ALEXA RAISBECK
PROJECTIONIST
WORDS ELIZABETH AUBREY PORTRAIT BERTIE WATSON
ALEXA RAISBECK WAS studying film and media at college in London when her career took a surprise turn. Curious about how things operated behind the scenes in her local cinema, she started working as an usher and, after being asked to help track down some film, trained as a projectionist. So began a life-long love of projecting films and now, 17 years later, Raisbeck works as the BFI Southbank’s Technical Supervisor. Here, she gives Empire an insight into the high points of the job, and reveals how it can be both thrilling and pretty nerve-racking, too.
What does your day-to-day job involve?
I’m not sure a typical day exists! It’s so varied, but it will typically involve some maintenance such as changing lamps, putting oil in the projectors, going over the digital projectors, updating software, things like that. The most important thing is making sure everything is all working and in good order for the screenings that day. I’ll be in my booth making sure that everything is ready for our projections — and that can really span a lot of things. It can be for 35mm, 70mm, video, DCP [a digital version of a 35mm print], a satellite streaming or a world premiere. Every day really is very different.
How do you cope with the responsibility?
There is a lot of weight on [the projectionist’s] shoulders because so much work has gone into these films all the way up to the point we get them. There’s this huge pressure to deliver that to the audience and we are the last part in the chain. You have to have a certain level of anxiety because that helps you check things. You also have to have confidence in your ability and just go with it!
What types of films do you enjoy playing the most?
I think because of my profession, I love technical films that reference the medium or ones that are really beautifully crafted such as Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse. The black-and-white images, the fact it was shot on a vintage lens… Morgan Fisher
has a film called Projection Instructions on 16mm and I love projecting that. It’s where the projectionist has to do the opposite to what they’d normally do. There’s instructions they must follow on screen and it’s like having a live communication between the projectionist and the audience.
What would you say have been your most memorable moments?
Martin Scorsese’s editor Thelma Schoonmaker has attended a number of events at BFI Southbank. There was one set-up where I spent time sat with her in the auditorium fine-tuning the set-up from a laptop. It is very important that how we are projecting films is in line with the director’s vision, so we often collaborate with her to make sure what we are screening is adjusted perfectly to how Scorsese himself would like it. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan came in to watch a film and my manager, who knew I was a fan and was learning Hindi, practically dragged me out of the projection room to introduce me. I immediately clammed up as my words failed me. But going back into the projection room — fully manually, without automation — I ran the most perfectly timed show. For me, it was like communicating with him through my work. My pride in that show is the best part of the memory.
What do you enjoy most about cinemas?
I love hearing the audience applaud after a screening. As a projectionist, you’re sort of enabling that to happen, and that’s what I really love about my job. Cinema is an event: there’s definitely something that’s lost in not having that combined, shared experience. But cinema has always adapted. It adapted for sound, it adapted for television and will adapt for the future, whatever that should look like.