2016 Black Maria Film Festival Program

film format ever, including Cinerama and Ultra Panavision 70.
In the Ohio, the proscenium was only about 40 ft. wide. The
distance from the back of the balcony is about 190 ft. If we
ran the first 12 reels the same size as the center image of the
triptych, the image would have been 10 ft. high by 13.5 ft. wide.
We considered that pretty puny for such a grand epic.
So, we devised a “cheat”. This is where in exhibition we needed
to find a practical (out of the box) solution as opposed to the
academic “you gotta do it this way” approach.
For the first half of the show, we ran the 1.33:1 image at something
like 18 x 24 ft. After the intermission, we shrunk the picture
to about 12 x 16. At the change to the final reel, we opened
the side masking to a full 40 ft., but lowered the header to 10
ft. And, the compromise worked. As the changes were subtle,
no one noticed.
The show was a hit in Columbus. We at BL&S went on from
there to do Chicago and many other cities. But those have to
wait for the extended version of this story.
One other note in this “In the beginning...”
Our producers, Tom Luddy from Zoetrope and Bob Harris with
Images booked a show at the Atlanta Fox the week after our
first performance in Chicago. That was fine; except the show
at the Chicago Theatre was such a success they held Nappy for
another week. The wrinkle was... there was only one existing
print, and Atlanta was already sold out. So, we skipped a week
in the windy city and took it to the marvelous Atlanta Fox for
shows the first week of May.
Oh, and another piece of trivia, even though we ran this same
print for several engagements, ALL subsequent prints and the
later home video release originated from this one, very fragile,
31