Encounters Film Festival, the UK’s leading short film festival and the UK’s only Academy Award, BAFTA and European Film Academy qualifying festival has partnered with UK cinema agency Tull Stories for the launch of new nationwide theatrical release programme ENCOUNTERS, which begins in July.
Encounters will present curated programmes of UK and international short films which have previously screened with Encounters Film Festival. These programmes will be themed and released quarterly in groups of three, with each month’s programme accompanied by an introduction from relevant filmmakers and artists. July’s line-up is a showcase of emerging female filmmakers each telling stories of young women on screen, with an introduction from actor and producer Maisie Williams and the rest of the Frank Film Club podcast.
Available from July, Encounters has been designed to not only give exhibitors access to the Encounters Film Festival rich catalogue of content, but also act as a catalyst for reigniting networking opportunities in cinemas for filmmakers, audiences and emerging talent as restrictions lift, cinemas reopen, and audience confidence returns.
The quarterly release structure of Encounters will allow exhibitors to programme events farther in advance as the sector opens back up.
Encounters programmes will be approximately one hour in length. This will allow more flexibility in programming and support the addition of networking events, introductions or Q&As.
Encounters programmes will also be made available to exhibitors at a nominal rental fee, to better support accessible event admission fees or pay what you can pricing initiatives.
Dave Taylor-Matthews, Head of Audience at Encounters Film Festival said:
“We’re excited to be able to launch this new programme as part of our sector’s return. Our festival is built around the concept of community building and like so many, over the last year it’s been difficult for us to not be able to connect in the ways we are used to. We see the festival as the place where the story of film begins and really want this programme to help cinemas welcome their audiences and creative communities back into their spaces.”
Jonny Tull, of Tull Stories said:
“This last year has seen the biggest upheaval for film exhibition and audiences in generations. We’ve adapted to new ways of presenting film and coming together virtually and have advanced our relationship with film in so many ways. As a society we love the act of coming together in cinema spaces, and being particularly passionate about it myself, I’m delighted to be able to work with the Encounters team on this project.”
Encounters is where the story of film begins. Encounters Film Festival is the UK’s leading short film festival, providing an internationally recognised platform for new and emerging talent since 1995. The international competition is the UK’s only Academy Award, BAFTA and European Film Academy qualifying selection, and past alumni include Lynne Ramsay, Andrea Arnold, Denis Villeneuve, Richard Linklater, Thomas Vinterburg and Mark Jenkin. Encounters Film Festival is funded by Bristol City Council’s Cultural Investment Programme and the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery.
Newcastle upon Tyne-based distributor Jonny Tull will release four titles in the UK/Ireland over 2021 under new banner Tull Stories.
Tull will first release the Irish documentary GROUNDSWELL from filmmaker Johnny Gogan (Prisoners Of The Moon). The film is released in the UK on Friday 16th April via the Modern Films virtual cinema platform, ahead of Earth Day on Thursday 22nd April. It tells of the trials of a small community group in Leitrim as they fight the fracking company who has just commenced work in their county. Set against the backdrop of the years leading up to Ireland’s historic decision to ban the practice in 2018, the film features appearances from International activists including the actor Mark Ruffalo and author Sandra Steingraber.
In the summer (date to be set) Tull Stories will release the London Film Festival-selected documentary SOUND FOR THE FUTURE. From artist filmmaker Matt Hulse (Dummy Jim) and Pinball Films, the film is an affectionate and daring reconstruction and deconstruction of the evolution of The Hippies, the young punk band which was formed by Hulse and his siblings in 1979. The soundtrack features music from XTC, Gang of Four, Sleaford Mods, The Stranglers, Ought, Generation Riot, Doug Champion, Cheap Fags and The Hippies.
Sound For The Future
In autumn 2021 Tull will release new feature THE FOOTBALL MONOLOGUES from filmmaker and former actor Greg Cruttwell (Naked, Two Days In The Valley, George Of The Jungle, Chunky Monkey). Completed in September 2020, The Football Monologues adopts a talking heads-style structure involving seven people from different backgrounds under the umbrella of the beautiful game. The Football Monologues stars Emma Amos (Bridget Jones’s Diary, Goodnight Sweetheart) and Samuel Anderson (The History Boys, The Lady In The Van).
The Football Monologues
Tull Stories is also further developing its adventure documentary slate, with the first release being the multi-award-winning PIANO TO ZANSKAR. Michal Sulima’s film is being readied for theatrical release in the summer.
Jonny Tull said:
“I’m delighted to be able to launch Tull Stories with such a high quality and varied slate. My ambition is to work with talented independent filmmakers who tell unique and inspiring stories and each film we have on the way absolutely represents that. I’m looking forward to introducing them – and Tull Stories – to audiences over 2021.”
A John Brabourne awardee in 2020, Tull has worked in distribution and exhibition in the UK independent sector for over 25 years. Tull Stories will work on projects in both exhibition and distribution, providing programming and audience development services for exhibitors as well as distributing specialised film and adventure documentaries.
To celebrate Deaf Awareness Week (4-10 May) Encounters Film Festival presents a new package of stories of films featuring deaf talent in front of and behind the camera.
Available online from Friday 1st – Friday 8th May 2020, the films are available to watch for free at www.encounters.film/now-here-this
Now. Here. This. Is a collection of stories of new and old relationships, life-changing revelations and big nights out.
As part of this week-long event, the Encounters team will be also hosting a live Watch Party broadcast of the programme on Tuesday 5th May at 4pm. The online event includes a chance to find out more about the films from the people who created them (subject to BSL interpreter availability)
The screening and Watch Party event is available via multiple platforms. You can find it at:
This programme and the Watch Party are also free to stream.
Rich Warren, Festival Director of Encounters Film Festival said:
“It’s fantastic to be able to present these films to the public. The world is in a unique place right now and cinema has the power to bring people together – even whilst our auditoria are closed. We think that the films that make up Now. Here. This. represent a fantastic selection of terrific talent working today and we hope that audiences around the world enjoy watching them and enjoy finding out more about the creation of them directly from the filmmakers.”
THE PROGRAMME
The films featured in the programme all competed for the Deaf Shorts award at the 25th edition of the Encounters Film Festival in September 2019. The total runtime is 47 minutes.
All films are subtitled for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
WELCOME TO THE BALL
A child learns sign language in the hope of making a new friend. USA 2019 | 5 mins | Language: English/ASL Director: Adam Vincent Wright.
IF YOU KNEW
After months of fighting and no communication, two teenager twin brothers come together to spend a day in Canvey Island.
UK 2018 | 5 mins | Language: English/Subtitled Director: Stroma Cairns.
PUB JOKE
In this comedy about misunderstandings, Ben tells a deaf couple a joke about a deaf man’s house burning down. Will they see the funny side or not?
UK 2019 | 2 mins | Language: English/BSL Director: Charlie Swinbourne.
HOPE
Hope is a carefree, fun-loving Deaf teenager. But a fatal cancer diagnosis is about to turn her life upside down.
UK 2019 | 27 mins | Language: English/BSL Director: David Ellington.
SIGNKID – DUMBASS (MUSIC VIDEO)
Dumbass is an artistic short film exploring the history of the word dumb and how it has marginalised deaf people. Opening with a short history lesson to set the record straight, it then celebrates the talent of a deaf artist SignKid, who raps to the camera with signsong.
UK 2019 | 4 mins | Language: English/BSL Director: Alexander Darby.
AVA
A babysitter takes over for the night. There are some unexpected consequences.
UK 2019 | 4 mins | Language: English/BSL Director: William Grint.
If you would like to find out more about the programme or Encounters Film Festival members of the public should visit www.encounters.film.
Encounters Film Festival is the UK’s foremost international short film and animation festival. Taking place every September in the city of Bristol, Encounters is a platform for new and emerging talent in the film industry, widening the lens of the sector with a diverse and inspirational selection of international talent.
As I write it’s been about four weeks since cinema exhibition was upended by the Government’s advice about staying away from public spaces and the subsequent UK-wide Lockdown measures were put in place.
Like many working in exhibition and distribution I have been in shock, and like many I spent the next few days making changes to distribution plans, postponing cinema bookings, talking to clients about suspending exhibition projects and mentally processing the position we suddenly found ourselves in.
As I surfed through the DABDA curve I started to think about what happens next and how we can best emerge from the other side. As a punter who enjoys cinema, arts & culture, bars and restaurants I began to consider which messages might encourage me back into a public life, and what we might need to keep at the forefront of our minds whilst contemplating our reopening plans.
However quickly we come back, on the other side of this closure the world will be a different place for cinema. We will need to have more empathy than ever with our customers in order to ensure that they continue to be our customers.
What messages should we use? What might our programmes look like? How can we reopen safely and reassuringly and also give the celebration of our art form priority?
To try and find some insight into how we may react to this pause I have created Pressing Play, a short snapshot survey for exhibitors. The survey asks questions about reopening plans, expectations of attendance, impact on specific audiences, and more. I’ll be releasing the complete findings after the survey closes on Monday 4th May, but there is already some initial feedback emerging which may help shape our planning and communications going forward.
RETURNING TO OUR SOCIAL SELVES
We are presented right now with an unprecedented playing field in terms of marketing messages, where our aim must be to focus on the very concept of going to the cinema and on resuming our social lives.
This is reflected in the many conversations taking place around possible national/international marketing campaigns by industry bodies to reignite attendance and bring the public back to cinemas with confidence.
As a starting point my survey asks respondents how they themselves feel about going out in public again. Responses have varied wildly, with some people not worried at all and others placing themselves at the very top of the anxiety scale.
The result is that the mean average from a scale of 1-10 is a fairly hopeful 4.8/10, but perhaps a more robust statistic is that that 60% of respondents have rated themselves as a 5/10 or higher on the scale, with 20% as 7.5/10 or higher.
Concern is in abundance, as we should anticipate.
The survey also looks at potential impact on attendance and our expectations of how specific segments of our audiences may react when we are able to reopen. Setting audiences into 5 basic segments – families, young adults, adults aged 30-60, senior citizens aged 60+ and audiences for access programmes – respondents were able to consider the potential behavior of each segment.
Here is a short summary of how we feel attendance may be impacted from initial findings taken at the time of writing:
Won’t change dramatically (up to 5%)
Reduction up to 25%
Heavily impacted (25%+)
Don’t know
Families with children aged under 18
Chosen by 35% of respondents
35%
15%
15%
Adults aged 18-30
40%
41%
8%
11%
Adults aged 30-60
19%
59%
12%
9%
Adults aged 60+
16%
30%
50%
5%
Audiences for access screenings
18%
19%
27%
35%
We can see here that respondents feel fairly confident about younger and older adults and families returning to our cinemas, but less so about adults aged over 60 or audiences for access programmes.
Looking at barriers to attendance in the surveynaturally fear of infection was understandably selected by most respondents (90%), followed by the change to habits caused by the cultural impact of Lockdown (56%) and the results of the public’s engagement with new VOD strategies (50%). Also, 34% of respondents are worried about the nature of content available to screen when cinemas are able to reopen, and 13% see priceas a potential barrier, post-pause.
Pressing Play also addresses communications, specifically what the backbone of our messaging might be.
There are multiple and varying messages emanating from our sector at the moment – watch parties and online events are connecting organisations with their communities whilst their venues are unavailable, many organisations have made requests for public support, and we are seeing venues proactively looking to the future, reflecting on what we are learning right now and beginning to discuss what’s next, visibly planning a way forward in partnership with their communities.
It is the sense of ‘community’ that resonates with many respondents when considering their communications plans.
From initial survey results the strongest marketing message was being able to offer a shared experience once again. This was chosen by 52% of respondents.
50% recognise the significance of identifying cinemas as community hubs;
45% chose a key message being about the cleanliness and safety of the environments we offer;
and the need for the public to support cinemas, and the content of our programmes were each selected by 35% of respondents.
These messages echo Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, a psychology theory which considers levels of human motivation. These levels/needs begin with the baseline of Physiological needs (food, shelter etc), and escalate through Safety, Love/Belonging, Self-esteem and Self-actualisation.
Using Maslow as a reference point, cinema is potentially in a stronger place right now. Following Lockdown we will be able to offer our customers deeper, more magnified versions of pre-Lockdown levels of safety, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation.
So what will we actually do when we get the green light to fire up our projectors?
Plans are forming nationwide for reopening parties, seasons, audience votes, free ticket offers and more, but how quickly can we return to business? 58% of us are anxious about the speed customers will return, and only 19% of us are anticipating returning to normal levels of screenings when our doors reopen.
We’ve never been more in need of our customers, and they’ve never been away from us for so long. It is clear that we must make our return to business count.
In coming weeks I would suggest that we begin to ask ourselves the following questions:
How can we mitigate the greater risk that is now temporarily attached to our cinemas – what programming will make going to the pictures ‘worth it’ for our customers and get them out of the house?
We know there’ll be limitations on content available to us for a little while – how do we open our doors to our communities and still have something they want to enjoy on our screens? Recent experiments in China with reopening cinemas with repertory titles didn’t work – might that work in the UK, or could we reactivate different segments of our customers with different types of programming and events?
How can we make the cinema feel like a safe place for them and convey that with confidence?
What will we say, and what visible reassurances might we put in place? Will we temporarily reduce seating capacities, introduce new training programmes for staff and tell them about our new cleaning schedules?
What is your core message to your community when you reopen?
Looking at the messages that emerged above, what might the most powerful marketing messages be for your audiences?
Which of your audience segments might need more careful consideration?
How might you talk to young people, families, or older audiences? What programming and activities will you offer for them?
How can we celebrate our artform with our customers and not to our customers?
Are there ways we can programme with our communities – introducing audience votes or other similar initiatives may give us relevant and dynamic platforms with which to screen older and more readily available titles – and sell some tickets too!
How flexible can we be with ticketing?
Should we change our pricing policies, offer season tickets or look carefully at our refund policies to help alleviate any worries that audiences may have about visiting?
How soon should we – and can we – start?
The world will return quickly and we’ll need to be ready to put our plans in place – whatever they are. It’s paramount that we continue to talk to our customers during this time, keep them at the heart of our plans, and ensure that those plans are transparent.
Should we maintain our new online communities?
Those close links to customers that many of us have nurtured online whilst our doors are closed has been a terrific outcome. Have our watch parties and online events given us a new platform to use in order to keep our conversations going outside of the cinema? Do they add value to our offer and help bring audiences closer to us?
After witnessing the energy of the exhibition sector in recent weeks, and the ways in which organisations have adapted at a time of crisis I’m confident that we’ll bounce back. It might be a slower return to full-time operations than we’d like, and there may be more hardship than we’re comfortable with, but we’re hardwired to want to be together and enjoy social experiences, and in this situation that’s one thing firmly on our side.
The Pressing Play survey is open until Monday 4th May. If you would like to complete it and receive a copy of the results, please visit bit.ly/pressingplayJT
Jonny Tull is an exhibition and distribution consultant.
How will cinemas & programmers react to this pause on our industry? What happens when we reopen our doors?
I’m undertaking a short survey of the sector to seek insight into how the exhibition sector may react after the Government’s COVID-19 restrictions lift.
If you’re running or programming a cinema or film club please follow the link to take part >> bit.ly/pressingplayJT
I’m beyond thrilled to announce that two films that I’m releasing in the UK, David Kenny’s It Is Not One Way and Sarah Outen & Jen Randall’s Home will both be screening at the Central Scotland Documentary Festival at the Macrobert Arts Centre on Sunday 13th October.
I’m so pleased for these brilliant filmmakers and chuffed to be part of their journeys!
Find out more about the releases i’m working on HERE.
I wrote a little blog about the Arts Marketing Association’s inspiring Digital Marketing Day, which I attended in December. Read it at the following link…
I’ve been working with the brilliant Northern Film and Media on an industry event for north east film production professionals for a little while and it takes place at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle on Tuesday 21st November, running 10.15am – 3pm.
We’ll be welcoming a range of great speakers from across the UK exhibition, production and distribution sectors to unpick how best to get feature films in front of an audience inside a cinema.
OPEN THE GATES – GETTING YOUR FEATURE IN FRONT OF YOUR AUDIENCE is a one-day event designed to give practitioners working in the north east’s film production sector the chance to hear from the gatekeepers – the exhibitors and distributors who decide if films not only make the grade but also if there’s an audience for their work.
Key decision makers representing Picturehouse, Showroom Workstation, Hanway Films will be present alongside filmmakers from the region whose work has made it out to an audience and the inside of a cinema – either via a distributor or through self-distribution.
Often seen as an antagonistic relationship, the event will pull back the curtain and discuss how to better collaborate and communicate and ensure films can reach their theatrical audience…
I’m delighted to be working with Third Films from this autumn providing audience strategy consultancy for their upcoming projects.
It’s a fantastic chance for me to be part of Third’s production process, to learn some new skills and to apply my experience in audience development and programming to a new arena. Really looking forward to it!
Here’s the release:
North East production company Third Films looks to audiences consultant in innovative new approach to development
Production company THIRD FILMS has joined forces with a Newcastle-based audience development consultant to road-test a new approach as it develops its upcoming slate.
With 6 feature films currently in funded development Third, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, has enlisted freelance Newcastle marketing and film programming consultant Jonny Tull to give guidance and advice to the company on audience strategy for its in-development features before they head into production.
Third have produced 8 features since 2008 including the Newcastle-shot and Venice premiering BYPASS, released in 2015, and which starred rising film and TV actor George MacKay (Captain Fantastic, Pride, 11.22.63).
Where most film productions connect with the public much later in the production process, Third’s lead Producer Samm Haillay is keen to challenge this model, hoping to nurture the audience for his projects at the earliest stage of the development process.
Samm says:
“We’re doing this so we deliberately start to think about the people who want to watch our films as early as possible. That’s where Jonny comes in. His experience and understanding of cinema audiences mean he will be a great addition to our team. This is a new way of working for film production and Jonny coming on board as Audience Strategist and working alongside us from the earliest point in the production process will give us a unique insight into how our projects will best connect and resonate with filmgoers.”
Jonny recently left Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema after 22 years, where he worked in senior audience development and film programming roles. Having embarked on a freelance career he’s now working with clients across the UK. He hopes to draw on his many years of experience for this role:
“I’m delighted to work with Samm and Third Films again. Samm has always been a visionary producer and keen to explore new ways to bring his work to the public. Having only just recently branched out as a freelancer, I was eager for a production project to get my teeth into and this gives me a chance to take my specific experience in working with audiences and place it in a really useful and vital new context.”
We know that how the public chooses how to consume film is changing FAST, so I wrote something for Film Hub North about how knowing the habits of your audience is vital – as is staying true to your organisational aims – take a look here!
Read it here too:
At the recent Independent Cinema Office Screening Days event (at the Phoenix in Leicester, 1-3 July) I was struck by the recurring conversations I was having with colleagues. We talked – over our lunchtime sandwiches, our end of day glasses of wine and our between-film coffees – about the movies we saw: they were ‘festival films’; or we lamented how nobody would come to the tougher titles we had loved; and we relished the dead certs’ considering the joys of a healthy opening weekend.
This isn’t new, and this discussion is one of the many great things I enjoy about attending Screening Days. But whilst I headed home after the event I pondered on how many of the films I’d watched that I would pay to see as a customer. I’ve recently left a venue and I’m now starting out as a freelance consultant, and experiencing Screening Days from my new vantage point made thing feel different…
The more I considered it, the more clearly I could picture the scale of the gulf that needed to be bridged between the customer and the venues screening specialised film. As someone who has had the benefit of a career working across both marketing and programming I’ve always tried to ensure that each element informed the other. Would a film find an audience? Who are that audience? How many of them are there? Will people REALLY pay to see this on a Saturday night? All useful questions to ask when trying to work out your slots, length of run or when forecasting your admissions, and crucial ones when you’re trying to wring the most out of the resource that is the hours in your screens.
As we now all know, we face a challenge in exhibition, and that challenge makes understanding the psychology of our customers all the more important.
Audiences have more choice than ever and their time is precious. As a society we are becoming more comfortable with technology and the quality of content premiering on streaming services is rising and rising. Most importantly, distributors – forever our partners in cinematic matrimony – are now embracing digital platforms more and more, extending their market penetration without our help.
It’s not all doom and gloom though: alongside all this change to life outside of theatrical exhibition, inside our cinemas the situation is brilliant. We develop vivid and diverse projects and programmes, we have a wealth of amazing cinema history to draw on and new film releases remain strong. At Screening Days the quality of the programme was incredible: emotionally resonant, brilliant stories are still being told and our audiences will continue to enjoy them.
But for the collective experience of watching film together I think we’re at a crossroads.
With so much distraction from our artform and the method we use to deliver it, and with so much pressure on time and easy opportunity to engage with screen-based media, the decision to go to the cinema becomes a harder one for our customers. Combine that with escalating ticket prices and audiences start to become more and more risk averse in their choices and the number of visits per person a year will continue to drop. As a customer, whilst it’s a fairly easy call to decide to head out and watch the I, Daniel Blakes, the La La Lands or the Moonlights, the perceived value (time/money/effort) of a cinema visit to see a little-promoted new documentary or relatively obscure and independent foreign language title (and which can be streamed at home for less) can start to diminish if it can be seen for less without the ‘hassle’ of going out. In turn, the impact on venues is to become as equally risk-averse, for example minimizing screenings for challenging films, and taking less leaps of faith on more ‘difficult’ titles.
My Screening Days experience really hammered it home: people are different and have different opinions, needs and desires like any animal. Facing the changes we do, I think we need to consider this to keep pace – by understanding and embracing the psychology and decision-making processes of our customers at a deeper level we will better know our playing field. With that in mind the question of “Will people pay to see this on a Saturday night?” becomes more and more relevant. Consider the entity that is your own audience. How well do you know them? What does your attendance data tell you? What excites them? Do you know what works best on a Saturday night? And at what time?
If you aren’t doing this already, interrogate at your attendance data, research your audience and ask them why they come to your venue, and learn from it.
HOWEVER…
This is all crucial information to have at hand, but whilst taking stock of the knowledge we have on customers and attendance and using it wisely to inform your marketing and programme strategy is important, we have to remember why we are doing what we do in the first place and not lose focus.
It would be too easy to fall into a trap that only reflected customers’ habits, and into a future that held an unadventurous and ‘safe’ programme. Our sector is responsive. It has moved a great distance in the last twenty years because we have listened to our customers about the experience we offer. We have diversified our income streams and we have altered our buildings, changing them into places to hang out, even when not seeing a movie. And it has worked.
This is positive change, I feel, but the danger inherent is that we could become distracted from the mission, and when the wine list becomes more important than the film schedule we will lose all that is important to us as independent cinemas.
So, whilst we must listen to our customers, learn as much about them as we can and deploy this information well to enhance our business, we must also protect and champion the collective experience we all know and love, continuing to challenge and excite the brave explorers on the fringes of our attendance figures who want more than what’s hurtling through the Oscar corridor. With so many great stories on our screens and so much brilliant film history to work with our venues are monuments to ‘specialness’, and as programmers we exist to guide explorers through that specialness, through amazing storytelling and experiences.
This diversity in our programming, above all, is the mission.
If, in service to this mission, we get the balance right – between insight and instinct, culture and commerce – then we will continue to thrive and inspire.
Cherish our artform.
Champion the collective experience we provide.
Listen to our customers.
Empathise with our customers.
Challenge them to take risks.
Enable them to do so.
