In Focus

February 2006

This article reprinted by permission of the
National Association of Theatre Owners, © 2006.
Have Cinema
Will Travel

Moviehouses On Wheels Bring Cinema To Unexpected Places

by Anne Gilbert
Where most moviegoers anxious to see “Ice Age 2” next month will be looking up its showtimes, a surprising number will be looking up when their local moviehouse might be rolling into town.

Americans don’t see a lot of “mobile cinemas” any more; these venues were far more commonplace in the earliest days of motion picture exhibition, as the sprawling, rural makeup of the United States meant most Americans could not easily – or perhaps ever – find their way to a big-city moviehouse. A traveling exhibitor working a “circuit,” therefore, could enjoy great success hauling one-reelers to outlying areas.
In those days, a showman would simply load a projector, a sheet (to be used as a screen) and a small library of shortsinto his car or wagon and bounce from town to town. Some made a regular circuit with scheduled visits; others cast a wider net and stopped wherever they could find an audience.

Itinerant exhibitors traveled America until the latter half of the 20th century, visiting smaller communities that were not yet viable candidates for permanent, year-round moviehouses.
While mobile cinema today is not the force it was, it has recently enjoyed renewed prominence due to its continued usefulness in sparsely populated regions, and to its appeal as a venue for novelty and promotional events. Notes Dave Riese, whose Colorado-based Outdoor Cinema Network provides mobile-cinema resources, an auditorium on wheels “is just another form of bringing the films to the masses.”

The Show on the Road
Texas’ Original Alamo Drafthouse has, over the last few years, organized a series of high-concept, celebrity-packed mobile-cinema events in and around its home base in Austin. In 2003, a summer-camp site was commandeered for a special “Freddy Vs. Jason” screening. That same year, the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake premiered adjacent to a graveyard. In 2004, an all-night “horror-thon” was presented inside an abandoned insane asylum. In 2005, a screening of the sci-fi western “Serenity” was situated on the street of a local Old-West movie backlot.
The Alamo’s most ambitious “Rolling Roadshow” event was staged last summer. Between Aug. 19 and Sept. 7, the Alamo’s cine-truck and a caravan of fans toured 10 sites in eight states – stretching from Texas to California to Oregon to Wyoming and back again – screening 10 features on the very locations those productions were filmed.

The tour kicked off with “The Last Picture Show” in Archer City, Texas, and made stops including a downtown Los Angeles junkyard for “Repo Man,” a Roswell, N.M., drive-in for a 3D screening of “It Came From Outer Space” and a remote natural auditorium carved from rock at Lake Powell, Ariz., where “Planet of the Apes” was projected on the side of a mountain.
“We knew several screenings that we had to do – like ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ at Devil’s Tower and ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’ in Monument Valley – and then we devised a route around these screenings,” explains Alamo Drafthouse co-proprietor and Rolling Roadshow mastermind Tim League.
The tour traveled with a small core technical crew and made use of locals to publicize the individual events. Fans joined at each stop, but about 10 diehards attended every event.

The equipment, notes League, had to be “rock solid” as “it takes a fair amount of abuse.” A 40-foot Harkness Hall inflatable screen, changeover projectors and Dolby sound with outdoor concert PA speakers are employed for the Roadshow events. “It’s simple, but the hardiest of gear.”

Screenings frequently included appearances by individuals associated with the features. For the screening of “The Goonies” in Astoria, Ore., actor Corey Feldman was on hand for an introduction and Q&A. Producer Polly Platt performed a similar function for “The Last Picture Show” in Archer City, Texas.
For screenings in Los Angeles (“Repo Man”) and San Francisco (“Bullitt”), League and company organized pre-screening road rallies – city-wide scavenger hunts that led participants to screening sites and pitted them in competition for prizes.
For the presentation of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” at the base of Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, says League, “we had lots of folks drive or fly in from all over the country. That’s the one that people made a pilgrimage to be a part of, which is just what happens in the movie itself.”

League says plans are already underway for a 10-stop summer 2006 tour, this one stretching from California all the way to New York.

“The Rolling Roadshow Tour offers complete immersion in the movie,” says League. “Sitting on your couch at home watching a DVD of ‘Once Upon A Time in the West’ is not even in the same ballpark.”
“There are some movies which are best enjoyed with a large audience,” concurs Riese, who cites this as the reason for the enduring popularity of outdoor and mobile venues and the primary reason individuals and communities continue to use his outfit for resources in operating them. “People purchase DVDs because they want to watch the movie over and over again. We give them another opportunity to do that, just on a 2-story outdoor screen.”

Hollywood In
The Highlands
Scotland is not a terribly crowded place. The nation covers more than 30,000 square miles, but its total population – including the residents of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen – adds up to a mere 5.1 million. (The lone city of Tokyo, by contrast, contains 8.3 million residents in a space of 844 square miles.) Population density in Scotland dwindles significantly as one moves away from the English border and closer to the Arctic Circle.
“Lots of people like going to the movies, but if you live in a rural area, it can be a rare experience,” notes Graham Campbell, development manager of the Screen Machine, an entirely self-contained mobile movie theatre operating throughout northern Scotland. “Many communities simply don’t have the population to support a full-time, 7-day-a-week cinema. However, most are big enough to make a cinema that visits every two months viable.”

In operation since 2000, the Screen Machine was developed by Highlands and Islands Arts Ltd to bring the cinema experience to areas without cinemas.
In mobile mode, the Screen Machine looks like any ordinary “big rig” hurtling down the highway. Once parked, it only takes 90 minutes to transform into a 102-seat cinema complete with 35mm projection, digital surround sound, handicapped access, raked seating and air conditioning. It does not offer on-board restrooms or concessions facilities, but in all other ways, Campbell assures, the Screen Machine provides “exactly the same” experience as a brick-and-mortar multi. “We want the audience to forget they are in the back of a truck.”

The Screen Machine travels a circuit of approximately 25 towns, stopping for a few days in each to present a slate of major second-run titles. According to Campbell, criteria for a stop is minimal: “A population of at least 500, a good mix of different ages, friendly and enthusiastic people. Somewhere you can park a 17-meter [approximately 56-foot] truck, with toilets close by.

”The itinerary changes on a regular basis, usually to adjust for community growth. Small towns may grow to a size that warrants regular Machine visits, while others may grow large enough to benefit from a conventional, permanent moviehouse and no longer require the Screen Machine’s services.
The Machine’s programming runs to the mainstream. “Hollywood blockbusters, kids’ movies and quality Scottish/U.K. movies,” says Campbell. “Generally movies that generate a lot of media interest,” Low-profile indie fare, he notes, is far more difficult to promote in regions without a culture of film awareness.

Both the concept behind the Screen Machine and the Screen Machine itself hail from France, where a mobile cinema of similar design has been operating in the northern provinces for nearly two decades. A French company, Toutenkamion, designed and built the Screen Machine, as well as similar units operating in other parts of Europe.
In the five years since the Screen Machine’s introduction to Scotland, companies in both England and Ireland have established comparable operations to service those countries’ underserved communities. These units operate as mobile community centers for local government concerns, in addition to their role as moviehouses.

The Screen Machine was hired by the British Army Services Sound and Vision Corporation (SSVC) in 2000 and 2001 to entertain troops stationed in Bosnia. The program proved so popular that the SSVC commissioned its own unit to send to operational areas and provide entertainment to the troops on a permanent basis.

Campbell is optimistic about the long-range potential of his business, but at present the limiting factor is his access to prints. As the movie industry transitions from celluloid to big-d digital projection, he plans to refit the unit and make the jump to first-run programming. But even if the switch comes later rather than sooner, Campbell says “there will always be small or scattered communities for us to go to with the Screen Machine.”

Motoring
The Americas
Mobile cinemas are racking up miles on this side of the Atlantic as well. With offices in Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Brazil and Los Angeles, Cinetransformer is a family-owned company with an expanding fleet of custom-built trailers.
The company’s units are similar to those utilized in Europe: The trailer of the truck transforms into a 92-seat cinema, complete with stadium-style seating, air conditioning and handicap access, but these Western versions also come equipped with restrooms and a fully-stocked concession stand. “It has everything. When you get inside it, you forget you are in a trailer,” says CEO Julio Fernandez.

The creation of Cinetransformer, says Fernandez, was precipitated by the closure of more than 2,000 screens formerly owned by the Mexican government. Since its first commercial exhibition in 1998, Cinetransformer has expanded its scope and toured the Americas with first-run screenings, sponsored second-run screenings, and promotional events.
As moviehouses serving paying audiences, the Cinematransformer units operate primarily in Mexico.
The units’ second-run efforts usually serve corporate sponsors that present films free of charge. For bringingcinema to underserved areas of Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and even the United States, corporations can spread their brand name while often garnering tax-break eligibility.

“We did a tour, from Los Angeles to New York, for a movie called ‘Skins,’ by a Native American director,” recalls Fernandez. “We visited about 20 Indian reservations, and it was the first time, even in a country like the U.S., that some have ever been in the movie theatre experience.”

A similar program sponsored by Kraft Foods proved popular in the Patagonia region of Argentina.

Brazil has proven an especially well-suited market for Cinetransformer’s sponsored tours, as it is one of the most underscreened countries in the world. Cinetransformer has five dedicated units for Brazil, with plans to double that number by the end of 2006. In many cases, the Cinetransformer is the only theatre to which these small communities have ever had access.

In the promotional arena, Cinetransformer’s mobile cinemas have been used to publicize Internet content, 3D shorts and videogames.
In recent months, the company has also found a role in hurricane relief efforts as it traveled to the areas of Cozumel and Cancun most severely affected by hurricane Wilma. There it provided a venue for instructing residents about remaining safe without electricity or potable water. Also, Fernandez says, “We came to give them some kind of hope, so they can be happy in those days without electricity or a lot of food.”

Cinetransformer is not the only concern bringing filmed entertainment to underrepresented areas of Brazil. Cine TelaBrasil likewise travels to small towns, but its free screenings are held in tents outfitted with air conditioning and modern projection equipment.
The Cine TelaBrasil venture is the brainchild of two Brazilian filmmakers, Lais Bodanzky and Luiz Bolognesi, who have been overseeing a version of the program for more than a decade. Initially, the duo operated much like the itinerant American showmen of a century ago, motoring between towns with a projector in their car. Recently, however, the program was able to upgrade under the auspices of co-sponsors CCR, operator of Brazil’s toll roads, and Cinemark, the nation’s largest cinema operator.

“It feels really great to take the theatre to a small town in Brazil, and you see a whole school of small children coming to see a movie, because they have never been to a theatre,” says Cinetransformer’s Fernandez. “So they show films in order to open the minds of the people who have not had the experience and show them what is possible. We take great pleasure in doing it.”  

This article reprinted by permission of the National Association of Theatre Owners, © 2006.


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