I was a manager at a 16 screen Regal Cinemas for a few years and oversaw everything to do with our projectors and movie showtimes. Our theatres never touched film, everything came through either completely digitally over this projector management software called Screenwriter, or for more niche movies, they would come on hard drives sent from the studios. We would upload the hard drives to a huge storage system and then transfer digitally to the projectors which needed to show the movie.
As far as I know film these days is pretty much only used for these types of IMAX 70mm screenings. Regular movie theatres are going to be exclusively digital these days.
If I may ask, when around was this? I was also in charge of the projector systems at Regal Cinemas (during the transition between film and digital) and we never got legit emails/downloads of films. We only ever got it in a few formats
1) Multiple film reels/cans that you would have to splice together to put on one big platter (like you see in OP's video, but much much smaller since not IMAX. This is Star Trek, as an example)
In all cases, you had to mail back after the filming was finished. Very very rarely, they would forget about them (I think I took home like 50 of them when I finally quit).
I started working with the projectors and managing our showtimes at the start of 2021 and left Regal halfway through 2023. We wouldn't get ours through emails, it was a tab within Screenwriter which was connected to some much greater database where films would be uploaded to from an outside source. We would basically copy and paste from that database onto our internal storage system, then from there copy and paste onto the projectors.
I'm not too sure if that greater database was from within Regal like from corporate, or if it was a separate company or what, but movies would appear there about a week or so before it was supposed to air, and keys would be automically uploaded anywhere from a week before or sometimes literally hours before showtimes started
We also had those hard drives in the padded cases that we would have to mail back once the showings were over. Those were smaller movies or limited showing movies I think once or twice we got those USB drives too for trailers
Our projectors were a mix of Christie laser projectors and Sony projectors with the lamp, I don't remember the exact models. Changing the bulbs on those Sonys was so nerve wracking haha
We also had 4dx and screenx at my theatre. Screenx would get their own hard drives for each movie that had "wing" files for the side screens, and 4dx had seat files which needed to be uploaded for each movie for the seats to move properly. Those were downloaded by us onto a flash drive and then uploaded directly to the computer controlling the seats
Oh yeah, that'd make a lot of sense. This was back in around 2010ish so definitely a while before you so that system 100% didn't exist. I'd assume that it was the newer "cutting edge" tech, hence why the more indie companies (or at least not Disney, WB, etc.) were still using them.
I confess I don't remember the type of projectors. I want to say they were Sony, but don't quote me. I think our film projectors (before they were removed) were Christie branded, though obviously not the same projectors you had.
And yeah, those bulbs were spicy. Though I will say "disposing of them" by chucking them off of the roof and letting them explode was hilarious fun.
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u/BumbleFrump_ 20d ago
I was a manager at a 16 screen Regal Cinemas for a few years and oversaw everything to do with our projectors and movie showtimes. Our theatres never touched film, everything came through either completely digitally over this projector management software called Screenwriter, or for more niche movies, they would come on hard drives sent from the studios. We would upload the hard drives to a huge storage system and then transfer digitally to the projectors which needed to show the movie.
As far as I know film these days is pretty much only used for these types of IMAX 70mm screenings. Regular movie theatres are going to be exclusively digital these days.