Page 20 - CR

Raising the bar

on

Central Coast

Cinema
By Crosley Carpenter

he new Reading Cinemas in the
TCharlestown Square shopping New Complex opens in Newcastle
centre in suburban Newcastle, N.S.W.
opened on October 21, 2010.
The cinema is part of a $470 The plant room above the cinema,
million redevelopment and expansion where once you might have expected to
of Charlestown Square by the GPT see a manned projection room, is eerily
group and brings to the region some of quiet. No staff are required to run it and
the latest concepts in contemporary for most of the time the projectors purr
cinema exhibition. along quietly, starting and stopping for
each session, doing exactly what Ben,
Charlestown is Reading Cinemas’
or his designated manager, has
first 100% digital cinema complex with
programmed at the start of the week.
all 8 screens featuring BARCO 2K
digital projectors and Dolby Surround Using drag and drop software, the
7.1 digital sound. Three of the screens component parts of each session (that is
also feature Dolby 3D. trailers, advertisements and feature)
have been “made up” on a desktop
Cinema Complex Manager Ben
computer, which could be located
Deighton and his Management team
anywhere in the complex or even
recruited the 35 mostly casual staff,
remotely. In less than the time once
many of them with a hospitality
taken to make up a 35mm feature, the
background, to perform the tasks
full week’s schedule for the entire
usually associated with a cinema, with
complex is prepared ready for the new
one exception: there are no
week.
projectionists employed.

Above: Ben Deighton with the “hard drive”
and digital projector.
All pics by C. Carpenter and J. Postlethwaite.

20 2010 CINEMARECORD