Before we get started, pop this in your speakers. Ready? Then let’s begin.
We all remember the first time we went to an IMAX. We remember the dark, followed by the spectacle, the huge sound, the mind boggling 3D. And we all remember thinking “I say, this is ever so much better than the normal cinema back home.” And we remember going home, the images of 3D Star Wars or such rattling around our young minds, dreaming of one day making films that leap from the screens, or shook your seats.
10 years later, every cinema shows 3D screens, the sounds are bigger, the tickets more expensive, and I find myself facing the task of trying to supersede the aspects of cinema that seemed so groundbreaking in my childhood. People are used to 3D now. Surround sound is taken as read.
What else can we do to amaze people?
Several brave pioneers set sail on the Cinematic Sea, using computers and new pieces of equipment with names made of numbers and symbols. And what they gave us was interactivity. They made adverts that let us control what people did with our hands. They gave us trailer-games which the whole audience played as one. They gave us films that call us on our mobile phones.
It’s amazing what film can do these days, there’s no doubting that. I have no doubt that experiencing such a film would have a similar effect on any child today that 3D and surround sound did to me when I was young. But, much to my personal sadness, I’m not a kid anymore. I know what I like about Cinema, and I know what I don’t like about it; like people talking behind me, cracking jokes in scary films, or standing up in front of me. And all of this interactive malarkey, to me, seems just like that: distractions. Things that get in the way of the film.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m all for advancing the concept of what film is, and experimenting with new technology, to different ends. But when I go to the cinema, more often than not, it’s to lose myself in a narrative, forget a day’s worries for a couple of hours, and maybe at most fail at trying to get closer to the girl I’m taking on a date….(jokes, I’ve never done that :P)
But all these frivolities and extras just feel like gimmicks to me; added features that mask a shoddily made film. Now, at this stage, that’s not the case, as these prototype films evidence extensive research, development and production value But think about future implications: if directors have to shoot dozens of alternative scenes and endings, they’ll put less effort into shooting and polishing each scene in order to make a film in a reasonable amount of time OR monstrously up the price of distribution, which will result in much more expensive cinema tickets. And either way, the audience loses out. Now, I’m pragmatic when it comes to film, and understand that films are ultimately about making money when it comes to the studio and much of the production team (accountants, studio heads, advertisers and reps) but forgetting that the audience is a discerning, at times idiotic, but definitely intelligent entity is a grave mistake. They will see past the shiny new toys, and realise that what;s underneath is poor. And they will be even angrier that they paid for it.
And they’ll be even angrier that they paid for some numpty in the front row to wave their arms around and influence the interactive narrative in ridiculous ways “for the lols.”
I’m not saying interactive cinema shouldn’t exist, far form it. But I fear for the survival of traditional auteur theory; the painstaking process of making a film that isn’t crap. The process that sorts true artists and decent directors form whiney men with berets and deck chairs.
Interactive Cinema and Traditional Cinema can co-exist. The old girl just needs to be brought up to speed a bit, which is what I set out to do. Cinema CAN be more immersive; you don’t need motion capture or mobile phones, it doesn’t NEED people to have to physically interact. And, in my opinion. the good folk at Secret Cinema got it right:
+MORE ON IT’S WAY, HOLD FAST+
pneumatictuna 