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Topic: "Cinema Paradiso" and Cinemecchanica in Italy...

Ben Wales
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 602
From: Southampton. England
Registered: Jul 99

posted 04-21-2001 05:54 PM

Leo - Do you have fitted to your CNR 35 Platter feed module the two wire guards that screw on the feed arm?.

the older ones where never fitted with these, several years ago we had the same problem with "Wraps" on CNR Platters, but improved greatly with these guards.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 04-21-2001 06:06 PM

We've got them on one feed unit. They help a little, but they certainly don't stop the problem.

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 04-23-2001 06:30 AM

Carbon tetrachloride was once used as a fire fighting agent. I believe it acted by cooling the fire (it was a fast evaporating non-flammable solvent) and by smothering the fire by the fumes it generated when it contacted the flames. However, the fumes were very LETHAL, and included hydrogen chloride, chlorine, and phosgene (used in gas warfare):
http://hazard.com/msds2/mf/cards/file/0024.html

"CHEMICAL DANGERS: On contact with hot surfaces or flames this substance decomposes
forming toxic and irritating fumes (hydrogen chloride, ICSC # 0163;
chlorine, ICSC # 0126; phosgene, ICSC # 0007). Reacts violently with some
metals such as aluminium, barium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, with
fluorine and other substances, causing fire and explosion hazard. Attacks
copper, lead and zinc."

AFAIC, if used to put out a fire, it was more likely to kill you than the fire.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Eastman Kodak Company
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7419
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: 716-477-5325 Cell: 716-781-4036 Fax: 716-722-7243
E-Mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 04-23-2001 12:57 PM

Then I can't see how it would extinguish a nitrate fire (given that it can't be smothered), unless it cooled the source fuel (i.e. the nitrate film stock) to below the temperature at which it can ignite. I guess that the amount of chemical needed to achieve this would depend on the size and intensity of the blaze.

In any case, the stuff sounds as dangerous as nitrate fumes, if not more so.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-04-2001 07:49 PM

I just watched C.P again a few days ago. This time I saw in on DVD so it was easier to freeze frame the movie.

I said earler that Alfredo opened the magazine and tried to fight the fire.

Well, on closer examination, it turns out that he literally THREW Toto out of the booth and then went over to the projector (I assume to shut it down or something) At this point he gets his legs tangled up in a pile of burning film. As he's trying to free himself from that mess, the magazine bursts open (from the pressure, I guess) and the flames spew out and hit him in the face.

Next, Toto comes back up the spiral staircase and drags Alfredo to safety by the pantlegs.

Just thought I should clear up that little mistake I made earlier.

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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000

posted 06-04-2001 11:19 PM

I read somewhere about the old projection booths, they referred to a "dead man's door", but didn't really explain it. I'm thinking of some kind of fire door that either the projectionist had to close on the way out or had only so long before it closed so as to protect the audience. Was there such a thing, or is this urban legend?

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 06-05-2001 02:17 AM

English law specified that every projection box had to have two separate exits, one of which had to lead directly to the outside of the building. Under the 1956 Cinematograph Act that is still a condition for any theatre being granted a licence to use nitrate on its premises (of which only 2 that I know of remain).

So if a "dead man's door" was one that closed automatically, then there wouldn't have been any point in having them on doors which lead directly out of the building. If anything you'd want that to stay open in order to let the fumes out. Because burning nitrate produces its own oxygen, there's no point in attempting to control the fire by restricting airflow, so you might as well let the fumes out.

But I can see that a fire-resistant, automatically closing door would have been a good idea for any interior (partition) doors leading out of the projection box, since it would prevent the fumes from affecting other parts of the building. The projectionists(s) would escape through the exterior and down a fire escape staircase.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 06-05-2001 10:36 PM

My personal favorite theatre in DC was the K-B MacArthur...The booth doors were automatic in case of fire...they had the same rigging as the shutters over the ports...if the link was melted a very heavy weight would pull the inside doors shut and with a rather heavy bar would hold them shut. These doors were rather heavy and clearly designed to take a fire. The doors that actually opened into the hallway were standard metal doors so in effect you had an air-lock between the booth and the exiting hallway. Since the theatre was built into a hillside, the booth had an "at grade" exit even though it was on the second floor.

Steve

------------------
"Old projectionists never die, they just changeover!"

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 05-26-2004 07:21 PM

It has been 1085 days since the last post.

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David M. Dorn
Film Handler

Posts: 35
From: Hartford, CT USA
Registered: Mar 2004

posted 05-26-2004 07:21 PM

I just my copy of the new release. I did freeze frames on the pre fire projector scenes, 'PREVOST" can clearly be seen on the projector head. In the after fire scenes, the head looks similar but I could not see a name. What intrigued me about the post fire scenes (new version) was the sound system (?) box on the wall. In one scene the projector is running and you can see the lights flashing. It is the same color as the projector and lamphouse. Did Prevost make sound equipment?

The new version from Miramaxclassics contains BOTH the original international version and the new director's cut. Interstingly, I found out that the original Italian release has a length between the international version and the director's cut.

Does anyone know if the original Italian release is available on DVD. It should have a running time of 155 minutes vs. 123 for the International release and 170 for the Director's cut.
David

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-26-2004 08:08 PM

"If you put one Prevost's tech and one cinemeccanica''s tech into the same room, they will kill each other within few minutes..."
_________________________________________________________________

Bwahahahhahah... That is absolutey hilarious! Somehow I missed that line. That would make a great T-Shirt for sure. Of course the Cinemecanicca guy suffers from Parkinsons and can't tell just how bad the lateral shake is in his projector and the Prevost tech suffers a learning disability and a low IQ.

Over here in the U.S. if you put a Simplex tech and Century tech in the same room they will get each others parts mixed up and end up with the others parts in the opposite projector [Big Grin]

!

Mark

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Paul Trimboli
Master Film Handler

Posts: 274
From: Perth Western Australia
Registered: Dec 2002

posted 05-29-2004 07:54 AM

I watched Cinema Paradiso, and that second machine is a Cinemecannica, it said it on it on one of the scenes, will have to find which scene it was and post it.

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Giorgio Volpi
Film Handler

Posts: 51
From: Caracas - Venezuela
Registered: Mar 2002

posted 05-29-2004 10:15 AM

Hi,
this is a Prevost's short history, from their web page:

Prevost cinema equipments are well known by everybody who loves cinema: not only experts of the field, but also movie lovers. The name Prevost evokes the fascination of the movie technique, of the "montage" (cutting and splicing) and of the projection.
Prevost is the projector that symbolically went up in flames in Giuseppe Tornatore's film "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" and Prevost is the film editing table in Wim Wender's "Lisbon story", where the protagonist saw again his friend vanished in the nothingness.
At the end of this millennium, the weekly magazine "Panorama" included the Prevost projector among the symbol-articles of the XX century. The Prevost family has French origins and is inseparable from the movie world. Pierre Prevost, at the end of the seventeenth century at Paris, is "Panorama teacher" (an artist in the middle between the landscape painter and the director-performer of nowadays).
Pierre is also guide and motivator of the great Daguerre, who in 1822 created the diorama (a kind of theater with special effects, without actors, elaborated and sophisticated pre-cinema entertainment) and later the Daguerrotype (first example of photography).
Attilio Prevost senior (1890-1954), who since he was a young man showed a great passion for filming, founded the Prevost Company at the beginning of the XIX century.
In 1910 Attilio created the first model of Prevost Cinecamera and joined the Italian expedition to Libya, where he filmed with the new equipment the first documentary. In the 1915-1918 war Attilio Prevost was sent to the front as official filmmaker and filmed historically exceptional images of battlefields, which are now conserved in the Italian state archives.
In the following years Attilio and his nephew Attilio junior dedicated themselves exclusively to the manufacture of cinema film equipments and to their exportation all over the world.
The name Prevost became very soon a myth, a basic reference point in the cinema history. Orson Welles, every time he began a new film, ordered a Prevost customer made film editing table; Herbert von Karajan wanted a Prevost three-way Cine-camera for the filming of his extraordinary concerts; Federico Fellini and Dino de Laurentiis have been among the most loyal customers and appreciators of the company.
Today Prevost is going on developing continuous updating of their professional "classic" projectors, supplies special equipments for the last generation of multiplexes cinemas, and produces the very new ultra-light portable projectors to bring the magic of cinema even in the most inaccessible and adventurous places.

Definitely the CP projector is a Prevost ...
Giorgio.

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System Notices
Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi

Posts: 215

Registered: Apr 2004

posted 08-11-2008 02:21 PM

It has been 1535 days since the last post.

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Demetris Thoupis
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1240
From: Aradippou, Larnaca, Cyprus
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 08-11-2008 02:21 PM

Well after checking the pictures again I apologise for stating the projector is a V8.
It can only be one of these models
V5R or V6.
The V6 has a soundhead design like a V10 which is completely removable from the projector. I am leaning more toward the V5R model but it could be a V6 as well.

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