Boston Light and sound

Chapin Cutler is co-founder and operator of Boston Light & Sound, a company dedicated to continued excellence in all forms of projection. A passionate man who’s first love and dedication is clearly film, we talked at length about his amazing career and the new niche projected film is cutting itself in a digital landscape. I was happy to hear that BL&S are doing 3 or 4 new 35mm film installations a year as well as running training courses for new projectionists who come from both the exhibition and archival sectors.

As street works re surfaced the road outside, (why today!) we pressed on with Chapin recalling some of the special film events he’s setup and run over the years. This included This is almost Cinerama, (his re title) a temporary three strip screening at Telluride in 2002; there were some issues matching the one-light work print panels. The roll out of 120 70mm projectors for Quentin Tarantino's Hateful Eight in 2016, an event about to be repeated for Christopher Nolans’ new film in 2020. But a highlight for me was when he jumped up during the interview and came back with three reels of film making up his own personal 35mm copy of the triptic sequence from Abel Gance Napoloen.

Rob (Bert)