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The Evolving Screen Machine
 
Over the next 12 months, the Screen Machine Mobile cinema service will undergo some radical and exciting changes.
 
HI~Arts, the arts development agency for the Highlands and Islands, which owns and operates the Screen Machine, has now placed the order with French firm Toutenkamion to build a second generation mobile cinema.  This new Screen Machine is expected to take to the road early in 2005.  It will have a number of crucial advantages over the first Screen Machine:
 
• It will have a set up time of under an hour, compared to the three-four hours required to set up the present cinema.
• The set up will be largely automated, unlike the hard physical effort needed to put in place the present cinema’s seating and access ramps.
• It will be robust and reliable: Toutenkamion have already built seven other mobile cinemas, the first of which is still in regular operation after 13 years.
• It will have more comfortable seating and will be much more effectively light- and weather-tight than the present cinema.
• It will have improved disabled access, offering wheelchair users a greater choice of seats
 
Screen Machine 2, therefore, will be able to visit a much wider range of venues than at present.  The present circuit has been restricted for over a year now to just 12 communities in Argyll, the Western Isles, and Western Highlands.  This was done to reduce wear and tear on the present cinema and prevent costly and time-consuming breakdowns.  Screen Machine 2 will have a regular circuit of over 20 communities, visiting each every 8-10 weeks, and will have the facility to visit more than one venue in the same day (eg a care centre in the morning, and a public site for the evening).
 
Screen Machine 2 will offer the same high standards of visual and audio projection as its predecessor, with a higher level of comfort.  There is only one significant change: to allow us to benefit from the different (and much more reliable) opening mechanism used by the Toutenkamion system, the seating will need to be limited to a capacity of 80, rather than the present 100, in order to restrict the external size so that the cinema can cope with rail bridges and ferry access.  However, the speed and flexibility of operation will mean that Screen Machine 2 can tailor the length of visit (and hence the number of screenings) to the likely audience demand from each community.
 
Screen Machine 2 will take over and extend the present touring circuit of Screen Machine 1, but that does not mean that SM1 has come to the end of its useful life. Our plan is to hire out SM1 as a temporary static venue.  We have been fortunate to be able to trial this new mode of operation in conjunction with Mull Theatre this summer, with a view to further hires throughout Scotland in the future. This is likely to include standing in for the Eden Court Theatre’s Riverside Screen for 18 Months while the theatre is closed for expansion.
 

The planned timetable for the next few months is therefore as follows:

• Between September 2004 and January 2005 SM1 will undertake a mix of static leases, and tours to regular venues. 
• Early in 2005, refurbishment work will be carried out on SM1 to prepare it for future ‘static’ hires—for example, the heating and air-conditioning system needs to be completely overhauled.
• At the beginning February of the Screen Machine team—manager and two driver/operators—will visit the Toutenkamion factory in northern France for training in setting up and operating Screen Machine 2.
• In early 2005, after road trials in France and then back in the Highlands, Screen Machine 2 will commence a full touring service.
 
This does mean that between September 2004 and March2005, SM1 will not be undertaking a full circuit of tours. We very much regret that we have to neglect many of our regular venues for this period of time, but hope that our audiences will understand that we need this time to prepare for the effective launch of Screen Machine 2 at the start of 2005.
 

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The Booth Online Ticketing
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