Where movies come alive: INside the projection booth

Projectionist Bill "Never Wrong" Wright inspecting film before a showing.

The magic of movies is connected to 35mm [film]. . . Everyone thinks that movies record movement. You're not recording movement. You are taking a series of still pictures. . . But when shown at 24 frames a second through a light bulb, it creates the illusion of movement. As opposed to a recording device, when you're watching a movie on a film print, you are watching an illusion. To me, that illusion is connected to the magic of movies."
— Quentin Tarantino, American filmmaker and actor
 
Telling a story through movies is a collective process. From idea to screen, many people bring their expertise to make the magic happen. Writers, actors, directors, cinematographers, stunt people, consumers, editors, distributors, and many others are involved in producing the movie. Then, when the film gets to the theater, countless people run the theater's operations, welcome you, take your ticket, and ensure you have the best experience. At the Artcraft, you have the volunteers: the greeter, the person who scans your ticket, those who run the concessions stand, the ushers who help you find your seat, and even more people behind the scenes who bring each show to life and create an experience for you.
 
One of these behind-the-scenes people is the projectionist. In a little booth tucked away behind the audience, the projectionist is in charge of getting the movie on the screen. They inspect each and every frame of the movie you are about to view and create the performance for the audience to see and get lost in the world of the story.
 
Even though you may never see them, a projectionist's role is critical to the experience. When you see the lights dim and the picture come alive on the screen, that is the projectionist doing their work.

Viewing a section of 35mm film for any potential issues.

"Showing 35-mm film on a projector is like an orchestrated dance. In a dance, there are the technical parts that you bring to it, the nuts and bolts that are teachable, but then there is also your own personality and preferences," says Caleb Clements, local filmmaker and film enthusiast. "The projectionist cares for the audience and their experience for the entire duration of the movie."
 
Only a handful of movie theaters in the United States still show movies on 35mm film. The Historic Artcraft Theatre is one of Indiana's only analog film exhibitors.
 
Today, the projectionists at the Artcraft are Bill (never wrong) Wright, Wayne (as smooth as champaign) Indyk, and Steve Blair (Projectionist Extraordinaire). Steve Blair is the projectionist whom the Artcraft worked with after Franklin Heritage Inc. took ownership of the theatre. His extensive background in projection allowed him to build the booth from the ground up and maintain its operation that it does today.
 
Everything in the booth is there for a reason. Over time, years and years of character build up; that is the projectionist booth that Steve Blair built. Mirrors are in particular places to help the projectionist see what's going on in another part of the room, which is essential so he never has his back turned.
 
In this blog, I interviewed Bill (never wrong) Wright to get his take on being a projectionist and what it is like in the booth.

Projectionist Bill "Never Wrong" Wright loading film into a projector.

How did you learn to be a projectionist?
I learned projection when I was 17 years old. I call it a skill that anyone can learn. It's just that it's not a skill with an awful lot of call for anymore. When I learned, an 18-year-old kid taught me at 17 for a week and then threw me to the wolves. I basically did exactly what I do here because the owner of the theatre I worked at was too cheap to buy the stuff that you use to splice it all together and push a button; it was cheaper to pay a teenager $3 an hour to do it.
 
I made every mistake in the book, you know. But every time you make a mistake, you learn. And you know, I quit doing it at about 20, and then at 58, I start up again. But it was very much like riding a bike. Yeah, it was easy. Just pick it right back up.
 
What is the difference between film and digital?
There are aesthetic differences between a 35-millimeter presentation and a Digital Cinema Package (known as DCP, a collection of files that contains the audio, image, and data streams for a movie). 35-millimeter projection is what digital is trying to emulate, and that we get to keep that alive is important. Film didn't start going away until 2010. Up until around the turn of the century, every movie you saw in the theatre was shot on projection machines and was on film.
However, deals started to be made with the projector manufacturers, and part of the deal was that the projectors that showed film had to get removed, and new digital projectors took their place. An awful lot of these old projectors just went into dumpsters because they didn't want the competition. What you end up with now is a 10-year useful life of a thing that goes obsolete, or one of these that was from the 1940s, and when you get a great print, you get to show it exactly like they did back in the day that it was made.
 
Some of the movies we get in have faded or are scratched up. Others are in pristine condition. The copy of Pulp Fiction that we showed a few weeks back was a supreme copy. There was no degradation, and it was better than anything I'd ever seen before. Only a few theaters got to show the release of that print: theaters in New York, LA, Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta, and Franklin, Indiana.

Projectionist Bill "Never Wrong" Wright keeping an eye out for a que mark to make a reel change.

Why is film important?
This is as close to a time machine as you are ever going to get.
 
The Artcraft is going to show Casablanca in February. You're going to have the experience that people would have had back in 1942 when the film came out. And I just think that's fascinating. If you keep your phone in your pocket, it's the same thing.
 
What is the process of getting a canister of film ready—starting from when you open the shipping box from the studios to showing it over a weekend?
Each movie is between four and seven reels, with the reel holding the small strip of film that runs through the projector. Each canister generally holds two reels. What projectionists do is check every foot of the film to make sure that each of the sprocket holes is intact and there are no breaks or splices. I also check to make sure there are cue marks and anything else important, and I write it down. There is a report we write up for each reel of film we receive. When I come in before each show, that is my job.
 
Once we check every inch of the film, we can start to get it ready for the showing. There are two large film projectors in the booth, and during the duration of the night, we have to flip back and forth between them. On a typical night, the first thing we do is dim the lights. The national anthem is shown on film, and it goes on to projector number 2. After that is finished showing, we hop over to the cartoon, which is on a DVD most of the time and runs on a digital projector. We already have the first reel of film for the movie loaded in Projector number 1, and as soon as the cartoon ends, that is when we start up the movie.
 
A reel of film typically holds 20 minutes of the movie, so while that one is playing, you have to get the second reel of film ready in Projector number 2. I have to wait for the cue; it's a little tab on the upper left-hand side of the film, and when I see that, it's time to switch to the second projector. I have to switch between each projector with a new reel of film approximately every 20 minutes. I know that if it's five reels, I have four changeovers.
 
When we're done showing the movie, we put it back on their shipping reels and send it back to the studio.
 
These projectors produce really great images, and everything that we might need here is in the booth. My hat's off to Steve Blair for putting this whole booth together.