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 shorts
into 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 bringing
cinema 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.” 
