Brooklyn Film Works, which opens next Tuesday night (June 27th) with Little Fugitve, has it’s own quasi dramatic backstory.
It all started months ago when Kim Maier, director extradonaire of The Old Stone House, proposed the idea of a summer film festival in JJ Byrne Park. I loved the idea right away and got to thinking about Brooklyn-related films to include in the festival.
But there were a few technical details that needed to be worked out. Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.
I decided to get in touch with an old friend of mine from my video production days, who now works for Scharff Weisberg, providers of audio, video, and lighting technology. I told him we had no money, that we were doing the project as a community service very much on the cheap. He was game to try to help us out.
My friend came to JJ Byrne Park to scope out the site and offered us advice about where to put the projector and screen. A few days later, he emailed us an equipment list that was a tad more ambitious than what we had in mind.
Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.
My friend did say, however, that Scharff Weisberg would be willing to loan us a video projector for the four screenings. Somewhere along the way it was decided that we would project a 12 x 15 ft. image.
But what would we project the image on? Good question. My friend at Scharff Weisberg suggested I have a screen made at Rosebrand, a company that specializes in theatrical drapes, scrims and screens. When I called Rosebrand, the sales representative asked me all kinds of questions…what size, what material?
We decided on white seamless muslin with a black duvatine back. Then the sales representative asked: Do you want gromits and webs? I didn’t have a clue what gromits and webs were.
So I called my friend Bob at Showman Fabricators, who lives in Park Slope, and told him I was having a screen made and I wondered if he could help me figure out a way to frame the screen so that we could project a movie on it.
And by the way what are gromits and webs?
He said he could make a frame for the screen out of aluminum pipes. He’d deliver five pipes that could be made into a 12 x 15 ft. rectangle with key clamps or speed rail.
And then he called the sales representative at Rosebrand and told them what kind of webs and gromits we’d need because that’s how we were going to attach the screen to the pipes.
I still didn’t know exactly where we were going to put the screen – between the trees on the north side of the house or against the fence in front of the house?
I figured we’d figure it out.
Well, tonight Bob from Showman Fabricators delivered the pipes and walked around the site and said that it might be impossible to tie the screen to the trees or to put it against the fence in front of the house. Wind would be the big problem. The frame with a 12 x 15 ft. fabric screen was like a sail. And if a big gust of wind came along…
Kim said she’d be happy with a bed sheet and a home projector. I guess I had something bigger in mind.
So there we were — me, Kim, Bob from Showman, Bill the projectionist, standing outside of the Old Stone House trying to figure out what to do. For a moment I thought we might have to get a bed sheet and a home projector. Maybe what we were trying to do was impossible, too ambitious, too BIG.
Then I remembered something that Hepcat suggested a few months ago: we could get a truck and tie the frame and screen to the truck.
Bingo. Everyone seemed to like the idea. We talked about calling U-Haul and other truck companies. When I got home I told Hepcat all about our screen problems, the truck. He sighed a bit. Did some thinking. Sighed again.
"I’ve got it," he said. "I can put the old roof rack on top of our Volvo station wagon and I will clamp two pieces of pipe horizontally to the roof rack and attach that to key fittings,,,"
"Are you sure it’s going to work?" I asked gently.
"Look who was raised by engineers and who was raised by an advertising executive?"
"In other words, have faith in you, right?"
"Right."
And I do. So tomorrow night Hepcat will test out his idea.
On June 27th, not only will you get to see Little Fugitive directed by Morris Engels and Ruth Orkin, the film that inspired Francois Truffaut and John Cassavetes and was nomiated for an Academy Award, and won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival…
But you get to find out the ending of the "screen drama." Will Hepcat’s Volvo plan work out. Will there be enough power to run the projector. Will anyone show up to the show…
You’re just going to have to wait. Whatever happens, it should be interesting.
June 27th Little Fugitive about a boy who runs away to Coney Island.
July 11: Coney Island: The American Experience a documentary by Ric Burns
July 18: Moonstruck, the Carroll Gardens Classic with Cher
July 25: The Long Good Bye with Brooklyn native, Elliot Gould. Directed by Robert Altman.
All Tuesdays. 8:30. Food concession by Stone Park Cafe. Made possible with the generous support of Methodist Hospital, Scharff Weisberg Inc, and Showman Fabricators.