Deluxe London Film Processing Labs, Denham, England – July 2016
Continuing from my big backlog across Spring and Summer 2016 is this site which Mookster and myself visited back in July. It had been a pretty quiet year up to this point, and well, continues to be sadly. But a quick stint up the M25 and to an area I know pretty well brought us to this place which is dripping with gorgeous 1930s Art Deco.
Upon arrival we were pretty gutted to the site had been gutted.... But we gave it a go anyway. Lots of lovely features here. I enjoyed myself personally!
This old place is steeped in History! Orignally constructed in 1936; it was one of just five buildings in the UK designed by Walter Gropius; the founder of the Bauhaus Movement. This particular site was constructed for film producer Alexander Korda in Denham, Buckinghamshire in the South East of England, a picturesque affluent part of country well into Londons Rat Race area but still rural enough.
The film processing laboratory was formerly operated by Rank before being taken over by Deluxe; is the last surviving building from the original Denham Film Studio complex and it's one of the only surviving examples of industrial architecture from the Modern Movement of the 1930s.
Thankfully; the lovely Art Deco site was Grade II listed in 1985. In its younger years; was the most expansive and advanced film processing facility outside of Hollywood, processing more than 500 million feet of film a year which was distributed to cinemas all over the world.
Some of the more notable films processed and edited on site included:
Brief Encounter
The Great Escape
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Tomorrow Never Dies
ET
Superman 1,2 & 3
GoldenEye
Eyes Wide Shut
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
After Avatars 2009 release; the film industry shifted more towards digital rather than film (I worked in a cinema 2008-2015 and the shift became apparent over the years. I think the last 35mm film we played was 2011/2012 before all projectionists were made redundant or moved to different positions leaving the normal staff and management to oversea any basic prohection work).
The resurgence of modern-day 3D didn't help at all. In 2014, Deluxe shut down with the loss of around 70 jobs, at it's peak there had been over 1200 people working in the facility.
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More At:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/landie_man/sets/72157671339417052
Continuing from my big backlog across Spring and Summer 2016 is this site which Mookster and myself visited back in July. It had been a pretty quiet year up to this point, and well, continues to be sadly. But a quick stint up the M25 and to an area I know pretty well brought us to this place which is dripping with gorgeous 1930s Art Deco.
Upon arrival we were pretty gutted to the site had been gutted.... But we gave it a go anyway. Lots of lovely features here. I enjoyed myself personally!
This old place is steeped in History! Orignally constructed in 1936; it was one of just five buildings in the UK designed by Walter Gropius; the founder of the Bauhaus Movement. This particular site was constructed for film producer Alexander Korda in Denham, Buckinghamshire in the South East of England, a picturesque affluent part of country well into Londons Rat Race area but still rural enough.
The film processing laboratory was formerly operated by Rank before being taken over by Deluxe; is the last surviving building from the original Denham Film Studio complex and it's one of the only surviving examples of industrial architecture from the Modern Movement of the 1930s.
Thankfully; the lovely Art Deco site was Grade II listed in 1985. In its younger years; was the most expansive and advanced film processing facility outside of Hollywood, processing more than 500 million feet of film a year which was distributed to cinemas all over the world.
Some of the more notable films processed and edited on site included:
Brief Encounter
The Great Escape
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Tomorrow Never Dies
ET
Superman 1,2 & 3
GoldenEye
Eyes Wide Shut
Quantum of Solace
Skyfall
After Avatars 2009 release; the film industry shifted more towards digital rather than film (I worked in a cinema 2008-2015 and the shift became apparent over the years. I think the last 35mm film we played was 2011/2012 before all projectionists were made redundant or moved to different positions leaving the normal staff and management to oversea any basic prohection work).
The resurgence of modern-day 3D didn't help at all. In 2014, Deluxe shut down with the loss of around 70 jobs, at it's peak there had been over 1200 people working in the facility.
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#14
#15
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#19
#20
#21
#22
#23
#24
#25
More At:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/landie_man/sets/72157671339417052
