For some strange reason I picked up a virus in the notebook and had to spend some time this morning doing my first session on working to fix things up.
At 10.30am I walked down to the station to meet my brother who had kindly interrupted his very busy schedule and take a three hour train trip down from New York City in order to meet me. His train was early and we took a quick walk over to the "Cheesecake Factory" and had was supposed to be an entree sized salad - which turned out to be enormous. We caught up with all the news of the moment, and then had to say our goodbyes after only an hour or so in each other's company as I had to catch a bus for Woonsocket R.I.
I was looking forward to the next concert on the list as it was to be the silent picture "Sunrise" (1927) with George O'Brien and Janet Gaynor, accompanied on the 2/10 Wurlitzer of the Stadium Theatre by Dr. Steven Ball.
The Stadium Theatre was built in 1926 and as the name implies, is indeed a stadium style theatre architecturally. The theatre interior has been renovated and restored but unfortunately the organ - an original installation has not as yet been restored to a completely playable condition. Having said that, there is enough of it working to get enough out of it.
The way the film was presented was a little disappointing to someone who has had cinema experience. Firstly the frame size had not been achieved correctly on the screen, parts of the bottom of the picture appeared on the bottom black edge, also the sides of the screen had not been masked to allow for academy - we had the white showing from widescreen. As well as that, the film was projected by a domestic DVD projector meant for a throw of about 4.5 metres, instead the throw was up to 15 metres of more so the luminescence on the screen was extremely low yielding a very low contrast. With a silent picture it is important to give clear black and whites so that the grey shadows are clearly visible as well as all the detail in the picture as with silents, the visuals are all important.
Having said that, it was good to see the picture well received by the audience and a good score from Steven Ball which played to the picture quite well. A big plus to him to for getting what he did out of the organ.
In the evening we had the Convention dinner at some huge "complex" - restaurant and function centre called the "Venus de Milo". Again it was a buffet affair and was adequate but not anything to write home about. Afterwards we had the awards ceremony which I thought quite amusing, but most were taking it all seriously.
On coming back to the hotel, I spent more time getting all the bugs out of my computer. Hopefully I will find more secure systems from here on in?
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