Audience Interaction – the future of cinema?

Last night I went to see Punchdrunk’s production of Masque of the Red Death at Battersea Arts Centre in south London. This is an interactive theatre piece based loosely on the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe which involves audience members being handed masks at the beginning and then being set free to roam about the gothic building as they like, exploring and coming across different bits of action and elaborate sets in any order they choose, culminating in a grand finale dance piece in the main hall. One of the best things about this gloriously atmospheric and creepy production was the joy of discussion afterwards, as everyone has a different experience of the evening and thus has utterly individual stories to share with each other. The actors also interact with the audience and you can touch them, talk to them and, in my case at least, be locked into a crypt by them throughout. By interacting with the piece, by actively exploring, touching, following, speaking, and dancing with the environment, audience members enrich their own experience of the evening immeasurably, coming away having had a certain level of authorship and thus ownership of their own experience. The piece has had blogs and columns buzzing as people have raved or complained about their experiences, although I think that, as with life, the attitude people went in with seems to have had an effect on how they felt about it afterwards, with those reluctant to throw themselves fully into it coming out less satisfied than those who went in willing to explore and feel and play along. The evening left me thinking about the relationship we as an audience normally have with ‘art’, and cinema in particular.

My work at the cinema involves a great deal of interaction with the audience on a very basic personal level. I sell them tickets and cappuccinos, show them where the toilets are, which seat they’re sitting in, tell them what time the next film is on and wave goodbye to them as they leave. However, when it comes to the audience interacting with the film, there is very little they can do to participate in the film itself, other than to react to the finished piece unfolding before them. Sometimes this reaction can be nothing more than a mild chuckle or a gasp of fright, but in more extreme cases the film can move its audience to leave the auditorium, either at a particularly powerful moment, (like the abortion sequence in the fantastic 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days which caused one of our audience members to faint and others to leave for a stiff drink half way through before returning to their seats), or else to vote with their feet and leave the cinema altogether, as happened this week when we showed the abominable Margot at the Wedding and 70 people left during one show – about 45% of our audience for that show. Successful films can also touch audiences and leave them with a lingering atmosphere or thoughts to ponder long after they have left the auditorium and in the days and weeks to come.

Ultimately though, in this traditional set-up, the audience have no power to actually interact with the piece, only react. Even in ‘interactive’ screenings of old favourites like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Sing-a-long Sound of Music, all the audience can do is shout at an already completed and unchanging film ‘lecture’. And this is what we’re used to, by and large. We’re used to sitting quietly and allowing someone ‘more qualified’ than us to take us on a journey of their own choosing, telling the story their way with no interest in how a particular audience at a particular time might react. And why not? It works and we have many many wonderful films in the world that have touched me, made me think, laugh and cry. It’s very restful to just sit back and be taken away by someone else, there’s no responsibility and if you don’t like it you can just complain about the people who made the film, as it’s nothing to do with you as an audience member. Many of the frustrations of people who did not enjoy Masque of the Red Death seemed to do with not being led more by the actors or by missing out on things they would have liked to have been told about in advance. ‘It’s rubbish,’ they said, not, ‘I’m frustrated that I personally didn’t find all the things I wanted to find.’ This is the crowd who are used to sitting down and saying, ‘ok, go on then, entertain me.’ And that’s fine, if that’s what you want (although don’t go and see Masque of the Red Death if you are like this). But what about those of us who want something more, who want to influence the narrative, the film and films in some way? What is there for us more active audience members who do want to participate? We can’t necessarily influence the recorded sequences that unfold before our eyes, but how else can we be involved?

I was at a very interesting forum as part of the London Film Festival last October called Power to the Pixel (http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/lff/power_pixel) which was set up to explore the future of cinema in this new digital age. Three examples of direct audience interaction with film still stay with me. The first is Arin Crumley and Susan Buice’s film Four Eyed Monsters which is a film that started life as podcasts about the making of the film and ended up as a piece directly influenced and indeed funded by audience members who loved the podcasts and then got involved with the process of making and showing the film. You can follow their story and watch the film and podcasts on their website www.foureyedmonsters.com. Then there is Lance Weiler and his interactive screenings of his latest horror film Head Trauma, which involve audience members playing games and solving puzzles related to the film on the internet and then going to screenings of the film which use actors on the street to interact with the audience and then use email addresses and phone numbers gathered from the internet games to email and phone audience members throughout the screening and over the next few days to continue/expand the experience. Here’s his site: www.headtraumamovie.com. Finally there was Matt Hanson and his project A Swarm of Angels (aswarmofangels.com) which involves members contributing small sums of money towards the cost of making the film and then being able to participate in the process of creating the film, from choosing the posters to offering services as a cameraman or actor on the piece.

I found these three examples of innovative film-making and screening to be far more inspiring and exciting than the current message from the big distributors, which is that 3D is where cinema will be heading next. 3D! Didn’t we do that already? 3D is just another, slightly fancier, way of showing film in a traditional way. It requires a vast out-lay of expense, firstly in the film-making process itself, and then again when it comes to exhibition as the cinemas have to buy new screens, projectors (or extensions for existing projectors) and 3D glasses for all their audience members. Not all cinemas can afford that (ours can’t, for a start). Not all films are suitable for the 3D experience, it’s mostly interesting to the big action summer blockbusters rather than the smaller art-house films. And not all audience members appreciate the 3D experience. It’s true that the same can be said for the interactive experience – not all people want to have the responsibility of having to work for their entertainment on a Friday evening – but as these two different paths unfold in tandem, 3D and smaller experimental steps into audience participation, I know which one I will be following with more interest. In the mean time, you must excuse me, I have to call my friend – I just read a review of Masque of the Red Death which mentioned a pregnant woman telling fortunes and I want to know if my friend saw her as I missed her. I get the feeling we’re going to be talking about this for months to come…

Credit Card Fraud

We have a regular crew of people who use stolen credit cards to buy tickets at my cinema. They hit a circuit of cinemas, all places that haven’t yet implemented chip and pin technology, buy four tickets (maximum ‘normal’ number – any more and they start to attract attention) and then stand outside, just round the corner, touting the tickets to passersby with a ‘my friends couldn’t come and they wouldn’t refund me’ sob story. We’ve lost quite a lot of money this way, because not only does the bank later question and refuse the transaction, so we lose the original sale money, but we also lose custom because people give their money to the touts rather than buying new tickets with us. So, we need to stop the touts from doing it, but, even though we have a regular crew, it’s hard to do. We don’t have anything other than instinct at the moment of sale to stop them. Our computers don’t refuse card sales at the box office. We don’t have photos of the people involved, although I now recognise two of the fraudsters, or at least, my gut instinct does, and they practise their signatures enough that their versions are as close, if not closer than any genuine person’s. Tough to break the social unwritten code and accuse a customer to their face of stealing without proof. They hit us again this week after a break of a few months and this time it was a new man. I spotted it because he reminded me of our regular fraudster woman (brother?) but couldn’t just accost him and accuse him of looking like a local fraudster! I did, however, then wander outside and catch sight of our regular woman standing in her spot, ready to sell the tickets her cohort had bought. When she saw me she moved away quickly, and so I managed to stop them re-selling the tickets, but still, we’ve lost the original sale money for those four tickets. I’m hoping that me watching them scared them enough that they leave us alone for a while, but I don’t think they will stop altogether.

We are all somewhat incredulous at the amount of work that goes into such a scam for a very poor return: At least two people are involved each time and they have to steal the credit card, look up the film time, turn up to buy tickets for the film 40 minutes early in order to have time to sell them and then stand around trying to get someone to buy. For £36 max! And what if they don’t sell them all? What if they only sell 2? Last time the hit us was cheap ticket day, so even if they’d sold all 4 they’d have only made £26. For the amount of work involved, they might as well get a regular job at minimum wage. Why choose to do this instead? To be one’s own boss? For the thrill of it? As a ’stuff you’ to society? Did it at some point stop being a choice and start being a necessity? And is there a way back to ‘normality’ for those who do it?

Magnolia Trees

I love magnolia trees. I have spent the week stopping mid-footstep to admire the ones on my route to work because this is the week when the flowers first start to open, pale petals against graceful dark branches, and the beauty of it all makes me just have to stop and stare. According to Colin Tudge in his book The Secret Life of Trees, magnolias are one of the oldest, least evolved members of the tree world – they look pretty much the way they did in prehistoric times – and I like to think it’s because somewhere down the line Nature just decided ‘why mess with perfection?’

And so it begins…

So, it’s Monday morning and I should be working. I don’t work normal office hours like normal office people, but I have freelance work that I should be using this precious slot of time for and instead I have cleaned, pottered and failed to finish yesterday’s Observer sudoko. Now I’m sitting at the kitchen table listening to Woman’s Hour and thinking up new ways to procrastinate… so many options! I could knit – I have a new project on the go that I’m really excited about. I could write the proposal I need to send today for a poetry and cinema workshop I am running in April at Birkbeck University. I could tidy my room. I could make myself an extravagant lunch. I could watch the new special edition of Twin Peaks that my housemate got for his birthday that we haven’t finished watching yet. I could read my book for book group. I could, I could, I could… I could write to you, mysterious ether, a little more (testing, testing, is this microphone on?).

I have a time limit, of course. My working day starts at 2pm or so at the cinema I manage, usually, working through till 11pm. This week we’re showing Margot at the Wedding, directed by Noah Baumbach, starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jack Black. One of the best bits of my job, and the only comfort about working every Sunday, is watching the matinee of the new film on a Sunday afternoon, coffee in hand. Such a pleasure it’s been the last few weeks, with all the wonderful Oscar films coming through, No Country for Old Men, Juno, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, all just fab. This week, however, I struggled through 25 minutes of Margot and then realised that life is too short to watch such pretentious drivel. Sigh. In three years of working there, this is only the second film I have walked out of (What’s the first? Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway. Maybe I just like Jane Austen too much to cope with such a silly 20th century take on 19th century society). I loved Baumbach’s first film, The Squid and the Whale, but I just didn’t care about the unpleasant characters and the fact that they didn’t like each other, and neither did most of my audience, who are also voting with their feet and have been pouring out in disgust, grumbling their way through the foyer. I haven’t seen an exodus like this since we tried to show Sin City, which was a good film but a very poor choice to show to our mostly older, middle-upper class professional and literate audience. The type of people who come to French films because French was intellectually cool in the 1960s and they and their peers now all own second houses in France. The type of people that don’t drink Chardonnay because it’s common and have expensive haircuts. They’re right about Margot though. Tedious, pretentious piffle. Avoid!

Ok, ok, my guilt has got the better of me, and I’m going to knuckle down for an hour to appease my conscience. I’m currently working for a young filmmaker, sending out his animated short film to film festivals. This is time consuming and boring work, and I’m being paid for as a gift from the guy’s mother because he certainly was never going to get on and do it himself. He has far more interesting things to do. I’m going to leave early though, to go swimming before work. I’ve got a conscience but I’m not an angel.