Daily post 18 Sep 2006 07:53 am
A Memorable Screening
– In 1988 the Festival Int’l Del Cartone Animato in Treviso, Italy sponsored a retrospective of a number of my films. (Many were dubbed into Italian; it was hilarious watching Dr. DeSoto with a Mickey Mouse sound-a-like for his Italian voice.) There was a very full audience.
My film, Abel’s Island was almost complete, and I was showing a rough cut with a separate soundtrack. The obvious happened; the film was projected out of sync. It was maybe ten frames out. I knew the film was mostly VO narration and sync wouldn’t be too critical once lip sync stopped. I was prepared to accept the inevitable.
However, five mins. into the film, in the dark, Bruno Bozzetto whispered loudly to me that we had to fix it. Together we ran out of the theater – film still playing.
Bruno led me up two flights of stairs 
– running all the way – to the projection booth. He loudly and excitedly made the projectionist understand. The film slowed down to a stop when the projectionist shut the film off. Together we worked and reworked and reworked – as quickly as we could – getting the two separate soundtracks into sync with the third reel, the picture. The projector was turned on again, and Bruno and I ran back to our seats.
The end result was that I had a memorable screening. Bruno Bozzetto, after all, was concerned and took it on himself to correct the projection. A great adventure – during the screening. What a blast!
(The photo comes from Bruno’s website. He’s obviously in Disneyland.)
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on 18 Sep 2006 at 9:13 am 1.Ward said …
What a great story! And what a great photo to accompany it! I love how all those guys there seem to be standing around thinking to themselves, “Yeah, we draw for a living. Can you believe they pay us for it?” Looking forward to meeting Bruno as well as you in Ottawa this Wednesday!
on 22 Sep 2006 at 5:56 am 2.Hans Perk said …
Sadly, I can’t make it to Ottawa… Wish I could. Anyways, when you say that Bruno “is obviously in Disneyland”, I guess you mean it metaphorically, as they are standing on the corner of Dopey Drive and Mickey Ave. with the original animation building in the background, at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. Note: a VERY cool replica of the sign is currently for sale from Disney Collectibles, put in production by friends of mine who were recently “impacted” (read: fired) for being creative, a state that is NOT looked upon as desirable in that department…