St Albans Cathedral – Film Screening
St Albans cathedral is a ancient abbey set in a picturesque setting giving St Albans its city status. In order to raise money for local cathedral based charities, a very special screening of the 2012 remake of the Charles Dickens classic “Great Expectations” was produced on February 28th 2013. The evening brought local community groups and business together, to transform the cathedral into a themed cinema. Being a St Albans resident himself, Mike Newell, the films’ director gave a talk to a ‘full house’ of people in the cathedral before the performance. The film screening kicked off the St Albans film festival, in which Vortex Events Limited have been providing audio video support and consultancy. Vortex Events were introduced to the Events Organiser by recommendation from the film festivals organiser Leoni Kibbey.
The historic building gave Vortex Events several challenges for the film screening, being one of the longest cathedrals in the country both the video and the acoustics required specialist installation to ensure a good experience for every viewer. Twin Barco FLM-HD20 digital projectors were installed at the very back of the Cathedrals Nave which gave the reliability that a film screening demanded, whilst providing a clean sharp video image. A large projector screen, was installed safely in front of the projectors, raised to a high level in order to provide easy viewing for viewers at the back of the long Nave.
Two smaller Sanyo PLC-XU300A projectors were installed to project digital imagery onto the walls of the cathedral to compliment the theme of the evening. Audio and lighting equipment was also installed to ensure the very best experience for film viewers. Vortex Events provided four AV engineers to install the equipment for the day, which demanded respect and care in the build-up to ensure no damage was done to this historic building and also to keep noise to a bare minimum to respect people praying in the cathedral at that time. The special event was featured on ITV news, which shows the cathedral and the installation provided by Vortex Events.
For more information on how Vortex Events LTD can help with your cinema or theatre event please visit our theatre & arts page.
St Albans cathedral administrator Heather was very impressed with the service Vortex Events provided, as expressed in her thankyou letter.
“Dear Matt,
I am writing to thank you so much for your support at last night’s film event at the Cathedral. We were very grateful for you and your team’s solutions for making the film happen in the unique setting of the Cathedral, the lovely additional lighting and screen shots, plus all your hard work and enthusiasm.
We were very pleased with the success of the event and with the way all the various Cathedral and local groups worked together – an exemplary model. Our early calculations suggest that we may have made a small profit for the Cathedral’s Education Trust, which provides learning opportunities for both children and adults.
Many thanks and very best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Heather “