Sunday, 24 March 2013

Notes: Secrets, Hidden Identities and the Village Movie

How Three independents are Making Movies for the 21st Century

  • Brenda Hamlet: production and view on movies is changing due to new technology
  • Fans have more access to movies through gadgets, movie channels, DVD players and multiplex & single screen cinemas

          The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us (2012) by David Thompson
  • Darkened cinema + Big screen = immersive experience > defines concept of spectatorship & movie-going
  • Thompson: this no longer exists in modern cinemas

         The Good, the Bad and The Multiplex - What's Wrong with Modern Movies? (2012) by mark
         Kermode
  • Modern movie more revolved around technological production and distribution than actual consumption
  • Movie experience has been dominated by technology (e.g. online booking systems & ticket machines)
      
  • Leos Caraz (writer & director of Holy Motors): 20th century film dying out and digital film
                                                                                 emerging
  • Fabien Riggall (founder of Secret Cinema): "there is a cultural shift happening. Live cinema is
                                                                            the future."



Secret Cinema: Don't Tell Anyone...
  • Secret Cinema - interactive movie events: warehouse/vintage picture palace transformed into
                               iconic movie settings, favourite scenes improvised, audience participation
                               (e.g. costume, props linked to movie, special tasks), 'live cinema journey'
  • Julian Spooner (actor in Bugsy Malone): "Secret Cinema takes the movie goer inside the
                                                                       cinematic narrative so they become part of the
                                                                       onscreen action."
  • concept started off as a one-off screening > popular, so grew into Secret Cinema
  • Fabien Riggall (founder): "It is like what cinema used to be. Cinema as the community as a
                                              
    communal experience - a place where people can be inspired."



Holy Motors: Hidden Identities and the 21st Century Movie

  • Evolution of filmmaking: Chaplin (silent film) > surrealism (Bunuel and Cocteau), Nouvelle
                                              Vague (Melville and Godard) > digital age of motion capture CGI
                                              animation
  • Idea of movie links to idea that the internet is one big performance space in which people take on a range of disguises and hidden identities from usernames and avatars
  • In the movie, a car is worried they might be sent to the scrapyard - a metaphor for old films in a
                                                                                                               movie archive



Tortoise in Love: The Village Movie

  • Browning (comedy writer) pitched idea of movie at local village hall
                   > to raise £250,000 needed to make film, he offered villagers a stake in the film     
                      for as little as £20, to buy a mini-mogul share or maxi-mogul share investment for
                      £500 and up
                                                > unique crowd-funding scheme enabled people to share profits
                                                    appear in film
  • Homes, businesses, gardens used for production stages, wardrobes, catering trailers
  • Local hair salon used for make-up & styling
  • Women's Institute made meals for cast & crew
  • Musical score composed by a neighbour & performed by village choir
  • Funding for distribution & exhibition provided by BFI          
                   > e.g. posters, press packs, prints, Q&A with director, post-screening discussions with
                             cast members



Independent Distribution: Pop-Up Cinema

  • Pop-up cinemas: unusual setting, decadent interior, popcorn, paper tickets, elaborate signage, flip-down seats
                               > designed to evoke feeling of traditional cinema-going rather than modern
                                   multiplex
  • screenings of cult movies, shorts, mixture of classics
  • often take place in disused locations
                               > urban recycling
                               > e.g. Cineroleum takes place at a disused petrol station in East London
  • Pop-up cinemas represent golden age of film:
                               > tradition of Saturday morning kid's cinema (e.g. Family Friendly Saturday
                                  Film Club in Manchester)
                               > film awards (e.g. 'Cannes in a Van' - 'four-wheel film festival' - aims to give
                                  exposure to independent films)
                               > food (e.g. Film Fugitive offers homemade food and a pop-up bar & The
                                  Nomad partners with caterers, chocolatiers and gourmet popcorn makers)
  • Secret Cinema - example of one of the largest pop-up cinemas
  • Pop-up cinema is flexible and adaptable
  • Can be used as an opportunity to screen specialist/low budget films that find it difficult to get distributed

No comments:

Post a Comment