Christie projects Hitchcock in London

The restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 silent thriller Blackmail, accompanied by a live orchestra playing a score specially arranged by Neil Brand and conducted by Timothy Brock, premiered this summer at an outdoor screening at the British Museum. The London landmark was the setting for the film’s climactic chase sequence.

The long days of British summertime made for a projection challenge and a solution was required that could be viewed in near daylight conditions. Four of QED’s new Christie WU20K-J projectors were quadruple stacked in order to produce high brightness images.

QED director Paul Wigfield commented on the performance of the 3-chip WUXGA DLP, 18,000 lumen digital projectors: “When I was on my way to the British Museum I stated that I would be reasonably impressed if we could see anything on the screen in daylight conditions — but upon arrival I was truly blown away by the brightness and the clarity. It looked more like a poster than a projection. The fact that we were able to quadruple stack the Christies with such accuracy was also incredibly impressive.”

Additional pre-screening content was played back from Macbook Pro’s with source switching handled by an Analog Way DiVentix II seamless switcher ensuring that all elements of the rig were fully digital, and the film was simultaneously relayed to an on-stage monitor for the conductor’s reference via a 100m DVI fibre-optic link.

Christie also provided projection for the restoration of The Lodger, which premiered at London’s Barbican Centre. The film screened with a new score by British Asian composer, Nitin Sawhney, and was performed live by the London Symphony Orchestra. Motion Picture Solutions provided the Christie Series 2K DLP Cinema projector.