“It’s very convenient to blame the projectionists for everything,” says Mike Katz. He would know: Katz has been working as the main projectionist at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or BAM, since 1997. When customers tweet or e-mail about problems at screenings—the volume wasn’t loud enough; the screen was too dark—that’s on Mike. He knows he’s doing a good job, he says, only if nobody’s complaining: “If I only get one e-mail, it’s a good day.”

These days, Katz is also experiencing an unfamiliar feeling: appreciation for his work. For the first time in years, specialists like him have once again become a hot commodity, thanks to fussy filmmakers like Phantom Thread’s Paul Thomas Anderson and others—“Batman guy, Scorsese guy, Tarantino guy”—who want to present their new films the way they believe they deserve to be seen, on 35mm or 70mm, in a handful of big-city markets. They’re frantically seeking projectionists like Katz to get the job done, even turning to those who have retired or moved on from the profession.

Katz has a particular knack for his invisible line of work, which he’s been practicing at various New York theaters since 1974. He helped install Czechoslovakian projectors—not exactly the highest quality machines, which is why he remembers where they came from—at the Quad, the city’s first multiplex, in 1972. He’s worked steadily ever since, though he does remember turning down opportunities to show porn in Times Square theaters in the 70s and 80s, mostly for sanitary reasons: “The stench [in the theaters] alone!”

After stints at commercially owned multiplexes, like Greenwich Village’s Village VII and the Upper West Side’s Lincoln Square, Katz got “an offer I couldn’t refuse” at BAM—a coveted job requiring a range of professional skills that aren’t typically required of today’s projectionists. As the movie industry has gradually shifted from 35mm to simpler, less finicky, more device-friendly digital film, even moviegoers at places like BAM—who tend to be better versed in the finer points of cinematic geekery—are often unaware or unimpressed to learn that they’re being treated to screenings in older formats, at least if a group interviewed briefly at a recent 35mm screening of Phantom Thread is any indication.

But Katz—like those film-nerds-turned-directors who are breathing new life into his industry—is hyper-aware of the differences between a D.C.P., or digital cinema package, and a film print. (He actually installed BAM’s first two digital projectors about 12 and 8 years ago.) He credits his father and uncle Louie, both of whom worked as projectionists and were proud members of New York’s still-thriving projectionists union, with giving him vital on-the-job training; he started working for them as a “reelboy,” rethreading just-screened film prints, and handing them back to the projectionist.