Harwich: Palace to go digital (From Harwich and Manningtree Standard)

Harwich: Palace to go digital

4:30pm Thursday 18th February 2010

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A NEW campaign has been launched to bring Harwich's iconic cinema into the digital age.

The Electric Palace, which is one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas in the UK, celebrates its centenary next year.

And it wants to officially switch on a new digital facility to mark the milestone.

The cost of the project will be around £55,000.

It has been backed by the cinema's patron and hollywood movie star, Clive Owen.

Going digital will mean the cinema will be able to show films to a higher standard with crisper pictures and sharper sounds.

But the cinema, which is unique in screening silent classics and art films, will still keep the facilities needed to show those.

Peter Hadley, Palace press officer, said: “I cannot think of a better thing to do for the 100th birthday. “I think it is really exciting and a really tremendous thing for the area.”

The campaign, named the Palace Digital Fund, has already kicked off with £2,400 donated from a recent charity screening of Clive Owen's latest film, The Boys are Back.

Between February 26 and 28, the palace will stage five more screenings of the film, with all the net proceeds going to the fund.

Mr Hadley said Clive Owen is right behind the latest campaign “Clive is really excited about it, he just loves that cinema and he is definitely planning some events, both at the Palace and London so he can get more people in and raise more cash,” he said.

An open day will be held at Palace on February 27, from noon to 2pm, where people are invited to see how it works. Anyone interested in becoming a projectionist is welcome.

The Electric Palace Trust also has £25,000 available for the project.

Currently, the cinema shows its films from a projector, which will remain in place to allow non-digital films to be screened.

The digital films are on discs and will be operated from a player based in the the downstairs of the Palace, onto the existing cinema screen.

If enough cash is available, a temporary screen could be bought to enable 3D movies to be watched.

Mr Hadley said: “There is tremendous pressure on cinemas to go digital and with the success of films like Avatar, it would vamp up the presentation and would give us more flexibility about what we can show and we could go back to operating full time.”

Being digital would mean effectively one person could operate the cinema, but combined with it keeping its original equipment and the potential for more screenings, Mr Hadley said there could eventually be more jobs created.

He added: “Digital can become a reality. We are asking people to look out for special events and support them and if they feel they want to make donations, they are also welcome. We are looking to the next 100 years. Considering it became once 'life abandoned', it is a very exciting place to be.”

Screening tickets can be booked at boxoffice@electricpalace.com.

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