Movie magic
Before we started the school year, I knew I wanted to take the kids on some “behind-the-scenes” field trips. That is, I wanted to get them into some local businesses and institutions to show them how the world works. How their world works. I had several places in mind from the start: police station, fire station, a game-design business since they both enjoy video games, and one with a personal connection—a movie theater. After years of talking to them about film and showing them how to make little stop-motion movies of their own, I wanted to get them into a projection booth so they could see how the big dogs run.
Last month I finally was able to make that happen. A phone call to Cinemark Legacy put me in contact with its general manager, Melissa Rohrbach. My kind of manager, she was immediately and graciously on board with the idea. She passed me over to her head projectionist, Paul Konen. He would be our tour guide.
It proved to be not just an informative trip, but an historic one. It just happened that I was scheduling our trip one week before that theater began the transformation to an all-digital theater. Film—the beautiful, ephemeral celluloid strip that’s delivered so many immortal moments to billions of people over the last hundred years—is officially on its way out as the format of choice for theater chains across the nation. Cinemark expects the segue to take place nationally over the next three years. Cinemark Legacy is the first stop on that journey, so we were privy to the last week of operation for the platters.
The first stop was an editing table, where Paul showed how trailers have been spliced onto features, and to each other, for decades. He was nice enough to hack off some twenty-four frame strips—one second’s worth—for the kids to take home. They got a kick out of that.
After that we began touring the projectors. The kids obviously didn’t know what to expect, so they were suitably impressed by the huge silver platters, wider than they are tall, from which physical films unspool across empty space into the huge projectors. At the projector of an empty showing of The Green Hornet, Paul actually let the kids make shadow puppets on the big screen. An exit poll of the kids revealed that as the favorite moment of the trip for both of them.
We got to see the difference in size and complexity—which is significant—between the newest generation digital processors and the older generation. We saw what a blown bulb does to the reflector around it.
And then we saw the digital projectors. Now if it wasn’t obvious, I’m a film snob. I don’t want to like digital. I saw the first generation digital projection back in late Nineties and wasn’t impressed. I saw the swirling digital artifacts and tut-tutted. I haven’t seen one since. Digital bad, film good. Up with film.
But I’m also not blind. I know full-well how far digital video technology has advanced over the past ten years. I now own high-def video equipment that testifies well enough to that. I know there will almost certainly come a time when digital projection will close the gap enough that even the most devout follower of the church of film will squint in utter frustration to tell the difference between one and the other.
As emotionally tied to physical film as I am, I came away with a new appreciation for why theater chains would want to make the switch. I knew it would make their lives easier, but I just hadn’t thought it through. Gone are the days of the editing table; thanks to feature films on hard drives, switching and arranging trailers is as quick and painless as moving files between your C: and E: drives. Films come in fifty- to sixty-pound canisters with thin handles that are a bear to get around; digital features come on a hard drive. From a central network hub, features are pushed out to individual projectors. The schedule can be created and modified as needed from a single computer station, and *poof*, it’s done. It’s impossibly convenient. And it saves money, since only one projectionist is necessary to run even a twenty-four-auditorium theater. For theater chains, there’s no good reason not to do it.
The film snob in me tells me I’ll still be able to spot the difference, and who knows, maybe I will. On high-end sound equipment, it’s easy to spot the superiority of vinyl over CD. That’s one of the main reasons vinyl is making a resurgence. But there’s no denying at least the convenience of digital technology, and how helpful that is especially in this case. I still believe film cameras will be around for a long time, but I fully expect to view them digitally without much reasonable complaint. I certainly won’t be able to complain about the scratches on the film, or the garbled soundtrack.
So an educational outing for all of us. Angelina has her film strip tacked to her bulletin board. Alexander’s is on his desk in his room. One thing for sure: When we see a movie in the theater the next time, they won’t be asking me what goes on behind the little window in the back of the auditorium where the light is coming out. Thanks, Paul, and thanks, Melissa, for the, ahem, illumination.
