From: mat fleming (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Oct 19 2010 - 10:57:28 PDT
We'll I guess that is the grim reality we all face - maybe most people don't
find experimental film entertaining? and maybe they have loads of other
things they can do on any given evening? Audiences are tough for everyone.
Being an optimist I have always thought that in a city sized place you
should be able to take the attitude "build it and they will come" -
mainstream bookshops are full of books about films you don't get the chance
to see so someone out there must be interested. Usually you're looking for
50 people to turn up out of a whole city. Film at least has the advantage of
being a 'popular medium' and avant garde film has an underground allure if
you package it right (misleadingly). This quality is also best appreciated
outside of an institution.
Students who won't go off campus is a problem but they tend to be losers
whose attitude needs confronting. In the UK universities are now encouraged
to make their students reach out and exhibit/engage/work in their
communities because it is recognized that this will benefit their
professional development and make leaving uni less painful. I think this is
really positive.
However some cities are more sprawling, some campuses are more isolated,
some cinemas have less imagination, some students don't have imagination
either (and if they're paying a lot for their education they might have a
less positive attitude). So I totally understand. If this stuff were easy we
probably wouldn't be chatting to each other quite like this.
One inexpensive thing that I always think could help is if distributors made
packages of films to make being introduced to new films easier and to help
people who were putting on screenings to sell the screenings. If I got an
email every 6 months saying "these are our new acquisitions, you can have an
hours programme for this much money the films are interesting because XYZ"
It would help me enormously.
Cheers
Mat
On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 9:44 PM, David Tetzlaff <email suppressed> wrote:
> > I'd be interested to hear from teachers what the difficulty in this
> > solution is.
>
> There is no 'independent cinema' in many locales. At many schools, one
> simply cannot get students to leave campus - required screenings away
> from their standard ambits would kill enrollment. In many communities,
> there is no audience outside of the college willing to pay to see
> experimental film. Even shared rental fees would be beyond most budgets.
>
> The nearest 'art cinema' to me is an hour away, and their idea of art
> film pretty much stops at Merchant-Ivory. There is an independently
> owned cinema in my town, They are currently screening Red,
> Secretariat, Life As We Know It, The Social Network, Wall Street, and
> The Town -- which qualifies as fairly adventurous programming compared
> to the chain theaters in the area -- and they do not have 16mm
> equipment.
>
> So, Mat, if your cinema is near a campus that integrates nicely with
> the town, and you're willing, and the professors have any money at
> all, and they don't take you up on your offer in some way, they have
> no idea how lucky they are, because that combination of factors is not
> all that common.
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