“With social distancing measures enforced across the world, the film industry has taken a huge hit. But against the odds, a handful of independent drive-ins across the US have adapted to stay alive. Is this the start of a comeback?”
She quotes one drive-in owner:
“Dad and I believe that we have succeeded with our old theatre because basically we treat it as a service and a way to give back rather than as a job or business. And that’s the way we plan on continuing.”
Here are five drive-ins I could find that are still open:
My take: the drive-in is uniquely positioned to offer an entertainment service, being the intersection of wide-open space and automobile culture. It had its heyday in the fifties and sixties but could very well become relevant once again in The Great Pause.
My take: kudos to John for using his isolation time to bring a smile (and more than a few tears) to tens of millions of viewers. Thank you! SGN is a weekly vlog posted on Youtube but I can see this jumping over to late night TV soon. (If I may blow one raspberry here: hey, CTV Comedy Channel, do you think you could ban the “All Covid, All the Time” news promos and any “we’re all in this together while our stores are closed” commercials between and during your shows for the foreseeable future? You realize the reason I’m watching more comedy is to tune this reality out, right?)
“[Last] weekend, Lone Star state-based EVO Entertainment debuted its drive-in concept at its multiplex in Schertz, Texas, providing movie fans an out-of-the-home outlet to watch recent Hollywood blockbusters. To say the first weekend was a success was an understatement as every show of ‘Spider-Man Homecoming’ since it opened on Friday has been sold out. In fact, every ticket through Tuesday has been sold and the theater is planning on adding additional showtimes later this week.”
“As to how it works from a technical aspect, the exterior wall of the theater was painted with high-gain white paint for increased visibility and sound is transmitted directly to each vehicle through AM/FM radios. Indoor rest rooms are available with sanitary and social distancing measures in place. Films begin at dusk and end in time to meet the local area’s 10 p.m. curfew restriction.”
UPDATE: they’ve been shut down, after their one and only weekend!
“Due to new shelter-in-place restrictions, we have been ordered by the City of Schertz to halt operation of the EVO Drive-In Experience.”
My take: gosh darn! Just when it looked like someone had come up with a safe way to watch movies out of your house by recreating a COVID-safe drive-in!
“‘To lower the risk of infection, cinemas should strictly implement epidemic prevention measures, and audiences are required to have their body temperature tested and present their health codes at entrance and wear masks during the show time,’ Yin Xin, spokeswoman for the Shanghai municipal government, told the state-backed news service Xinhua. Theaters also will be required to leave an empty seat between patrons in every direction.“
According to THR:
“The phased reopening of China’s vast network of 70,000 movie screens had promised a rare bright spot on the global distribution map, given that cinemas are shuttered in virtually every other major market around the globe, including North America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere. Beijing’s decision to reclose — or stay closed — was met with dismay by stakeholders throughout the Chinese industry.”
My take: hmm, okay, which is it? Either the authorities predict the pandemic is coming back, or patrons simply continued to stay home out of fear. Or it might be that having an empty cinema seat between everyone just doesn’t seem like much fun — might as well just stay home on the couch.
Hootsuite has just released two documents I think you should read.
The first main one, Digital 2020 Global Digital Overview, links to Digital 2020 Global Digital Yearbook, that has summaries for over 200 countries.
“Our report has been a trusted resource for policymakers, journalists, businesses, and NGOs over the last ten years, during which we’ve consistently tracked consumer digital behavior around the world to bring you a comprehensive, scalable, and replicable resource for identifying your audience and building your digital strategies with confidence.”
The insights are fascinating. For instance:
Page 7 states digital stats around the world in 2020. Did you know there are 200 million more cellphones than people on the planet? That almost 60% of us are Internet users?
Page 87 shows absolute growth in Social Media. Did you know India increased 48% last year, adding 130,000,000 users?
Page 166 lists the most-viewed Youtube videos of all time. Did you know that Despacito has over 6.5 billion views?
“AMC Theatres said it would close all of its U.S. locations, starting Tuesday, for six to 12 weeks in response to the pandemic after President Trump declared that people should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.”
The moves follow widespread orders to close bars and clubs and other places where people gather to socialize.
My take: although the movie exhibition industry has been in decline for the last decade, it only took one week of this pandemic to kill it. Suddenly VOD is an option for new movies as the 90-day theatre window proves impossible. People will be streaming everything for the next two weeks to two months and it’s going to be hard to get them back into the theatres.
He then quotes David Unger, chief executive of Artist International Group:
“Who wants to go to the theater right now? Do you want to go sit in a room with a bunch of people that are coughing? It’s going to change viewing patterns. It’s going to change behavior. It’s going to change the way people consume entertainment. This is where streaming becomes normalized for the world and it’s going to be disastrous for the entire industry.”
Projected 2020 free cash flow losses of $2.5 billion
$15.3 billion spent on programming in 2019
CFO Spencer Neumann: “well over 50 percent of our cash spend is on originals.”
My take: COVID-19 has the potential to rewire society completely. Imagine if every cinema had to remove every two out of three seats and every second row. OMG, tickets just became six times more expensive! Is this the push VR has been waiting for?
Ajay Kishore, Founder and CEO, explains to Julia Sun and David Grasso that: “Stareable provides tools that help creators build an engaged audience of fans who will pay for bonus or premium features.”
Beyond building the Stack Exchange of web serious, Stareable seems to be having a lot of fun.
They put on a three-day conference and festival each year:
My take: I’m currently developing a web series, so I’m a potential customer. I realize Stareable is concentrating on web series producers right now but as a content consumer too, I find the website lacking. I wonder if an A or B model would work better: one side for consumers and the other side for producers. Heck, why not just put the producer side behind a log in screen: dangle some success metrics in front of producers and they’ll all sign up. How big is this community of web series creators, and how large is the viewership?
“We should rethink why we are making independent films in the first place, especially indie sci-fi and speculative films. I don’t think we should even be trying to compete with Hollywood. We should be striving to make films that are strikingly different from big-budget films.”
Aleem faced five challenges making After We Leave and solved them creatively. Although he answers them from a sci-fi point of view, they can be extrapolated to indie filmmaking in general.
#1. The Brainstorming Phase: What Are Sci-Fi and Indie Film’s Core Strengths?
“Hollywood is very good at making its kind of movies. Why should we try to compete with them with a lot less money? In my mind, the only reason to make an independent feature film is to create a movie that only you would make. A kind of film that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t exist. I think what independent films can offer are new directions in style, tone, theme, topic, representation, and viewing experiences. They can challenge the mainstream artistically, politically, and narratively.”
#2. World building does not have to be expensive.
Rather than with a VFX-laden long shot, sometimes a world can be built with a carefully composed close up:
“The future version of Los Angeles that I imagine in my film is undergoing severe water shortages. This glass is the only clean water we see in the entire film. Every other time characters drink, they drink dirty water or something other than water. I don’t have a shot of a huge empty reservoir. I don’t have a shot of drones “mining” water from clouds. I have one clear glass of water, provided by the most powerful and richest character in the film… and my main character chugs it down. It cost me nothing. But it’s definitely world building.”
#3. The standard model of film production discourages artistic risk-taking.
Aleem laments, “The system is always telling us to play it safe.”
To counter the “stay on schedule” mantra, he bought their camera gear:
“We could choose to just try one crazy complicated shot, exactly at sunrise, and then we’d all go off to our day jobs. If it didn’t work we could try again the next morning. There was no downside other than our time… and because we were fitting it in around our existing work and lives. This way of working was, in fact, the thing that convinced collaborators (some long time friends, some new) to work on the film. They all had day jobs that paid way better than I could. The reason they gave up their nights and lunch hours and weekends to work on After We Leave was that I was offering them a chance to try things they normally didn’t get to try. To reach for things in a way they normally didn’t get to.”
This also freed up his actors to ask for extra takes and for his DOP to extend magic hour by shooting at the same time over a number of days.
As to locations:
“I ‘scouted’ for hours on Google Street view looking for rundown and beautifully gritty locations… and then I placed small scenes in each of them. We shot all over Los Angeles. We didn’t get a single permit. We didn’t need to because we didn’t care if we got kicked out of somewhere… it wouldn’t throw off our schedule or make us cut the scene or waste a ton of money. We’d just film it next weekend at a different location. And the truth is, most days we were a crew of three people with a DSLR, a Zoom recorder and a mic, plus one or two actors. We shot in 25 different exterior Los Angeles locations and were approached only once by the police and twice by private security. And in two of three of those times, they weren’t telling us to stop filming… they were making sure we were safe in what they perceived to be a dangerous location.”
#4. VFX don’t have to cost a lot of money, they (just) cost time.
Rotoscoping and motion tracking in Adobe After Effects have improved so much in the last ten years that green screens and locked off cameras are no longer necessary.
#5. There is actually a huge advantage to being micro-budget when you reach the distribution phase.
Aleem realized his advantage was, “I needed to make back less money than other films.”
After being rejected by top film festivals, he found success at niche ones:
“After being rejected by 22 festivals in a row, I got an email from Sci-Fi London raving about my movie. I gave them the world premiere and After We Leave won Best Feature Film there and everything started to change. We went on to Berlin Sci-Fi, Other Worlds, Boston Sci-Fi and won a number of awards and got great reviews.”
Aleem concludes:
“The big lesson I learned is to only do what I felt we could do well and to pick a story that makes use of that. And that’s the irony… by avoiding mimicking the films that try to appeal to huge audiences, I actually created a film that resonated with audiences.”
My take: Lots to take away here. Embrace your limitations. Less money can mean more time. Raise enough to get it in the can. Then raise more to finish it. Use the right festivals to connect with your true audience. Never compromise your vision.
