This month, we invited Alison Smith, Charlotte Little and Andrew Miller to discuss making events accessible for all audiences.
This month, we hosted a roundtable for Scalarama Glasgow to discuss how organisations, independent exhibitors and programmers can ensure their events, both online and IRL, are accessible to disabled audiences. We invited Alison Smith (Pesky People), Charlotte Little (Film journalist for Flip Screen and UK Film Review) and Andrew Miller (UK Government Disability Champion Arts & Culture and Chair of BFI’s Disability Screen Advisory Forum). Our guests spoke about how organisations can sincerely build in accessability for D/deaf and disabled audiences throughout their events and the ways in which the COVID19 pandemic has exacerbated inaccessability.
“You know, that whole fear of missing out? Well, we’re getting it in spades.” Alison Smith, on disabled audiences and online activities.
The sessions highlighted that the pandemic possess a real threat to the progress made in the UK in regards to disablity access to arts and disabled representation. Including serious issues with the UK Cinema Assocations re-opening guidelines, considerations to be taken for audiences who find communcation with mask-wearers difficult and some handy tips on how to bake-in accessible provisons from the planning stages onwards.
You can watch the entire roundtable here (embedded above, with subtitles), read the transcript here or browse the minutes here.
Scalarama Glasgow’s monthly roundtables continue online (for now). Follow Scalarama Glasgow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date.
The next monthly roundtable, focussing the independent exhibitor’s timeline for returning to events, will be on Sunday 9th August, on Zoom. Details via the Facebook page, here.
Scalarama in Scotland is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
We invited We Are Parable, Watershed, Umulkhayr Mohamed and Inclusive Cinema to discuss making programming and organisations sincerely inclusive
This month, we hosted a roundtable for Scalarama Glasgow to discuss how organisations, independent exhibitors and programmers can work to make their programmes and events sincerely inclusive. We invited Anthony Andrews (We Are Parable), Umulkhayr Mohamed (freelance consultant, writer, curator), Clare Reddington (Bristol’s Watershed) and Toki Allison (Film Hub Wales’ Inclusive Cinema). dardishi, originally billed, were unfortunately unable to take part due to illness. Our invited guests spoke on their work for and with Black and ethnic minority audiences, their experience of institutional racism and the increasing demand for sincere and lasting change to take hold in our industry. Resources were shared to help educate, interrogate our institutions and inform develop practical ways to overhaul the sector.
This session highlighted some of the fundamental changes that need to occur to sincerely undermine oppressive and racist systems which underpin the film exhibition sector, and which make it near-impossible for Black and minority ethnic practitioners to progress with parity, professionally. These include debunking the concept of whiteness as the neutral state, professionalism (“Western professionalism is rooted in white supremacy”), increasing personal and organsational accountability, and addressing the pressures put on non-white staff and colleagues to deal with institutional, white racism.
You can watch the entire roundtable here (embedded above, with subtitles), read the transcript here or browse the minutes here.
Scalarama Glasgow’s monthly roundtables continue online (for now). Follow Scalarama Glasgow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date.
The next monthly roundtable, focussing on accessibility for online and IRL screenings takes place on Sunday 19th July, on Zoom. Details via the Facebook page, here.
Scalarama in Scotland is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
We invited AGFA, Arrow Video, Factory25, Modern Films, Northwest Film Forum and Spectacle Theater to discuss models for online screenings
Last week, we hosted a roundtable for Scalarama Glasgow to discuss different models for screening films independently online. We invited a variety of guests with recent experience delivering programmes online in various contexts, including New York’s Spectacle Theater, whose team of volunteers usually deliver their programme to a maximum of 35 people in their Brooklyn microcinema and now curate Twitch streams for hundreds of people at a time.
We also welcomed the American Genre Film Archive, based in Austin, Texas, who work with and advise distributors and exhibitors, as well as producing their own content, and Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum, who have developed their own timed screening format for rentals, including the online debut of Paul Bartel’s “lost” final film, Shelf Life.
We also invited distributors like Arrow Video, based in UK but distributing internationally, Factory25, whose recent Other Music documentary was released in collaboration with a variety of independent organisations, and the UK’s Modern Films, who have quickly pivoted to their own online release platform, working with a variety of exhibitors.
You can watch the entire roundtable here (embedded above, with subtitles), read the transcript here or browse the minutes here.
Scalarama Glasgow’s monthly roundtables continue online (for now). Follow Scalarama Glasgow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date.
The next monthly roundtable, focussing on accessibility for online and IRL screenings takes place on Sunday 21st June, on Zoom. Details via the Facebook page, here.
Scalarama in Scotland is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
Legendary film programmer Kier-La Janisse joined us for a conversation on her career in cult film, from basement screenings to international film festivals and beyond
Fearless film programmer and Matchbox hero Kier-La Janisse joined us last week via Zoom to discuss her inspirational career in cinema. In a two-hour conversation, Kier-La very generously held forth on everything from her zine editing to basement horror screenings; to founding the CineMuerte film festival; to programming the Alamo Drafthouse; to running her own micro cinema; to publishing her landmark memoir House of Psychotic Women; to launching her own publishing house, Spectacular Optical.
Kier-La shared the secrets of her Cannibal Holocausticles, her Montreal microcinema Blue Sunshine (more on that and the scene around it in Donna de Ville’s dissertation, The Microcinema Movement and Montreal), and her hilariously ill-fated stint as a scout for Drafthouse Films. We also heard some of the highlights of her career in genre film programming, including screening Until the Light Takes Us onto a screen made of snow in the dead of the Canadian winter, hosting Deep End in a swimming pool surrounded with electrical equipment and recruiting Udo Kier to help live dub an unsubtitled print of Black Bell of the Tarantula.
Watch our Kier-La Janisse-inspired playlist
We also had a chance to quiz the veteran programmer on the ethics of film programming, the evolution of horror fandom, her advice for aspiring programmers and some of her favourite films – including some of her most memorable screenings, her wishlist and the ones that got away.
You can watch the whole conversation on our Vimeo page here, or YouTube here, or you can read the transcript here.
Scalarama Glasgow’s monthly roundtables continue online (for now). Follow Scalarama Glasgow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date.
The next monthly roundtable takes place on Sunday 24th May, on Zoom. Details via the Facebook page, here.
Scalarama in Scotland is supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network, and funded by Screen Scotland and Lottery funding from the BFI.
Reptilian aliens, shoegaze and the end of the world. Diet Soda Cineclub’s Teri Williams sets up our upcoming co-screening of Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy
Is Gregg Araki the patron saint of the alienated teen? His work, which now spans over three decades, has helmed a wave of new queer cinema that began with radical low budget films like The Living End and is now cutting through the abundant noise of shiny teen TV drama with the excellent Now Apocalypse, a hark to the trilogy that arguably started this whole beautiful mess: the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy. So pucker up, light up, and read on to find out more about how the godfather of rebellious youth framed a generation in neon rainbow colours that remains ever so relevant in this strange, doom-laden landscape we’re living in right now.
Totally Fucked Up, The Doom Generation and Nowhere were made and released in the mid-90s, when tie-dye and inflatable furniture was in, and Gen Z queer icons Amandla Stenberg, Chloe Grace Moretz and Hunter Schafer were mere twinkles in their parents’ eyes. It’s arguable to say that these three films, and Gregg’s subsequent features like Mysterious Skin and Kaboom! paved the way for a plethora of queer and teen-centric media today. He’s even had a guest director spot on a few episodes of 13 Reasons Why, one of the most talked about teen TV shows of recent times.
The Teen Apocalypse Trilogy was never seen as a critical success. Maybe because most of the film reviewers assessing them at the time were deliberately far removed from the worlds shown on screen – there’s nothing a middle-aged white man hates more than teen disenchantment, disengagement, disaffection. Not to mention all of that ambiguous sexuality, questions of gender identity and complete disregard for populist politics and society. Gregg’s films depict utter doom in the purest sense, where teens find themselves facing alienation and actual aliens, out to pull them free from the crazy world they’re struggling to fit into.
The first film in the trilogy, aptly titled Totally Fucked Up, stars Araki-darling James Duval, who we see throughout a large number of Gregg’s work. His inky black eyes, pouty mouth and Keanu-hair make him an instant pin up in the franchise, but what makes James stand out is his flat, carefree valleyboy accent, often used as narration, particularly in his starring role in Nowhere. He is part of a group of six young gay teenagers who have come together as a family of misfits. Largely filmed with a handheld video camera, the movie has a grainy, homemade quality to it reminiscent to the early work of the great John Waters, and as intimate as the talking head portions of modern reality TV.
The Doom Generation, which is a roadtrip movie, stars Rose McGowan and her iconic Mia Wallace haircut, hurtling through the desolate landscape of nighttime LA with boyfriend Jordan (James Duval) and new arrival X (Jonathon Schaech). Their blossoming triage-ship is wrought with jealousy, confusion, and terrifying encounters throughout the way,
The third film, Nowhere, showcases Gregg’s obsession with alienation in a comically literal sense. Its bisexual hero, again played by James Duval, is on a manic search for the alien race who is taking over his community and friends, stalking him as he navigates his failing relationship with girlfriend Mel and falling for new town arrival Montgomery.
So there you have it. Three films – a portrait movie, a roadtrip movie, and a sci-fi fantasy – each exploring themes of existential doom and teenage heartbreak that, each with their own rad, acidic soundtrack and palette of blindingly neon colours, paved the way for a multitude of queer cinema that celebrates the weird and subversive, an aloof middle finger to the mainstream. And maybe that’s what we need to celebrate right now.
Teri Williams
Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse Trilogy screens at the CCA Glasgow as part of Scalamara Glasgow on Thursday 26th September, 2019. Buy tickets here.
Read Helen Wright of Scottish Queer International Film Festival (SQIFF)’s presentation on making your film screenings and events accessible to everyone
At the July Scalarama Glasgow meet-up, Helen Wright (Scottish Queer International Film Festival) gave a presentation and led a discussion on accessibility for film screenings. Helen covered basic principles, and practical access measures for screenings and for marketing film events.
Helen has very kindly allowed us to host the PowerPoint (above), which formed the basis of her presentation. Material from all of 2019’s Scalarama meetings/workshops in Glasgow, including guides to licensing, venues, tech set-up and social media, here.
Scalarama Glasgow is running monthly meetings in the lead-up to September’s season of DIY film programming. They’re aimed at helping exhibitors brand-new and experienced alike to put on films, and each month has two invited experts on different aspects of film exhibition. They’re free and open to all, full details here.
If you have any questions or could use some advice, get in touch with us here:info@matchboxcineclub.com
Basic principles, dos and don’ts and tips for promoting your film screenings online
Detail from the poster for Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer, 2017)
This is intended to provide basic principles and practical tips for making the best use of social media, as an independent film exhibitor. It’s not intended to be definitive, or a magic wand to conjure likes, shares and follows. Different things will work for different exhibitors and different events. If you have any tips or advice to add, please let us know!
Basic Social Media Dos
Have a clear identity for your page
Have a clear idea who you want to appeal to
Be concise – keep it short and economical
Be as visual as possible
Be discoverable – use hashtags (appropriately)
Be responsive – if people engage with your posts, engage with them – and reply to queries ASAP.
Be a real person – e.g. post a picture of you putting up a poster, rather than the poster itself
Use active language and calls-to-arms (Buy, try, “get tickets”, “check this out”)
Post regularly (keeping in mind the requirements of each platform)
Tailor/adapt your content and tone for different platforms
Pay attention to what works well for you, your page and your events
Research – see what other exhibitors, venues, platforms are doing that works and suits you
Experiment – most platforms share information with you so you can easily find what works and what doesn’t
Develop a strategy based on all of the above
Plan and schedule posts
Ask people or accounts to share your content and share theirs
Basic Social Media Don’ts
Post/talk only about yourself/your event(s)
Panic cluster-post at the last minute
Tag random (or friendly but not immediately relevant) people or accounts in tweets and/or pictures
Re-use (i.e. steal) content without attribution
Overuse hashtags, especially “comedy” hashtags
Content | Always ask the distributor if they have marketing material available. This can include stills, posters, trailers, press releases which you can draw quotes and/or additional information from, and also any guidance to follow, especially if it’s a new or recent release – much better to adhere to their release campaign strategy, if there is one. If it’s an older film, you should still ask if there’s material available. There are also various resources online. Look for the website of the marketing team company, if there is one, which often will host marketing materials for download. For posters in particular, try wrongsideoftheart.com, impawards.com or cinematerial.com (the latter requires a small subscription fee). Don’t use images or material from other people’s screenings, at least without permission.
Presentation | You can optimise your images for presentation on the various platforms (i.e. a portrait-oriented poster won’t display fully on Twitter). Twitter now offers automatic cropping of your images in three styles on its new desktop version. Otherwise, you can make reference to the Always Up-To-Date spreadsheet for social media image sizes, which will give you the right sizes for various uses across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Tumblr. There’s also a free-to-use online re-sizing tool, Landscape, which you can instruct to automatically resize and download images you upload to whatever specifications you need. Sprout Social have produced guides on presentation for images (here) and videos (here).
Any links you use, you can trim so that they don’t display all the unnecessary detail and they will still work. E.g. “https:// matchboxcineclub.com/weird-weekend” can become “matchboxcineclub.com/weird-weekend” and still work as a hot link on all social media platforms. Better yet, you can sign up for a free bitly.com account and, if they’re not already taken, create shortened links, with customised back-halfs, for free. E.g. bit.ly/WEIRDWEEKEND. On Facebook, you can also tag your events in posts the way you would a person, typing @ followed with the event name to find it.
Finally, you know how sometimes a link from another website won’t present properly, i.e. with no image, or the wrong image? That’s often because it’s never been shared before, and you can get around that by testing the link with Facebook’s debugger or Twitter’s card validator.
Timing/frequency | To boil it right down – post once or twice a day on Facebook, a similar frequency for Instagram and as often as you like on Twitter. Facebook in particular would like to encourage you to pay to boost posts or create sponsored posts, so it’s designed to discourage a wide audience for anything you share that involves a ticket link or an event page. You’re less restricted in posting Stories. Likewise, you have freer rein when posting in Facebook event pages – and it’s a good way to keep people interested between announcing your event and it happening. Beware over-posting, though, because non-stop notifications for attendees can be a drag. Getting the best from Twitter requires investment of your time above all else. A tweet has a half-life of about 30 minutes and to get people to engage with your posts, you also need to engage with theirs. In all cases, its good to share content that isn’t about you or (directly) about your event.
You can also use some statistical information to guide when to get the best response from your posts – Sprout Social (NB otherwise a subscription service) offers some insights for the various platforms. Read their “Best times to post on Social Media for 2019” post here.
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Subtitles/Captions | Providing these is necessary to make your posts accessible. It’s also a very basic way to increase engagement, since videos are automatically muted on most platforms. Subtitles draw people in. Facebook and YouTube will auto-generate subtitles which you can then edit, or you can upload them as a separate file. There are also ways to create subtitle files separately and burn them into the video. For more advice on any of that, email info@matchboxcineclub.com. Free subtitling software includes: Aegisub, Amara, Belle Nuit Subtitler and Subtitle Edit (Windows only).
NB “Subtitles” describe what’s spoken, while “Captions” also include sound and music labels and speech identifiers, etc.
Alt-text for images | This is a very straightforward way to make your posts accessible for the visually impaired – you add text separately describing the images (but not GIFs or videos) you post. On Twitter, you have to enable the feature via Settings and Privacy > Accessibility. On Facebook, it’s a universal feature, although the alt-text is extremely limited in terms of character count. Read Twitter’s guide here. Read Facebook’s guide here. Read Instagram’s guide here.
How alt-text works on Facebook, preparing to post an image:
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How alt-text works on Facebook, after you’ve posted an image:
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How alt-text works on Twitter (NB you can’t edit after posting):
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Sponsored posts | These can be extremely effective compared to print marketing, especially for independent exhibitors who can’t rely on the same reach, footfall or press attention as venues, festivals or bigger exhibitors. Facebook and Twitter are both very good at targeting to specific people, whether it’s people who already follow your page (and may miss your posts due to the algorithm or the speed of constantly unravelling newsfeeds), or a particular demographic, e.g. people who live near your event, young people, or people who like horror films. Facebook is a lot more user friendly than Twitter, though both require experimentation and attention to get the best results. Some reluctance to engage with this aspect of social media is understandable, but keep in mind, if you’re doing it right, you’re showing people something they want to see.
NB If you’re participating in Scalarama Glasgow/West, Edinburgh/East, or Highlands and Islands, and you’re making Facebook events for September, please make your local Scalarama page a co-host. You can also add something along the lines of “Screening as part of Scalarama 2019” to your event description, and make sure to tag Scalarama in your relevant posts, tweets, etc, using the hashtag #Scalarama or #Scalarama2019.
This guide was made for Scalarama Glasgow’s July 2019 meeting, presented by Sean Welsh. Sean is responsible for Matchbox Cineclub and Scalarama Glasgow’s social media. He also planned and operated social media for Document International Human Rights Film Festival as Production Coordinator in 2016 and 2017.
Tips, specs and software for perfecting your DIY film screening
At the May Scalarama Glasgow meet-up, Eileen Daily (Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Document Film Festival, Picture Window) gave a presentation and led a discussion on basic tech set-up for DIY/non-theatrical film screenings, covering film formats, how to prepare films to get the best presentation and what free software is available to help you do all of this easily.
We’re hosting Eileen’s PowerPoint (above), which formed the basis of her presentation and covers basic terminology, ideal technical specs and useful guides to that free software (plus hot-links to download it).
Scalarama Glasgow is running monthly meetings in the lead-up to September’s season of DIY film programming. They’re aimed at helping exhibitors brand-new and experienced alike to put on films, and each month has two invited experts on different aspects of film exhibition. They’re free and open to all, full details here.
If you have any questions or could use some advice, get in touch with us here:info@matchboxcineclub.com
A mind-bending predecessor to the modern mash-up, The Movie Orgy (1968) is also the Rosetta Stone for Joe Dante’s oeuvre and a must-experience for movie fans and cinephiles alike.
Before Gremlins, before The Howling, before he started his career cutting trailers for Roger Corman, Joe Dante hosted the 7.5 hour All Night Once In A Lifetime Atomic Movie Orgy. An ever-evolving edit, it was a communal experience – a mind-bending predecessor to the modern mash-up with no definitive version. Matchbox Cineclub programmer Sean Welsh charts the evolution of The Movie Orgy through five key dates.
October 9th 1965, The Playboy Theater, Chicago
The first screening of An Evening With Batman and Robin, one of two key inspirations for The Movie Orgy. The other was Susan Sontag’s Notes on “Camp” (1964), which popularised the term and inspired the repackaging of the 1943 Batman serial as a single 4.5-hour programme. Audiences laughed at its phony climaxes, marveled at its blatant xenophobia, and it began touring college towns. When Dante caught it, at the World Theater in Philadelphia, he was particularly struck by the camaraderie of the crowd, who “came out into the lobby as if they’d just gotten off a sinking ship.”
Early 1966, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia
Inspired, Dante, a second year student but already a programmer at PCA, decided to host his own Camp Movie Night. The exact date is lost to history, but Dante and collaborator Jon Davison rented the only complete serial available on 16mm in Philadelphia, The Phantom Creeps (1939). They stretched it to seven hours with serials, clips, ads, industrial films and cartoons from their 16mm collections. Its success meant several follow-ups, each a step towards what would shortly become The Movie Orgy, then variously The Movie Orgy 2, The Movie Orgy Strikes Back, Son of the Movie Orgy, Escape to Movie Orgy and Son of Movie Orgy Rides Again.
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March 8th 1970, Filmore East, New York
Although 1968 is commonly held as the term “The Movie Orgy” was first used for Dante and Davison’s project, the performance that film archivist and Orgy expert David Neary describes as “the most important Movie Orgy of all” came in 1970. 1970 was peak Movie Orgy for the pair, who employed dueling projectors (tipping their hats to Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls). Davison’s would show various features – in lieu of new serials – and Dante’s would interject, drawing on his panoply of 16mm weirdness. They took their cues from the audience, so no two screenings were alike. Press coverage of the Filmore Orgy drew the attention of Schlitz Beer, who sponsored Orgies to tour colleges for years. But when the new material the Orgy drew upon to keep it alive began itself to be infected with self-referential camp, it was time to call it a day. Dante, already in Hollywood, sold syndication rights for “The Video Orgy” to be screened on college campuses’ closed circuit TV networks.
Credit: Dennis Cozzalio
April 22nd 2008, New Beverly Cinema, Los Angeles
The grand finale of Dante’s Inferno, a two-week retrospective at LA’s legendary rep cinema. Joining the scores of curious film fans were Davison, Allan Arkush, Bill Hader, Edgar Wright and Quentin Tarantino. Dante enjoined the crowd to move about, go outside, have a smoke, grab a pizza and wander back in. The Movie Orgy was always intended as a movie to be walked out on. But the director was curious to if it would play – have any relevance – after years in his vault. It brought the house down.
September 9th 2018, The Old Hairdressers, Glasgow
We’re screening the digital version Dante made for the New Beverly (not the 90min “UK cut” previously screened in London). It’s 4.5 hours long, the official Movie Orgy, “distilled, recaptured and re-curated”, according to archivist David Neary. It’s not the full, wild 16mm experience, of course, but there’s also no Blu Ray coming. “It’s more like a concert in a way,” Dante says, “It’s something that you really have to be there for.”
Sean Welsh
Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy screens at The Old Hairdressers, Sunday 9th September
It’s with a very heavy heart that we have to announce the postponement of KeanuCon 2018 until 27th +28th April 2019.
Due to the GSA fire and CCA Glasgow‘s subsequent closure, it’s not possible for us to hold KeanuCon on the original dates, and the next workable dates for CCA (and for us, due to Cage-a-rama 2 in January) are in 2019, which we are glad to confirm.
All our efforts to find a suitable alternative location have sadly failed. Although we did come extremely close, trust that we worked very hard to exhaust all the possibilities.
We hope you’ll accept our apologies and realise we are as gutted as anyone to have to postpone KeanuCon. We had the line-up and a lot of the supporting programme locked-in and we were so excited to share it with you. The date change *does* have some positive implications for the programming and for other aspects of the weekend, but that will become clear in due course – ASAP. KeanuCon will be even more awesome for the date change, we promise.
On a more positive note, we still be taking part in the Scalarama Glasgow 2018 programme this September, with these events and at least one more TBA:
Matchbox Cine 