My name is Melissa; I’m really into movies

Last modified: Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:48 AM CST

My name is Melissa; I’m really into movies

By MELISSA OLSON

For the Herald

Last weekend, I went to see “The Spiderwick Chronicles” with a friend and her new boyfriend. And because I wanted to, we paid extra to see the film on Madison’s extraordinary IMAX theater, and we showed up early just to get the perfect seats, about seventh row center.

As the lights went down, and the previews started, I reached over to pull my very own spray “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter” out of my purse. Which is right when my friend’s boyfriend leaned over and whispered, “And you even bring your own butter? Jeez, you really are hardcore.”

My reputation, it seemed, had preceded me.

It’s true, though: I am pretty hardcore, at least when it comes to film. I always have been, actually, as long as I can remember. Happily, though, we’re currently living in a very interesting time to be hardcore about going to the movies. Because right now, you see, movie theaters are trying harder than ever to entertain us.

Think about it. IMAX movies are pulling in more money now than ever before, with special IMAX versions of movies like “I Am Legend,” “Harry Potter,” and “Beowulf” all hitting theaters in the last few months. 3-D movies are back, too, from “A Nightmare Before Christmas” to “Hannah Montana.”

Theaters all over the country are building new facilities to show off these technologies, and figuring out ways to refine everything from the snack bar to the seating chart: there’s a theater in Madison, for instance, that serves gourmet snacks, offers assigned seating, and forbids any commercials or overly long trailers to play before the film. As you might expect, I pretty much cry with joy every time I go there.

But this isn’t the first time that theaters went to new lengths to make our stay more comfortable. Sixty years ago, after World War II, a lot of new postwar activities were not good at all for the movie business.

People started getting outdoors more, and playing sports. They began to move to the suburbs, away from the city theaters, and started watching television, a relatively new experience in itself. With all these new options, movie ticket sales declined, and the movie honchos started to get a little nervous. Then really nervous. Then kind of panicked.

So some of them decided to experiment with new ways to make movies more entertaining, more irresistible. Producers started targeting more specific audiences, creating, for the first time, movies that were meant specifically for adults, children or teenagers. Especially teenagers.

Art theaters started popping up everywhere, designed to hook a certain “intellectual” viewer, as did drive-in theaters, which promised a novel new way to enjoy a movie with friends.

And, of course, the studios tried to pull in viewers by going interactive. Major studios had format wars over their new-and-improved technologies (not unlike the recent Blu-ray vs. HD debate, ahem), and IMAX and the rounded Omnimax stepped in to compete with Cinerama, a three-camera projection process where three different projectors each provided one third of a film’s image on an extra, extra long screen.

And at the same time, the independent producers started to experiment with “exploitation” films, designed to get the biggest attention and shock value for the least amount of money.

A horror director named William Castle started to mess around with gimmicks like electrically wired seats, fake skeletons dropping from the theater ceilings during screenings, and so on. There was even, I kid you not, something called Smell-O-Vision, which I think is pretty much self-explanatory.

It was something of a desperate renaissance for the theater business, and while this movement was financially motivated, it just happened to originate a new way of thinking about the movies. By 1950, cinema had already been around for more than 50 years, but the focus was always on the movie itself: the story, the effects, the actors, and so on.

Now, for the first time, producers started to look at going to a movie as an experience, in and of itself. “How can we make watching a movie more interesting?” the studios asked. And then they tried to find out.

And now, 50-some years later, it’s happening again. In the 21st century we’ve got TiVo and cell phones and, above all, the internet, and with all these new toys theater revenue has been dropping once more.

Some studios responded by just jacking up ticket prices, but others have started to say to themselves, “how can we make watching a movie more interesting?” And suddenly IMAX and 3-D have roared back to life, and who knows what might be next.

You see, movies are important in our world, and the things they create from and for the human mind are astounding.

But while I would never suggest that the film is anything but the most important part of going to any theater, I do know that the art form of film is constantly growing and changing to fit the times it inhabits, and maybe this time will lead to something brilliant, something we’ve never dreamed of.

With all the distractions threatening them more and more, it’s a brave new world for movie theaters, and I, for one, am excited to see where this can take us. And I’ll be bringing my own butter.

A Chippewa Falls native, Melissa Olson graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in film. She works in Madison for the television program Discover Wisconsin. E-mail comments and questions to Melissa at mfo.usc@gmail.com.