They wonder sometimes.
When your whole mission is rooted in the act of threading physical celluloid through the guts of clunky antiquated projectors, when your group was founded to promote the âunsimulated experienceâ of showing film stock to a room full of strangers, you are at the mercy of knowledge. A while ago, when a guy in Iowa offered them a bunch of old 16mm projectors that he had acquired from a school district there, they bought them, not entirely knowing what they would do with them â it seemed like the right thing to do.
You know, preservation-wise.
See, many decades ago, as legend has it, large reels of film moved clickety-clack through metal projectors. Chicago itself was a major supplier. The names of local companies that created projectors for homes and schools alone â Ampro, EXCEL, Bell & Howell, et al â would be familiar to anyone of a certain age who zoned out during social studies. But then home video arrived, and at multiplexes, digital projection became standard.