Inside the world of IMAX 3D projectionists

22 Aug 2011



He's demonstrating how to use a touchscreen PC to cue up ads, trailers and the film itself. It looks deceptively simple -- all he has to do is line everything up, press play and leave the computer to do its work. "This is by far the best job I've ever had. I get paid to watch films!" he says. "Jim's good at his job. He's very technically-minded," says Nik Blair, the chief technician at the cinema. Blair has been working in films for 16 years, having started as an usher. As he explains, being in charge of IMAX 3D projections is a little more complex than Warburton would have it. For starters, it requires a certain kind of person: someone comfortable with their own company, capable of overseeing not only the IMAX screen but over a dozen other, smaller ones.

It can be dangerous, too: the projection lamps in each IMAX projector need to be recalibrated every morning, and replaced every 600 hours. This is a tough job, and one that requires special face guards and leather padding: get an accidental flare into your unprotected eyes, and no 3D glasses in the world will help you.

Unlike conventional 3D -- which relies on a single projector rapidly flashing different images -- the IMAX projectors mimic the eyes. "You've got two projectors," says Blair, "which interlace 2D images one on top of the other, making them twice as bright as a normal screen would be, and giving you better definition. A conventional 3D projector would artificially produce a left-eye and right-eye picture, slightly spaced apart."

The operation isn't just drag-and-drop, it's plug-and-play, too.

Films are delivered on chunky, silver hard drives, connected to the projectors via a USB cable. Then, Blair and Warburton have to enter a KDM (Key Delivery Message) -- essentially a password that unlocks a film for a set period of time. Once that's done, the software inside the projector decodes and cues up the film.

IMAX won't reveal what the innards of each projector are like, but there are a few clever technical tricks. For starters, each projector balances and aligns itself, so the pictures are never out of whack. Then there's the image enhancer -- a mysterious piece of tech that Blair describes as "like the best graphics card money can buy. It's an independent system which they've developed, and it emphasises the picture."

Technicians can't manually adjust the projector settings, but if anything goes wrong, IMAX technicians are reachable via a black phone, perched on a nearby stool.

Unlike projectionists who work with film, no special training is required to run an IMAX projector. The entirely digital set-up means that both Blair and Warburton learnt on the job. Does that mean that the traditional skills of a projectionist are no longer needed? "It makes cinema easier to run, so you've got less manning hours," says Blair. "That obviously has a knock-on effect for the whole industry, which isn't necessarily a good thing. It's one of the drawbacks."

Get even closer to the IMAX 3D technology in our photo gallery below.