by Chris Churchill, Times Union CHATHAM — It sounds like an intriguing movie plot: Raise at least $100,000 — or die. But for many smaller movie theaters across upstate New York, that’s not a fictional drama. It’s a terrifying documentary. See, the movie world is at the cusp of a major shift. Studios, looking to save money, are going digital and will no longer release films on, well, film. The old-fashioned movie projector is going the way of the record player, or the eight track, or the (insert your favorite outdated technology here). Progress is progress, I guess. And as a newspaper employee, I can say with certainty that the movie business is hardly the first industry scrambled by the digital revolution. But for small theaters, often barely profitable, the price of progress can be staggering. The Crandell Theatre in…