The 36th edition (actually the 35th, but that’s another story) of the Göteborg International Film Festival started yesterday. I’ve been running projectors for the festival since 1987 and since 1990 as the projectionist at the festival’s main auditorium, the Draken.

This year (and to some extent, last) is different from every other year.

When I did my first year at the Draken, out of around 50 feature film prints most were in 35mm. Those that weren’t–I’m guessing one or two, without bothering to check the actual figures–were in 16mm. One (1) had stereo sound. All of the others were in mono.

This changed rapidly. In only a few years, all prints, excepting, perhaps, an occasional third-world effort, had stereo soundtracks. By 2000, several used Dolby Digital, Dolby’s six-channel digital sound.

And by 2010, all had Dolby Digital, excepting restored archive prints from bygone days, screened as parts of retrospectives and such.

When the digital sound arrived, we didn’t really consider it to be a revolution. Better sound, sure, but revolution, no. The prints were still in 35mm, handled about the same as always by the projectionists and causing the people who carried them from one cinema to the next bad backs and strained muscles. 35mm prints are heavy and carrying them around for ten days will cause you grief.

Last year, though, they installed a digital projector in my projection booth. Most films were still in 35mm, but I also ran a dozen or so shows digitally, many of them shorts. I’d upload a digital file from a hard drive to the server housed with the projector, “program” the show by dragging and dropping film clips, including the feature film itself, to a flow chart-like user interface on a flat screen, and finally click on Play when given the go ahead signal from the ushers.

The 35mm prints, on the other hand, are (and have been, for the last several decades) assembled from the six or so reels they arrive on to (usually) two larger ones. Those are then threaded into large projectors and handled manually, with a “change-over” taking place in the middle of the screening, hopefully invisible to the patrons.

Times, they are a-changin’.

Last year was just a mere warning of things to come, though. This year, the festival will be halfway over when I finally get to run my first 35mm print, and I’m only expecting four or five more of them.

But worse in some (to me) ever-so-subtle way is that they no longer provide us with a 35mm festival vignette to be spliced onto the first reel before shows. There are still a few 35mm prints, yes, but there are very few labs left to make them. One of the festival techs mentioned to me that he’d given up the idea after some research.

We had no vignettes when I worked my first festival in 1987, either. That was because the festival could not afford to make them. Now, 26 years later, they’d probably be too expensive to make, again. It doesn’t feel like a full circle to me, but I guess maybe it is.

Worst, however, is that with the death of the 35mm format follows the death of a century-old profession, that of the projectionist. We are being replaced by IT people, people who know their way around a computer. A colleague who’s been in the business since 1970 has real trouble using his new equipment at another festival cinema. He knows how to run a show but doesn’t realise that you can “click” on weird symbols on a screen to access functions he needs. A window to him is something you draw the blinds on during shows, a mouse a living thing and a menu something posh restaurants give you.

In only a year or two, we are not only no longer needed, what we do now can be done by IT people from home.

And that’s more than a little sad.

With most surviving cinemas rapidly going digital, a lot of perfectly good film projection and cinema sound equipment is being replaced with their all-digital counterparts. It’s to be expected, of course, but what most people don’t realise is that the new technology is not yet even close to the old one in terms of quality.

A 35mm film strip, so far, is superior to the digital technology in just about every respect, from resolution to contrast to colours. Yes, you will hear a lot of hype from the industry about scratch-free and dust-free images, HD and the perceived (low) line density of 35mm answer prints, much like the music industry once hyped the compact disc, but I suggest you to trust your eyes instead.

If you are lucky enough to have an art house in your area, go see an old movie, preferably something from the fifties, filmed in Technicolor and Vista Vision. A lot of the old westerns were filmed using these technologies, as were some Hitchcock thrillers; you should be able to find one. Then buy a ticket to your nearest multiplex with the latest in digital technology and see for yourself.

Now, I’m betting that you’ll find the latter scratch-free and dust-free, but I’m also betting that you’ll find the former alive in a sense that just cannot be done today.

I talked to a cinematographer during the last Göteborg Film Festival a few weeks ago. He was responsible for the cinematography of the opening feature and understandably anxious about every aspect of film projection before the first show. They had shot the film using digital cameras and we, of course, had just installed the latest in digital projection technology. I thought he would be pleased. Yet, the film production crew was very anxious to screen a 35mm print of the film, rather than a digital copy.

Why?

Well, the cinematographer told me that they had added grain to the digital print using a computerised process. This was done in order to simulate the grain inherent in a 35mm print and make the film look more natural and alive, but the problem was that the image was still dead in a way that could never happen on film, not even when the image had been transferred from a digital original.

I screened the 35mm print, of course, and everyone was happy. What’s really interesting, though, is that several other film-makers approached me and the festival with similar opinions and requests. If a 35mm print was available, they much preferred it to a digital copy on a hard disk. Some went to the trouble of producing a 35mm print for the festival only.

Which means, of course, that while film-makers may still consider 35mm superior and make a print for film festivals only, what the audiences now have to get used to is digital technology. They do it to save money, of course. It costs a fortune to make and distribute heavy 35mm prints, requiring skilled projectionists at cinemas instead of low-level ushers clicking on Play.
Not only will the quality be lower but the risk of something going wrong without anyone in the cinema being able to fix the problem will be higher.

Me, I think that this will eventually marginalise cinemas, because that same quality of presentation can be achieved at home, but with the added bonuses of Fast Forward and Pause buttons, cold beverages from the fridge and the ability to share that digital image with others.

What do you think?