The Last Picture Show

A great David Bordwell piece here, about the family-run, single-screen JEM theatre in Harmony, Minnesota and their trials in getting their cinema converted to digital. It puts a human face to all this digital-conversion business that tends to be forgotten in the mad rush to upgrade. Moving stuff, get some hankies ready...

Future of Cinema Projection in a Picture

 

"On your left, the past: A person and a film. On your right, the future: A black box." - David Bordwell, "Pandora's digital box: In the multiplex". The piece leans towards the geekier/technical end of things but it provides a lot of insight and context into the forces that have influenced the current industry-wide switch to digital projection in cinemas.

Projectionists: A Dying Breed

Interesting article over at Slate by Grady Hendrix about the imminent extinction of The Projectionist as we know it. You know, the person behind the scenes switching reels, checking the film is running smoothly, looking/sounding good while we're watching it. It's probably not a widely known thing (or maybe it is?), but when you go to your local Event Cinema to watch a movie, there's most probably no one there in the booth while it's being projected. Actually, just to illustrate this even clearer - if you've ever been to Sylvia Park Cinemas, it's all out there in the open. When you exit the theatre from behind, you can walk through the projection "booths", and you'll see everything's fully automated, and no one's there manning the equipment.

The machines-taking-over-people argument is a common, unsurprising debate, but nevertheless Hendrix's piece poignantly touches on the human costs of implementing such technology. It's also an "art" that'll be lost; the chemical and physical qualities unique to film projection will soon be completely replaced by a couple of mouse clicks.

I'm a "purist", and not entirely convinced by digital yet, so I'll cling onto 35mm film and projection until the very end. Seeing grain is still important to me! It'll be a sad day when the world is ruled by digital projection, but maybe by that time it might also offer the same magical properties as celluloid used to, and still do - I'll give it that.