Write for the Regal!

Are you a writer, or would you like to be?

We'll be publishing various collections of fact and fiction on the themes of film and cinema, centering on the Regal, in the next year. From poetry and stories to factual accounts of the cinema's history, we're looking for authors to be involved in these exciting community-sourced projects. Our first publication, an e-booklet on the history of the cinema, is already available through Amazon Kindle store now.

There are no restrictions on age or experience to be involved, just enthusiasm for the subject! We'll select our favourite submissions to be included in final publications, some of which will be produced in digital form and some in hard copy.

If you're interested in joining in and writing something, get in touch by email, letting us know whether you'd like to write poems, stories or factual pieces, with details of any writing experience you've got and a short sample of your work (no more than 2500 words total, please, though less is fine). If you'd like more information you can write to us at the same address and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

We're looking forward to hearing from you soon!

And the scaffold came down...

If you've been on Teme Street in Tenbury this week you'll have noticed that some of the scaffolding at the front of the Regal has begun to disappear, revealing the top part of the facade for the first time.

Just before the planks and boards were removed we climbed up onto the roof for the last time to get some pictures of the new facade features up close and personal, as well as a couple of photos of the completed auditorium roof.

We'll post a photograph of the front of the building with the top layers of scaffolding removed just as soon as it stops raining enough long enough to take one...

The completed new auditorium roof

The completed roof above the front of the cinema

One of the new column tops

Another view of the new columns, as well as the window decoration

This decoration on the facade hasn't been seen at the front of the Regal for over forty years, so it's very exciting to see it finally gracing the front of the building again.

Although the decoration is white in these pictures, they've now recieved their first coat of paint, which is a more creamy colour. The shapes cut into the columns will house the green neon strips.

Inside the building, work continues apace in the auditorium. We'll have another restoration update for you with photographs from inside the auditorium soon!

Mystery film: 20

Congratulations to our correct guessers from last week. The classic film was Gladiators, as Stephen on Facebook told us. Obviously last week's was more difficult than usual as we had a lower-than-average number of guesses!

Let's see how you get on with this classic film this week. Can you tell what it is? Perhaps this particular still will put a song in your head...

Answers in the usual way please; here as blog comments, or through twitter or facebook.

Happy guessing!

Mystery film: 19

Congratulations to last week's guessers! Ian and Jenni on twitter and David and Stephen on facebook weren't afraid of no ghost. No, they knew who to call to say that the film was Ghostbusters!

The Ghostbusters script was originally written with three of the main characters to be played by John Belushi (Peter Venkmen, instead played by Bill Murray), Eddie Murphy (Winston Zeddmore, instead played by Ernie Hudson) and John Candy (Luis Tully, instead played by Rick Moranis). However, due to Belushi's death and the other two actors turning down the roles, the script was re-written and these characters' personalities and roles in the story changed as a result.

We've got another classic film for you to try your hand at guessing this week.
What do you make of this one?

Submit your guesses in the usual ways; on the blog, on twitter or on facebook.

Good luck and happy guessing! 

A Facebook timeline of Regal history

If you're following us on facebook you'll probably have noticed that the page has swapped over to the new "timeline" style at the beginning of the month. As well as giving us a chance to show off some of our lovely pictures of the cinema in the 'cover' photo at the top of the page, the new style also has a timeline feature which allows us to create a facebook-based history of the cinema's lifetime.

From the opening day in 1937 right up to the present day, we'll be adding milestone events and interesting happenings from the cinema's history to the page, complete where possible with clippings from the local newspaper the Tenbury Wells Advertiser and photographs if we have them.

We're excited about this new way of sharing the Regal's history with you. If you know of something that you think should be featured in the timeline, just let us know and we'll be happy to add it for you.

If you're not following us on facebook yet, you can find the page at: http://www.facebook.com/RegalTenburyHLF

Mystery film: 18

We've got another classic film for you to try your hand at guessing this week.
What do you make of this one?

Submit your guesses in the usual ways; on the blog, on twitter or on facebook.

Good luck and happy guessing! 

Mystery film: 17 - revealed!

Welcome back to the blog! We hope you had a good Easter.

Congratulations to those people who recognised the still from last week as being from Toy Story! Disney/Pixar's groundbreaking animated classic won the hearts of David on facebook and Steve and Jenni on twitter. Well done to all of you!

The 1995 film 'Toy Story' has been voted the best animated film of all time in various polls. As a story it went through many changes before becoming the film it finally ended up as; Woody was originally a wooden ventriloquist's doll, and an early draft had Woody and Buzz rescued at the end by a Barbie (this was changed as Mattel refused to license the doll for the film, though as you'll know if you've seen them, she does appear in the film's sequels).

We'll have another mystery film for you tomorrow. Until then, to Infinity, and Beyond!

Mystery film: 17

We've got another classic film for you to try your hand at guessing this week.

What do you make of this one?

Submit your guesses in the usual ways; on the blog, on twitter or on facebook.

Good luck and happy guessing! 

Intermission

If you've been to the cinema recently you'll most likely remember that you're generally expected to sit from the opening titles to the final credits without a break. It wasn't always that way; most films used to have a break in the middle of them, just like theatre shows would have an interval.

At the Regal, intermissions were not a thing of the past as in many other cinemas, even up to the closure for the restoration work to start in 2011. The limitations of the projection equipment meant that they couldn't show long films in one go and still needed an intermission to swap over to the second half of the film, from one giant reel to the next.

Film studios knew that some cinemas had to have an intermission so would provide specially designed film reels to use as intermissions between the first and second half of the film, where they specified would fit best with the flow of the film.

This is a photograph of the letter and three sections from the intermission reel for the film 'Superman Returns'. In it, the word 'INTERMISSION' fades in from black, then explodes into a starburst to reveal the classic Superman 'S'.

 

We have a few special intermission reels in our collection of film at the Regal, from various different films. Each is styled differently to match the film that it ran with, and each comes with a letter explaining which reel to put the intermission reel after.

Can you remember seeing an intermission reel, at the Regal or another cinema? Do you think they should be brought back into modern films everywhere, or do you prefer to watch your film in one uninterrupted run? We'd love to know your thoughts! 

Mystery film: 16 - revealed!

Follow, follow, follow, follow the yellow brick road along with our fantastic guessers this week; Zena, Stephen and David over on Facebook and Ian on Twitter, who all figured out they weren't in Kansas anymore and recognised the scene from the Wizard of Oz.

The 1939 film, which is based on L Frank Baum's book of the same name (good trivia for quiz-fans there), was surprisingly a box office failure when it was first released. That didn't stop it being nominated for six Academy Awards, of which it won two; Best Original Score and Best Music Song (for Over the Rainbow). It has gone on to be frequently nominated as one of the top films of all time in many film polls.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

We'll be back with another mystery film tomorrow. See you then!