Protocol Document

days,” Barco opined. “Agnes Debaillie would be proud.”
Life Without 35mm: A Programmer’s Perspective
Despite a multiplicity of available formats for repertory titles that remain at his disposal (“VHS, that we
won’t do.”), Adam Birnbaum, director of programming at the Avon Theatre Film Center in Stamford,
Connecticut, has observed a “vacuum” being created for titles that may not warrant enough interest to
be converted to DCPs.
“We’ve been impacted in two areas,” he begins with the Avon’s very popular series of Cult Classics.
The 35mm pre-show that came as part of the fun package “enabled us to show the classic, pulp-movie
trailers, not only of the films that we were going to show but also of other titles from the same time
frame or similar genres,” he says. “I was also able to work with a few private collectors on a semi-
regular basis on certain films that fell out of the studio system. While they may not even have a rights-
holder attached anymore, collectors still have 35mm prints, particularly from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
While we can still show some of them because they are on DVD or Blu-ray discs, there was a certain
aesthetic allure to the cult crowd of seeing them on 35mm. The scratches and green emulsion lines
didn’t matter as part of that experience and were actually part of the charm. And the trailers themselves
were just terrific,” he says with an audible sigh. “That is something that we are working on,” Birnbaum
promises.
“Another area where we are finding this void is in our French Cinematheque program. I usually go back
and forth between a classic and a contemporary film each month.” While the latter usually don’t pose a
problem as long as they have a U.S. distributor, many of the Avon’s sources for classics do have them
on 35mm but not in any other format.
“35mm was the way all of these films have been preserved, stored and shown all these years. This is a
perfect example of an area of our business where the money just isn’t there to convert these films
immediately to a DCP or Blu-ray format, because the demand isn’t necessarily there. This is something
where I am stubbing my toe a bit, no longer able to find as much as I used to, now that the Avon no
longer has 35mm.”
So that the audience doesn’t have to rub their eyes, Birnbaum continues to check out any available,
non-DCP formats in advance to see how the transfer quality holds up once it’s shown through the d-
cinema projector. “We want to be confident that our audience will be satisfied with this presentation.
While we don’t want to compromise the image and the integrity of what we are showing at the theatre,
we also want to have the opportunity to program many of these great movies.”
Was it all worth it, then? “Losing out on a couple of programming opportunities by not having 35mm
versus the necessity of going digital and everything that we still can do is certainly a worthwhile tradeoff
for us. And the audience, by the way, loves the presentation… I think it was the right thing to do and the
right time, based on all the variables out there. In a perfect world, I wish we could do additional facility
upgrades and build a second projection booth that…is large enough to have side-by-side 35mm and d-
cinema equipment. That’s probably a pipe dream…on my wish list.”
Programmers at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles have had their wish list fulfilled.
Announcing their inaugural line-up of “well-known classics from the various studios” to celebrate the
installation of its NEC 4K projector at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, Calif., they promised a summer
of “gorgeous DCP presentations as you’ve never seen them before.”
But they are not giving up on 35mm. “In this time of rapid technological change within the film industry,”
the American Cinematheque says it remains “committed to the traditional beauty of film prints while also
embracing the impressive developments being made in digital projection. We’ve always been dedicated
to showcasing a variety of top-notch formats—from 70mm to six-track magnetic sound, to nitrate, to dye
transfer—and the DCP [Digital Cinema Package] is no different. The DCP format is unique in various
ways: uncompressed sound, zero generational degradations, and the ability to scan negatives at high
rates (labeled as 2K, 4K and 8K). These elements allow for perfect detail and color while retaining film
grain and, in some situations, recreating the look of Technicolor.”
We leave the last word to the Avon’s Birnbaum: “I have my own feelings about digital. It’s not black and
white in that I am a 35mm purist and hate digital. No, but I also do not think that digital is always better
than 35mm.”
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