Fade Out for Projectionists

So I’m at a wedding party and I’m talking to a movie theater projectionist about the trade. There is no trade he tells me. As more theaters have invested in digital projection technologies, the notion of a journeyman projectionist who knows how to cut film, load platters and thread the great heaving apparata that make the pictures move, is going the way of the zoetrope. Apparently, these days, distributors send theater managers a data cube – a sort of flash drive – loaded with the film and its constituent data… and a password. According to the projectionist, some kid then puts the cube in the machine, inputs the code, and then pushes play. Apparently, the cube is just a patch before they get the satellite distribution model worked out and the cube and the kid are cut out of the equation. And the whole thing is password protected to prevent hi-tech piracy, you know, by the kid.