It's the end of an era - again - on Victoria's film exhibition scene.
There was a beautiful irony to Sunday night's last picture show - on celluloid, that is - at Cinecenta.
The condition of the print at a staff screening of Quentin Tarantino's 1994 crime thriller Pulp Fiction couldn't have been more appropriate.
While the visuals intermittently recalled the warmth and clarity of film once Tarantino's post-modern cult hit's irony, punchy dialogue and jolting violence settled into their groove, it was the audio crackle and scratches typically found in the "grind house" movies celebrated in Tarantino's 2007 homage of the same name that stood out.
The irony wasn't lost on staff at the cinematic wake, including Cinecenta projectionist Christine Aust, 25, who said the print was in such rough shape it was the most challenging she has ever had to build up.
It was just a matter of time before Cinecenta Films, a non-profit division of the University of Victoria Students Society, would have had to replace its 35mm projector with a proper digital projection system, programmer Michael Hoppe said.
"It was now or never," he said. "The tipping point came earlier this year when a number of industry contacts told us by the end of this calendar year there would be no new 35-mm prints available."
While this week's $70,000 digital conversion is under way, screenings of Walkabout (tonight), Crooked Arrows (Wednesday, Thursday) and Seeking a Friend For the End of the World (Friday, Saturday) will continue.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Alison Kalyman's acclaimed documentary about the Chinese artist and activist, will officially mark the digital debut Aug. 19.
It's a bittersweet transition for Hoppe, Cinecenta manager Lisa Sheppard and staff.
"Some people miss the 'changeover' marks and scratches, that grindhouse esthetic," said Hoppe. "I never liked that. It used to irritate me when Cinecenta was 16mm, especially those bad prints with sprocket damage."
Ironically, the switch follows Cinecenta's summer crowd-pleaser The Story of Film, the film history series that acknowledges the digital revolution.
"Film is all we've known," says Hoppe. "It's similar to people's emotional attachment to vinyl. There's that human, crackly feel to it."
Hoppe says while he's not wholly opposed to digital filmmaking, he has issues with inconsistencies.
"Some digital looks superb. When I saw Tree of Life at the Odeon it looked stunningly gorgeous," he said. "But with Magic Mike, I thought it visually lacked depth. It was like bad video. I suppose it depends on the cinematographer."
He wonders how films like The Godfather, highlighted by Gordon Willis's superb cinematography, would look if shot on digital.
"With bad digital, blacks just aren't black. Would it look as good in terms of shadows and chiaroscuro [light-dark]?"
He's looking forward to seeing more digital fare that Cinecenta's new system can optimally showcase.
Meanwhile, expect brighter images and superior sound from a changeover that was inevitable.
"It was do this, or die," Hoppe said.
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NEED FOR WEED: No, the stars of Kid Cannabis weren't smoking B.C. bud to get into character for their roles in Victoria producer Corey Large's true-life feature about Idaho teenagers who built a multimillion-dollar dope-smuggling empire.
Director John Stockwell and crews did visit a genuine local grow-op, however.
"It doesn't get more authentic than that," quipped New York producer Gordon Bijelonic, recalling how crews were blindfolded and windows covered on shuttles transporting them to the secret site housing a bumper crop of top-shelf weed.
"He had a licence to legally grow marijuana for medical purposes only.
Their only concern with us going in was somebody knowing where this is and because they don't know who's in the crew, it was a precaution."
Kenny Wormald, last seen as small-town dance crusader Ren McCormack in Footloose, said he's never seen anything like it.
"I thought there would be German shepherds and chains and fences and all this high-tech security," the actor and dancer said. "But we just drove into the woods, opened this gate, saw this hut and garage and you walk in and there's this beautiful B.C. bud.
"The plants were amazing and it smelled delicious. It was legal so it wasn't scandalous."
Wormald plays Topher Clark, best friend of Nate Norman, the pot-smuggling mastermind played by Jonathan Daniel Brown.
"I didn't inhale," joked the backup dancer for Justin Timberlake, Madonna and Victoria's Nelly Furtado.
On camera, Wormald and Brown smoked herbal, tobacco-free joints and took fake bong hits.
"I don't typically smoke so it did start to get to my chest," he admitted.
The Boston-born actor who grew up dancing said that as rewarding as it was working with director Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) on Footloose, he welcomed the chance to play his wholesome character's polar opposite in Kid Cannabis.
"I needed to step away for a second because if I did that again and again I'd be stuck as the musical dance kid," he said. "I'd love to do more of that, but I want to last in this business for a while."
He said it was a bonus shooting Kid Cannabis in Furtado's hometown.
"She's awesome, such a sweetheart," said Wormald. "She wasn't full of ego like a lot of people I've danced behind. She's just cool and I know Canada loves her, and so they should."
