I just watched a (https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPR3vNfYt/) of a guy in an IMAX projector room loading Dune 2 into the projector. But he first had to weave it through dozens of rollers. The film snaked all over the room, requiring the guy to duck under it to cross the room.
Why do they do this? Why can’t he just feed it straight into the projector and straight out?
In: Engineering
The reels are just way to dang big to do it.
You’ll note that that holder has several slots on it. So you can have multiple movies stored ready to go at the same time.
You need that because once a reel is put together you can’t actually pick it up in one piece by hand. It’s several hundred pounds per film. To get them on and off they are spliced from multiple smaller reels that can actually be lifted.
So given that the holder is fixed in place you need some space around it to be able to add in the rollers for shifting height and direction. They also need those multiple rollers in small areas with a zig zag (those sets of 4) to maintain good tension and keep things from just flapping around. At the speeds the film is going through them it’s becomes an aerodynamic issue.
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