October 22, 2021—This month, after 24 years, 216 regular issues, and 11 yearbooks, publisher and editor James Hyder released the final issue of LF Examiner, the first independent journal and only remaining print publication devoted to the giant screen industry.
He started working as theater manager at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Langley IMAX theater in 1984, and while there he assisted in the development and production of several IMAX films. In 1997 he founded MaxImage!, renamed LF Examiner in 2000.
At GSCA events, you could always spot James in the center of the action, with his camera and audio recorder in hand, asking the difficult questions. In addition to keeping the industry informed, he’s been an active member of GSCA’s Technical and Innovations committees, sharing his wealth of knowledge so we can keep our members informed of the industry’s technical history and new developments. James has also participated as a presenter at GSCA sessions, most recently during The Business of the Giant Screen session at the 2019 Filmmaker Symposium, where he shared industry data and examined trends.
James looks back at his storied career in this article from the final issue of LF Examiner: https://lfexaminer.com/2021/10/the-final-issue/#
Though James is retiring, he plans to keep lfexaminer.com running for the foreseeable future and is available for freelance consulting. And you will still see him around at GSCA events and meetings. He has generously offered to help GSCA transition some of his data to the GSCA website, he has been and will continue to be an active member of the GSCA Innovations Committee, and we are going to do our best to keep him involved. We thank him for keeping us all informed, and for his dedication and service to the industry. We wish him a very happy retirement by the sea.
