Hello Everybody....
Most people know me only as a silent film accompanist, but a hobby of mine for the last 25 years has been film collecting and Projection. I work as a Freelance AV/Projection Tech in NY City and have worked at many theatres including Loews Theatres, AMC, Cineplex Odeon, General Cinema and many independent theatre chains in NJ. I became a technician out of necessity because I got tired of working in theatres that had crappy projection equipment and wanted to make my life a little easier. So as with many other technicians, if you work at this long enough, eventually you discover that you know more than everyone else. I always had a close connection to everything in film exhibition going back to when I was 5 years old, especially the history of film exhibition of the 20's and 30's. I always loved old theatres as long as I can remember. Everything was inter-related: the Theatre Organ, Projection, Silent Films, Orchestral Music and of course the Theatres.
In 2010, my theatre went to digital projection. It has been a surreal 5 years since, because what I've always known as a movie theatre is no longer. True, you still have a screen, seats, an auditorium, over priced candy and soda, but the projection booth has really fell silent for the first time. Not only that, the little bit of knowledge that the theatre staff has nowadays towards projection is a joke. At least with film, you would have a little core group of people on a projection staff that could get the show running. Now you have none.
Since 2012, I got lucky and fell into employment to run the Bryant Park Film Festival in NYC. After 4 years of running the park (3 years with 35mm and this past year with Barco DLP Projection), I joined the local projection union (who was using me as a Temp). Although people say film is dead, I've run more 35mm film than most this year. Between the Museum of Modern Art, Film Society of Lincoln Center and even the Japan Society, I've probably shown over 20 films on 35mm and a handful of 16mm titles. I joke about it now, "since I'm a dinosaur, I should be in a museum!"
In 2014, I met Peter Flynn. Peter is a films studies teacher at Emerson College and documentary director. He was in the middle of filming his documentary, "The Dying of the Light". Peter, having no background in projection at all, thought it was important to document the last of the projectionists; get their stories before its too late.
On Nov 18th, 2015, "The Dying of the Light" will have its World Premiere in NYC as part of the DOC-NYC film festival. I'm very excited to be part of this project and glad to see it have a high profile premiere. If you're interested in attendening, you can find out more info here.
http://www.docnyc.net/film/dying-of-the-light-the/#.Viqz8IR2Nsh
If you can't make it to the sure, there are excerpts of the film on the film's website:
http://www.dyingofthelightfilm.com
Hope to see you there!
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