The 58th BFI London Film Festival, in partnership with American Express®, kicks off today (Wednesday) with the European premiere of WWII drama, The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley.
Taking place over 12 days, the 2014 BFI London Film Festival includes a huge 248 feature films and 148 shorts across 17 venues, finishing on 19 October with David Ayers’ tank drama Fury. Read more
The 11th Advertising Week in New York saw some serious star power at large and the synergy between advertising, film and cinema, was great to see.
Gaining inspiration from other creative industries in particular, such as music, fashion, books and film can help challenge all of us to push boundaries and innovate. Read more
It’s that time of year again, and this season’s meeting began with the first London CEA meeting, for some time. We all met up at the fabulous Olympic Barnes, in glorious ATMOS sound.
The first CEA meeting of the Autumn season also had a new feel, as the format has been refreshed somewhat - now the open meeting is conducted in the afternoon, which enables a longer more energetic closed meeting in the morning (or so I heard) and makes it far more practical for all of us who sit alongside our Exhibitor partners. There were some great updates, some of which are summarised below: Read more
Thanks to a partnership between Digital Cinema Media (DCM) and MyMovies, users of the cinime app will now be able to access all the latest film content, wherever they are. The enhanced functionality is being launched as the app reaches the milestone of 500,000 downloads in the UK.
Going to the cinema to experience movies at their peak intensity, offers a genuine passion point for film fans and smartphones now allow people to plug into the experience at every step from preview to review – not just when they’re in the foyer or sitting in front of the big screen. Research has also revealed that the average dwell time in the cinema foyer of smartphone users is 15 minutes before the movie, while 50% of respondents are interested in doing some form of integrated activity with their phone in the movie theatre (FAME 2013). Read more
The ever-expanding Encounters Film Festival is famous for being the UK's best known showcase for short film and animation, as well as an annual meeting place for filmmakers and industry professionals. The six day festival kicked off last week, where it was hosted in two main venues on Bristol’s scenic Harbourside, one of which is The Watershed, part of DCM's independent portfolio.
This year saw the celebration of Encounters' 20th anniversary, featuring inspirational screenings and events, radical debates and cutting edge workshops. The special celebration presents 20/20: Looking back to look forward, a theme connecting the past to the future. The programme explores the festival's history, marking two decades which saw the change from analogue to digital. Read more
On Saturday, 21 September the 10th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival drew to a close in the historic town of Berwick-Upon-Tweed. Over five packed days the festival attracted an impressive 9,000 visitors to see the diverse range of films and events on offer, which included 75 new films from almost 40 countries across the world, including six world premieres across 12 unique locations. Over 40 artists and filmmakers in the programme travelled to Berwick from across Europe and from as far as Lebanon and Los Angeles.
A returning theme for this year’s festival was border crossing - a subject to reflect on the significance of the Scottish referendum as well as exploring border identities and transcending boundaries all over the world. Fittingly, the festival undertook its first foray across the border with a 130 capacity sell-out screening of From Scotland With Love followed by a Q&A with Director Virginia Heath, at the fantastic new venue Paxton House. Read more
Last Monday, DCM's Exhibition Account Manager, Rebecca Rau, organised a bakesale on behalf of a great cause. She blogged about it below.
On 29th September, DCM hosted a coffee morning for Macmillan Cancer Support. This involved staff baking cakes to sell in order to raise lots of cash! A sterling effort was made by all and there was a vast variety of cakes including popcorn/cinema themed cupcakes! We certainly gave Mary Berry a run from her money. Read more
The UK’s National Media Museum and Picturehouse Cinemas have announced a new commercial cinema partnership that will begin on October 30. The partnership sees Picturehouse taking over the operation of the three major screens at the Museum including Europe’s first IMAX screen.
To celebrate introducing IMAX to the UK, on November 7 the opening of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will premiere at National Media Museum, announcing Its status as one of the few ‘true’ IMAX 70mm film cinemas in the world. Read more
The 11th Advertising Week in New York has seen some serious star power at large, with more to come and - with my DCM hat on - the synergy between advertising, Hollywood, film and cinema, is great to see.
This builds on a theme explored at Spikes Asia last week, where creative agency legend, Johnny Hornby, chairman and CEO of The&Partnership and founding partner of CHI&Partners, talked about a move away from traditional advertising talent. He said: "With the new agency model, a modern creative director doesn't necessarily need to come from the advertising industry. We need to be looking at non-traditional ideas. I think the pace of change is so fast that creative people need a wider horizon." Read more
From 26 September to 23 October, thanks to Digital Cinema Media (DCM), Xbox, Dentsu Aegis and M:United division of McCann London., cinemagoers who download the cinime app will be able to exclusively play Xbox’s Forza Horizon 2 in cinemas across the country, with the chance of winning Xbox’s and copies of the game.
The four week campaign starts a week before the release of the highly-anticipated latest instalment of the Forza series. The campaign will run across 1,500 screens nationwide at Odeon, Cineworld and Vue cinemas. Read more
The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) are holding an open day in London on Wednesday, 22 October. The event will give people the opportunity to find out how FACT protect their members' Intellectual Property today and into the future. You'll get to meet the team of FACT experts and see first-hand how they detect and combat all forms of visual piracy. There will also be demonstrations, talks and Q&As covering internet investigations, scanning, forensics, covert operations and more.
Yvette Dore, Director of Communications, FACT, said: "Cinema exhibition is at the frontline of the fight against film theft, and the Open Day will be a great opportunity to find out more first-hand about the wide-ranging theatrical protection programme we operate with the FDA, as well as the other areas FACT are currently working in to protect our members' IP. We're greatly looking forward to welcoming our colleagues from cinemas across the UK on the 22nd." Read more
The Weekend Round-up
The popularity of live event cinema was once again confirmed as Billy Elliot The Musical Live became the first ever live event cinema title to top the UK box office, opening with a fantastic £1.9m, despite only being in cinemas on Sunday. Denzel Washington was the star who missed out on the top spot as his latest action-thriller, The Equalizer also opened with £1.9m but just £14k less than Billy Elliot. That total figure compares favourably with his recent star vehicles, 2 Guns, Flight (both £1.4m) and Unstoppable (£1.7m), and only two of his films this century have opened higher, Safe House (£2.1m) in 2012 and American Gangster (£2.6m) in 2007. Safe House finished on £7.2m, so that’s a decent target for The Equalizer to aim for. Read more
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