From the article:
When we went to our seats, the wait staff let us know that despite the fact that the previews were playing, we wouldn’t know until the movie actually started whether we could see the film or not. If it didn’t work, the screen would just turn black. Luckily, the film went through without a hitch.
I’ve gotten bad keys from the studio before, usually when we were doing advanced screenings. It was a relatively quick fix… I think the longest delay was ~15 minutes. I never had to cancel a show because of it, certainly didn’t have to close the entire building.
For as much as I loved the convenience of digital, I really miss the days of 35 film.
35mm was a whole thing and while I miss the nostalgia, I certainly don’t miss the upkeep and the problems with film. Digital is so much easier. I feel the biggest issue with digital is if a problem goes wrong, there’s really not much you can do outside of standard problem fixes. If it’s an internal issue. You’re just screwed until the technician can fix it.
I agree that moving to digital saved so much time, and I’ll never miss brainwraps or thrown platters… but working booth shifts threading projectors were some of the happiest times I had running theaters.
Thursday nights were an event for sure. Building up new movies, breaking down the old ones.