Also although the internet boom has gone bust, some of the venture capital that was put in will yield sustainable industries (ie economic ones) and this augers well for the future.

As to the future of projectionists?

Whatever the short term effect of DVD (which will probably have much the same effect as video did), people like to go out. Also, asking a girl out to the movies is quite different from asking a girl to come back to your place to see a movie. A movie theatre is public space and thus socially acceptable.
Besides comfort demands that someone else makes the popcorn.

So I see a long future for movie theatres. A chance to get away from Mum and Dad and revisit a world of entertainment quite separate from that of home with the assurance that afterwards you can return to the familial comfort of home.

Technology will however change movie theatres a little. One would expect that economies of scale will lead to fewer, larger multiplexes offering as many as 40, 60 or 100 theatres. There will be no projectionist - rather a complex computter comtrolled digital video distribution system will automatically screen selected films at session times. There will probably be a digital video manager (the projectionist of the future) on hand to handle any glitches.

With the advent of larger complexes it might even be technically feasible to rent your own, smaller theatre for private screenings. You visit your local cinema complex on the Internet and look through a list of films available both old and new. As many titles as are available at a Video store are available. You select the film you like and book a 'cubicle' over the Internet.

A cubicle is a small mini theatre - much like what some people have theorised home theatres might look like but with the added advantage of services such as shops, popcorn vendors nearby. The cubicle can hold up to 20 people.

At the selected time you visit the cubicle with your frinds and show your id (you have already paid over the Internet). The selected film has already been uploaded over the Internet to the cinema complex's main computer which then proceeds to show you the film in glorious digital video and high quality sound. And no adverts!

Science fiction? I wonder...

From a practical standpoint, it is much simpler for distribution and production to keep track of a few theatres than try to herd the cats of a glut of tiny cubicles or screening rooms.

The only way that you'll see these develop is if there is a DivX style of pay per view that gets credited directly to the distributor or production co.. Even with that, chances are the technology would have to be the single-band laser projection, to limit the practicality of making copies.

It may appear that we are technology driven, but in fact we are profit driven and we therefore embrace technologies that promise to be cheaper, allowing greater profit margins. We ignore other greater technologies.

High-end stuff for the masses is largely relegated to novelty programs, and with good reason. I am reminded of that sad fact every time I drive down the street and a car drives up next to me with a boomer in the trunk, blasting rap at a volume that loosens the bolts on the muffler. High end audio is rarely used for a high end experience, but the spin-offs are used everyday to stimulate endorphins and destroy the cilia in the inner ear and make people go deaf earlier.

Getting totally off the subject, I got to thinking that the great sound systems in some theatres could be used to recreate fantastic concerts and organ recitals, but other than "Fantasia" and the ilk, that market has been totally ignored. The "fix" of sex and extreme violence sells better. Such is life, where even those that do attend concerts or live theatre may be doing so largely because it is a status symbol, and not because of any real appreciation of the artists.

I think part of the reason we don't have video cubicles is that everyone can comparable video at home.

I think the market for cubicles will be in those films that attract a relatively small audience eg foreign and arthouse films (and most Australian films for that matter).

Mind you if the costs of really good quality home DVD systems come down it will eb hard for cubicles to find a market.

In the early 1900s, you would have two, maybe three workers. You would have a head projectionist, and an assistant. And possibly a fireman, depending on what city you were working in. Between the three workers, they would spend all day in a hot booth threading projectors with 1000' nitrate reels, doing a changeover every 10 minutes, keeping the carbon arcs adjusted, checking the focus, hand-cranking the projector all day, and trying not to set fire to the converted wood-frame opera house that had recently been converted into a movie theatre.

Now that is a job where you damn better have a strong union. It's a demanding, exhausting job, and the projectionist literally held the lives of the theatre patrons in his hands.

Move on a few years; the projectors are motorized, and have 2000' reels. Now the projectionist doesn't have to crank anymore, but he has to keep the vitaphone discs synched with the film, still has to maintain the carbons, and do the changeovers. The film is still nitrate, so some cities, like Chicago, still require a union fireman in the booth at all times.

Move on a few years, and you have sound-on-film, then safety film, then Xenon lighting. Gradually, the projectionist's job shifts from being actively involved in presenting the film, to a more passive role -- instead of constantly operating the machinery, the projectionist is the person who watches over the machinery, and makes sure that it works correctly and optimally.

I think it took until the 1970s before the Chicago projectionists' union lost the battle, and theatres no longer had to hire firemen to sit in the booths. Such is the power of a very powerful union.

Move forward a few more years, and you have continuous loop platter systems, and full automation. The projectionist is spending his or her time optimizing the quality of the image, watching the equipment for malfunction, and maintaining the equipment.

If you think that there will still be a role for a projectionist with digital projection, ask yourself, what will the projectionist be doing?

There's no more film to thread up. The projectors have no moving parts. The lamps only need to be changed once every thousand or so operational hours, the projector will probably stay in focus, and the technology is certainly there to have the projectors auto-focusing.

The movies will probably be stored in a single central computer, which feeds all of the projectors in the building. Your new movies will be automatically received by satellite and stored in the central computer.

Not only will the system probably be fully automated ... but I'll make another prediction.

Theatres will not be able to pay for digital projectors. Instead, the distributors will pay for and own the projectors, for two reasons.

First off, they will save millions of dollars if they don't have to strike, physically transport, and eventually dispose of film prints.

Second, the studios are so paranoid that they will never allow theatres to own digital projectors. If the projectors are owned and operated by the distributors, then they can be sealed, locked cabinets with tamper-proof seals on them -- to prevent someone from hacking into them to pirate the movies. Never mind the question of who can maintain a digital projector -- Theatres will be forbidden to open the covers of their projectors, much less be trusted to maintain them. Besides, if a distributor rents a theatre a $150,000 projector, the last thing he wants is for the popcorn guy to be tampering with it.

Heck, most likely the projectors will eventually be ceiling-mounted, eliminating the need for a booth entirely.

So where does the projectionist fit in to all of this?

He or she DOESN'T!

A. Right now theaters own there own equipment, maintain it, and consider it part of their assets.

B. lenses get dirty and as long as there is dirt in the atmosphere everything will get dirty.

C. If satalite is the choice it is a bad choice if it is anything like sending signals to satalite dishes you get sun black outs. Wouldn't want one of those during a down load.

D. you will still have piracy just by someone sneaking a camera into the theater and filming it right of the screen.
Plus major piracy happens in hollywoods own back yard anyway.

E. there will always be a booth as long as these things are big and need to be accessed for repair.

F. there needs to be some form of back up if system crashes. So having a computer bank and everything crashes on it means you close the doors and go home.

G. Theater owners do not like it when outside sources tell them how to run their opperations. They will not stand for the inabillity to maintain there equipment.

H. Distributors are not going to fork out the money to put a digital projector in every theater screen. Hell they won't even fork out the money to replace damaged film cans.

I. for one think that a projectionist union or not will be around for quite a while. could be ten years or longer before things get to the point that I am sitting at home watching my bigscreen tv. With all my sound equipment set up drinking my soft drink cuddling with the future wife eating popcorn watching our favorite movies and thinking boy this sure beats paying all that money to go to the movies to see the same presentation we can see in our own home

I don't think the effects of a DOUBLING of utility rates can be casually dismissed by saying postage rates go up all the the same breath! Postage rates go up only a penny at a time occasionally, and other things go up in price too, but they don't suddenly DOUBLE or TRIPLE over a period of one or two years, and it is this single factor that -- if nothing is done -- I believe will implode the economy inwards upon itself leading quickly to another Depression.

Don't look to the republicans in power in Washington to do anything about this. The bushchild is palsy-walsy with all sorts of millionaires in the energy business, Cheney made many millions last year, and the bushchild's cabinet is mostly millionaires. This bunch is licking their chops in anticipation of obscene profits from energy production, and it is also ancient economic history that investors will be quite happy with 30% unemployment.

Why? Well, 70% are still employed in such a scenario, but the ones who still have jobs will be terrified of losing them, crunching America down into a subservient work force that can be made to work cheap.

See also, new thread here on film-yak about plunging business earnings, it is a meaty article from the WSJ; also an analysis predicting a dow of 1717, and why. As this is quite long, I didn't want to tangle up this thread about projectionists too much, but it is quite relevant and respectfully suggested reading. Each one here can interpret the future as he sees fit.

Also, a new thread about the carmike bankruptcy, et al.