This is topic outdoor cinemas? in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 01-06-2002, 05:10 AM:
Here in west.australia over the last four to five years, we have had an explosion in the number of outdoor cinemas, for a population of around 1 million we now have 8-9 outdoor cinemas going over the summer. we have 2 in our company (www.luna.com.au). we screen first release art house and classic/art rep., while all the others show commercial rep.
We have a great climate for them here, very warm/hot (95-110 f), daytime of course, which brings them out at night for relief!.
Do any other countries/states have outdoor cinemas and are they popular?.
My favourite outdoor cinema story is , we got a print of titanic, just as it's season was ending, it was now autumn (end of outdoor season), a big storm was on it's way and i suggested we cancel the screening as i thought that no one would come, the manager said no so on i went. About 50 turned up and it was now pouring with rain and the wind was so loud it was hard to hear people talk, 40 huddled under our canopy and constantly complained that they couldn't hear the dialouge as we had to cover the speakers with canvas covers to prevent damage and about 10 braved the weather in their raincoat's. You can imagine that the image was dreadful with the port glass being rained on and the screen itself had rain pouring down it (hard screen -billboard) . everyone walked away having a memorable experience, including myself!
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-06-2002, 11:32 AM:
Oh ... you're talking about "Open Air" theaters (as opposed to Drive-Ins).The only one that I know of here in the states is the El Rio Outdoor Cinema in San Francisco. Their website (which doesn't appear to be working now) is www.elriocine.com
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-06-2002, 12:31 PM:
I shall correct myself:Another one is the AT&T Outdoor Cinema in Seattle: www.lunarflicks.com
Posted by Howard Johnson (Member # 62) on 01-06-2002, 02:25 PM:
I think there are a few in southern europe such as Greece and Italy. An elderly projectionist told me that he was on holiday in Italy and went to an open air cinema in the town and got talking to the owner who said that he had a problem getting away for holidays as he was the projectionist and his wife the cashier. This projectionist offered to run the show for a few days as they only had one show in the evening. This went well so for several years he and his wife went on holiday had free rooms and got paid for running the cinema.
Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 01-06-2002, 02:50 PM:
Some local kids in Provo, UT. bought some old screens we had and ran a video movie in a park in Provo one night. About 2/3rds of the way through the film the sprinkler system came on transforming the whole event into something no one there will ever forget. The park district made sure the sprinkler system was turned off the the next showing they did there.
Mark @ GTS
Posted by Brad Haven (Member # 954) on 01-06-2002, 10:01 PM:
yes,it's definitely open air, not drive in, drive in's have died off here, only one still going!. Most of the open air/outdoor cinemas are situated on large grassed areas/park's , while both of our's are in paved courtyard's, well, one is actually a private carpark nextdoor converted in summer to a cinema.
Most of these cinemas seat 3-500 (a couple almost a 1000) and sell-out most night's.
Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 01-06-2002, 10:34 PM:
Check out the 'Cinema Borealis' and 'Wine Country Film Festival 2001' links in the picture warehouse. CB was a one-off thing, and WCFF does many of their larger screenings outdoors every year.-Aaron
Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 01-06-2002, 11:09 PM:
Howard is right ... Here's one I remember in Kamari, Greece: www.cinekamari.gr
Posted by Randy Loy (Member # 112) on 01-07-2002, 09:15 AM:
Brad, The idea of constructing permanently-built walk-in outdoor cinemas has not caught on here in the U.S. I know from doing some internet research last year that you have a number of these venues in Australia and that Greece does also. Maybe the reason it never caught on here in the states is due to weather concerns and high land values. In most parts of the country the approximately 440 drive-in theatres we have must operate only seasonaly because of the changes in the weather.
One thing that we do have, usually during the summer, are a bunch of outdoor film festivals at temporarily constructed venues. This idea seems to be growing in popularity and a quick search on the WWW will turn up info on a number of such festivals where a screen in set up, often on a large grassy area, and projection and sound equipment are brought in to complete the package.
Some good examples of outdoor film festivals near where I live (Maryland/Washington, DC area) are the NIH Film Festival on the grounds of the world renound National Institutes of Health, a federal government medical research facility in Bethesda, Maryland; the Screen on the Green Film Festival on National Park Service land next to the Washington Monument; and the Little Italy Film Festival in the "Little Italy" section of Baltimore, Maryland.
The festival at NIH is set up on a grassy area between some of the administration buildings that slopes toward the screen like a natural auditorium. 35mm film is projected. The Screen on the Green also is on a grassy area and (I think) does 35mm as well. The Little Italy Film Festival is set up in a street and parking lot area and 16mm films are projected from the window of a house across the street onto a screen (actually a white billboard) on the side of a bulding.
With the popularity of outdoor film festivals growing in the United States, I'm surprised that we haven't seen at least a few permanent set-ups built in large parks or other locations where these festivals occur year after year.
Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 01-07-2002, 07:30 PM:
Yup....that's what we've done here -- every summer in Brooklyn's Prospect Park (only slightly smaller than Manhattan's Central Park) the Celebrate Brooklyn Summer Arts Festival is held in the park's bandshell/stage. The cinema nights are one of the most popular offerings in the festival. Our record so far: 5000+ for WEST SIDE STORY. There are picture here on Film-Tech in the Pictures section: http://www.film-tech.com/pics/park.html
Frank
Posted by Mark Nicol (Member # 839) on 01-11-2002, 09:47 AM:
Hey Brad we have the oldest Picture Gardens in the world here in Western Australia:
http://acquistidirect.com/sunpictures/index.htm And the newest ones that will most probably get about 100,000 on Australia Day with the biggest outdoor screen ever ...
http://www.moviesbyburswood.com
See you down there for Blade Runner Directors cut on the 15th Feb 
Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 01-11-2002, 10:12 AM:
In Manhattan HBO sponsors Monday Night at the Movies, in Bryant Park.
They do this in July and August. They attract from 300 to 2500 depending on what's showing.Projection and sound are excellent.
Posted by Wes Hughes (Member # 981) on 01-11-2002, 02:22 PM:
When I lived in Manhattan we used to LOVE to go to Bryant Park! I'm glad they still do that.Our company started an outdoor screen years ago at the NC Museum of Art here in Raleigh. It was bought a few years back by the museum itself and it still operates very successfully. They can handle up to 1500 people there and frequently have great attendance.
We currently operate one open-air cinema on the square in front of our four-plex. The installation is not yet permanent (probably will be NEXT summer when we have enough $$$), but it does very well in the summer and fall. We can have about 1000 people there. People love it...especially since we allow picnics.
Posted by Ray Derrick (Member # 1001) on 01-11-2002, 07:19 PM:
There are quite a few of these that operate seasonally on the East coast of Oz. One good one that comes to mind is at Avoca beach just north of Sydney. You can watch a movie to the soothing background of breaking surf.They can introduce some interesting technical problems though. There is just such a cinema at Waterworld on the Gold Coast (Qld) where the screen and stage speakers are across a section of water from the audience. The screen sound was so delayed when it reached the audience that there was insufficient surround delay available to prevent the surrounds being in front (time wise). Fortunately they had a Panastereo processor and were able to simply swap out the surround eq card for a second delay board, giving two delays in series which gave them the 300odd milliseconds they needed.
------------------
Ray Derrick
President/Chief Engineer
Panalogic Corporation Sydney, Australia
Phone: 61 (0)2 9894 6655 Fax: 61 (0)2 9894 6935