Crandell Theatre Finally Going Digital

When The Chatham Film Club purchased the Crandell Theater, they set out on a fund-raising plan to upgrade the theater’s antiquated film projector with a digital system. That upgrade is happening now and it’s not a minute too soon. I love The Crandell and love seeing movies at this local treasure. However, there are more and more movies that have to be seen in digital (not film) so when a movie like Iron Man 3 opened at The Crandell, I reluctantly passed in favor of a digital screen somewhere else.

Here is the full story from The Chatham Film Club and Crandell Theater about the upgrade:

The Chatham Film Club has announced that the Crandell Theatre will complete a major step in its digital conversion and theatre upgrade project this month. The fundraising campaign begun last October has raised sufficient funds to replace the existing 35 mm equipment with a new, state of the art digital projector, projection booth renovation, improvements to the theatre sound system and a new movie screen. Custom-made draperies of special material intended to dramatically improve sound quality will be installed along the theatre walls.

“Digital is the most significant change in movie technology since the coming of sound,” said Peter Biskind, Vice President of Programming for the Chatham Film Club, “We have purchased a Christie 2210 projector that will give us images indistinguishable from 35 mm, way crisper images than those provided by DVD/Blu-ray projectors, and crystal clear sound.”

The Crandell will close for equipment installation after the May 18th evening movie and will have a grand reopening on Friday evening, May 24th. There will be no Film Club matinee on Sunday, May 19th.

“The new digital equipment will ensure that we have access to a full offering of newly released movies for our patrons,” explained Sandi Knakal, President of the Chatham Film Club, “including the capability to show movies in 3-D. In the past year we have found ourselves limited in our selection of films as more and more distribution companies are offering movies in digital format only.”

The overall project cost is estimated at $250,000. Thanks to a supportive community and a generous grant from the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, the Chatham Film Club has raised approximately $195,000 to this goal. However, the remaining balance still needs to be funded to comply with this important mandate from the movie distribution companies.