Bat Projection

I had a lot of time to think today, and in that time I thought of cinema.

I thought of pre-CGI special effects, and thought of back projection, the means by which car journeys in the movies were brought to life, Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy looking elegant or gritty at the wheel, while we see the road disappearing off into the distance in the rear window.

Inevitably, the actor would be swinging the wheel about like Captain Birdseye trying to pilot his ship in a storm, while the projection would make it clear that the car was travelling in an arrow straight line along an endlessly straight road in New Mexico. Later on, Kubrick used the technique in 2001, Cameron used it in Aliens, and it still gets used occasionally to give a shot a retro feel.

But in an atttempt to halt the decline of cinema visiting figures against the relentless progress of downloading and streaming, I thought of a new process that would really enliven cinema in a way never done before.

It is called “Bat Projection.”

In Bat Projection, cinema is given a stunningly naturalistic, immediate, and yet epic feel. Best suited to the countryside of say, Sumatra or Borneo near a large cave at sunset, Bat Projection involves projecting the movie into the sky onto giant swarms of flying bats – flying foxes are the best – that have been painted with reflective silver white paint.

Obviously bats move a lot, and so the projectors will have to be mounted on fast moving yet rugged jeeps. And so will the audience, who will follow the dramtically shifting on mini motos, BMXs and slave pulled rickshaws as best they can. The more daring may take to the air on hang-gliders or microlights, actually becoming part of the action as Chewie pulls the stormtrooper from the Scout Walker, the scene made all the more dramatic for being two miles wide and spiralling and shifting all the time with added ultrasonic sound effects.

“The Birds” of course would be a real spectacle; menacing black shapes attacking Tippi Hendren superimposed upon sinister white painted black ones, the screams and pecked eyes on a huge scale a thousand feet up in the sky, swirling, swooping, indigo skies filled with flying mammal cinematic action!

Rank, Cannon, Showcase, Reel! Get yourselves to India right away! And bring your best bat wranglers!

Copyright Bloody Mulberry 23.01.14