Kirstie Dyke caught up with Andrew McClements, President of the newly re-branded ‘Take 2’ Cinema to find out all the behind the scenes secrets of the campus picture house.
Hi Andrew! Even as a third year, I’m still meeting people who didn’t know there was a cinema on campus. Can you tell us something about the cinema that you don’t think many people know?
I think that new students in particular assume that we are just a group of students with some DVDs and a dodgy projector. What they don’t realise is that we actually deal directly with the same distribution agents that multiplex cinemas do, so we’re in direct contact with companies like Disney and Fox to make sure we get officially licensed films. It costs a lot more but it means we get ultra-HD quality films to show on our state-of-the-art cinema system. It cost the university hundreds of thousands of pounds to have it installed! It’s the same quality you can expect from mainstream cinemas; we’ve got 3D capabilities and it’s pretty impressive really when you think it’s just a student outlet on campus.
And how are the films for each term decided?
It normally starts with a huge debate amongst the exec team – lots of screaming and shouting at each other. We just want to try to find out which films people will want to see the most. We look back over the last couple of months to see which films have been released and from that catalogue of films we look at which we can afford to show. Obviously not recent releases as they cost a lot of money but the savings we make showing blockbusters a few months behind mainstream cinemas are reflected in the ticket prices we offer to students.
It can’t be an easy task trying to please everyone’s different tastes in films. What is the hardest part about being president?
When things go wrong because things definitely do go wrong! Even though we have lots of designated exec roles, it’s ultimately my responsibility to make sure everything is running smoothly, it’s up to me to hunt down a solution. It’s quite time consuming and stressful because we’re running on a schedule to show films 5 times a week. I have the final say on cancelling a showing, which is always disappointing if that happens.
There’s a lot of money involved as well and I think sometimes people underestimate the amount of effort the whole exec have to put in, as well as the responsibility, to make sure that the cinema is a worthwhile investment on LUSUs behalf.
So on to a more positive note, what is the best part about being president?
Watching films for free? Probably having a say in how things are run at a management level: deciding what films we’re going to show, what direction the cinema is going to take next, what will be the next bit of technology we buy. You know, we’ve just done the rebrand, so there’s been a debate about a new name, what we wanted the cinema to look like; it’s good fun to do while you’re at university.
What are you most proud about from your time as cinema president?
We’ve changed an awful lot about how we run the cinema; it was very old fashioned before. We used to use paper for all our admin tasks and we used to have a dinosaur as a logo which people found questionable. So I’m most proud of how we’ve turned it into a much more professional and sleeker design with a new clapper board logo and we’re building Take 2 as a brand identity. We slot in much better with other student media now, such as SCAN and Bailrigg. I think I’ve done quite well steering us in that new direction.
All the rebranding from LUCinema to Take 2 Cinema sounds really exciting. What can cinemagoers look forward to this term?
There are lots of new additions and changes coming to the cinema as part of the rebrand – I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say at the moment though. We’re working hard to publicise them so everyone will definitely hear about them when it’s common knowledge.
One thing that we are doing for the first time ever is a Disney all-nighter. We’ve done all-nighters in the past around other films, there’s always a horror theme in Michaelmas term for example but from the feedback that we’re hearing, the Disney theme is going to appeal to a lot more people. Everyone likes a good Disney movie. People can come in fancy dress; it’s going to be good fun.
So you obviously love Disney films, but if you could choose only one other film to show at the cinema what would it be?
My favourite film, it’s an odd one this, although one half of me really appreciates animated films, I’m also quite fond of sagas like The Godfather and really ultra-violent films which is a bit of a contrast really. I have quite a soft spot for Forrest Gump, everyone seems to love Forest Gump. I probably couldn’t choose – okay, maybe the first Godfather takes it.
Thanks Andrew. You can find Take 2 Cinema in Bowland Main lecture theatre, right next to Bowland bar. Check Facebook: Take2lancaster, Twitter: @take2lancaster or http://cinema.lusu.co.uk/ for film listings.