This is amazing!! I remember the one time I did an interlock, it was on the fly - for the first Pokemon movie, opening Saturday morning, and the initially planned theater sold out 10 minutes from opening with a long line still waiting. So I interlocked it to the screen right next to the original one and sold that one out too. I was terrified because it was the first (and only) time I'd ever done it, and I had never been shown how to set it up the whole way through. But it worked, no issues, and two theaters full of Pokemon fan kids in 1998 got to see the movie when only one would have been able to if I'd not done that.

Midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 at the theater I used to work at was interlocked through all 16 projectors. All 16 screens sold out. And disaster did strike. It still haunts me.

I worked at an AMC 16 some 13 years ago. It was one of my first jobs and I was 1 month away from being trained as a projectionist when the decision was made to go all digital. Half the booths were pushed to digital the month I was supposed to train, then the other half a month later. The last film projector was the IMAX projectors, which were replaced with digital later that summer. I'm very sad (13 years later) that I never got to work upstairs. Booth jobs were basically ended by the digital projectors. At our AMC, 5 of the 7 people trained in booth were cut to work in box and guest services, and the other 2 were made supervisors who worked guest services and kept an eye on the booth along with the managers. No longer needed people upstairs to run things, to my understanding the whole projector system could more or less run autonomously, they just needed someone to power on audio equipment in the morning and power it off after the last show, everything else was run by computer. Even though I never got to work booth, that is still one of my favorite jobs I had. It was a magical time, so many good movies came out while I worked there, and it was back before reserved seating, big reclining chairs, food service, and all those fancy extras took over the industry. Back when you had to find a red velvet covered auditorium chair and focus on the movie. Back when everybody went to the movies on the weekend and hung out at the mall, back before amazon and streaming took over. I remember feeling like the coolest kid in my friend group bc I got unlimited free tickets for me and friends, got to see every new movie multiple times. Digital destroyed some of the magic imo

You're damn right digital cinema will never be this much fun!

The greatest advert for film projection I have ever seen. Absolutely incredible. Screw digital!

I first saw this when in 2004 when I was working as a projectionist in high school. I'm pretty sure that this is an engineering feat rivaling that of the great pyramids.

Amazing O.o I know it's 11 years old now, but using technology to such a stretch (pun intended), is really an achievement. Thanks for sharing it!

Using the make-up table between booths was genius. I am impressed at your ability to get everything started in time for it to all run in sync.

We thought about trying this at AMC Pleasure Island 24 back in 1990 but we never really had the guts to try it.. All 24 projectors were in the same booth. I earlier thought about this in an 8 screen/4 booth multi-plex but we never figured out the transport set-up. Using the make-up tables would have been the solution.

Absolutely fantastic. Brilliantly complex lock you guys ran. My only complaint is calling that Interlocking 101, but that is definitely not an intro level interlock. lol

Talk about a Rube Goldberg job, how insane!

Magnificent work in SO many ways!

Egad...this is glorious. Just added it to my favorites as a reminder why film will always be more awesome than digital.

Wow I just looked up 35mm projectors, saw 16 screen interlock, and though hmm what does that mean... Mind blown! I knew how film projectors worked but I never thought about feeding the film through multiple projectors like that! That's amazing! Learn something new everyday.

Amazing ...as I was a old projectist my self at one time in my life. The most then was twin houses ..4 projectors and or two plater systems . I did run carbon arc too !

that was effing insane. wish I could have been there to help thread that almost mile of film up between all those cinemas. I miss those days too

True, digital cinema sure makes interlocking way easier, but it'll never be anywhere near as fun as a film interlock.

Most interesting thing I have ever discovered on the internet!

And I used to get the jitters interlocking 2-4 at a time! 🤯 Respect! 🖖♾

That's like a reel of leader alone! lol

It's the ad for Hey You Pikachu! In 35mm. That must be a collector's item today.

@101HeyNow Good thing we threaded it correctly and keep our equipment in good shape! :)

Absolutely gorgeous. I'm wondering what's happening when the film ends. Does the film sags into the room between a projector and the next one? How is it managed?

that is awesome great work

best job in the world,today cinema is dying with digital,digital is a big tv,film is real cinema

WOW! Great job!

Another question, would be a loop possible? That the film is edited the way, that between the shows is about 30 or 40 minutes break?

Interlocking projectors is quite old technology. We used selsyn motors at Elstree Studios when I was there in the late sixties and early seventies to lock the projector to 36 mag track playback heads, and of course, they weren't new when I arrived. In the seventies we had a pair of Phillips DP 35/70s installed that had rock and roll facility, (wow! I thought that was quite an improvement). Now it can all be done with digital via satellite. Who can say what will happen next? It's mind boggling.

Don't get me wrong, I get that there's no way they had 16 sets of DTS discs, but my OCD is still a little triggered that they didn't thread the DTS reader.

I've noticed on KZfaq some people have these projectors at home. Where the heck do they buy movies on 35mm film? Where do cinemas get the films?

Imagine if we were still using film now, everyone would've needed to do this for Endgame!

Starting about 1984 it was not uncommon for shopping mall "shoebox" cinema chains to interlock two projectors so the same films could be shown on two screens at the same time. Essaness Theaters did this at the six-screen Fox River Mall cinema in Appleton in the 80s. No doubt General Cinema may have done so, too, at tis many mall cinemas.

We used to interlock 10 screens every week during summer for kids movies.

Before the use of platters, the interlock could have be done, projecting reel one, rewinding it and bring it to the next cinema hall and so on. So the next cinema hall gets the film start about 40 minutes later.

Still remember the film i saw as a projectionist was Road to Eldorado and The Land Before Time....

I thought I was pushing the limits when I interlocked all 6 projectors at AMC Rolling Hills 6 in Torrance, California. I guess not. It took two make-up tables to move the film into and out of the three booths.

AMAZING twice. For interlocking and for a theater with house curtains in 2020 ;))

Do you have any pokemon 35mm print? Ad, trailer or movie? I can see Pokemon 2000 banner on the wall.

Lots of leader film needed

I know this is about 5-years old. But I thought the narration mentioned 2-seconds, is this between projectors? Did I miss something in the narration? I thought that 35-mm speed was about 90-feet per minute (24 fps) that would take more than 2-seconds between projectors. Anyway, this is cool. OK- Now I see is starting the projectors, and 20-minutes later for the last screen. Bad me. Still was interesting.

Are you serious ? Holy crap guy this is mighty epic. Screw this digital keys and hard drives. Give me 35mm heaven ! :D Or Sony 4K IMAX (real one) it'll do as well :D

There were distributors which worked with movie theater owners and chains to have cans of 35 mm prints delivered to theaters. Of course that's obsolete now that Hollywood film studios and the distributors ended the production and distribution of 35 mm film prints by the end of 2013. Reportedly the cost to produce one set of film prints for an average length movie -- 90 to 120 minutes is very high. And then you have to pay to have them shipped all over the nation, especially for a large opening. Meanwhile the cost to produce a computer hard drive and have it shipped UPS or FedEx two day air is considerably less. When the movie is doing playing, the theater manager simply ships it back to the distributor. The hard drive likely can either be erased and re-recorded or a new disk installed and the drive sealed.

I was happy just to interlock and they were all successful for lord of the rings. But this is full on

That’s a lot of film!

Wow!

Oh my god!

Why on earth would anyone want to do this ? . . . . the answer . . . . because they can ! . . hah hah

Do you remember what movie you used for this?

I miss this digital sucks

It's not. That one is about 7 miles north.

You guys are crazy. You know that right?

Pretty sure this is the same theater where the Dark Knight Rises shooting occurred.

Pathé Arena Amsterdam we did five auditoria!

Holy...

godd wht kind of projector is this

nice to see and very hard to do. jesus....16...

want to cut those tapes strips so bad

running 2 is bad enough. you are crazy!

Mudah mudahan corona balik keasalnya mewabah dibioskopXXI...karena dari sana asalnya....

Digital could never

Why ??? Because we can..

Why??? It seems this was more work that you need to do and how many times will 16 projectors show the same movie at the same time?? It was very interesting that it can be done but will it ever be done again to a full house in each 16 rooms?

What a hassle

Bloody awful system, bring back the good old days

He's right... digital cinema is a pain in the ass. You spend all your time deleting old content from servers

Why all those tapes gotta stretch out to other rooms? Why don’t they just use the projector the teachers use in classrooms?

Nothing to be proud of..... Proper cinemas run with two projectors per screen and single reels changeovers!

it causes many accident thats why its shut down forever

Now it's all done on a PC in any order at any time. Not a projectionist in site. What's a projectionist anyway? What a risk interlocking all those Christy projectors, not the most reliable machines. I expect they are all in land fill by now.

That's just crazy. I do not think much of this procedure at all. This is not good for the copy and not good for the machines.