The Dying of the Light Trailer (2015)

Trailer for The Dying of the Light.

Largely unchanged for more than a century, the craft of film projection is finally being abandoned as studios and exhibitors make the jump to digital.

Film projectionists are facing near-extinction as Digital Cinema resigns many to mere button-pushers and many more to the job queue. With them a practice of handing and projecting photochemical film stock is being lost‹the craft of lacing a projector, of running reel-to-reel changeovers, of splicing and winding film, and of ensuring proper brightness and focus on screen.

A whole technology is similarly being abandoned‹projectors that have worked perfectly for fifty, sixty, or seventy years are now being ripped out and scrapped. And as digital projectors get smaller and become easier to program remotely, the projection booth itself will no longer be necessary.

The Dying of the Light captures the craft of film projection as its moment of eclipse. It outlines the history of film projection and the means by which film‹in all its various forms; from 16mm to 70mm; from nitrate to safety; from flat to scope; from 2D to 3D‹has been presented to audiences for more than a century.

Most importantly, however, it tells the stories of those who continue to handle and exhibit photochemical film stock‹the last generation of career projectionists operating today.