We’ve written in the past about the struggles faced by independent grassroots music venues, and recent figures released by the Music Venue Trust have highlighted these ongoing challenges and the impact they’re having on local communities. Those same issues are also being faced by local cinemas, who provide not only the sole place many people outside of major cities can see the latest films on the big screen, but are also often a vital hub for communities.
John Clay caught up with Ian Pleasance, a volunteer at the Halstead Empire cinema in Essex, which will screen his debut sci-fi feature film Voodoonaut on 9th February to talk about the valuable role of the venue in the local area.
‘We typically show six films per week ranging from Saturday morning kids films to Friday night blockbusters. We also do special screenings such as our weekly dementia-friendly cinema,’
Ian Pleasance, volunteer at Halstead Empire Cinema
John Clay: Hey Ian, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to me. Tell me a little bit about your role at Halstead Empire cinema.
Ian Pleasance: As a not-for-profit/charity all of our team are unpaid volunteers. We do it because we want to see more entertainment in the area, and so that we can give something back to the community.
John Clay: How long have you been working there?
Ian Pleasance: I started volunteering after the first Covid-19 lockdown as we were extremely short of volunteers due to many of the team still self-isolating or not feeling ready to mix with the public.
John Clay: What does your day to day entail?
Ian Pleasance: I mostly do projectionist work screening films, this involves; opening and closing the building, powering up the video and audio systems and other parts of the tech booth, deciding and configuring the optimal settings for audio and video, and running the film along with any trailers or other media.
We typically show six films per week ranging from Saturday morning kids films to Friday night blockbusters. We also do special screenings such as our weekly dementia-friendly cinema, live-streams of ballets and plays from the West End, and private-hire for local people who want to use the cinema to host special events like birthdays.
‘So much of our culture has migrated to online single person experiences, and that’s the case with our consumption of media.’
Ian Pleasance
John Clay: Do you host music events as well?
Ian Pleasance: Sure, comedy nights, plays and pantomimes, and yes, music gigs. In the past live music gigs have typically been tribute bands such as Noasis, T-Rextasy, and Money For Nothing. However we are now planning to do more regular monthly gigs and provide a venue for local bands to perform at. We are a 300 seat venue with bar and merch areas and so we hope that we can give independent artists and up-and-coming bands somewhere that is a step up from playing pubs, but without the financial risk of having to hire and fill a large venue.
John Clay: Sounds so community focused Ian. What drew you into working so intimately with film?
Ian Pleasance: I’ve always loved film and been fascinated by the creative media process. I’ve worked in software development all of my life, but I wanted to try working in television and film so I took a career break and went to media college for a year, then did small scale TV production for 18 months. I returned to software, but working with a project like The Empire has allowed me to continue using those skills in a way that gives something back to the local community.
John Clay: Why is local cinema important to you and did the pandemic highlight aspects of your relationship to film?
Ian Pleasance: Very good and interesting question! It is important to me as it’s one of the few shared community experiences we have left. So much of our culture has migrated to online single person experiences, and that’s the case with our consumption of media.
The days where millions of people would watch the same tv show or film are gone, and with it is the shared experience – the talking about it afterwards. Now we all watch different on-demand media at different times and it’s a singular experience. Community cinema brings that shared experience back.
The pandemic was interesting because suddenly everyone was watching the same content – Squid Game, Tiger King, etc and to a certain extent it temporarily restored some of that shared experience.
John Clay: Ensuring people have a connectedness being the focus here, can you give us more information on the dementia friendly cinema events?
Ian Pleasance: Our dementia friendly cinema is a popular monthly event aimed at those with dementia, their carers, and anyone in our community who feels lonely or isolated.
We run it as a joint venture with Care UK and local business sponsors and entry and refreshments are free. We keep the house lights and sound at a comfortable level, and our volunteers offer mobility and other support. We have a break midway though the film so our audience can enjoy free tea and cake and socialise with each other.
John Clay: Admirable. It’s easy to provide viewing events to encourage the young and yet, arguably, it’s our senior citizens who can be overlooked in regards to opportunities to gather in a film watching context. How long has the event been going for and who came up with the idea?
Ian Pleasance: Indeed, social isolation amongst elder members of our communities is chronic – so anything that provides an opportunity for them to meet and socialise is important. We started it on a trial basis in 2018 and ran it fulltime in 2019, one of our volunteer team manages a care home and came up with the idea.
John Clay: If you could find out the name of that volunteer, that would be great. Let’s find out more about your plans for the future. Any more plans to work closer with the community of Halstead?
Ian Pleasance: Definitely, as a charity our key mandate is to support and provide services to our community. In recent years we’ve started putting on a regular Dementia-friendly Choir, local school and college plays, and other events and we want to continue launching new projects.
John Clay: Sounds great Ian, and thanks for this mini interview. We hope your endeavours to support your community goes swimmingly.
Ian Pleasance: Thank you for the incisive questions, that was fun.
Voodoonaut will be screening at Halstead cinema on Friday 9th February.
More on Halstead Cinema: https://www.facebook.com/HalsteadEmpireTheatre
Follow Voodoonaut on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/voodoonaut
Follow John Clay on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrjohnclay
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