Kristian Knutsen
35 mm film canisters sit at the ready in the projection room at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
State Street is soggy and fairly quiet Thursday afternoon, except for the patter of snowmelt dripping from awnings along with some would-be students in town to tour the UW. Though the final preparations for this year's Wisconsin Film Festival are not evident, they are certainly under way.
Technical assistant Wes Cash is busy in the projection booth at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, testing the digital projector with a copy of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The 35 mm film projectors are already prepped with a row of film canisters sitting at the ready near the back of the room.
Across the street, the Orpheum Theatre is dressed for the party, its main array of doors plastered in posters for the ninth annual festival. Indeed, the finishing touches were being put on the stately old movie house on Wednesday night, getting both theaters inside ready for a weekend of heavy traffic.
The festival box office at Memorial Union is relatively quiet, meanwhile, as of mid-Thursday afternoon, with only a trickle of film-goers picking up their last minute tickets.
A dozen photos of some final stages of the set-up for the fest can be viewed in the gallery at right.
Keep track of the 2007 Wisconsin Film Festival with coverage on The Daily Page.
