The Death of the Projection Booth and the start of a new kind of cinema
Years before I became a film critic, I ruined films for thousands of people on a weekly basis as a teenage projectist.
On the Elgin Mills cineplex north of Toronto in the early Aughts I had worked up from Popcorn-Hlinger to Box-Office Cashier to, finally, the great time: the projection cabin. The timing was both good (for me) and bad (for trade union professionals). In the late nineties, many of the major theater chains of the country reduced their quotes of highly educated projectionists, because it came in more automated “dish” system of projection to replace the technology of Reel-to-Reel.
In short, exhibitors were able to save considerable costs by giving an over -enthusiastic boy a half -day primer about splitting Haspels and wire film together by a projector.
Many of my services are over without incidents. At the management of 12 screens I followed the presentation (Focus, Framing, Sound) on dozens of impressions every day. But every now and then, like every teenager, I would do something great.
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There was the time that I wrongly put a reel of Michael Bay’s Wart Epic from 2001 in line Pearl HarborMaking the film on the floor. Another incident saw a few frames from Tim Burton Planet of the Apes Reboot melts again when it got stuck in the projector (perhaps this was a disguised blessing for the public). And during a Saturday matinee filled with families, I unintentionally played the first few minutes of Scary film 2 – whose Challenge-Poofing opening has more F-bombomen and coarse gags than anyone else, adult or child, must ever be witnessed by Scoop. Oops.
The benefits of the performance were fantastic. I listened to one of my hardly old than managers told about urban legends (the previous projectionist kept a petalterator in the stand) for hours, and always watched the same film (I remembered every rule The fasting and the furious) and the lowering of unthinkable amounts of citizen King, the only fast food place in the neighborhood.
But anyone who decided within Cineplex that it was a good idea to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars to Studio’s ownership to the unskilled hands of a teenage army, made a decision that cost so much audience the joys of a good, professionally presented night in the films. It was the best task that a film fanatic in high school could have, and I was terrible in it.
I thought I would learn to learn my days in the projection booth after recently that Cineplex-Die finally handed the management of my beloved Elgin Mills multiplex to imagine cinemas in the latest locations “stand-less” theaters. In the Junxion ER in Mississauga, the VIP cinemas in the University District of Calgary and the Cineplex Royal Mount in Montreal, there are no long, caverneosen corridors filled with whirring projectors and dusty sound monitoring systems. Instead, each auditorium contains a ceiling mounted projector nestled in a hydraulic compartment called a ‘Hush Box’. That’s it.
“In the previous days of driving a theater with a film projector, you would need all that space behind the machine to run it, to save roles and equipment. But now in the digital era everything is done on a workstation via software, and it can all be checked from the office of a manager,” Lets Hildrebrand, director of projection user. “We want to maximize the public space within our newer builds, to give our guests more room to communicate with each other, more seats. As you can imagine, a corridor projection booth takes a lot of what is now unnecessary real estate.”
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On the one hand, the redesign is completely economically useful. After theaters were converted from 35 mm projection to digital presentation at the beginning of the years 2010, projectionists – whether it was the professional mature or useless teenage variety – were no longer necessary. With the exception of special one-time screenings of 70 mm in a handful of theaters (such as the IMAX screen of Cineplex in Vaughan, Ont., And his Varsity plyplex in Toronto), a barely trained cinema manager could manage any element of a presentation with a click with a button. A ‘Cabine-Less’ theater feels like the next logical step for cinemas that want to save sources, especially because the exhibition industry is struggling to get the audience in the door in this streaming-first era.
But to someone who spent so much of his life in the walls of a theater, the elimination of that historical and long-romantic space-the private sanctuary of Paradiso cinema‘s Alfredo, the dangerous seductive splice-and-dice arena of Fighting club‘s Tyler durden-senses as a real curtain drop moment. As we Come to the movie for magicThen the trick feels a bit more boring about knowing that there is no Houdini who run the show.
And yet it appears that the theaters of the cabin have been in operation much longer than the recent experiments of Cineplex.
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Landmark Cinemas, the second largest theater chain of Canada Na Cineplex, operates a handfully comparable designed theaters, although the company uses a Hush box, which is called a “dog house”, a small, soundproof space at the back of the auditorium where the projector is located in the same small space as the sound system.
“Unless you have to attend the projector, nobody goes in and will be fully automated,” says Tony Campbell, Senior Manager of Landmark of Projection and Sound, who notices that the European parent company of the exhibitor, Kinepolis, has organized in Belgium more than a decade. “It is all driven by the property that is available.”
Of course even the most casual cinema visitor could see all of this coming. If the projection of the projection disappears, this is only because the projection of projection itself has been blurring in black for decades.
According to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage -employees, there were once several chapters of the Union in Canada full of projectionist members. Nowadays, the local 58 from Toronto is the only real trade union of the profession in this country, with nine active projectionists (who mainly work with studios, production companies and festivals) and around 20 “permites” that are sporadically effective. In the United States it is a similar story, with exact figures that are hard to find, because so many projectionist trade unions are folded with others Iatse Locals.
“There is no longer a real projectionist with the big chains, only the technicians who are invoked when things have to be resolved, or when there is a special display in 35 mm or 70 mm,” says Victor Liorentas, the projectist of the Hyland Cinema in London, Ont., Who still presents films on 35 mm.
When the drama of Christopher Nolan OPPENHEIMER Play in 70 mm on the Cineplex Varsity location of Toronto in the summer of 2023 – one of only a handful of theaters in North -America who is equipped to process such a presentation – Liorentas was seconded to the theater to supervise the entire run.
“I was there for nine great weeks, from opening to closing. Because they could not find anyone they could trust in a big city like Toronto,” he says. “The knowledge disappears. When I started in the early 1990s, I went to the apprenticeship and I went through all the guides and I learned about every type of projector, all equipment. It’s hard to find people you can learn today.”
For those who still want to be locked up in a projection cabin, however – a real one with not only digital projectors, but also machines that handle the actual film – the work can be very worthwhile.
“If you work with a film of 35 mm, it is so much more than just giving the machine. It is about knowing when you have to open the curtain, when you have to dim the lights – the entire presentation of a film, it is a great responsibility and a joy,” says Brad Sime, the BOOTMANager and Head of Projection in the metro in the Metro in the Metro in the Metro in the Metro in the Metro in the Metro in the Metro in the, that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, that,, that,,, in the,, that,, that,, in the Metro. -Print one month.
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“It is a strange task because its whole goal is to convince a room full of people that you don’t exist. Ideally, you never want an audience to think about the one who is there,” adds Sime, who has been in the metro for more than two decades. “But I am suitable for loneliness, and if you look out for the gate windows and see the audience involved, it gives you a completely different respect for what film can do.”
Other veterans are less nostalgic and see the future of film resting in technological progress. Nowadays, many theaters convert their Xenon-Lamp-supported digital projectors to laser projection, of which proponents say that proponents not only deliver whites and Waarder, but also a reduction of 65 percent in energy consumption.
“I have always been a fan of film, but I don’t think it’s practically more,” says Gordon McLeod, a tech expert for Magic Lantern Cinemas, who operates theaters in the prairies and in Ontario. “Even when you had full -time projectionists, films were scratched everywhere and have a finite lifespan.”
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And yet whatever can happen to the projection cabin, it is clear that there is a dedicated audience who wants someone who mans the machines. Especially if it is for a film of the few Hollywood directors such as Nolan and Ryan Coogler (Sinner) who still wish and the industry to demand-that their studio partners distribute real-deal prints.
Last week, CinePlex Advance opening weekend issued tickets for special 70 mm IMAX gods of the new film by Nolan, The OdysseyFor which the exhibitor will probably bring in specially trained IMAX projection projection. Less than six hours after tickets were for sale for the few theaters equipped to process the prints – cinemas in Langey, BC, Edmonton, Calgary and the suburbs of Ontario of Mississauga and Vaughan – de Shows sold out. And the film does not open until July 17, 2026.
However, I have my ticket – and although I will certainly spend the majority of my attention on the screen, I will keep an eye on the position trained. It still feels like at home, even if I should never have been there in the first place.
