The Movie Going Experience

I’m interested in a lot of things it seems and I’m not sure if this is good or bad. I’ve heard from two business professionals (one of whom is a pretty major deal) that employers prefer someone who is an expert at one thing to someone who is generally good at everything – a specialist to a generalist. It’s like, I feel that there’s just so many interesting things going on in this world that it’s hard to pick one thing to specialize in.

I found that that was kind of the same way I approached picking my topic for my paper. First of all, I need to actually be interested in the topic. Second of all, it needs to be a topic broad enough that I can write seven to eight pages on it. Third of all, it will need to be a topic for which I can actually find sources, which means I can't pick anything too obscure.

I first decided that I wanted to write on film, which is something that I love, but since it is such a broad topic, I knew I had to narrow it down some. I then started thinking about having recently watched The Social Network and how much I enjoyed the film. I played around with the idea of writing on film marketing – for example, how was it that The Social Network was so hyped-up prior to its release?

But then I came up with a brilliant idea – I want to do my topic on the experience of watching a movie in a theater. How did I come up with this? Well, I had gone to the Alamo Drafthouse to watch it with some of my friends, one of whom is a German foreign exchange student. I explained to him beforehand that the Drafthouse isn’t like other regular theaters, that you were waited on as if it were a restaurant, etc.

One of the things I can take a look at in my paper is the Drafthouse and other theaters (should I find anymore) that don’t have traditional cinema business models and do case studies on them. What elements of the experience make these theaters more successful than others? Some of the things that first come to mind that I can write about include architectural/interior design elements, various services, the events that are put on regularly, the segments/consumers that make these chains successful, and finally, price point.

To start, I found an interview that Tim League did with the Wall Street Journal in which he explains that he will be building theaters in New York and Los Angeles. In it, he also explains that the idea for the Alamo Drafthouse was not an idea that wasn’t ready right out of the gates and that – as we’ve learned in our Insights & Experiences class – the theater launches went through several sort-of prototypical stages before becoming the product that we are all familiar with today.

Backtracking a little, I explained to my German friend that I needed to buy the tickets online earlier that day in order to ensure that we get seats to our 5:00 p.m. showing. I also told him that we needed to leave our place no later than 4:00 p.m. to ensure that we were able to get seats together (as we were meeting up two other friends at the theater). He told me that in Germany, he would buy tickets a week or two in advanced because theaters there have assigned seating, which means he could arrive five minutes before the start of the movie and not have to worry about finding seats with friends.

I think it’d also be interesting to examine the differences in movie going experiences in different markets. Before he said that, I was pretty unaware that there were any differences at all (how American of me). I’ve actually met a lot of foreign exchange students this year, so I think I can get a general idea of the differences in experience just by talking to them – Denmark, Ecuador, Netherlands, Germany, France, The Czech Republic, India, Brazil. I think that should get me off to a good start (although I know I will need to get academic sources for this).

I’d also like to maybe check out the annual revenues of certain chains around the United States. How is the Angelika doing (art house) compared to AMC (mainstream) compared to Imax (enhanced audio theaters) compared to the Drafthouse (um… don’t really know how to categorize this type of theater chain)? Is any one theater growing larger and faster than others in an economy when less and less tickets are being sold? Is one slowly dying? Why? Does it have anything to do with their business model? Does it have anything to do with the design of the theater itself? The experiences that they provide within their theaters? Why the choice of upholstery? How does it feel to sit in the seats for example? I know that I refuse to go into Cinemark theaters unless my life depended on it because I feel like none of them are ever kept clean.

Ooh - just thought of this. One more thing I can read up on is 3D. Is this really a value-add? Making a movie in 3D doesn't mean that it will be successful, as we've seen. When, then, does 3D make the movie going experience more worth it?

It’s an interesting topic and my research could bring me to places that I haven’t yet thought about. We’ll see as it develops!

[Note: I will break up this entry with pictures later – I just wanted to get it posted so that I can focus on my math homework tonight]