16mm No 2, 2016

The White Bus at TAP has just the one 16mm projector, so reels have to be swapped over when they finish.

To start with, it’s “I Know Where I’m Going” again, set in the fictional Hebridean Isle of Killoran, actually filmed on Mull, Argyllshire. You hear a bit of Gaelic then various actors with various accents, Scots and English.

The reel finishes, that has to be taken off, the new reel put on, laced up through the projector and started. A little while after that you hear a kind of buzzing, that is the first reel being being rewound on the rear of the projector, this is good housekeeping as it reduces the risk of you forgetting, packing the reel away and either having to do it against the clock when you check before you next show it or, lacing it up without checking and showing it backwards.

Projection like this used to be the norm. We had it at school, colleges, workplaces, all over. Still at TAP.

Photograph of film reel by Holger Ellgaard used under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike) license.