The film itself

 

Below is the film itself - it comes on 5 reels, each ~20 mins long. And then my Build a Bear dragon helping me pack the box!

The projection booth

 

And here is the projection room (or "projection booth") of the cinema we showed it at! They have two projectors, this is needed to switch between the 5 reels. You start a reel running on one projector, and then as it ends, you start the next projector. If you time it right, the audience doesn't notice that there's been a change! This is known as "changeovers" in the projection world.

For the nerds like myself, these projectors are Philips DP70s - considered to be one of the best projectors ever made.

Threading up the film

 

To project analog film, you need to thread it up in the projector. This allows the projector to advance the film 24 frames every second, shining a light through the current frame, and onto the screen. Below shows the projector first without any film threaded, and then with film threaded in it.

Watching the movie

 

And once that was all done, we watched the movie! If you've not had the chance to see HTTYD1 in a cinema before, it's a treat, and worth doing if you get the chance. Everything is much better on the big screen. And the quality is far superior to the DVD, and even the BluRay.

Here are some shots of the film as we watched it. It looked stunning!


And of course, my favourite scene, Forbidden Friendship:

The "lost" animation error

 

Did you know that when HTTYD1 was first animated, there was an error? You'll remember that when Hiccup first sketches Toothless in his notepad, he sees the missing fin and rubs it out. Later on we see the smudged fin when he places his notebook down on top of the dragon manual.

But - the original animated version of the film had a mistake - they used the wrong texture for this second scene, so the tail appears unsmudged! If you saw the movie in cinemas in 2010 you may have spotted this - but it was then fixed for the dvd/bluray editions, and has also been fixed in cinema re-releases. So watching a 35mm copy is really the only way to see this difference!

Below is a screenshot of the smudged fin that you'll be familiar with from the DVD, and then a picture from the cinema showing that it originally had the error!

Dragonrider's Fury

11 Mar 2024, 12:27

I'd have loved to attend, and meet up with a few Grapeviners in person. Are you planning on doing something like this again sometime?

hictooth

11 Mar 2024, 14:12

I won't say I'll never do one in the US again, but it requires finding a friendly cinema, and also carrying the 20kg (~45lbs for you Americans!) film print around the airport, in a box that doesn't have wheels or handles (I didn't want to check it because of it's value and fragile-ness) was the most exercise I've done in many years, and really tired me out!

But if you're ever planning on coming to the UK... let me know

hictooth

18 Mar 2024, 17:27

Aaaand one last picture, the HTTYD poster that we all signed!
-{snip}-