A burning problem, literally!

By K. V. S. Madhav

HYDERABAD, NOV. 17. Was the silver screen aflame? A black mist enveloped it and the reels that were unspooled were clearly afire as the screening came to a grinding halt. Minutes ticked by, but to no avail.

Bad handling of prints, the burning problem with the city cinema halls, continued to plague the international film festivals hosted here. This time, it was at the 12th edition of the International Children's film festival under way.

The script repeated itself on Saturday as Cao Hambvrger's Brazilian movie, "Ra-Tim-Bum Castle", was being screened at the festival's main venue, the twin theatre complex Santosh-Sapna and a problem in the archaic arc lamp projector resulted in a few frames getting burnt fully.

On Friday, it was the 1937 Robert Flaherty classic, "Elephant Boy" that bore the brunt of the rank bad screening facility. Here again, a frame or two got damaged permanently.

"There was a delay in closing down the arc lamp as a joint in the film passing through the focus point got stuck and a frame got burnt in the flare of the lamp," the festival director, Mr. P.K. Nair, said.

With no technical experts from the festival committee available at that moment, it took all the experience of two seasoned filmmakers to rescue the situation. Noted filmmakers, Mr. K. Hariharan and Mr. A.K. Bir who were among the audience rushed to the projection room and switched off the system preventing further damage.

"We called a sound engineer and got the problem sorted out. The film's screening was stopped for about 20 minutes," he said. Even as the screening resumed, there was more chaos. "The film was running backwards," a shocked film buff complained. The lens alignment was apparently not done correctly!

"There were problems right from the beginning. The screening lacked sharpness and the images were fully blurred. Repeated requests and protests from the children somehow helped matters. But, only for a few minutes as the "frames got burnt".

"These frames cannot be replaced. Luckily, the damage was minimal. However, the few frames lost will not affect the film's narrative as they will hardly be noticed," Mr. Nair explained. The prints were later rushed to the Andhra Pradesh State Film Development Corporation's print checking unit to "cleanse and correct them".

Though the international film festivals require certain norms, unfortunately our theatres fall short of them. They use arc lamp projectors while the latest Xenon projectors that ensure constant intensity of light throughout the screening are used everywhere, he said.

Though this is an expensive proposition, concern for quality more so for a prestigious event like this should originate from theatre managements. Surely, the criticism of Hyderabad as the permanent venue for the film festival continues to haunt it.

A major complaint during the last few editions of the festival as also the International Film Festival of India, 1999, has been the "rank bad" screening facilities. And bad handling of prints. Both of which have cropped up yet again.

This time again, the theatres were neither spruced up nor the projection and sound systems improved, leading to clouded images and jarring sounds, much to the chagrin of the viewers as also the filmmakers.

For ardent film buffs, all that matters is being treated to superior quality films shown as they are. "It is disheartening to see such painstakingly made works, being shown so shoddily," viewers complained.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : CM for agency to respond to terrorist attacks
Next     : Understanding child artistes