The Moving Image

PROJECTION AND TECHNICAL PRESENTATION COMMITTEE

This past year, collaboration and knowledge sharing have been the major focal points of the Projection and Technical Presentation Committee. The committee gained eight new members between 2018 and 2019, which shows that there is a growing interest in our work and in preservation and access issues related to media exhibition. As we look back on the committee's activities for the year, these issues seem only more complex considering the impact of COVID-19 on theaters, galleries, and other exhibition venues (not to mention audiences).

BOOTH TALK

One product of this focus has been the creation of "Booth Talk," a new discussion group for cinema and festival projectionists, technical directors, and adjacent professionals. Inspired by the now mostly defunct (but still invaluable and constantly referenced) Film-Tech Forum,¹ the group provides a space for users to post practical questions about exhibition and share information about equipment, technical issues, news, jobs, and other related topics. Booth Talk is open to AMIA members and nonmembers and is inclusive of all audiovisual formats, analog and digital. Contact becca@chicagofilmsociety.org to join.

SPROCKET SCHOOL

The committee has also worked to support the Chicago Film Society's Sprocket School project, a wiki-style compilation of analog film handling and projection booth expertise, freely available online at SprocketSchool.org. Subjects covered are diverse and focus on the kinds of questions about which expert projectionists of archival film prints get panicked text messages from their colleagues—things like how to "scratch test" a projector, an overview of exhibition aspect ratios, how to use a split reel correctly, and more. Volunteer project editors, many of whom are members of the committee, have held a few informal hackathons to develop articles on the site during the COVID-19 lockdown.

PROJECTION WORKSHOPS

The committee, alongside the Film Advocacy Task Force, has worked to support the emergence of a series of training workshops for working projectionists who project archival analog film prints. After the initial AMIA- affiliated projection workshops in 2014 and 2016—both hosted by Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas—instructors from those workshops began to discuss ways to reproduce, organize, and develop the workshop curriculum. The result was the presentation of a pair of Intermediate Workshops (organized by Alamo Drafthouse and Boston Light and Sound) in 2017 and 2018 and a Level 1 AMIA Projection Workshop (organized by the Chicago Film Society with support from AMIA) in 2018. These workshops helped coalesce and refine the curricula for basic and intermediate skill levels and point the way toward future workshops.

These workshops help build a professional community of film handlers and preserve essential skills that make the work of archivists visible to the public. The committee's hope for the future is that more projection workshops will be independently and regionally organized using the framework developed by past instructors at AMIA-affiliated workshops. An AMIA-produced handbook for project workshop organizers, inspired by the Community Archiving Workshop handbook, is nearing completion.

SHARING AND LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE

The committee has also discussed how members around the country might share information and create resources for supporting exhibition as a means of access and public education in their home regions. In the past, these conversations have mainly revolved around film advocacy and outreach, including encouraging more involvement in local events and workshops like those hosted by the Film [End Page 275]

[End Page 276] Advocacy Task Force and the Small Gauge Film Committee, with which our committee enjoys collaborating.

As we look forward to the future, we hope to partner with regional film collectors and microcinemas to bring more film to AMIA, but we also are beginning to consider how the impact of the pandemic will change the way people want to experience moving image media. Will open-air exhibition become more desired? If so, how can we support...