RISE Social Enterprise Case Study Films

[Starts with piano music]

[Phil Walkley]
Moviola is a way to bring cinema to people living in parts of the area that have very poor access to cinema. It also attracts and provides a service for people of a certain age, generally speaking over 40, although there's no bar for under-40s. But in effect the under-40s can get in the car and drive to the multiplex that's 20 or 30 miles away. People over 40 tend not to want to do that, so it's a way for them to see quality movies. So essentially it's the Pictures, it's the cinema.

Moviola started in 2000, and quite literally in that year, 20 shows, and it's grown till the year we've just finished we've done 398.

[01:10] It's a community activity. That's what films are made for. They're made for size, they're made to be seen in a big format, but they're also made for audiences, they're not made to be seen individually. So if you've got half a dozen friends sitting watching a DVD at home, which we do all the time, that's a great experience. But it doesn't compare with enjoying the experience with a hundred people which is what's going to happen here in an hour's time.

[01:45] There are rural touring cinema schemes in several parts of the UK. Indeed there are about half a dozen that we've been instrumental in setting up. Our business model, our Moviola model, is slightly more distinctive or unique than some of them in a number of ways. One of the key ways is that it's what we call a partnership-based scheme, and that means that in every one of our 77 screens, and next year I think probably 120 screens, which makes us the largest multiplex in the world, in every one of those screens, in every one of those venues, we have a partner or partner group, and they're instrumental in shaping the way the scheme develops. Pretty obviously, they choose the date, the time of their show, they choose the film, they tell us what sort of format they want the evening to take.

[02:40] And as well as the commitment to bringing quality cinema, because at the bottom of it, we're mad on cinema, we adore that particular medium, it's also a community-building activity, so the ability to come to a village hall, with a group of friends, actually walk to the village hall, so it's also very green, and enjoy an evening's entertainment. It gets people away from the home TV, out of their houses, and into a place where they can interact with other people.

[03:20][Music while screen is assembled]

[04:10][Announces:] "We have a cinema!"

It's proven extraordinarily difficult to get public funding for what we do. I don't know if that's our fault, I don't think it's anybody's fault. We've had and we continue to get valuable support from South West Screen, which is the regional screen agency, and indeed Screen South, because we straddle two parts of the country, we operate in Hampshire, which is the south. We get some help from them, which has been terrific. We've had a bit of help from the UK Film Council in giving us some equipment but local authorities are strapped for cash. So during this last year, out of a turnover of about ?140,000, ?15,000 came from external support. We are totally reliant on box office.

[05:00] For us screen partnership is essential, I think it makes us very distinctive, in the sense as I've said, that the partners shape the way that the scheme operates. But the other interesting point is that the partners keep a proportion of the box office. 25% of ticket sales are returned to the partner or to the partner group, and that's used in any way that they want for the community. It's used to refurbish the village hall, in some cases it goes to the church steeple appeal, whatever. It's up to them how they want to use that. We can't be political, we wouldn't want to be political, so there are certain limits, but by and large, they have 25% of box office for them to spend. And in 2005/6, the year just finished, we gave back, if you like, ?28,900 to our communities, to our partners.

[06:00][Woman greets the audience]

So it's another way that we hope, we feel we are making a contribution to the community re- generation, because over a programme of maybe ten shows during the year, a village hall will typically make ?1000, ?1200, which is actually quite a lot of money

[Phil greets the audience]

[07:00] Typically a Moviola show consists of short films and trailers for half an hour, and then an interval, where a lot of social interaction takes place, and then the feature film, unbroken to the end. That's the typical model, but our partners can vary that in any way they want. They don't have to have shorts, they can have their interval at the end, whatever.

[07:30] I think I see the future really in an optimistic sort of way. We give thanks every day that we are not based in a building. We are incredibly flexible. We are very efficient. The organisation has a board of directors, but effectively there are two full-time members of staff, plus of course our five or six projectionists, of whom I am one. We operate in exactly the same way as a fully commercial, building-based cinema. We don't pay a rental for each film, we pay a proportion of our box office back to the film distributor in London.

[08:20] Currently we have to wait about 10 to 12 weeks to get films, because the films go to the multiplexes first. We're always crying out to film distributors. There was an article in the Times a few weeks ago, the Times Film page, about the end of cinema. Well sorry, but we're missing something. Cinema's not ending. 100 people to see The Constant Gardener. That's been out on DVD for three months, but they're coming here to see it, because they want to come out of their houses, and be involved in that experience

[09:00][Music plays out to end.]