the 'Silver Screen'. I only know this because my gran occasionally, jokingly referred the cinema as that.
But even she usually referred to the 'Cinema'.

I always understood that "Silver Screen" applied to the Cinema...as opposed to TV...but I like the appropriation, used for the more mature generation...(of which I am one)

Only some snoring I would imagine Sharron lol

:-D :-(

If only I enjoyed films, I would certainly go to something like that.

Is there much going on in the back row?

Absolutely Maggie :-D

I assumed it was called the 'Silver Screen' because it was aimed at the older generation. :-D :-D :-D

Old films are usually shown at, for want of a better word, 'themed' cinemas.

It's called silver screen or cinema because it's for the over 55,s or the silver haired !!!!

It doesn't show old films. It shows films that have done the main circuit and are being reshown to encourage older folks to go to the cinema at a price they can afford

The odeon had been split into several screens so it's not taking anything from the others but making some money for one of the screens that may not have many customers in the week anyway

Why assume it's playing old films ?? Rollo

Google do give a lot of information don't they?

Oh, I can't be bothered reading more than the first couple of lines.
The FACT is, your assumption that the films shown at Shirley's cinema were old was wrong.
But still, you insist on being a harbinger of doom - or alternatively adopting a façade of 'trendy' nerd who knows everything about everything.
Don't you think they'd digitise popular old films?
Once done, it wouldn't be too expensive to copy them.
In fact, you can get very old films on CD - isn't that digitising them?

Oh yes, I had old family cine film (35mm) transferred to a CD in a local shop.

The technology of the cinema is decided in the USA. Like it or not.

Now I still like analog photography and use my Olympus OM2-N and its array of lenses. Getting film is not too bad despite the demise of Kodak and C41 development is quick by post. I do my own printing which is terrific fun.

The cinema is something else. Digitising 35mm & 70mm film prints is expensive. Without a doubt a large number of old movies will never be digitised. In particular Netflix is not much interested in movies without much of a modern audience esp if not in 16:9 format. Leading producers such as Eastwood, Ridley Scott have already been digitised as have classics such as "The Third Man" ( recently remastered in BluRay, recommended. ) That leaves literally thousands of movies of little interest to movie buffs or Netflix and with an audience which is still struggling with the demise of VHS.

A modern digital projector is around $ 150K and is not something an art house is going to spring for let alone the fees. There are only a handful of such places in the UK so they are inevitably going to be picky about what they show not wanting empty seats. The future of the 35mm prints themselves is also muddy. A 90min movie print costs around $30 K and the number of labs able to make such prints is falling quickly.

Commercial chains will not retain the ability to screen 35mm movies for very long as the studio distribution agreements demand digital capability and the supply of skilled projectionists is also in steep decline. Following the closure of the Westover Road cinemas there is no 35mm analogue projection capability in Bournemouth for instance.

Whether or not a movie is digitised does not depend on its age but supply and demand. Classic oldies and those with a strong audience will get the treatment (eg Bob Hope, Sinatra ). The BFI and like organisations will make fresh prints but their resources are limited and unreliable. So far they have not even managed to digitise the BBC classic "Roads to Freedom" for instance. A newish movie made in 35/70mm stock will only be digitised if the cost can be justified AND the myriad rights contracts sorted as well.

Much the same situation applies to TV where a lot of the archive is in betamax format.
https://imagenevp.com/obsolete-video-tape-formats/

So as I said if your local Odeon is putting out analogue movies (Saturday mornings or tea time?) with shortbreads n tea go for it 'cos the days are numbered.

fwiw the Studios regret DVD/BluRay and see streaming as the future both to the home and the "silver screen".

Why let facts get in the way....

Finding your feet was made in 2017 so it's not an olde