There’s a few mentions in this document of the term “4K”, and before you dive in I‘d like to just take a moment to explain what it actually means. I don’t want to insult anyone on the one hand by mansplaining it (a crime of which, of course, I have never been accused) or on the other by just telling you to “Google It”, so hopefully what I’m about to say lands somewhere in between.

“4K”, when used in connection with a digital cinema projector, refers to the number of pixels, horizontally, in the full frame image (more accurately, it would be called 4096 pixels!). Early digital cinema projectors were all 2K (2048 pixels!), as was the case for the ones we have just replaced. The 2K projector in Cinema One has been replaced by a 4K one, which places us at the vanguard of modern cinema exhibition, in terms of the resolution of the image that hits our screen, when the film is provided in that format.

4K will likely become the norm over time, but for now it’s still relatively rare. But... many recently restored classic films have been restored in 4K, and what I’m trying to tell you in an increasingly roundabout way is we’re planning to show off our new kit by showing a great number of them across July and August! (See page 24-26 for July’s selection, though I’ll throw in 2001: A Space Odyssey as a taster!) It’s very exciting, and highly unlikely you will ever have seen these amazing films look so darned good.

I was going to say I’m jealous of you getting to see them, but I guess there’s nothing to stop me coming along too!

Rod White, Head of Programming