The
Quest
For Quiet
Exhibitors Are Tackling Bad Moviegoer
Behavior
It takes so
little to irredeemably blemish an evening of moviegoing.
During a nail-biting moment
in “Lady in the Water,” a cell phone launching
into “The Macarena” would do the trick. Or perhaps
it’s the Chatty Cathy two rows behind you, the one
who loudly and repeatedly (and needlessly) counsels a seemingly
imperiled Paul Giamatti.
No one is
more aware than cinema owners of how highly poor patron
behavior ranks among moviegoer peeves, and exhibitors
around the world continue to hunt for a “magic bullet” that
will guarantee a distraction-free environment every time.
In the meantime, a host of “shush strategies” have
met with varying degrees of success.
USHERING IN
THE COURTESY
Exhibitors report that they have generally found their most
gratifying results with a program of signage, on-screen advisories
and monitoring.
“Once you get the audience you might
say ‘trained,’” says
Jeff Logan, president of the Mitchell, S.D.-based Logan Luxury
Theatres, “it’s usually not a problem to maintain
it. Once you get it established, you can maintain it much
better.”
Though exhibitors typically have a number
of items on their wish lists of patron behavior, “the main ones,” says
Mark O’Meara, owner and president of University Mall
Theatres in Fairfax, Va., “are cell phones and talking.
It’s just too much of people who think they are in
their own living rooms.”
All five exhibition companies whose representatives
were interviewed for this article – Logan Luxury, University
Mall, AMC Entertainment, Muvico Theatres and Consolidated
Theatres – routinely dispatch staffers into auditoria
during shows. O’Meara is among those who take care
to do this for features likely to draw a boisterous crowd. “It
amazes me, just when you walk up and down the aisle, how
feet come off the seat and everyone shuts up and the cell
phones go off.”
Charlotte, N.C.-based Consolidated gives
its employees a specific route that allows them to efficiently
monitor an
entire multiplex, from each auditorium to the restrooms,
lobby and other areas.
While Logan similarly favors aisle checks
for his theatres, he acknowledges that it can be a balancing
act, because “walking
up and down the aisles constantly can be a distraction itself.
You try to maintain an inconspicuous presence, but at least
enough of it felt so it’s also a deterrent.”
ATTENTION
PLEASE
Many cinema staffers do more than monitor.
It has become increasingly common for circuits to include
a live introduction
before some – or all – shows.
Muvico is based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.,
a spring-break Mecca famous for bad behavior. The circuit
launched its audience-greeting
program late last year, and has been pleased with the results.
Primarily used during peak weekend times, the program features
staffers who make live announcements just before the lights
go down.
“We incorporate fun into that – we do some trivia and
some giveaways,” explains John Spano, Muvico’s
vice president of human resources and corporate communications. “And
then they tell everyone to pull out their cell phones, turn
them off; pull out pagers, turn them off. It’s a good
way to engage the audience and have fun at the same time.”
The program has generated positive feedback,
notes Spano, who believes the introductions are more effective
than some
other strategies Muvico has employed. “I think that
what ends up happening is, everyone is involved at the same
time, so there is an audience mutual accountability. Everyone
looks around to make sure that everyone is doing it,” he
says.
Logan utilizes live introductions as well.
Prior to children’s
matinees, he or another staffer puts on what he calls an “old-fashioned
stage show.” “Part of that,” he states, “is
that we say that these are the rules that you have to follow
when you’re in the theatre.”
The benefits to this practice are, according
to Logan, both immediate and long-lasting: Not only do
the kids learn how
to comport themselves in that particular screening, but in
the long term “we’re educating them at a young
age on how to behave at a movie.” Consequently, he
says, “we don’t have as much of a problem with
the young people, because they know the expectations from
the time they first start coming to the movies.”
COMING SOON:
SILENCE
Another effective tool, experts agree, is
the policy trailer, which today is standard equipment for
nearly all U.S. cinemas.
Policy-trailer maven Stewart Harnell says he pioneered
the business when General Cinemas commissioned a series
of separate
film segments designed to educate filmgoers on appropriate
conduct. Harnell opted to instead create one segment incorporating
all of the chain’s policy messages.
Harnell subsequently founded policy-trailer
behemoth Cinema Concepts, which lists among its clients
the AMC, Regal, Cinemark
and Carmike chains, as well as a litany of smaller circuits.
He says the primary benefit derived from
policy trailers is the information they impart; at their
inception, they
served to set down the rules for moviegoers and educate a
generation of movie-lovers as to what was expected of them
at a theatre. Policy trailers can also incorporate more traditional
messages urging moviegoers to visit the concession counter
or deposit their trash in the bins.
“As each year passes the policy trailers
got shorter and shorter and more entertaining, as opposed
to admonishing or promotional,” notes
Harnell. This evolution, he says, is a result of patrons
becoming more aware of what is expected of them. Also, certain
reminders that were once critical – no smoking in the
auditorium, for instance – have become forgone conclusions.
Modern policy trailers tend to focus on
cell phones. Logan, for one, welcomes this trend; he finds
that the stand-alone
message produces a better response in his patrons: “It
seems a cell phone message in the policy trailer, or in the
pre-show, those have not been very effective. But the longer
trailers just on cell phones, those have been much more effective.”
Kansas City, Mo.-based AMC – the nation’s second
largest circuit – developed its “Silence is Golden” program
in the early 1990s in an effort to encourage a distraction-free
moviegoing environment for guests. According to Melanie Bell,
vice president of corporate communications, “It’s
a program designed to evolve with the different issues that
may be taking place at the time – so right now, it’s
cell phones.”
The circuit has experienced success with
its longer trailers geared at cell phone use, which serve
to remind patrons about
their own phones while also encouraging guests to participate
with one another in creating a desirable environment. “You
see people pull out phones and switch them off, you hear
people chuckle because they are fun and entertaining. It
has definitely helped with the number of complaints that
are received,” Bell explains.
Major pre-show producers National CineMedia
and Screenvision both include cell phone-specific policy
trailers in their
programs. “Nobody wants to be interrupted once the
movie starts,” says Screenvision CEO Matthew Kearney. “It
would be a very different moviegoing experience if we didn’t
have the means by which we can encourage people to arrive
early, encourage people to get ready for the movie, and then
enable everyone to watch the movie in an undistracted, fully-engaged
environment.”
STUDIOS
IN THE GAME
Cinema operators frequently equate the efficacy
of policy trailers with the entertainment they provide.
O’Meara
still remembers an amusing – and long-running – PepsiCo-sponsored
trailer from a number of years ago. “Even when the
thing was disintegrating, it would still get chuckles from
the audience. To me that’s what makes it work.”
This quest to entertain while imparting
information led Cinema Concepts to create a policy trailer
that utilizes a string
of shots depicting movie icons such as The Grinch, King Kong
and the like. “Those trailers are very, very popular,
because then audiences are entertained, while at the same
time being told to be a good person,” notes Harnell.
Along the same lines, Sony Pictures recently
took the unusual step of producing its own policy trailer,
one which served
to promote “The Pink Panther” while it also promoted
more considerate audience behavior. The trailer, which was
made available to cinemas in January, starred Steve Martin
and depicted the oblivious Inspector Clouseau as a nightmare
moviegoer – complete with talking, a cell phone call
and thrown popcorn.
“I think everyone liked the idea of
having actual movie content, something that was within
the movie industry, a character
that was going to be on screen, as a positive way to address
the issue,” explains Sony vice president of distribution
Rory Bruer. “And we got very positive feedback from
it.”
Availability of the trailer was publicized
through NATO, which led to a what Bruer describes as “a tremendous
amount of requests” from cinema operators, primarily
smaller ones. A partnership eventually forged with Cingular
allowed the trailer into several larger circuits with whom
the cell phone company had existing deals.
Response to the Clouseau spot was positive
enough to inspire Sony to do it again; a new policy trailer,
featuring characters
from the September animated release “Open Season,” became
available in May. This spot, featuring the antics of a bear
named Boog (voiced by Martin Lawrence) and a deer, Elliot
(voiced by Ashton Kutcher), contains the same messages of
respect for others and silencing cell phones as the “Pink
Panther” spot, but builds on the theme with reminders
about the snack bar and for patrons to pick up after themselves.
The plan is to keep the “Open Season” trailer
available to theatres throughout the summer, and to create
appropriate partnerships to allow it into the greatest number
of cinemas. Bruer remains upbeat about the potential of spots
like these. “If it’s something there seems to
be the need for, and exhibition embraces it, I think we would
consider doing it again. But I think once people see it,
they will see the value in it.”
THE DOWNSIDE
OF CONVENIENCE
Given how popular cell phones have
grown, some believe that even policy trailers, pre-show
announcements and auditoria
monitoring combined won’t be enough to curb their
untimely use during a show.
The way in which many major casinos
are constructed make cell phone use within them impossible.
Some suggest applying
similar methods to cinema constructions might one day provide
an answer.
While FCC regulations currently prohibit
use of cell phone jamming devices, there is much debate
over whether those
regulations should be amended. Exhibition’s opinion
on the matter is mixed.
Consolidated CEO Herman Stone is a
staunch advocate of change. “I
wanted to install the black boxes in my theatres two-and-a-half
or three years ago, and felt that I had found something wonderful,
but was told that if I did that, I would be quickly sued.”
Stone acknowledges that, if cell phones
were to be disabled in theatres, “we would need to have some devices that
people could pick up at guest services for those folks who
feel like they need to stay in touch.”
Stone envisions a vibrating pager
that the theatre could make available to silently alert
guests in
the event
of an emergency. Another scenario suggests a recorded
message
that
informs callers of a moviegoer’s unavailability;
a system like this would allow access in the event
of an emergency.
O’Meara sees cell-phone blocking as a tough sell. “In
my theatres that gear towards an over-30 crowd or are really
slanted to families, they really worry about the babysitter
getting a hold of them. We could not just [create a blanket
policy to] not allow calls to come through, because the public
wouldn’t stand for that.”
Logan agrees: “In talking to my customers, there’s
a real expectation that they have the cell phone, and they
don’t want it to be disabled.” He is also skeptical
about a system that allows callers to override blocking during
an “emergency.” “Everyone is just going
to say that it’s an emergency and they’re going
to ring through anyway, even when it isn’t.”
An important thing to remember, say
insiders, is that problem moviegoers are the exception,
not
the rule.
In our next
issue, In Focus magazine
explores other methods cinema operators
are employing to improve the moviegoing experience.
Stay tuned! 
