Gore-born Mr Gutschlag (62) said the privacy of film projection work had always attracted him.
Only a few metres away, scores of people sit in a darkened cinema enjoying the latest film, while he works alone in a projection room behind the scenes.
"I just try to put on the best show I can.
"It’s the entertainment industry. You’re there to give people an experience."
And if, as usual, everything goes well, no-one in the audience even knows he exists.
"I’m the invisible man until something goes wrong," he jokes.
But late last month the invisible man stepped out of the shadows from his job at the Rialto Cinema in Dunedin and into the limelight to receive the New Zealand Motion Picture Industry Council’s "Unsung Hero" award for his long contribution to the industry, at a function in Auckland.
He was surprised and "chuffed" by the award.
At the function he also shook hands with Joe Moodabe, a retired senior manager at the former Amalgamated Theatres chain, who had confirmed his first full-time cinema job — as an apprentice projectionist at Cinerama in Christchurch — in 1971.
Mr Gutschlag has seen a host of changes over the years, from his two-year apprenticeship, and later shift to Dunedin in the mid-1970s.
When he started work, the MGM lion was roaring, audiences stood for God Save the Queen and cinemas ran only one movie at a time.
For most of his career he worked with 35mm film, and always carried a roll of masking tape in his pocket in case emergency repairs were needed.
In the 1980s, the popularity of television and video hire was putting pressure on the country’s traditional one-screen cinemas.
But from about 1990, the advent of multiplexes meant up to half a dozen films could be screened simultaneously, strongly boosting cinema’s appeal.
He had always enjoyed being part of a small, close-knit group of cinema staff — "it’s a big family".
