Richard Wallace - Reel Change: A History of British Cinema from the Projection Box

Reel Change: A History of British Cinema from the Projection Box

This book is dedicated to Frank Gibson, whose great skill, resourcefulness and collegiality inspired us to pay attention to that person behind the curtain.

Reel Change: A History of British Cinema from the Projection Box

Richard Wallace and Jon Burrows

Afterword by Charlotte Brunsdon

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Reel Change:

A History of British Cinema from the Projection Box

A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9780 86196 751 3 (Paperback)

ISBN: 9780 86196 983 8 (ebook-EPUB)

ISBN: 9780 86196 984 5 (ebook-EPDF)

Front cover:Allan Foster in the projection box at the Hyde Park Picture House Cinema, Leeds.

Image Richard Nicholson.

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T he research upon which this book is based was conducted for the AHRC-funded research project The Projection Project (grant reference AH/L008033/1), which ran from 2014 to 2018. Additional funding for project-related activities that have benefited the research, writing and production of this book also came from the University of Warwicks Humanities Research Fund and from the universitys Connecting Cultures Global Research Priority fund.

The project would not have been possible without the involvement of our partners Richard Paterson at the British Film Institute, Ian Francis, the director of Birminghams Flatpack Festival, and Richard Nicholson, whose The Projectionists exhibition held as part of Flatpacks 2016 festival was a highlight of the project. The project was also expertly steered by our brilliant advisory board: Charlotte Crofts, Allen Eyles, Ann Gray, Peter J Knight, Lawrence Napper, Roger Shannon, and Ken Worpole. The board made numerous suggestions that had an important bearing on how the project and its outputs developed.

There are two other members of the projects research team Michael Pigott and Claire Jesson who did not directly contribute to this book, but played a significant role in shaping some of its arguments through their contributions to the project reading group. The project was also expertly supported by our administrators, Elaine Robinson, Anne Birchall, Sabina Ahmed and Tracey McVey, and the team from Research Support Services at Warwick, especially Katie Klaasen, Liese Perrin, Harriet Hine and Colette Kelly. We should also like to thank former undergraduate students Thom Clipsom, who assisted in the early development of the project, and Elliott Howarth, who gathered portions of the research materials included in .

Much of the research for this book took place in a range of archives across the UK and we are very grateful for the support and dedication of the following people: Michelle Gait and Jan Smith of the Wolfson Reading Room, Special Collections Centre, The Sir Duncan Rice Library, Aberdeen University; Carolyn Ewing at the Coventry History Centre; Lynette Cawthra at the Working Class Movement Library, Salford; Liz Wood, Martin Sanders and Helen Ford at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick; and the staff at the National Archives and the British Library.

In presenting elements of this research publicly, we also benefitted from collaborations with Rebecca Harrison, Karen Alexander, Alexa Raisbeck, Haidee Wasson, Lucie eslkov, Eva Balogh, Virginia Crisp and Gabriel Menotti.

Finally our thanks go to all of those projectionists, technicians, programmers, and curators who agreed to be interviewed for the project or photographed for The Projectionists. Thank you for your time, your enthusiasm, your views and your memories: Simon Allen, James Anderson, Brad Atwill, Ken Bagnall, Peter Bell, Sam Bishop, Chris Blower, Martyn Butler, Luke Capitani, Mick Corfield, Mark Cosgrove, John Douglas, Peter Douglas, Rachel Dukes, Ewan Dunford, Paul Edmunds, Phil Fawke, Allan Foster, Ian Francis, Frank Gibson, John Gore, Richard Horner, Peter Howden, Amanda Ireland, Abdul Kaher, Sam Lavington, Tom Lawes, Andrew MacLean, Ewen MacLeod, Chandra Makwana, Mike Marshall, Umit Mesut, Ross More, John Neal, Chris OKane, Adrian Pearce, Joan Pearson, Bill Pearson, David Powell, Alexa Raisbeck, Ray Reed, Neil Thompson, Chris Tweddell, Mike Williams, John Young, Roger Young.

A t the time of writing, cinemas in Britain have been closed for most of 2020, and 2021 has commenced under renewed lockdown.