Ten years ago, a technological revolution swept through cinemas around the world, as analogue projectors were replaced with digital equipment. It was not just the plastic medium of film that was removed from projection boxes during this transformation; most cinemas took this opportunity to also evict the human projectionists who were hitherto in charge of screenings. Projectionists had been hidden from the sight of audiences for most of the history of photographic moving image projection, and their redundancies went largely unnoticed and unremarked upon. 
This book focuses attention on what has been happening behind film spectators' heads for the past 130 years, and attempts to write the history of cinema in Britain from the perspective of its habitually overlooked and undervalued projectionists, beginning in the silent era and continuing to the present day. Drawing upon extensive archival research and lengthy interviews with former projectionists, it documents the key facets and challenges of their work, and how these evolved in response to previous waves of significant technological change. It evaluates how projectionists helped to design and maintain key aesthetic characteristics of the 20th century big screen experience. It shows how the institution of cinema in Britain has been historically underpinned by the harsh exploitation of projectionists by many employers, detailing inadequate wage levels and poor working conditions that formerly provoked government investigation, and explaining why these problems were never successfully ameliorated by trade unions. It also charts in depth the recent fateful transition to digital projection, delineating how and why projectionists were so swiftly and ruthlessly consigned to the past, and assessing whether this form of entertainment should be considered diminished by their super session.

Reel Change: A History of British Cinema from the Projection Box

Arts & Photography

WALLACE, RICHARD

Burrows, Jon

Photography & Video

John Libbey Publishing

This book examines why thousands of cinemas opened in Britain in the space of a few years before the start of the First World War. It explains how they were the product of an investment boom which observers characterised as economically irrational and irresponsible. Burrows profiles the main groups of people who started cinema companies during this period, and those who bought shares in them, and considers whether the early cinema business might be seen as a bubble that burst. The book examines the impact of the Cinematograph Act 1909 upon the boom, and explains why British film production seemed to decline in inverse proportion to the mass expansion of the market for moving image entertainment. This account also takes a new look at the development of film distribution, the emergence of the feature film and the creation of the British Board of Film Censors. Making systematic and pioneering use of surviving business and local government records, this book will appeal to anyone interested in silent cinema, the history of film exhibition and the economics of popular culture.     

The British Cinema Boom, 1909–1914: A Commercial History

Business & Money

Industries

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

This story is the direct result of me sitting in the Athens airport departure lounge waiting for my flight back to the UK, picking bits of bright green expanded polyurethane adhesive out of my hair and dark brown polyester resin from my beard. I think that the realisation that I had glued my feet into my boat shoes and stuck my toes together brought home the absurdity into which my life had descended. My situation was hammered home when the security people asked me to take off my shoes before I walked through the airport scanner. I had to tear great lumps of skin from my insoles to get the shoes off. What was revealed was akin to some disgusting tropical foot disease and brought horrified gasps from the security girl. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and say "I have a boat", and to most Greeks that explains everything. How often have you sat in a sterile workplace and dreamed of sun, blue sea and bright sunny islands? Does your dream involve a boat or the enchanted Aegean? Are you ready for the reality? The truth is that living your dream can be more akin to wrestling with demons or riding your nightmares. This is the story of my wife and I and a shared dream of cruising the eastern Mediterranean, basking in the hot sun, swimming in warm seas and enjoying the food and wine. However all of the years of our boating in Northern Europe could not equip us for the chaos and insanity we live every time we step aboard, nor did it equip us for the crazy and sometimes loveable people we regularly encounter.At first we thought that fate had specially selected us for its entertainment, but as the years have rolled on we have met others similarly cursed. And a curse it is. Crazy enough to make you want to sell up and walk away but perfect enough to make you want to go aboard time after time.So if you have the dream read this first and consider taking up golf. It's cheaper and safer.

A Bertram, the Aegean and Two Virgins: Tales of chaos and confusion from two virgin sailors let loose in the Greek sea

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

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Books by Burrows, Jon