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Drive-in screens its last film – on 35 mm

Metro Vancouver's only drive-in, The Twilight, converts to a digital projector.
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These 35-mm film projectors are being phased out as major motion picture studios make the move to digital.

This week truly marks the end of an era at the Twilight Drive-in in Langley.

The only drive-in theatre in Metro Vancouver converted from film to a digital projector on Tuesday.

The final double feature shown in 35 mm was Dr. Seuss's The Lorax and 21 Jump Street last Sunday night. Movie-goers were given a commemorative strip of film as a souvenir.

The Twilight at 260 and Fraser Highway becomes one of the first drive-ins in Canada to convert to digital projection, a vastly expensive proposition that can cost up to $150,000, but one that follows a nation-wide trend.

The major movie studios still send film prints to theatres that haven't made the switch, but insiders say it's only a matter of time before they stop making film entirely.

The Twilight selected to install a Christie CP2230, the brightest digital cinema projector available and ideally suited for large screens.

Representatives from the drive-in said the film reel has reached its end after almost 100 years of entertaining the world, but yet digital spearheads us to a new era of movie projection that will be enjoyed for generations to come.

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