The Cinema Experience: Yay Or Nay? Part 2

Our multi-part discussion of the cinema experience continues.

I love the cinema experience (for the most part) before I continue I feel I should offer a disclaimer. I work as a Projectionist for one of the big UK cinema chains and as such my opinions have likely been swayed by my experience in the job, I don’t see how it couldn’t have been. Saying this, I have no agenda to persuade/put off people in any way in relation to that being my job. My opinions offered up are mine and mine alone.

Our commander-in-chief Jordan’s article which can be found here did a great job in summising his feelings on going to the pictures and all the pluses and negatives that came from it and in a way I feel that I can do little but echo his previously stated sentiments, however I would like to frame my discussion around another piece of news which has not been too well promoted but could very well change the way out film experiences are delivered in the future, and as such could well even threaten the lifeblood of the big air-conditioned palaces we film fans take ourselves to.

As reported here as well as a fair few other places, an announcement was made that all the Hollywood studios aside from Disney, and a group of major technology players have, with the notable exception of Apple, have teamed up to launch a “digital locker” service to be called UltraViolet. This service may well finally usher in the age of the streaming service that could kill off physical media where you will own the rights to stream films to a variety of devices, all compatible with each other and which will allow for the fear of DRM and format extinction to finally cease. This idea of streaming media has been bandied about for years but this simple announcement means that this is going to be a viable, working reality in the next year and while this could kill physical media, the simplicity, potential cost and wide ranging library could also harm the big screen businesses also.

So in the age when people can watch what they want in high quality streaming video on their 50 inch TV’s, why should the cinema experience survive? The key word here my friends is experience. Think about the first memory you have of seeing a film. I’ll bet you its of sitting in that darkened room with some sweets or drinks or both in your hands and sound booming from all around you as huge images play out in front of your eyes, and a spark of wonder and a bit of magic feel like they have taken up the whole room. Now imagine that in your lounge with one sofa and a couple of chairs, sitting there watching the TV in the middle of the day with a surround system that just doesn’t quite hit that sweet spot. It’s not quite the same is it? Or put it another way that most though not I would relate to…

Hey, Avatar didn’t quite hit you at home as it did in the cinema eh…

Going to the cinema should be one of the most pleasureable experiences a film fan should be able to have. It is the church of the religion you have signed up to and you should treat it as such. Unless you are lucky enough to have a kitted out home cinema setup, no amount of HD or 3DTV’s will replicate the quality time you should have at a cinema, a time when you can engage in that film you just have to do, with a hopefully entertaining and fulfilling film for which you are glad to forsake a couple of hours.

This is of course speaking of the optimal situation you should be able to have. A lot of this is down to the cinema itself, whose job it is to ensure you get the best experience possible. For many reading this, and some writing for this very site would argue that its increasingly difficult to get this and indeed it is, especially if you want to watch mainstream material but this does not mean that you should flatout stop going to the cinema. If you can, go during the day or early on a weekend, chances are the audience will be people who want to watch the film, like you, without interruption. Going on an evening or in the afternoon and evening in the weekend is asking for trouble and barring major social reform above what a cinema chain can do, this is not going to change soon. People are idiots, that’s life but complaining does work folks, I have seen it myself, complain a couple of times, staff will likely do something about it. If not, complain to a manager after the film if you can put up with it, believe me cinema managers hate disruption as much as you, it looks bad on the cinema and it can potentially affect their bottom line. The cinema is there to entertain you if it doesn’t because of people in the audience, the cinema’s not doing its job.

Some also complain about poor projection standards. From personal experience I can tell you that Projectionists are under a great deal of pressure to ensure that customers are happy with the presentation on screen, a couple of complaints can lead to serious questions being asked of us and so on the vast majority of cases we do the very best that we can, and believe me running a 13 screen Projection system across 2 floors with shows sometimes starting every 5 minutes can be incredibly stressful. Things do slip through the cracks and accidents do happen but do remember that if a film starts late, if the ads start and there is sound but no picture on the oddest of occasions, the Projectionist is very likely trying his absolute best but they are only human. Projection is a job that you do because you like it, it takes a great deal of training, patience and concentration and its not one you get much thanks for.

Now this all said, if a picture flickers, if the image is wobbly, if the sound is distorted, if the print is scratchy, this is stuff we are paid to ensure does not happen, its all maintenance that we do to ensure the film plays as well as possible. In the cases that this is a problem for you, tell the staff. They will tell the Projectionist who will do their best to make sure its fixed. Once an issue is reported we have to respond to it and fix it as best as possible. Poor projection standards in relation to the overall experience is something that most of the time is easily preventable and is taken seriously by those in my trade and is something that can only be improved by customer response. Most of us care about the relationship you have with the screen for those couple of hours and we try to make sure its the best one that it can be.

Going to the cinema is an integral part of any film fan’s life and should remain so. Nowhere else can you get that feeling of being completely immersed in a film and if you aren’t because of factors within the cinema’s control, do something about it. The true film fan’s response to their experience is key to the continual survival of the cinema industry and so is key to the future of how a fan can relate to a film on the purest stage possible: the cinema screen.