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Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

I picked up some 35 mm feature film at an auction, thinking I'd be able to find a cheap projector at some point and it could be a fun weird hobby... But then I realized the cheap projectors are not 35 mm. Also, I only got half the film (reels 2, 4 and 6)... so if anyone wants half of Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part I, my email is in my profile.

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This is funny, you've got half mathematically, but logically you've got the second, fourth and sixth sixths of the feature!

When I was still working as a projectionist, for big releases (like Twilight) the film courier would often bring three reels on Monday and three reels on Tuesday, so you could make it up Tuesday night and test before the film opened on Thursday (or Wednesday night for midnight releases). I suspect that is why you have what you have...

Most theaters moved to digital around 10 years ago and most of them got rid of their 35mm projectors (some kept one or two just in case)(I worked on the provider side of the migration to digital cinema at the time). In theory there should be an abundance of cheap 35mm projectors on the market, but maybe the demand wasn’t all that so most of the projectors were just tossed? I know some projectors were shipped to 3rd world countries as well.

There was no demand, because you can't buy 35mm prints, unlike 16mm and 8mm. And additionally, in order to finance the purchase of digital projectors, many cinema owners went with something called "Virtual Print Fees" (VPFs), where the cost was paid off in time. However, most of these mandated that the film projectors were either removed and destroyed, or disabled so they couldn't run film. Why? Well this ensured that everyone switched to digital and couldn't go back, so the VPFs were still paid. Very sad, hearing about all these machines being damaged.

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