Lessons from our first community cinema screening

On Wednesday 22nd March 2023 we showed our first film at the Thorngate Theatre in Bury Road. It was Elvis Presley in Blue Hawaii, 1961 (PG). The screening was very successful. We believe this was due to strong support from our community and the work of fellow volunteers. Here’s how it was put together and the lessons learnt.

Finding An Audience

Our vision is to pop-up in numerous venues throughout the borough, seek out diverse audiences and be inclusive.

We identified The Thorngate Theatre as a prime venue and had discussions with their management and the chairperson of the Gosport Community Association, who operate the venue and scheduled the screening. We were able to learn from their experience of working with our target audience.

By explaining clearly that Gosport Community Cinema is not-for-profit and exists to support our community, we were able to form a partnership. They deserve recognition for immediately taking our concept to heart and supporting it in many ways – notably recognising that this not the same as a standard room hire booking.

Audience Profile and Programming

Discussion with the venue and other community organisations serving the same audience enabled us to set these criteria:

• to be held on a weekday afternoon, the potential audience that’s available at this time are mainly retirees aged over 60.
• create nostalgia by showing films the audience have already seen and remember fondly. Our research informed us that many films prior to 1960 are considered “too old” by this audience.
• A shared belief (our research supports this) that “uplifting”, “happy” and “musical” films are most likely to be inclusive and popular. So we created a list of films that are U or PG rating with genres such as Musical, Comedy and Romance and proposed them to our focus group.
• films with a maximum runtime of 2h 10m because we wanted the audience to remain comfortable and allow time for socialising at the end (before the venue closes).

These constraints eliminated some great options, for example films based on stage musicals which are mostly quite long – we will consider these in future, but with an interval.

It was felt that a “star-led” film would aid in promotion of the first screening and Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley were identified as potential leads. A shortlist was produced and given to our focus group (a local over-60s lunch club) and they voted for Blue Hawaii.

Transport

We had indentified that many in our audience might not have their own transport, so, to make the screening as accessible as possible, we arranged a free mini-bus service.

In partnership with ICanGo, a local transport charity, we picked up audience members and brought them to the screening. We hope this will continue with community hubs and meeting places acting as pick up points. Wheelchair users can come to the screening. External funding will be required if we are to continue to provide this.

Technical Know-How

One of our founders, David Marks, has a technical background and a collection of equipment. So we were able to rapidly perform a “technical test” in the venue. This was useful as it immediately provided venue and volunteers alike with confidence and some photographs to promote the event.

We had initially intended to make use of Cinema For All’s equipment hire scheme, but soon realised that we have access to enough equipment locally to screen a film successfully. We also took the opportunity to engage with other volunteers. In particular, we were glad to welcome Sue, a broadcast industry professional and volunteer projectionist from another local community cinema – The Ritz Cinema at St Vincent. We worked with Bill, from the Gosport Gang Show, who knows the setup of the theatre really well. The technical installation at the theatre has been much augmented and fine tuned by him and the Gang Show.

Promotion

Despite founder Nick Van de Weyer’s assertion that we would definitely require at least 6 weeks (and more likely 8 weeks) to get the best result, various constraints, such as conditions of funding from Cinema For All and delays in setting up a bank account, required us to deliver to a much shorter lead time.

Thanks to Nick’s help we were very quickly able to spread the word with:

1. A Facebook Event
   Shared into local active community groups with over 10,000 members. We made sure they were managed by a Page dedicated to the project rather than an individual so that we could start to build our own following.
2. Website and Online Shop
   Using a combination of WordPress.com and SumUp we were able to deliver a cheap but effective website and way for people to buy tickets. SumUp take a commission on sales but it’s much cheaper than booking sites such as Eventbrite and we believe there are other benefits from transacting directly through our website instead of using a third-party one.
3. Banners to be placed on fences and walls
   We designed a banner to evoke classic theatre marquees. Reprinting the banners for each showing is not cost effective for us and so, inspired by the marquee concept, we cut and applied vinyl lettering to make the banners re-useable. We think the effect is great…
4. A5 leaflet and A4 posters
   500 leaflets were distributed to key places and people around Gosport and around 30 posters pinned on notice boards.

Building the Team

The vision is to welcome fellow volunteers to help run screenings and to reach a point where each venue and audience has total ownership of their events.

For this first test screening we were proud to partner with Level Up Gosport and have Holly and Harrie join us. They were fantastic and really contributed to the success of the event. Taking responsibility for box office and raffle with great aptitude making sure that guests felt included and welcome.

Team members can give as much or little time as they wish… there are opportunities to learn about event management, promotion, stage management and engineering. Let us know you can get involved if you wish to help out!

Putting the Experience First

Based on advice from Cinema For All and the experiences of other community cinemas we concentrated on providing a social experience outside of the screening. Those wanting to just watch a movie are, perhaps, better served by commercial cinemas, or sitting in the comfort of their own homes! With this in mind, we attempted to make the event distinctive by adding additional elements:

Free Popcorn!

With a borrowed a machine we were able to fill the auditorium with the smell of freshly popped corn – we aren’t sure the technical team were happy to have the light, smell and smoke it generated, but the audience seemed to love it. There was also a raffle.

Slideshow

As the audience found their seats a slideshow of static “adverts” was projected and accompanied by music appropriate to the period of the film. This allowed them to acclimatise to the screen and make sure they were comfortable with the viewing angle from their seat. The slides were about other opportunities to see film in our area, community groups and the history of cinema in Gosport – with photographs of cinemas long since demolished (as well as the last remaining one which has been saved and will reopen soon).

Cabaret Seating

By working with the venue, we had quickly identified that setting out 200 seats in rows and filling the room would not be in keeping with our goal to create a relaxed and social atmosphere. So the venue provided clusters of four chairs around a table, allowing social groups to form and enabling a greater sense of freedom.

Raffle

Holly, one of our lovely young volunteers, from a local group LevelUp Gosport took charge of the raffle. In addition to standard prizes such as chocolate and a bottle we sourced donated prizes from the community: vouchers for a local butcher, tickets to a community event and tickets to see a film with our colleagues at The Ritz.

Trailers

To further the cinema experience and allow the audience to settle in before the feature we put together a trailer reel. Although we have yet to schedule our own upcoming screenings we took the opportunity to show the love to our colleagues at The Ritz@St Vincent’s by some trailers for theirs.

We plan to include a more trailers in future – for example by coordinating with the local film club at Brendoncare as they schedule their screenings.

Lighting

Volunteers did a lot of work to devise several lighting environment states as part of the event:

1. Entrance (approx. 30 mins)
   Light for the audience to find their seats, coloured lighting to enhance the staging and environment.
2. Trailers (started at published showtime)
   Dimmed lighting, allowing volunteers to still move around, popcorn to be obtained and late comers
3. Feature
   Blackout and elimination of distractions.
4. Exit and Raffle
   Full house lights to prepare the audience for going back out into the daylight.

Audience Feedback and Future Programming

Anecdotal feedback from the audience was very positive and everyone completed a survey to show their support and state their preferences for future screenings. To make it easy to do the survey we provided paper forms, volunteers handed them out and asked the audience to complete it before leaving.

Survey insights

• 37 of our audience completed the survey.
• 100% of those who left a score gave us 4 or 5 stars out of 5.
• 64% said it was their first time visiting the venue.
• The average age was 73 years.
• 97% said they afternoons were a good time to see a film. With 24% saying they would also be open to screenings at different times.
• Very popular genre requests were Musicals, Romantic Comedies and Classics. Some asked for more Elvis and a small number asked for Action or Thrillers!

Sharing of photographs and news of the success of the screening generated a lot of subscriptions to our email newsletter list via the website (managed via MailChimp).

Top Tips in Summary

1. Seek out existing audiences, listen to their ideas, and give them what they want. By tapping into existing groups you don’t have to start building your audience from scratch.
2. A technical test of equipment prior to the screening is highly recommended. Try to find competent technical volunteers to take ownership of it.
3. Don’t under-estimate the time and effort required to promote your screening. Perform outreach to other organisations and make sure you start in good time (6-8 weeks!).
4. Pay attention to the audience experience and add to it via wraparound elements of the event where you can. For example time to socialise after the film finishes.
   (NB. remember the limitations placed on you by the typical STSL licence – no characters, sing-a-long, theming or film sponsors)