Passing of Jay Pregent

[Sean McKinnon]

It is with great sadness that I have to announce Jay Pregent passed away at 60 after a battle with a long illness. Jay was associated with the film technician and cinema community and worked as a partner with BLS helping us entertain audiences around the world and keep theaters running in top shape for many years. When we were tasked worh refurbishing 120 movie projectors for “The Hateful 8” Jay was one of the first people we got on board and spent nearly a year working with us at our shop in Boston and around the country. Jay loved his role at TCM Classic Film Festival on the film inspection crew and he loved helping refurbish our antique projection equipment finds with an unrivaled skill, attention to detail, and knowledge.







In his other life Jay was a volunteer firefighter where he poured his love of mechanical work into maintaining fire apparatus, he worked as a lay chaplain and was even awarded firefighter of the year. He volunteered with the Elsmere NY fire department where he attained life long membership. Jay gave selflessly to his community locally as a firefighter and to his film community all over the world.







The BL&S family and I will miss Jay’s selfless attitude, humor, professionalism and pride in being part of a team. We will miss you Jay!

[Jim Cassedy]

I first heard about this through a mutual friend early Saturday morning.
I knew Jay from his work at the Telluride Film Festival, where we were both
part of the festival projection team, and he was one of the people who I
really looked forward to seeing every year there. We never worked together
in in the same booth, but I often had lunch or dinner with him where we'd
sit and swap "projection stories" and catch up on what we'd been doing
since we last saw each other. Occasionally we would communicate by
e-mail during the 11 months we weren't at Telluride, and it was always
good to hear from him. I'm glad our paths on the journey-of-life had
crossed, and he will be greatly missed by all his friends, co-workers and family.

[Tony Troidl]

I was saddened to hear from Jay's Sister he had passed.... He had told me of his illness but I was hoping for the best!
I've known Jay since 2003, and any time he was passing thru he would contact me to see about stopping to say hello and catch up...
He was happy to check out my Century C projector I was having a shutter issue with on one of his stops,
I will miss chatting with him on the phone..