Anyone know this guy personally?

[Trevor]

https://www.caboosebooks.net/node/52

I almost forgot about this one. 

[RCMerchant]

Cool! 

[indianasmith]

Nice write-up!

[Newt]

Great writeup!  And cool pictures, too. 

[Alex]

 

[Rev. Powell]

No, he's similar to a guy I know, but the guy I'm thinking of is mainly known for his underpants.

[Trevor]

Great writeup!  And cool pictures, too.  

I also forgot that the online publishers asked me to cut the original down and what do you know? I have the original! Stuff in bold is what I had to cut.  

By way of introduction, I should just state that my parents are entirely to blame for introducing me to cinema in 1974 when I turned seven: they had to drag me kicking and screaming into an allegedly horrible place called THE CINEMA as I didn't want to go in. After Sidney Lumet's Murder On The Orient Express had finished, my parents had to drag me kicking and screaming out of the cinema as I didn't want to leave.  

My title expresses my belief as a film archivist that the film productions we preserve as the SANFVSA must be screened and shown to all. They must of course be transferred to a digital tape medium as well ~ most of the full length feature films produced in South Africa since Harold Shaw's De Voortrekkers [The Pathfinders: 1916] have been digitized by the NFVSA in this way ~ and there must be much more than one 35mm or 16mm copy available, but they must not lay unseen on a shelf gathering dust for years. The only time that film truly lives is with the addition of light, a shutter, a projection gate, a take up spool, a speaker, a screen and a lens: if a film is not shown, it is as good as dead.

On Friday December 1st, 1989, I started work at the SANFVSA, little knowing then that I had found my life's work. Parts of my duties were to prepare and project archival films for the students that regularly visited the SANFVSA.  To this end, I was taught projection by the then head of the NFVSA, who screamed at me when I didn't make the film gate loops large enough and also when I later burnt a projector motor out when I accidentally plugged the wrong power supply cable into the wrong socket. Worse was to come when I failed to start the motor on another projector correctly and on time, he swore at me.  It is very surprising to me, almost a quarter-century down the line, that this tiny tirade of abuse did not put me off projection altogether.

The SANFVSA had weekly screenings of films for students who requested films such as D W Griffith's Intolerance and Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers amongst others. We had to project these as they were in our collection, despite the fact that our collections policy enforces the preservation of productions made in or about South Africa only.  (Now if someone could just explain to me how and why a 16mm copy of the Star Trek episode The Immunity Syndrome landed up in our collection, I would feel good.) The student screenings, accompanied by talks I gave on the history of the South African cinema were something that I always looked forward to and still do, despite the never-ending presence of "what on earth am I doing here" expressions on most of their faces.

I can remember a day when the students were plainly bored with the film I was screening, tapping away at their mobile phones, yawning and talking ~ the latter two at the same time ~ and I lost my temper with them, telling them that they were wasting their time sitting there if they did not have any interest in the history of the industry they were soon to be working in. I switched off the projector and told them to leave if they were not prepared to show the pioneers of Africa's oldest film industry some respect, even if the films were, as they put it, 'old and creaky'.  Needless to say, all were stunned into silence, no one left and the lecturer was actually quite impressed with me: not with me losing my temper but with my expressed passion and love for both my work and the history thereof. Those two latter descriptive terms have endured but my temper has mellowed since then. Slightly.

In fact, it was just those expressions and the synchronized yawns of the students which led me to encourage them to have an interest in one of the oldest film industries in the world, having had its' beginnings in 1895 when films were first screened in Africa. To a large extent, I have succeeded and I always say that if I can inspire just one student the way I was inspired then I have done my job.

My duties at the SANFVSA involve answering film enquiries but screenings still occur, mostly at film festivals where screenings of films long unseen were welcomed. At the 1998 Klein Karoo Arts Festival, the SANFVSA screened a retrospective of two of South Africa's filmmakers, Emil Nofal and Jans Rautenbach and at a screening of the frightening Jannie Totsiens [Johnny Farewell] directed by the latter, I had to stop the screening due to a film reel fault. As if this was not bad enough, the director was present. All was forgiven, however and films long unseen in South African cinemas were once again being seen and appreciated ~ my SANFVSA colleagues and I were in the forefront of that movement.

The following year at the same festival we screened one specific film amongst others, which, although a resounding box-office and critical success, was never lodged with the SANFVSA due to the director's very public dislike for our institution. The manager of the cinema handed the print over to me and I took it up to the booth to prepare it. About ten minutes later, I was greeted by what sounded like an over-anxious elephant storming up the stairs and was almost smacked in the face by the projection room door being flung open by this film's director who demanded to know where the print was, what the film's condition was like and when it would be ready for screening. I told the director that the print was in a shoddy state with torn sprocket holes, ropelines, bad splices, dirt and that it would take hours to repair. Please note that I had not yet opened the box when I informed the director of the film's condition.  After the director had stormed out of the cinema ~ almost walking straight through the cinema's glass doors in anger, according to the bemused manager ~ I found that the print was in excellent condition, with none of the problems one normally associates with a print that had not been archived correctly, i.e. one not archived with the SANFVSA.

It was not long after the first screenings when almost all of the feature films in the care of the SANFVSA began to be transferred to a digital tape medium due to the renewed interest sparked by our screenings.

Screenings also occurred at the Volksbladfees in Bloemfontein and I talked to the paying audiences who attended, telling them what the SANFVSA does and what it could do for them. Weirdness ensued. The audiences were a little taken back (to say the least) when I stood up to talk to them, prior to projecting the film. In fact, one lady was so taken aback that she abruptly told me to shut up and sit down. I was also taken to task by a member of the audience who lambasted me for saying that South Africa's controversial political thriller Die Kandidaat [The Candidate: 1968] was a caricature of the feared and faceless Afrikaner Brotherhood to which almost all of the previous government's ministers had belonged. As a film historian with this film's director as my mentor, I informed her that this was in fact the case and that was how that organization was dealt with in the film ~ her answer was that her husband was a member of that organization and he would "come and sort me out".

The screening of the 1969 South African film Katrina ~ a searing indictment of the inhuman apartheid laws of the day ~ provoked a similar reaction in that same year, but far more emotional. 120 people went into the cinema dry-eyed: 120 people left crying. That film is the true test of whether anyone has a soul or not.

At the same festival, I also had to deal with an uppity, anal cinema manager who refused point blank to allow his projectionists to screen our archival prints as "they were not in good condition" so I took over the preparation and projection of the prints myself, informing him that I usually spoke to the audience before each screening and would deal with any complaints personally: nothing would come to or reflect on him adversely.  Once the crowds started arriving, the manager realized his mistake and tried to take over the screenings once again. I told him in no uncertain terms that he had said the prints were no good and that if he laid a finger on our prints, I would not only contact his bosses in Johannesburg but I would also take our prints and go home.

This manager was fired a few months thereafter for assaulting a customer who complained about the lack of seasoning for the popcorn ~ that added salt to the wound, no doubt.

The following year at the same venue, I decided to do a little subtle promotion of the films being screened by adding trailers onto the start of each production's first reel to advertise the films to come in the screenings. Little did I know that adding trailers was against this particular cinema group's rules ~ adverts and trailers had to be passed through their particular advertising agency ~ and it was not long before the manager called me into her office to enquire about these trailers. I said that I knew nothing about the trailers. She found it strange that the trailers advertised every single film due for screening at the festival but left it there: I think I managed to convince her of my innocence in this matter, despite the fact that I spliced the trailers onto each first reel.

I have screened films in almost every conceivable place across the length and breadth of South Africa from under the stars screenings, on the side of a truck, in a flea-infested hotel, in a disused church hall, in a church itself, in a farm's barn, on the wall of a house, at retirement villages, in school halls and at many different cinemas around the country, including the one at the SANFVSA. The purpose? To evoke interest in the product of one of the oldest film industries in the world: nothing more than that.

Another memorable screening occurred a few years later when the Flame Lily Foundation contacted the SANFVSA for a possible screening of the production Shangani Patrol for ex-Zimbabweans living in Pretoria. I had the privilege of not only screening this 1970 film to over one hundred people, but I also had the pleasure of having my parents with me so I had come full circle. In a sense I have never left the Embassy Cinema in what was then Gwelo, Rhodesia and in a sense, I probably never will: a small part of me will always be there.

I cannot imagine a life as a film archivist or indeed a projectionist without hearing the unmistakable sounds of a reel of film whirring through a projection gate. The day that film projection ceases to exist in its' entirety is the day that I can be consigned to the archives as a relic of the past.

[Trevor]

I'd forgotten about that idiot manager in Bloemfontein and also the fact that I hoodwinked his replacement - a very nice lady - into thinking I had nothing whatsoever to do with adding trailers to the films  

[Allhallowsday]

No, he's similar to a guy I know, but the guy I'm thinking of is mainly known for his underpants.

[chainsaw midget]

Anyone know this guy personally?

Never met the guy. 

[Trevor]

Anyone know this guy personally?

Never met the guy. 

Most people are glad they haven't 

[Trevor]

No, he's similar to a guy I know, but the guy I'm thinking of is mainly known for his underpants.

[Rev. Powell]

No, he's similar to a guy I know, but the guy I'm thinking of is mainly known for his underpants.

Good to know he's also an outstanding expert in his field. 

[Trevor]

No, he's similar to a guy I know, but the guy I'm thinking of is mainly known for his underpants.

Good to know he's also an outstanding expert in his field.