How can a major motion picture just be... wiped out?
When an IGN editor attended an advance screening of The Avengers last week in Manhattan a funny thing happened. The show was delayed because, as they were told, "the projectionist accidentally deleted the movie and has to re-download it." Wha?!
While most of them in attendance shrugged it all off once Cap, Iron Man and the rest took to the screen, Slate is asking the question: "How easy is it for a digital projectionist to delete an entire film?" They spoke to Steve Kraus (one of "the best projectionists in the nation," according to Roger Ebert).
"It's click to delete from the server and an 'Are you sure?' confirmation," he said. "Of course, as with most computers it's not really gone … but probably only a real computer geek could get into the system to 'undelete.'"
Luckily, our projectionist was able to just download Avengers again (there would've been blood otherwise), but that almost didn't happen when the folks at Pixar accidentally deleted most of Toy Story 2 while making the film. Watch the following video for that story, and head over to Slate for more on digital projection, including how the job of projectionist might be a dying profession...
When an IGN editor attended an advance screening of The Avengers last week in Manhattan a funny thing happened. The show was delayed because, as they were told, "the projectionist accidentally deleted the movie and has to re-download it." Wha?!
While most of them in attendance shrugged it all off once Cap, Iron Man and the rest took to the screen, Slate is asking the question: "How easy is it for a digital projectionist to delete an entire film?" They spoke to Steve Kraus (one of "the best projectionists in the nation," according to Roger Ebert).
"It's click to delete from the server and an 'Are you sure?' confirmation," he said. "Of course, as with most computers it's not really gone … but probably only a real computer geek could get into the system to 'undelete.'"
Luckily, our projectionist was able to just download Avengers again (there would've been blood otherwise), but that almost didn't happen when the folks at Pixar accidentally deleted most of Toy Story 2 while making the film. Watch the following video for that story, and head over to Slate for more on digital projection, including how the job of projectionist might be a dying profession...
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