Fixing James Bond's fuzzy problem

Author: Tom Brant

On Friday afternoon, as students were eagerly awaiting the Middlebury College Activities Board's (MCAB) screening of "Casino Royale," the latest movie in the James Bond series, projectionist Stewart Lane realized there was a problem: the distribution company had delivered the film reels to the College without leaders, one of the reels' crucial components.

After five hours of troubleshooting, Lane, who is a media services specialist at Library and Information Services (LIS), had fixed the reels, and the film was ready for showing in a nearly-full Dana Auditorium.

MCAB's Free Friday film series, of which "Casino Royale" was a part, has remained popular despite frequent technical problems that cause garbled sound or fuzzy picture quality, much to the chagrin of the audience.

But all those problems are about to change because of Lane's new position, according to Dean of LIS Barbara Doyle-Wilch. Lane is now in charge of film screenings full-time, which is the reason he was able to spend five hours fixing the film reels on Friday.

The establishment of Lane's new position is part of a larger shuffling of personnel started last spring at LIS, which manages everything from the preservation of fragile documents to the College's telephone system.

As part of the reshuffling, LIS is also searching for a new media and technology services manager, one who will be able to "push us into the next world in terms of media distribution," said Doyle-Wilch. The person is responsible, among other things, for film screenings.

"We want someone who really knows where the industry is going," she said, referring to the rapidly changing field of media technology.

Until the College can find such a person, screenings will continue to be run by Lane. These days, the students who previously ran the 35-millimeter projectors for evening film screenings by themselves now watch and learn from him.

"I think that we will see a huge difference in the quality of the screenings [with Lane in charge]", said Doyle-Wilch. "A lot of places have moved away from 35-millimeter film because it's so difficult to operate, but we're going to try to make our screenings better."

Doyle-Wilch stressed the importance of film screenings as part of the College's media offerings, noting that there were almost 800 film screenings last year. By asking Lane, who is an experienced projectionist, to show the films, problems should be less frequent, she said. Lane agreed with Doyle-Wilch's assessment.

"At the very least, I think it's good to have someone with experience," he said.

Lane started working for the College in 1997 as a projectionist, before switching over to coordinate classroom multimedia, such as the LCD projectors that professors use. In the fall, Doyle-Wilch asked him to return to 35-millimeter projection in order to improve the quality of the screenings.

"Last fall, the screenings weren't exactly what I would call perfect," said Lane. "They may never be perfect, but that's what we're striving for." He explained that 35-millimeter film projection is inherently complicated, and usually requires a professional to operate.

"It's an art and a science, and it takes a lot of practice," Lane said.

Commercial theaters typically use automated projectors that do not require reels to be switched in the middle of a movie. But Dana Auditorium has an older double-reel system with two projectors, which requires the projectionist to manually change reels during the film. The changes have to be extremely accurate, and if they are off by as much as a few seconds, the picture and sound can be distorted or even disappear, soliciting groans from the audience.

Last fall's screening of the French film "CachÈ" featured both of these problems, said Hannah Parker '10.

"The top of the film was cut off the screen, and it was really out of focus," she said. Eventually, a student stepped out of the projection room and told the audience that the film would be restarted from the beginning.

Occurrences like these have been less frequent under Lane's guidance. The focus problems were fixed after he discovered that one of the projectors' telephoto lenses had been incorrectly rotated.

The improvements in screening quality have not gone unnoticed by the student body. Hannah Epelbaum '09 saw "Little Miss Sunshine" at Dana recently, and said that there were no problems with the picture quality, though at times the sound was not quite loud enough.

With a new media tech manager and Lane as LIS's secret weapon for 35-millimeter film screenings, prospects are looking up for students who want to enjoy their free Friday night films without interruption from out-of-focus picture or lousy sound quality.

On the whole, the screening of "Casino Royale" went well. But even professionals like Lane occasionally make botched reel changes, and a groan went up from the audience when the screen momentarily went blank. Luckily, Lane was able to recover, and the picture came back after a few seconds, just in time for James Bond to kill someone else.