Mr. Adam Walter

"People still think of projectors as reel-to-reel," said Adam Walter, 22, the projectionist at The Galaxy."Everything runs automatically.It's basically just a bunch of computer chips."

Mr. Walter is studying biology at Central Missouri State University.The graduate student hopes to work for a conservation department.

"This job works because I go to school during the day, and I can do this at night."

Mr. Walter sold concessions when he was first hired.After two months he started to train to be a projectionist.

"It takes about a week to learn how to load them," he said.
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Mr. Walter quickly walked to the end of the hallway to load film into a projector.

He grabbed the end of the film and began to weave it between spools, wrap it around reels and make loops here and there before feeding it into the projector.

The entire roll of film lays on one of three large silver trays, nearly four feet in diameter, that are connected by a center pole and rest near the projector.
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According to Mr. Walter, the most common problem with film is the sound going out.LED lights read the soundtrack, which is located on the edge of the film.

"The sound is on the film ," he said "You can't rewind the film, so if it goes out it has to play all the way through."

Mr. Walter said if the sound fails, there are CDs that can be played instead, but he's never had to use them.

Mr. Walter said it costs about $50 per show to run each projector.

"We don't really make that," he said.
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Mr. Walter said by the fourth or fifth week it usually goes down to about 50 percent.
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"We do get some second-hand films, like more art films," said Mr. Walter."Those can be a problem because sometimes they're all scratched up."

The film comes on six or seven smaller reels and has to be spliced together.Mr. Walter said each film comes with four or five trailers.

"There's one attached to the film, and we usually put five on.That makes about 10 minutes," he said "Each trailer is about two and a half minutes."

Mr. Walter said he enjoys his job.

"The only bad thing about working here is you get more critical of (movies)," he said.