Parish Pictures
Parish Pictures presents an opportunity to see good films at reasonable cost without driving anywhere, at a village social occasion where all are welcome. Films are shown to an audience of up to 80 in the Memorial Hall on eight Saturday evenings over a season running from October to May. Subtitles are shown so as to be more inclusive of those with impaired hearing. There is a bar offering beer, wine and soft drinks for sale before the film and there are no advertisements or trailers to get through before the drama begins. Occasionally we have the additional feature of a fish-and-chip supper after the film.
Parish Pictures is run by a small and enthusiastic group of volunteers for the benefit of the community on a not-for-profit basis. Any surplus funds may be used for improvements to our presentations and for donations to local charities. Films are chosen by online ballot from a shortlist of recent releases drawn up by our selection panel.
Admission is by ticket, either reserved by e-mail or bought in advance from the Whiteparish Stores at £5 per head, or purchased on the door at £7.50 per head, all subject to availability.
For more details, see below or please call John or Di Herrett on 01794 884381. New helpers are always welcome.
If you would like to be included on our e mail circulation for news of future film showings or to reserve tickets, call as above or email:
parish.pictures@yahoo.com.
Cinema dates for the 2018-2019 season are:
October 13th: The Post
November 3rd: Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri
December 8th: Adrift (if released by then)
January 12th (Film title TBA)
February 9th (Film title TBA)
March 9th (Film title TBA)
April 6th (Film title TBA)
May 18th (Film title TBA)
The films to be shown are advertised on posters at the shop, and in this website, about two weeks ahead of each film night. Details are also published on our page at the BFI website.
(42 responses out of 80 invitations to vote.)
| Film |
Want to See |
Don’t Want to See |
No Strong View |
| The Post |
36 |
1 |
5 |
| Three Billboards |
25 |
5 |
11 |
| Adrift |
23 |
5 |
12 |
| Beast |
16 |
5 |
19 |
| You Were Never Really There |
15 |
5 |
21 |
| I, Tonya |
9 |
12 |
19 |
Organisation
Parish Pictures is quite informal and entirely voluntary. All evenings are supported on a rotating duty basis by keen helpers. There is a "management group" of 7 to oversee policy, finance and development, plus a film selection panel of around 6. This panel nominate up to 3 films each which are whittled down to 6 to go into an online ballot sent to all who subscribe to the e-mailing list.
Technical Details
The technology used for projection is presently at a relatively simple level in current cinema technology: a domestic Blu-ray player with a standard retail Blu-ray disc as the source. The video is projected by the Memorial Centre's projector onto the Centre's cloth pull-down screen. The projector is on a trolley about 5m back from the screen and this arrangement has proved very satisfactory so far.
There had been more difficulties with the sound, partly because the hall acoustics, with lots of hard surfaces and the high ceiling, aren't particularly good. Interpretation of dialogue is the critical issue; in some films (especially American) this can already be muffled! However the current speaker arrangement was developed with the help of a technical advisor from the BFI (British Film Institute) / ICO (Independent Cinema Office). We now use front left, centre, front right driven by an AV receiver with an additional ampifier for two sub-woofers. Provision of "surround sound" is unlikely owing to the difficulty of temporarily setting up numerous additional speakers for an audience of 80 and it's doubtful that this would work with the hall acoustics.
With our average audience age the acuity of hearing varies. We have chosen to run the films with sub-titles as this allows very deaf people to come and share the evening; there has been a small degree of adverse reaction to the sub-titles but it's been overwhelmingly positive.
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