We had a great day out on the last day of Autumn Half Term on Friday 23rd October when we visited our local Vue Cinema as part of National Schools Film week. We went to see the film ‘Inkheart’ which was only released earlier in the year

After our movie had finished Mr Gavin King the manager of Vue Cardiff came down and kindly spoke to us about all the work that goes on behind the scenes in order for us to enjoy our visit. As he talked some of the staff came in and swept up and checked that everything was nice and clean for the next set of visitors. Gavin was constantly talking to his team on the walkie talkie as they made sure everything was okay in each of the 13 screens that they have, and we know that this is the quietest time with most people going to the cinema afterwork in the evenings. The cinema has some 2,893 comfy seats which is a lot of visitors to take care of.

Gavin also showed us the night scope that staff use to check that the audience are not trying to record the films to make pirate copies. We did see an advert about people trying to steal films before the film came on by FACT. If people keep stealing movies in this way then the movies would not be made so it is important that we do not support theft and if we see anyone recording films we must tell a member of staff.

Richard is the projectionist and he showed us a small round reel of film about 150 cm wide, but when he unravelled it went right around all of us and back again. He told us that this was just a 60 second clip and that anormal lenght movie could be over 2 miles long (that would be almost all the way back to school back to the school).

Richard told us a bit about how film worked. As we looked through the film we could see the individual frames (this was from the Fantastic Mr Fox). We asked a few questions Rhiane asked how the film was recycled, Macie asked about 3d movies.

There was lots to see and the projection room was a long corridor with the many projectors playing different movies into each of the screens.

Richard told us about 'Persitence of Vision' and how fast the frames needed to be played- 24 frames per second- to make it seem as if the image on screen was actually moving. This animation left is a '.giff' which is 5 pictures above played at 24/fps.

We saw how the film arrived in cannisters and needed to be joined together in big long reels laid out on huge plates. very long movies like Lord of the Rings would fill the whole plate

We asked about why the projection lamp needed its own special air conditioning flow to keep it cool, or what the rectifier box was. There was so much to see.

A huge thank you to Vue Gavin, Richard & all the staff for being so nice and giving us the posters film and making the time in their busy day to talk to us, we had a lovely time. A big thanks too to the mums who came along and helped us make the trip possible. Finally a thank you to national schools film week we think it’s a great idea.

Afterwards we went outside to have our lunch overlooking the River Taff before we visited the new Central Library

We all enjoyed the film Inkheart and many of us want to read or reread the book as well as look at other work written by German author Cornelia Funke. (Have a look in our Library for the sequels Inkspell and Inkdeath.)

Inkheart is the first of three books and tells the story of Mo a ‘Silvertounge’ who has the ability to bring books to life and literally bring characters off the page into real life. There are lots of nice characters such as dustfinger who is desparate to get back into the book and live with his wife. Sadly Mo's wife is trapped in the book.

Chloe said "I liked the fying monkies from Wizard of Oz I would like one of them".

After half term we will be writing our own little movie scripts, then performing and recording those. Cornelia gives this advice to young writers like us: "Read – and be curious. And if somebody says to you: 'Things are this way. You can`t change it' - don`t believe a word." You can find out more about the author here