---
title: "Motion Picture Projectionist"
description: "Set up and operate motion picture projection and related sound reproduction equipment."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/motion-picture-projectionist"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Motion Picture Projectionist

**Category:** Personal Care and Service · **SOC code:** 39-3021 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 39-3021.00

Set up and operate motion picture projection and related sound reproduction equipment.

Also advertised as: Booth Operator; Cinema Projectionist; Digital Projectionist; Film Specialist; Motion Picture Projectionist; Movie Projectionist; Projection Technician; Projectionist.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $38,270 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $18.40/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $23,390 to $88,310, with the middle half between $30,040 and $77,730
- **Total US employment:** 1,480
- **Typical entry education:** No formal credential
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -6.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 300 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 43/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,480 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $23,390 |
| 25th | $30,040 |
| 50th (median) | $38,270 |
| 75th | $77,730 |
| 90th | $88,310 |
| Mean (average) | $51,480 |

### Pay by state

The 12 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NY | $82,260 | $76,222 | 270 |
| IL | $78,990 | $79,023 | Not published by BLS |
| CA | $74,840 | $67,594 | 190 |
| WA | $39,070 | $36,510 | 60 |
| MI | $37,590 | $39,068 | Not published by BLS |
| OH | $36,870 | $39,742 | 50 |
| AZ | $32,890 | $32,669 | Not published by BLS |
| TX | $31,160 | $32,105 | 40 |
| PA | $29,850 | $30,593 | 40 |
| MO | $29,140 | $32,087 | Not published by BLS |
| IA | $23,210 | $26,447 | 100 |
| TN | $22,750 | $24,763 | 90 |

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,500 in the 2025–2035 base year to 1,400 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 100 jobs, or -6.2%. Declining: -6.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 300 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** No formal educational credential (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Short-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 61.1% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 19.9% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 10.1% |
| Some College Courses | 8.9% |

## What the work involves

- Monitor operations to ensure that standards for sound and image projection quality are met.
- Clean the projection booth.
- Inspect projection equipment prior to operation to ensure proper working order.
- Open and close facilities according to rules and schedules.
- Perform regular maintenance tasks, such as rotating or replacing xenon bulbs, cleaning projectors and lenses, lubricating machinery, and keeping electrical contacts clean and tight.
- Set up and adjust picture projectors and screens to achieve proper size, illumination, and focus of images, and proper volume and tone of sound.
- Start projectors and open shutters to project images onto screens.
- Set up and inspect curtain and screen controls.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 2.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 2.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Operations Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Operation and Control — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Troubleshooting — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Repairing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Computers and Electronics — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mechanical — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 2.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Communications and Media — importance 2.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Far Vision — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Near Vision — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Control Precision — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Realistic (R), Conventional (C), Artistic (A).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| R — Realistic | 5.44 |
| C — Conventional | 4.39 |
| A — Artistic | 3.10 |
| I — Investigative | 2.02 |
| S — Social | 2.02 |
| E — Enterprising | 1.99 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ISTJ | 82.5 |
| ISFJ | 73.5 |
| ISTP | 71.0 |
| ESTJ | 67.5 |
| INTJ | 62.0 |

Best-fitting types: ISTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Camera and Photographic Equipment Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/camera-and-photographic-equipment-repairer) — median $52,720
- [Lighting Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/lighting-technician) — median $68,060
- [Audiovisual Equipment Installer and Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/audiovisual-equipment-installer-and-repairer) — median $52,600
- [Photographic Process Worker and Processing Machine Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/photographic-process-worker-and-processing-machine-operator) — median $40,610
- [Audio and Video Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/audio-and-video-technician) — median $58,100
- [Prepress Technician and Worker](https://nuecareer.com/careers/prepress-technician-and-worker) — median $48,690
- [Camera Operator, Television, Video, and Film](https://nuecareer.com/careers/camera-operator-television-video-and-film) — median $74,990
- [Computer, Automated Teller, and Office Machine Repairer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/computer-automated-teller-and-office-machine-repairer) — median $47,810
- [Sound Engineering Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sound-engineering-technician) — median $73,130
- [Broadcast Technician](https://nuecareer.com/careers/broadcast-technician) — median $59,570

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/motion-picture-projectionist