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Aug 12, 2023

'It's a dance': Behind the scenes of 'gold standard' IMAX projectors

by: Adam Mintzer Posted: Aug 1, 2023 / 10:28 PM CDT Updated: Aug 1, 2023 / 10:29 PM CDT NASHVILLE Tenn. (WKRN) — When one speck of dust can take up a couple feet on a screen, the job of being an IMAX

by: Adam Mintzer

Posted: Aug 1, 2023 / 10:28 PM CDT

Updated: Aug 1, 2023 / 10:29 PM CDT

NASHVILLE Tenn. (WKRN) — When one speck of dust can take up a couple feet on a screen, the job of being an IMAX projectionist working the 70mm version of one of the summer’s most anticipated blockbusters gets complicated.

“It’s a dance. It’s a real film moving through a projector at 24 frames a second that produces the image,” said IMAX projectionist Matthew Livingston.

Nashville’s Regal Cinema at Opry Mills is one of 19 IMAX theaters in the country to be screening Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” in 70mm.

Livingston said for movie lovers, this is the “gold standard” for how to see the film.

“The nostalgia of the bulb flicker of a little bit of dust, a little bit of, you know, the little things that make film feel like home,” he said. “It gives it a certain aesthetic.”

The projector and the technology behind it has been around since the 1990s and is commonly used for Nolan productions, but requires a certain level of expertise to operate.

In Nashville, two trained professionals are tasked with the job, alternating 10-12 hour shifts operating the machine.

In addition, to setting the projector up for the next show, Livingston and his colleague listen intently to it to make sure the film is rolling without a problem and watch the screen to make sure no alien particles end up on the screen and distract the audience.

“It’s a complex machine that with with a whole bunch of moving parts that all have to run in concert together to make it, you know, beautiful, and it is beautiful. It is the most beautiful way to watch a film still to this day,” Livingston said.

He said in his two decades as a projectionist, the energy around “Oppenheimer” has felt unique.

“I’ve never experienced it like this. It’s been every show; every show that I’ve ran thus far has been, from what I can, see full of people,” he said. “Being up in the projection room and knowing that there is a full house of people expecting to get their minds blown, or they will get their minds blown, because it is the most beautiful way to watch a film, in my opinion.”

Livingston said so far he has seen the movie at least 25 times and feels grateful to be a part of every single show.

In 2016, he had a brain tumor and underwent four surgeries, losing vision in one of his eyes.

He spent days in the ICU, and months of rehabilitation to be where he is today. However, at the time, never expected to be back in the projection booth one day.

“So for 2016 I didn’t do anything, and then 2017 IMAX called, and they wanted to know if I could run ‘Dunkirk’ and I said, ‘I can’t because I only have one eye,’ and my head tech at IMAX, Ed Whelan, was like, ‘Oh, man, it’s 2D, you’ll be fine.’ So, I came up and ran ‘Dunkirk’ and it was amazing. It gave me my confidence back,” he said.

Livingston said he feels like he is “the last part of the chain” for a film like “Oppenheimer” and takes pride in showing the movie how the director intended.

“Whatever Christopher Nolan wanted it to be like, we recreate it as best as we can without changing anything, just trying to make it as good as it can possibly be,” he said.

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The 70mm showing of “Oppenheimer” has been extended at Regal Cinemas and will continue until Aug. 17.

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