{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/motion-picture-projectionists/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Motion Picture Projectionists",
    "soc_code": "39-3021",
    "category": "Personal Care",
    "us_employment": 1480,
    "median_annual_wage": 38270
  },
  "verdict": "COOKED",
  "risk_resistance": 28,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 8,
    "embodiment": 13,
    "liability_shield": 1,
    "trust_premium": 3,
    "judgment_accountability": 3
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "An 8 reflects the split day: ingesting a DCP, applying the KDM, building the playlist, and hitting show start are already scripted or scheduled by the TMS across every screen in the building, but nobody has automated pulling a spent xenon bulb, re-dousing and aligning a lamphouse, swapping a laser light engine, or diagnosing why a server dropped audio sync three reels into a sold-out show — roughly half the week resists, which is why this sits above the fully-automatable band but nowhere near 14.",
    "embodiment": "The booth is indoor and climate-controlled, which caps this below the true field trades, but you are on ladders and catwalks, handling a pressurized xenon lamp that can shatter, reaching into a hot lamphouse, cleaning port glass and lenses at height, threading 70mm on platters, and crawling behind screens for speaker work — physical work in a space that was never designed for safe access, hence 13 rather than a desk-bound 4.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no projectionist licence in almost any US jurisdiction anymore — the old municipal operator permits that once required a written exam died with nitrate film, and the theatre's general manager, not you, signs for occupancy and fire code, so a 1 rather than a 0 only acknowledges that some venues still ask for basic electrical or high-voltage safety training.",
    "trust_premium": "The audience never learns your name and would not know if a different person started the show; the only relationship that carries any weight is the repertory or archival circuit, where a specific programmer asks for you by name to handle a rare print, which is a real but tiny slice of 1,480 jobs and worth 3, not 0.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Almost everything is a documented procedure — lamp hours logged and replaced on schedule, KDM windows checked against the booking, fault codes traced through the manufacturer's manual — and the one genuinely discretionary call, stopping a show versus limping through a flicker, gets escalated to the house manager who owns the refund decision, keeping this at 3."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job was already gutted before AI arrived: digital cinema servers ingest DCPs, validate KDM keys, and run automated playlists that trigger lights, curtains, and sound cues without a human in the booth. What remains is hands-on — lamp and laser module swaps, lens and port glass cleaning, projector alignment, and troubleshooting a dead show mid-feature — which is why this isn't a zero, plus a small repertory/70mm niche where film handling is a genuine craft. At 1,480 US jobs nationally, the occupation is already the residue of a much larger one.",
  "outlook": "Employment keeps shrinking toward a small corps of traveling service technicians and film-format specialists, with routine booth operation permanently folded into theater management and automation.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Continued shift of the remaining headcount toward field service on laser light engines and 70mm/IMAX film platters — work that requires physical presence in a specific booth, ladder access to a ceiling-mounted projector, hazardous-energy lockout on high-voltage laser modules, and no two auditoriums geometrically alike. If the surviving jobs consolidate into circuit-level roving technician roles (as AMC and Cinemark have largely done), the measured job becomes almost entirely unpredictable-environment physical repair.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift within a genuine two-tier job: automated playlist building, KDM ingest and show scheduling are already gone, leaving diagnosis of intermittent faults (color drift, ghosting, sync loss, xenon/laser derate) where the symptom is reported by a manager in non-technical terms and the cause is mechanical. The occupation has a routine tier that is already automated and a judgment tier that is not, so the residual measured job scores higher than the historical one.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Growth of the premium-format repertory circuit where the human projectionist is named in programming copy and marketing — Nolan-driven 70mm runs, Alamo Drafthouse and Film Forum-style archival series, and studio-mandated film-handling conditions for loaned archival prints. If distributors and archives (e.g. Academy Film Archive, BFI-style loan terms) continue to require a named, qualified human print handler as a condition of lending nitrate or rare 35/70mm elements, a small real premium attaches to a person.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Reinstatement or enforcement of municipal/state projectionist licensing tied to high-power laser illumination — laser projectors above certain classes already trigger FDA/CDRH variance requirements and some jurisdictions require a trained operator on premises for Class 4 laser installations. If a state occupational-safety rule named a certified operator as personally responsible for laser interlock compliance in cinemas, this moves off the floor.",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, this stays a small, low-ceiling occupation: 1,480 workers is the residue after the automation event already happened, and the levers protect the residue rather than regrow the job. The trust premium and any licensing route apply to a few hundred repertory and premium-format positions, not the whole SOC."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      28,
      27
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "COOKED",
      "COOKED"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 5700,
        "wage": 22050
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 4840,
        "wage": 22760
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 4540,
        "wage": 25150
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 2270,
        "wage": 27490
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 1620,
        "wage": 29350
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 1900,
        "wage": 33360
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 2610,
        "wage": 35160
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 1950,
        "wage": 38180
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 1480,
        "wage": 38270
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -74,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}