Movie muses: Projectionist works with care, flair at potentially dying craft

A beam of white pierces the darkness, catching dust particles and casting 24 images per second on the theater's screen.

This is when, Frank Baird says, the muses come out.

"When you're watching a movie, you go into a dreamlike state," he explains. "The muses live in dreams. They tell you about art and love and all the important things."

Baird, of Seattle, has spent 30 years as a projectionist, a life that has brought him to Sundance for the past 15 years and has taken him to film festivals as far away as Dubai.

He's seen stars come and go, and he's watched the sun set on his own trade, as high definition tapes and the "digital revolution" have begun replacing film strips and xenon lamps.

"I'm a buggy whip maker," Baird says. "Who needs those anymore? Nobody."

Time was, a projectionist had some showmanship, Baird laments, a mastery of an unnoticeable art.

Wipe the lens, check the projector's oil. Check the splices, use a bit of marker to avoid a pop when they pass through the sound head. Dim the house lights, fade the music. Mind the changeovers and the framing.

"Watching a movie is a suspension of disbelief," Baird says. "You never want to do anything that's going to jar them back to reality."

If something goes wrong, make sure no one knows — especially at Sundance.

"Everybody who has a film here has their life invested in it," Baird says. "They're so excited and so intense. They want to be assured the guy handling their film is a cool customer."

And good filmmakers always appreciate a good projectionist, always offer a handshake and gratitude after a show.

In all his years at Sundance, Baird has only once turned on the house lights during a show. It was during a showing of Stanley Tucci's "Big Night" about 12 years ago. A woman in the audience had a seizure.

Baird turned on the lights, looked down on the floor and saw Robert Redford administering to the woman.

It was a scene that colored Baird's opinion of the Sundance founder and has kept him coming back to the festival for 15 years.

Still, Baird wonders how much longer he might be around.

Digital films are cheaper to make and could be the death of the old ways. It's a sad reality for Baird, who prefers the quality of film the way some embrace the warm sound of vinyl and the ink-stained hands that come with reading newsprint.

But Baird says he worries the digital revolution might change the way people experience movies.

His theory goes like this: "In digital presentation, they're using pixels instead of still pictures. They're little beams of light that are always on. They might be black or red or green, but they're always on. When you watch that steady stream it's hypnotic and your muses are not excited."

It is just a theory, he says, and he knows he may be dead wrong. Either way, change is coming and cannot be stopped, he says.

But even a buggy whip maker can dream, especially as he sits alone in the dark, listening to the projector whirl and the muses whisper.

E-mail: afalk@desnews.com