It is 1937 and the European population of Kerikeri has climbed to 600. The Post Office was the first building to be completed on Hobson Avenue and was opened on the 8th of October by Captain Harold Montague Rushworth, MP for the Bay of Islands Electorate.
Across the road the second building to be completed in the avenue, a cinema, opened its doors and after the movie on a Saturday night the seats would be cleared away for dancing. Today if you're sitting in the front row your feet will be resting on what remains of the sprung wooden dance area made of tawa.
Current cinema owner, Mark Galloway, is about to become part of history too. A huge leap forward in cinematic projection is set to be unleashed onto a willing public even if most of us don't realise it's a revolution in the making. Yes folks, now showing at a theatre near you is Movies Go Digital and it's been years in the making.
The first tangible progress in the film world was from silent to sound in the 1920s. Then along came nitrate film which was so combustible projection rooms had to be fire-proofed. That was replaced by the more-stable celluloid in the 1950s and, basically, film hasn't changed since except to increase the number of frames-per-second sliding through the projector which, for the moment, is 24. That will double with digital projection and gone with the wind will be not just the old projection equipment but the projectionist sitting upstairs as well.
We will get the encrypted movies delivered in a little box. The image is more stable, crystal clear, no jumping or flickering and light years away in quality, says Mark Galloway.
The digital evolution is being spear-headed by the big five American film-makers forced by competition to offer movie buffs - customers - a high-quality choice. 3D can't be shown without digital projection but even golden oldies can now be converted to digital format which offers more and infinitely better-quality viewing and a worldwide uniform standard whether in London, New York, Kerikeri or Kaitaia. A computer programme will monitor the equipment online 24 hours a day, every day, and if there's a problem Mark Galloway will receive a text message on his phone originating from the USA. Software upgrades will be beamed in by satellite. If it all sounds a little like Big Brother Is Watching, it is, but to the benefit of consumers.
And digital is kinder to the environment. Until now a film which might require up to 20,000 prints would be cut with a band saw when its use-by date was reached and clumsily dumped in a landfill. With the digital format the hard drive is simply cleaned and reused. Furthermore, compiling what you see on the screen including the trailers would maybe take two hours with the old format. With digital that's now reduced to 15 minutes maximum and represents a considerable cost saving in labour that's the sound of music to a theatre owner's ears.
Digital equipment isn't cheap to install but theatres that don't have it by December 2013 will no longer be able to exhibit because the supply of celluloid film will simply cease to exist, end of storyline. So dim the lights and pass the Jaffas as the new show begins.
Footnote: Current owners, Mark and Ingrid Galloway, have no record of the Cathay Cinema being officially opened. They are hoping someone local may be able to tell them. Phone 09 407 4424.