Draken today

The Draken (Dragon) entrance, looking a bit dull, closed and in need of some minor paint jobs. The season of 2002/2003 held two major box-office hits: A Swedish comedy and the second Harry Potter feature. Both - of course, only presented in 35mm scope. If you want to see the images in a larger format, just click the image...

Today Draken is owned by the Swedish Labour Movement and its commercial theatrical operation is run by Sandrews-Metronome. Rumors say that there are several others interested in running a regular operation. We'll keep you posted :-)

When entering you come directly into the bottom floor lobby with its box-office with room for three ticket and booking salesmen. For pictures of the upper lobby, just go to the historical pages.

You may not use any of the images for any purpose without the explicit permission of Thomas Hauerslev of www.in70mm.com.

Webpage made by Stefan Adler 2003-07-22

Looking up to the projection booth from the top of the left entrance stairs. Draken has entered the digital age so you can see both the old and the new rear surround speakers.

By turning your head you face the curtain. The proscenium measures approx. 22 meters (75 feet).

Four friends of Draken - and all other nice "non-platter" 70mm and Cinerama houses for that matter. From left to right: Thomas Hauerslev of in70mm.com and the guy taking these photos, Ari Nordström - present first projectionist at Draken, Stefan Adler - former Draken projectionist and the curator of the site you visit right now and Peter Andrén - collector of Cinema Memorabila, friend and a living cinematic encyclopædia...

The (really big) blue velvet curtain with its Viking Ship (Dragon Ship, when translated directly from Swedish) has been there since 1956. As you can read on the Draken historical pages of this site, the proscenium was widened in 1960 for the Cinerama and the curtain expanded with a dyed-in old velvet curtain from the Victoria in Gothenburg. Rebulit for Todd-AO at the same time.

Facing the right entrance of the auditorium and some of the 713 new red seating. Originally the seating was blue. It looked a bit nicer, but you can't have it all, can you?

Looking out from projection room through the "Abel" projection window. The focal length of the Cinerama lenses were 80mm and Draken was - as you can see, a single projection room Cinerama installation.

The present screen masked for 70mm 2,21:1. Don't let the wide angle photography fool you. The impact of Draken's 70mm is great, the pictures are bright and sharp and the sound is terrific. There is no theatre in Sweden even remotely close to Draken in presentation. The Scope-screen is as wide, but a bit lower.

Pretty much the same view with the curtain closed. You can also see the new surround speakers for left and right surround.

Center viewing position. There are 27 rows of seats and our favourite positions are on row 12-15, fairly center. The curtain is lit by a footlight of numerous 150W spotlights and 6 floodlights. (2x 1000W and 4x 500W)

House lights consists of 12 4x40W opalized round white fittings along the walls and 5 3x40W under the projection room. The wooden walls are also lit from above by lights built in between the inner roof and the upper ceiling. A typical in-direct lighting from the fifties.

Looking up to the projection room. Originally with three Philips FP6 with arclights and magnetical sound. Then added with Cinerama. Now with two Favorit 70 projectors, one Philps FP6 and a Bauer Selecton for 16mm.

Up in the projection room the old SynchroMaster is still in operation. It was not only great for counting up and synchronizing broken Cinerama film, with a minor change you can also get in frame with standard 4-perf leaders. A very useful tool.

Just take the spiral stairs from behind the little door in the lobby and you'll face the entrance to the booth. Solid steel doors from the golden days when nitrate still was around.

Since Draken still runs a couple of special 70mm screenings each year, the 70mm gear is in mint condition and a sufficient amount of leaders and spare parts is at hand.

The two Favorite 70 projectors. Draken still runs its shows with change-overs. Today's 35mm Polyester prints fits easily on two reels. On top of the magnetical sound heads you can see the Dolby SRD playback unit.

The Favorite 70 projectors are really easy to operate and change from 35 to 70mm. Parts are kept in this cupboard. 70mm is projected through SuperKiptagon lenses. The green attachment screwed on is a magnifier that shortens the focal length with 7%

Part of the renewed amplifier racks. The specification of the sound is on the historical pages. Haven't you read it, just click here.

Yours truely playing with the gear I once managed. It is still a bit traumatic going back to the place where I've spent half my life so far. On the other hand there is not much to go back to. The fact that there is still one theatre left does in no way make up for the demise of an entire industy.

Overlooking the booth from the other direction. To the right you can see the 35mm Philips FP6 used for trailers and commercials.

DRAKEN 2003
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