Issue 5 – From the Publisher
Celebrating Excellence
What makes a community? Essentially, it is sharing passions, pursuits and enlightenment, experiences, and opportunities. Communities are melting pots. Diversity in ideas, skills, and inspirations amplifies the group’s efforts. Successful communities embody a purpose. Core values and objectives that are interdependent with those of the diverse groups within. But like an overnight success that took decades to accomplish, lasting communities will not come about by themselves. And, like the overnight success that wasn’t, focus and purpose require leadership.
Those who personify the community’s vision will facilitate and nurture the community’s development, effectiveness, and growth. Communities require constituents which in turn requires communication, returning us to sharing. Our industry has a strong professional community and has made progress, including our trade colleagues. But, if we are to have a true community of private cinema connoisseurs and enjoy the benefits of a lasting and vital culture, we must invite two essential parties to the show: Private cinema owners and enthusiasts and the artists of film and music. This is why we publish The Cinema Connoisseur. Share The Cinema Connoisseur with those enthusiasts and artists you know. Because a community that shares are the best kind!
In this fifth issue of The Cinema Connoisseur, you’ll see a great example of the aforementioned inclusiveness in our review of the seven time Academy Award-winning film, DUNE. Cinema Sommelier movie reviews feature – An integrator, manufacturer, and artist. Todd Astill, in the sommelier role, shares the professional insight of vital but often overlooked details of the film to enhance the experience of the viewer; Kaleidescape, in the curator role, procures and maintains the art in a pristine form, Supervising Sound Editor Mark Mangini, in the vintner role, shares artistic insight that would ordinarily be unattainable. In this instance, it is telling that of the many Oscars awarded DUNE, nearly half were for the technical, behind the scenes artistry that flung us into those distant dreamscapes of sight, sound, and music!
In the hills overlooking Los Angeles and the Pacific, a father and audio enthusiast unearthed a treasure he and his wife set about to restore. Read about the journey to create one of the “premier theaters in Los Angeles” in a decades old former 35-millimeter screening room. This Cinema Story reveals how the alliance of integrators, engineers, designers, and theater builders came together to restore the building’s beauty while engineering performance “better than any movie theater we have ever been to.” Learn how this cinema connoisseur’s DCI cinema has become a destination for both community and family and be inspired by this tale of the private cinema community in action.
Perfection is an elusive objective. Some say it’s impossible to be avoided as a goal. Others thrive on attaining remarkable results by pursuing the unattainable. Similarly, cinema audio and video are somewhat juxtaposed in DVLED private cinemas, sight and sound, two sensory players in the cinematic experience, present conflicting requirements in selling the story to a human audience. Cinema connoisseurs who seek the best of both worlds are caught in the middle. Fortunately, a segment of the professional private cinema community, sharing the latter philosophy on perfection, is pursuing a harmonious resolution in this latest challenge. In this issue’s Cinema Intelligence feature, DVLED and Private Cinema Audio, The Pursuit of Perfection in Sight and Sound, find out where this pursuit has taken those pioneers and how to ensure your private cinema dreams are being realized.
Communities thrive with inspiring leaders. The private cinema and high-fidelity audio communities benefit many such individuals. None, however, are more deeply and personally invested in the quest for, if not perfection, true excellence in sound reproduction. Join us as our Cinema Inspirations feature celebrates our friend, colleague, mentor, and leader Dr. Floyd Toole who calls his career “A Professional Life Well Lived.” May we all be inspired by Dr. Toole’s story to look beyond “superstitions” and “myths” and discover true excellence always. Let’s make our community better just as he has!
The first year of The Cinema Connoisseur has been exciting, rewarding and challenging. Exciting, as a personal, professional vision has started to materialize. A community of Cinema Connoisseurs. Rewarding as The Cinema Connoisseur has been embraced by you, our friends, colleagues and fellow cinema connoisseurs as we have published some 249 pages, celebrating, storytelling, informing, inspiring and sharing the virtues of private cinema and the advantages of being a cinema connoisseur! Challenging, as I have learned how much is required to build an effective, inclusive, strong and enduring community. I have found it requires passion, vision and leadership and another most important element, You! The community requires the involvement of kindred spirits from all our diverse groups. We invite you to join us in sharing our vision for our passion. And we invite you to share with others because communities shared are the best kind!
