An early Monday morning start (25 November) at BAFTA headquarters saw Digital Cinema Media (DCM) host industry leaders to discuss the future of cinema at our inaugural Upfronts event this week.
With the aim of making the 200 strong media audience think differently about the cinema experience and share new advertising opportunities around the upcoming 2014 film slate, we also wanted to provoke discussion about the power of cinema advertising and the health of the industry as a whole.
A provocative and entertaining keynote presentation from Peter Souter, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer for TBWA\UK Group, kickstarted the morning, with Peter offering his extremely erudite thoughts on the power of creativity and storytelling in advertising.
According to Peter: “A piece of cinema advertising should be no different to what follows it, in fact, our aim should be to try and make something better than the film, something better than anything that has gone before.”
David Mamet’s line: “There is no drama without conflict” is one of Peter’s mantras which he expanded upon by explaining the essential components of storytelling: set up, expand, twist and resolve.
Hearing Peter talk through classic ads that encapsulated this storytelling process was really inspiring. The Guinness ‘Surfers’ ad that Peter worked on with Walter Campbell, for example, took the perceived flaw of waiting for a pint to be poured and turned it into the desire and anticipation of waiting, concluding with the immortal line “Good things come to those who wait.”
Waiting for anything now in an age where we can listen, watch or buy what we want, when we want is increasingly intolerable to us. Which is why, as Peter explained: “We need to keep giving people reasons to be interested in brands.”
Telling entertaining stories is of paramount importance in engaging people and we all prefer to share emotional experiences, which is why cinema works so well as a medium.
This theme was expanded on in an interactive panel debate on the future of cinema, hosted by our DCM Film Specialist Tom Linay. Tom was joined by Chris Green, Marketing Director of 20th Century Fox, Mike McGee, Creative Director of Framestore, Andy Law, Chairman of Fearlessly Frank and DCM’s CEO, Simon Rees.
Chris kicked off the discussion about freely available content affecting the popularity of cinema by saying: “When TV first came to America, everyone said that Hollywood was going to die. A lot of the arguments are very similar now when it comes to VOD. Yes, there is a wealth of content out there but people still love going to the cinema because of the group shared experience. Box office numbers in the UK are on the rise and people are even prepared to pay more to go to the cinema because of its amazing entertainment value.”
Simon added: “This experience doesn’t start and stop in the cinema. Look at Gravity for example, the anticipation before the film is released and the need to share your views with your friends and family in person or on social media plays a huge part. Social media is a massive opportunity for cinema and for brands to take part in these conversations.”
Chris continued saying that the film industry has yet to fully harness the potential of social media: “Social media is integral to our media plan now. It sounds easy but for it to be successful you have to make the conversation around films natural in order to engage the film fans. You need someone like Ridley Scott to be engaged to produce genuine bonus content that engages people before the film. It can work hugely in your favour, but it can’t be forced.”
The debate finished with the panel looking to the future. Mike said that the experience in cinema could evolve and become even more interactive, with 360 screens where the audience could event choose a particular camera’s point of view.
The challenge his team are currently working on however is the holy grail of photo-realism, which Framestore started to take to new levels for Gravity – the digital human. According to Mike we could soon bring back actors from the dead or ensure our current crop of movie stars never age on screen.
A slightly scary prospect perhaps, especially in an era where Hollywood stars and the cast of TOWIE seem to be ageing backwards already, but, in 20 years, this technology could be as ubiquitous as your friendly Instagram filter…