If you have never heard of immersive cinema then read on. If you have then just go to the bottom of the article, pass go, collect your tickets and join the fun on 17th March at The Wedgewood Rooms.
So, what is it?
Sometimes referred to as live, experiential or event cinema, the organisers of immersive screenings don’t just want you to suspend disbelief they want to place you in the storyworld of the film you are viewing. You become more than a spectator, you are the camera, a participant, you are free to look wherever you want, in real-time.
They can range from outdoor screenings in unusual locations such as Backyard Cinema’s screening of Romeo & Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996) sited in a church and featuring a live choir. Or how about Luna Cinema’s screening of Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) in an outdoor swimming pool with the audience in dinghies, being circled by a mechanised shark fin. Venues feature cocktail bars, street food vendors and gourmet popcorn as well as theatre performers lavish sets and secret locations. Perhaps the idea is rooted in earlier cult events such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975) which would see the audience arrive in costume and sing along to the soundtrack. Though clearly the idea goes back further to the time of silent cinema. When musicians would ‘live score’ a movie or sound artists would provide ‘live effects’ which aimed to immersive the audience in the experience.
By far the most well-known proponent of experiential cinema is the perhaps not so well named Secret Cinema who, since 2007, have delivered theatricality in the form of actors, set design, lighting, music and people dressed as camels to the likes of Lawrence Of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994) and Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985). In 2014, they transformed a patch of ground near the Olympic village into a passable approximation of a 1955 Hill Valley town square for a screening of Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985). This included the town hall itself, with its fatefully stopped clock, is a huge facade at one end with meticulous reconstructions of the stores glimpsed on screen. While this is the event which launched the concept of immersive or experiential cinema into the mainstream, more recently Secret Cinema have staged a Star Wars event and they have plans to present Jurassic Park in 2018.
What is certain is that live cinema is more than just a night at the movies, it’s a full-on interactive encounter that goes beyond the banality of the multiplex. It invites audiences to lose themselves in serendipitous, imaginary environments and participate in a uniquely social experience. If this is something that peaks your own interest then you should take a look at the event being organised by local filmmaking organisation DVMISSION. Running at The Wedgewood Rooms on the 17th March, “From Dusk till Dawn of the Dead” proposes an unlikely collaboration between George A. Romero and Quentin Tarantino as a setting for a night of cinematic mayhem. Featuring short films produced specifically for the night, a lavish awards ceremony, theatre, music, DJ’s, performance and a spectacular after party. The organisers claim that it is high time experiential cinema came to Portsmouth and they intend to put Pompey-wood at the centre of the map.
FaceBook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/691259371071604/
