Art Houses Unite!
Three days before this year’s Sundance Film Festival, dozens of staff and board members representing approximately fifty art house cinemas from around the United States gathered in Salt Lake City for the second annual Art House Convergence. This motley group of cinephiles had at least one thing in common: We all work for mission-driven, community-based theaters. There was a good deal of diversity among participating venues: Some are for-profit, most are nonprofit, many inhabit historic single screen hardtops, while others inhabit converted spaces with multiple screens.
The Art House Convergence was created as an initiative of the Sundance Institute Art House Project, which in 2006 brought together twelve independent cinemas from across the country. The Art House Project recognized those in the trenches committed to building audiences for independent film at the community level. After two years of interacting at the Sundance Film Festival, representatives from the Art House Project venues saw the need to bring together a larger network of likeminded operators to address our common challenges and share our successes, anxieties, and perhaps most importantly, our hopes and dreams.
Throughout the busy schedule of sessions I found myself sitting at the back of the jam-packed conference room wondering, “Who are all these people?” Broadly speaking, I would pour this group into three different demographic buckets. The largest bucket held the Old Schoolers. I imagined these folks suckled on the nourishing mother’s milk of Eisenstein, Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Godard, and Buñuel, when the art house was a thrilling place of discovery, wholly independent of the Hollywood studio machine. Theirs was also the heyday of prolific, deep, and original voices in print-based film criticism: James Agee, Pauline Kael, Andrew Sarris. This group witnessed the demise of the studio system and the dirty, sexy, violent revolution of Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, and Shaft. They saw the emergence of Kubrick, Cassavetes, and Jodorowsky, and the shift from soft-core to hard-core pornography. Now seasoned, the Old Schoolers, sometimes in second or third careers, have realized their dreams of owning and operating the art houses that turned them on decades before. They cherish celluloid and the theatrical experience above all.
Then there were the Tweeners. I count myself among them. We were the original latchkey kids raised to a great extent on “teevee.” We were awed by Atari and enamored with the first wave of personal computers. We benefited from the last gasp of single screen, neighborhood cinemas with burned out neon marquees, but we were easily lured by the candy-coated suburban shopping mall-tiplexes soaked in artificial butter. The number of screens seemed to double every other year while the movies got louder and the walls got thinner. Then home video hit us hard, like a first puff of analog crack, on tape. We were the last generation to learn the shuttle/jog dance from A-roll to B-roll. We were exposed to film history on 480 lines of video. Film criticism came to us in Siskel-and-Ebert soundbites. We were goosed by the indie boom of the early ’90s: Soderbergh, the Coen brothers, and the derivative genre-junkie turned It Boy, Tarantino. We all had dollar signs in our eyes, for a minute. And then lo and behold, another revolution: digital! WTF? It didn’t take long to ditch the analog for DVD/non-linear/mini-DV. And with that brave, newfangled Internet, we learned to burn and share.
Let’s call the smallest of the demographic buckets the New Schoolers. These kids were born speaking digital. They were easy to spot with their abnormally large thumbs from incessant gaming and texting. New Schoolers often appeared to be in tow with Old Schoolers at this event. They tended to have irrational prejudices against black and white films, subtitles, and the primacy of the theatrical experience. (Did one of them just say “loss leader” again?) New Schoolers dwell in the multi-platform media-verse with seemingly infinite ways to consume movies on increasingly smaller screens. Jon Stewart jabbed this generation on last year’s Oscar-cast with his, “Hold on, I’m watching Lawrence of Arabia on my iPod.” (Utter blasphemy to an Old Schooler.) The New Schoolers take for granted the digital wizardry that enables enormous consumer power. On-demand is expected. They simply want what they want, when they want it, no matter how. Their film critics are web-based bloggers, fan boys, and celebrity gossips. Meanwhile, what’s old in film exhibition is new again, but better. The pictures have also gotten bigger (IMAX), clearer (1K/2K/4K high definition), more dimensional (stereoscopic virtual reality 3D), and the soundtrack is downright earsplitting (Dolby 7.1). Soon theirs will be a world free of film prints altogether. Really?!?
So with sweeping generalizations aside, let’s get down to business. How do art house cinemas survive in the 21st century with a business model that appears to be quixotic at best and suicidal at worst?
The conference kicked off with a keynote address from John Cooper, director of festival programming and creative development for the Sundance Film Festival. Though he was a bit punchy from a long day of dealing with press, he raised our collective pulse by telling us, “You don’t know how sexy you are!” He went on to explain that our authenticity, passion, and community-building efforts were vital to our industry and greatly appreciated. This stands in marked contrast to our common daily experience of being disrespected, undervalued, or ignored by the for-profit film production/distribution sector. Cooper talked about how people still want to feel connected, and the communal theatrical experience continues to fill that void. He suggested that “local was the new black,” meaning that as the hyper-commercial multiplexes get bigger and more soulless, we have a role to play as a “living room.” Following this much needed pep talk, we enjoyed a show-and-tell slide presentation of our various theaters from Helena, Montana to Key West, Florida.
Bright and early the next morning, we reconvened for a session on “How to Survive the Economic Downturn.” Business consultant Fraser Nelson focused on the value of strategic planning: how core values—our competitive advantage—guide decision making, how a clear mission steers resource allocation. The next two sessions dealt with “Current Art House Technology.” From the raging debate about standardizing digital cinema projection, to box office and concession sales-reporting systems, to patron/donor/customer database systems, this was a nuts-and-bolts discussion about the costs and benefits of appropriately scaled technology for art houses.
Emily Laskin, development director of the Sundance Institute, and Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, presented a session on “The Not For Profit Model and Proven Fund Raising Methods.” It was helpful to hear the fundamentals reiterated in no uncertain terms. Besides box office and/or concessions revenue, it is essential for nonprofit art houses to seek contributed income from the community that they cultivate. The presenters stated that 80% to 90% of charitable giving comes from individuals, and the primary reason that they give is that they are asked. While businesses, government, and foundation grants can be important sources, individual contributions yield the best results. Emily Laskin’s basic mantra was, “Get the gift. Get it repeated. Get it upgraded.” She also reminded us, “You don’t get milk from the cow by sending it a letter.” It requires a continuous commitment to informing, involving, and bonding with our constituencies.
Given the seismic changes in the world of film consumption, it is little wonder that one of the liveliest panels was “New World Distribution—The Role of the Art House.” Peter Broderick, whose Paradigm Consulting helps filmmakers and media companies maximize distribution strategies, described a paradigm shift from a model in which the distributors had most of the power, leaving many filmmakers disappointed, to a new hybrid distribution model in which filmmakers assume more responsibility and benefit from multiple revenue streams coming directly back to them. Bob Berney, the legendary Midas of indie film distribution, and most recently president of the now defunct Picturehouse Films, talked about his experience dealing with the commercial pressures from corporate parents who are reluctant to admit that “the system is kind of broken.” Veteran indie producer Ted Hope also embraced the transformation to a new paradigm of creator-controlled content: more interaction with virtual and real audiences through multiple platforms, ranging from theatrical to digital downloads.
Education took center stage in the session “Aligning Education with a Programming Mission for the Art House.” Steven Apkon and Emily Keating outlined the outstanding educational initiatives of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York. Their classes for adults, teens, and children have a strong emphasis on storytelling and helping people bring new stories into the world via digital audiovisual media. In a compelling video clip produced by students in their innovative World Crew program, we saw the impact on young filmmakers encountering their peers in Uganda with unforgettable stories to tell.
Producer Ted Hope wrapped up the conference with closing remarks. He took the opportunity to further articulate what the future might look like for independent film. The filmmaker of the future will dwell in a world of collapsing theatrical windows, declining film criticism, and diminished print advertising. There is a gap emerging between films with small budgets ($500,000 and below) and films financed by the studio “dependents,” with budgets north of $20 million, designed to capture awards as well as audiences. To complete a film is only half the job for filmmakers who must take a “long tail” approach to creating work that can remain relevant for years. Filmmakers must seek a dialogue with their audiences, while considering multiple methods of engaging them. Art house exhibitors often become the “places of worship” or “community centers” where this interaction can thrive and deepen. Despite the current economic challenges, Hope was optimistic about the future viability of independent film in which filmmakers collaborate with exhibitors to facilitate appreciation, community, and revenue.
With that final pep talk under our belts, most of the conference participants gradually began the trek up the canyons to Park City and the first day of the Sundance Film Festival. In summary, the Art House Convergence proved to be a fruitful forum for networking and sharing best practices in protecting, promoting, and growing cinema culture in our communities nationwide. Save the date for next year’s Art House Convergence in Salt Lake City: January 12–14, 2010.
BRIAN HEARN is film curator at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
