Salt Lake Film Society makes its goal in $50,000 Kickstarter campaign

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

With a flurry of last-minute giving, the Salt Lake Film Society succeeded in its Kickstarter campaign — to raise $50,000 from individual donors for its "Digital Deadline" campaign.

The campaign was only at half its goal Monday morning — but a final push, including a $10,000 matching gift from an anonymous donor, got the campaign over its goal around 10 p.m. Monday night.

In total, the campaign received $52,518 in pledges from 509 backers.

The money will go toward a larger $700,000 fund-raising drive aimed at buying new digital projectors for the one screen at the Tower Theatre (876 E. 900 South) and the six screens at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (111 E. 300 South).

The new projectors — which cost about $100,000 each — are a necessity in today's movie-exhibition world, as many studios and distributors have either stopped striking film prints or plan to stop in the next year or so.

Most commercial theaters in the United States have made the conversion, in part because of studio subsidies. But those programs are out of reach for most independent, art-house and small-town theaters.

(Disclaimer: The Cricket and Mrs. Cricket donated a Jackson to the Kickstarter campaign. We have a special reason for loving the Tower: It's where our wedding took place, just over 16 years ago.)