From the third edition of Cinema Vision 2030,
"the advantage of the movie theater explained by Walt Hickey"
by Elisabetta Brunella

Cinema Vision 2030 - now an eagerly awaited event just before the Berlinale - is attended mostly by exhibitors, but the speakers are professionals from the most diverse sectors. The aim, in fact, of the convention now in its third edition is to broaden the horizons of that particular sector of the film industry that is exhibition, that is, the moment in which films meet the public.

A field that has been particularly affected by the pandemic, to the point that on average in Europe it has yet to recover about a quarter of the spectators of 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, but above all a record year for cinema attendance. Today, therefore, exhibitors find themselves having to imagine the relaunch of the consumption of films on the big screen: for the most far-sighted and dynamic, it has become clear that the comparison with those who cast an unconventional look at spectators, their new consumption habits and their needs, is essential to develop truly innovative strategies.

It is no coincidence, therefore, that after the greeting of Christian Bräuer, president of CICAE and chairman of AG Kino - Gilde, the sessions of Cinema Vision 2030 were opened by the author of “You are what you watch”, the book that aimed to analyze the diverse ways in which films impact the world. In Berlin, Walt Hickey, pronounced a sentence that we have heard many times “Sharing the experience is the advantage of the theatre”, but above all he tried to give the motivation with a rather original method.

If you study the breathing of the audience sitting in front of the big screen, you will see that it tends to become uniform and that the chemical composition of the air changes: the graph that displays it shows a trend that is replicated practically the same for every spectator. In essence, the same film provokes the same physiological reactions all over the world.

Similar results are also obtained if you analyze the response of the nervous system: this also creates a graph with a similar trend, with peaks of emotional involvement that occur in correspondence with some scenes that are the same even in spectators of different nationalities (and which are not necessarily the scenes where the action is more marked or intense).

Consequently, a film could be defined as a technology that reliably provokes the same kinds of physiological reactions in all those who are exposed to it. Or as an emotional journey. And here comes the role of the theatre, whose first objective must be to offer an uncontested, undistracted, immersive viewing space. In fact, a distracted watching experience can transform a good film into a bad film and this risk is much stronger in home-viewing, where opportunities for distraction are always lurking, starting with the cell phone at hand.

In Hickey’s view, the fact that films arouse emotions by leveraging images makes this form of expression not only suitable to “work” on an international scale, but also capable of having an impact on society and individuals. As proof of these statements, Hickey cited some of the countless examples that can be drawn from the filmography of recent decades: in the scientific field, “Jurassic Park” sparked interest in paleontology, “Jaws” in marine biology and “Twister” in meteorology.

How can you prove it? Simply by counting the number of experts in these disciplines and visualizing on a graph the increase that occurred in the United States after the release of the related films. This type of influence occurs not only on individuals, but also on social bodies: “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact” were even mentioned by scientists in congressional hearings to support the need for increased resources to be allocated to asteroid-tracking research. The same can be said for collective behavior: after “Top Gun” the number of enlistments in the U.S. Navy increased.

Even more relevant is that not only was the passion for archery certainly fueled by “Hunger Games”, but above all that, thanks to the character played by Katniss Everdeen, a symbol of courage and rebellion, the number of women who began to practice this sport, traditionally conceived as essentially masculine, grew. Not to mention the names chosen for children: between 1990 and 1999 in the USA, 34 Maximuses were born, after “Gladiator” their number skyrocketed to 9,916.

And outside the United States? According to Hickey, this type of phenomenon is truly universal, if it is true that several North Koreans refugees have cited, among the elements that led them to want to settle elsewhere, precisely the viewing of South Korean films and television programs that had revealed to them another way of life.

In conclusion, starting from these three elements,

• People's lives are influenced, if not changed, by cinematic experiences;
• Going to the cinema produces real, repeatable and physiological effects on viewers;
• The cinema not only offers an experience, but makes a promise and keeps it, without asking the user to stay there longer as social media does, exhibitors can build strategies that enhance the advantage of the cinema compared to other free time activities.