Hold Up!

British weather and open air venues don’t match up that well.

The rain meant that The Plane! was a no go for our August date and the wind now makes it impossible for September date at the lovely Dalston Roof Park.  It means we’re on the hunt for a new venue and your transport themed film screenings will be coming to you soon.

That Beautiful Beast will be in touch. In  the meantime, we wear our aviators in anticipation.

First 50 people to arrive at The Plane! get…

A nice little goodie bag – containing a miniature Martin Millers Gin and an old skool (correct spelling) put-it- together-yourself, styrofoam airplane.

It’s flying in…Wed 25th August

The Plane!

This month, sit back and relax as we’ll be riding the airways for our next open air roof top screening. Fly with us.

1900 – Gate Opens
Shorts and visual tid bits for your traveling pleasure

2030 – Boarding
Video zoetrope record deck, tape loops, cassettes, samples, and lo-fi electronic noise performed by Sculpture

2130 – Take Off
Top Gun! The 80′s aviation classic.

WED 25TH AUGUST

Entry Fee

£4 Members

£6 Members Guests

To become a member (£5) of Dalston Roof Park register at www.bootstrapcompany.co.uk

The Train!

Choo Choo

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 The Train! was a hit. Serious fun, films, food, drink, views, people, open air-ness, roof-ness. The Plane! coming soon…

London Transport Museum

We love them. And will be screening a selection of recent and classic shorts from their collection.

Around London 1’43

Tube Tales 3’24

Hackney Voices 3’28

Automatic fare collection & you 3’44

A trip on the Met Railway 13’42

They are also offering tickets to their exhibition on the recently opened Overground line as part of a competition on the night.

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whatson/128.aspx

The Films

The Great Train Robbery: 1903 – 10mins

One of the milestones in film history was the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery (1903), directed and photographed by Edwin S. Porter – a former Thomas Edison cameraman. It is a primitive one-reeler action picture, about 10 minutes long, with 14-scenes, filmed in November 1903 – not in the western expanse of Wyoming but on the East Coast in various locales in New Jersey.

Train of Thought: 2010

Leo Bridle & Ben Thomas

In a world made entirely out of paper, the wistful drawings in a man′s sketchbook are brought to life by the rhythm of a train journey….

Night Mail: 1936 – 25mins

A documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit. A poem by English poet W. H. Auden was specially written for it, used in the closing few minutes, as was music by Benjamin Britten. The famous opening lines of the poem are “This is the Night Mail crossing the border / Bringing the cheque and the postal order”. Such is the iconic status of the film, it was used as inspiration for a famous British Rail advertisement of the 1980s, known as the “concerto ad”.  The film was directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright.

Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat: 1895 – 50secs

Silent documentary film directed and produced by Auguste and Louis Lumière. Contrary to myth, it was not shown at the Lumières’ first public film screening on 28 December, 1895 in Paris, France: the programme of ten films shown that day makes no mention of it. Its first public showing took place in January 1896. It was filmed by means of the Cinématographe, an all-in-one camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. As with all early Lumière movies, this film was made in a 35 mm format.

Snow: 1963 – 8mins

Rail: 1967 – 13mins

Made across nearly half a century, the complete cinematic oeuvre of the documentary film-maker Geoffrey Jones, runs to little more than 90 minutes. Few have achieved so much with so little.

He made the Oscar-nominated Snow and Rail, which are, arguably, his two finest works, for British Transport Films (BTF). A perfectionist, he could be a maddeningly slow worker, yet Snow, a poetic evocation of snow on the line and its effect on the lives of railway workers, was made very fast – as it needed to be – to capture a Britain in the grip of a deep freeze. Rail, on the other hand, took four years to shoot. It is a film of deep humanity, effortlessly absorbing the occasional passages of virtuoso editing into a subtle and complex whole.